Chinese Literature in Long\u27s Reading : Adoption into Long\u27s Translation of Japanese Literatur

北岡正子教授退休記念

Radiation Matters of the Heart: A Mini Review

Radiation Therapy (RT) has been critical in cancer treatment regimens to date. However, it has been shown that ionizing radiation is also associated with increased risk of damage to healthy tissues. At high radiation doses, varied effects including inactivation of cells in treated tissue and associated functional impairment are seen. These range from direct damage to the heart; particularly, diffuse fibrosis of the pericardium and myocardium, adhesion of the pericardium, injury to the blood vessels and stenosis. Cardiac damage is mostly a late responding end-point, occurring anywhere between 1 and 10 years after radiation procedures. Cardiovascular disease following radiotherapy was more common with radiation treatments used before the late 1980s. Modern RT regimens with more focused radiation beams, allow tumors to be targeted more precisely and shield the heart and other healthy tissues for minimizing the radiation damage to normal cells. In this review, we discuss radiation therapeutic doses used and post-radiation damage to the heart muscle from published studies. We also emphasize the need for early detection of cardiotoxicity and the need for more cardio-protection approaches where feasible

Effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles synthesized from Carya illinoinensis leaf extract on growth and antioxidant properties of mustard (Brassica juncea)

BackgroundThe sustainability of crop production is impacted by climate change and land degradation, and the advanced application of nanotechnology is of paramount importance to overcome this challenge. The development of nanomaterials based on essential nutrients like zinc could serve as a basis for nanofertilizers and nanocomposite synthesis for broader agricultural applications and quality human nutrition. Therefore, this study aimed to synthesize zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) using pecan (Carya illinoinensis) leaf extract and investigate their effect on the growth, physiology, nutrient content, and antioxidant properties of mustard (Brassica juncea).MethodsThe ZnO NPs were characterized by UV-Vis spectrophotometry, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FTIR). Mustard plants were subjected to different concentrations of ZnONPs (0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 200 mg L-1) during the vegetative growth stage.ResultsThe UV-Vis spectra of ZnO NPs revealed the absorption maxima at 362 nm and FTIR identified numerous functional groups that are responsible for capping and stabilizing ZnO NPs. DLS analysis presented monodispersed ZnO NPs of 84.5 nm size and highly negative zeta potential (-22.4 mV). Overall, the application of ZnO NPs enhanced the growth, chlorophyll content (by 53 %), relative water content (by 46 %), shoot biomass, membrane stability (by 54 %) and net photosynthesis significantly in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, the supplement of the ZnO NPs augmented K, Fe, Zn and flavonoid contents as well as overcome the effect of reactive oxygen species by increasing antioxidant capacity in mustard leaves up to 97 %.ConclusionsIn conclusion, ZnO NPs can be potentially used as a plant growth stimulant and as a novel soil amendment for enhancing crop yields. Besides, the biofortification of B. juncea plants with ZnO NPs helps to improve the nutritional quality of the crop and perhaps potentiates its pharmaceutical effects

PARP-1 and Ku compete for repair of DNA double strand breaks by distinct NHEJ pathways

Poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase 1 (PARP-1) recognizes DNA strand interruptions in vivo and triggers its own modification as well as that of other proteins by the sequential addition of ADP-ribose to form polymers. This modification causes a release of PARP-1 from DNA ends and initiates a variety of responses including DNA repair. While PARP-1 has been firmly implicated in base excision and single strand break repair, its role in the repair of DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) remains unclear. Here, we show that PARP-1, probably together with DNA ligase III, operates in an alternative pathway of non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) that functions as backup to the classical pathway of NHEJ that utilizes DNA-PKcs, Ku, DNA ligase IV, XRCC4, XLF/Cernunnos and Artemis. PARP-1 binds to DNA ends in direct competition with Ku. However, in irradiated cells the higher affinity of Ku for DSBs and an excessive number of other forms of competing DNA lesions limit its contribution to DSB repair. When essential components of the classical pathway of NHEJ are absent, PARP-1 is recruited for DSB repair, particularly in the absence of Ku and non-DSB lesions. This form of DSB repair is sensitive to PARP-1 inhibitors. The results define the function of PARP-1 in DSB repair and characterize a candidate pathway responsible for joining errors causing genomic instability and cancer

Hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles for intracellular delivery of fluorescent dye

In this study, hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSNs) were synthesized using the sol-gel/emulsion approach and its potential application in drug delivery was assessed. The HMSNs were characterized, by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), nitrogen adsorption/desorption and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), to have a mesoporous layer on its surface, with an average pore diameter of about 2 nm and a surface area of 880 m2/g. Fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) loaded into these HMSNs was used as a model platform to assess its efficacy as a drug delivery tool. Its release kinetic study revealed a sequential release of FITC from the HMSNs for over a period of one week when soaked in inorganic solution, while a burst release kinetic of the dye was observed just within a few hours of soaking in organic solution. These FITC-loaded HMSNs was also found capable to be internalized by live human cervical cancer cells (HeLa), wherein it was quickly released into the cytoplasm within a short period of time after intracellular uptake. We envision that these HMSNs, with large pores and high efficacy to adsorb chemicals such as the fluorescent dye FITC, could serve as a delivery vehicle for controlled release of chemicals administered into live cells, opening potential to a diverse range of applications including drug storage and release as well as metabolic manipulation of cells

Opposite roles for p38MAPK-driven responses and reactive oxygen species in the persistence and resolution of radiation-induced genomic instability.

We report the functional and temporal relationship between cellular phenotypes such as oxidative stress, p38MAPK-dependent responses and genomic instability persisting in the progeny of cells exposed to sparsely ionizing low-Linear Energy Transfer (LET) radiation such as X-rays or high-charge and high-energy (HZE) particle high-LET radiation such as (56)Fe ions. We found that exposure to low and high-LET radiation increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels as a threshold-like response induced independently of radiation quality and dose. This response was sustained for two weeks, which is the period of time when genomic instability is evidenced by increased micronucleus formation frequency and DNA damage associated foci. Indicators for another persisting response sharing phenotypes with stress-induced senescence, including beta galactosidase induction, increased nuclear size, p38MAPK activation and IL-8 production, were induced in the absence of cell proliferation arrest during the first, but not the second week following exposure to high-LET radiation. This response was driven by a p38MAPK-dependent mechanism and was affected by radiation quality and dose. This stress response and elevation of ROS affected genomic instability by distinct pathways. Through interference with p38MAPK activity, we show that radiation-induced stress phenotypes promote genomic instability. In contrast, exposure to physiologically relevant doses of hydrogen peroxide or increasing endogenous ROS levels with a catalase inhibitor reduced the level of genomic instability. Our results implicate persistently elevated ROS following exposure to radiation as a factor contributing to genome stabilization

On Pending Interest Table in Named Data Networking

Internet has witnessed its paramount function transition from hostto-host communication to content dissemination. Named Data Networking (NDN) and Content-Centric Networking (CCN) emerge as a clean slate network architecture to embrace this shift. Pending Interest Table (PIT) in NDN/CCN keeps track of the Interest packets that are received but yet un-responded, which brings NDN/CCN significant features, such as communicating without the knowledge of source or destination, loop and packet loss detection, multipath routing, better security, etc. This paper presents a thorough study of PIT for the first time. Using an approximate, application-driven translation of current IPgenerated trace to NDN trace, we firstly quantify the size and access frequencies of PIT. Evaluation results on a 20 Gbps gateway trace show that the corresponding PIT contains 1.5 M entries, and the lookup, insert and delete frequencies are 1.4 M/s, 0.9 M/s and 0.9 M/s, respectively. Faced with this challenging issue and to make PIT more scalable, we further propose a Name Component Encoding (NCE) solution to shrink PIT size and accelerate PIT access operations. By NCE, the memory consumption can be reduced by up to 87.44%, and the access performance significantly advanced, satisfying the access speed required by PIT. Moreover, PIT exhibits good scalability with NCE. At last, we propose to place PIT on (egress channel of) the outgoing line-cards of routers, which meets the NDN design and eliminates the cumbersome synchronization problem among multiple PITs on the line-cards