High expression of erythropoietin-producing hepatoma cell line-B2 (EphB2) predicts the efficiency of the Qingyihuaji formula treatment in pancreatic cancer CFPAC‑1 cells through the EphrinB1‑EphB2 pathway.

published_or_final_versio

Anti-inflammatory effects of naringin in chronic pulmonary neutrophilic inflammation in cigarette smoke-exposed rats

Naringin, a well-known flavanone glycoside of grapefruit and citrus fruits, was found to be as an effective anti-inflammatory compound in our previous lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury mouse model via blockading activity of nuclear factor κB. The current study sought to explore the anti-inflammatory effects of naringin on chronic pulmonary neutrophilic inflammation in cigarette smoke (CS)-induced rats. Seventy Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into seven groups to study the effects of CS with or without various concentrations of naringin or saline for 8 weeks. The results revealed that naringin supplementation at 20, 40, and 80mg/kg significantly increased body weight of CS-induced rats as compared to that in the CS group. Moreover, naringin of 20, 40, and 80mg/kg prevented CS-induced infiltration of neutrophils and activation of myeloperoxidase and matrix metalloproteinase-9, in parallel with suppression of the release of cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-8 (IL-8). IL-10 in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was significantly suppressed after CS exposure, but dose dependently elevated by naringin. The results from hematoxylin and eosin staining revealed that naringin dose dependently reduced CS-induced infiltration of inflammatory cells, thickening of the bronchial wall, and expansion of average alveolar airspace. In conclusion, our data suggest that naringin is an effective anti-inflammatory compound for attenuating chronic pulmonary neutrophilic inflammation in CS-induced rats. © Copyright 2012, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. and Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition 2012.published_or_final_versio

Socioeconomic position and subjective oral health: findings for the adult population in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The objective of this study was to assess socioeconomic inequalities in subjective measures of oral health in a national sample of adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Ambipolar Field Effect in Topological Insulator Nanoplates of (BixSb1-x)2Te3

Topological insulators represent a new state of quantum matter attractive to both fundamental physics and technological applications such as spintronics and quantum information processing. In a topological insulator, the bulk energy gap is traversed by spin-momentum locked surface states forming an odd number of surface bands that possesses unique electronic properties. However, transport measurements have often been dominated by residual bulk carriers from crystal defects or environmental doping which mask the topological surface contribution. Here we demonstrate (BixSb1-x)2Te3 as a tunable topological insulator system to manipulate bulk conductivity by varying the Bi/Sb composition ratio. (BixSb1-x)2Te3 ternary compounds are confirmed as topological insulators for the entire composition range by angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements and ab initio calculations. Additionally, we observe a clear ambipolar gating effect similar to that observed in graphene using nanoplates of (BixSb1-x)2Te3 in field-effect-transistor (FET) devices. The manipulation of carrier type and concentration in topological insulator nanostructures demonstrated in this study paves the way for implementation of topological insulators in nanoelectronics and spintronics.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Different mechanisms of cis-9,trans-11- and trans-10,cis-12- conjugated linoleic acid affecting lipid metabolism in 3T3-L1 cells

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has been shown to reduce body fat mass in various experimental animals. It is valuable to identify its influence on enzymes involved in energy expenditure, apoptosis, fatty acid oxidation and lipolysis. We investigated isomer-specific effects of high dose, long treatment of CLA (75.4 Μmol/L, 8 days) on protein and gene expression of these enzymes in cultured 3T3-L1 cells. Proteomics identified significant up- or down-regulation of 52 proteins by either CLA isomer. Protein and gene expression of uncoupling protein (UCP) 1, UCP3, perilipin and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) α increased whereas UCP2 reduced for both CLA isomers. And eight-day treatment of trans-10,. cis-12 CLA, but not cis-9,. trans-11 CLA, significantly up-regulated protein and mRNA levels of PKA (P<05), CPT-1 and TNF-α (P<01). Compared to protein expression, both isomers did not significantly influence the mRNA expression of HSL, ATGL, ACO and leptin. In conclusion, high-dose, long treatment of cis-9,. trans-11 CLA did not promote apoptosis, fatty acid oxidation and lipolysis in adipocytes, but may induce an increase in energy expenditure. trans-10,. cis-12 CLA exhibited greater influence on lipid metabolism, stimulated adipocyte energy expenditure, apoptosis and fatty acid oxidation, but its effect on lipolysis was not obvious. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.postprin

Ellagic acid, a phenolic compound, exerts anti-angiogenesis effects via VEGFR-2 signaling pathway in breast cancer

Anti-angiogenesis targeting VEGFR-2 has been considered as an important strategy for cancer therapy. Ellagic acid is a naturally existing polyphenol widely found in fruits and vegetables. It was reported that ellagic acid interfered with some angiogenesis-dependent pathologies. Yet the mechanisms involved were not fully understood. Thus, we analyzed its anti-angiogenesis effects and mechanisms on human breast cancer utilizing in-vitro and in-vivo methodologies. The in-silico analysis was also carried out to further analyze the structure-based interaction between ellagic acid and VEGFR-2. We found that ellagic acid significantly inhibited a series of VEGF-induced angiogenesis processes including proliferation, migration, and tube formation of endothelial cells. Besides, it directly inhibited VEGFR-2 tyrosine kinase activity and its downstream signaling pathways including MAPK and PI3K/Akt in endothelial cells. Ellagic acid also obviously inhibited neo-vessel formation in chick chorioallantoic membrane and sprouts formation of chicken aorta. Breast cancer xenografts study also revealed that ellagic acid significantly inhibited MDA-MB-231 cancer growth and P-VEGFR2 expression. Molecular docking simulation indicated that ellagic acid could form hydrogen bonds and aromatic interactions within the ATP-binding region of the VEGFR-2 kinase unit. Taken together, ellagic acid could exert anti-angiogenesis effects via VEGFR-2 signaling pathway in breast cancer. © 2012 The Author(s).published_or_final_versio

Hydrothermally Grown ZnO Micro/Nanotube Arrays and Their Properties

We reported the optical and wettability properties of aligned zinc oxide micro/nanotube arrays, which were synthesized on zinc foil via a simple hydrothermal method. As-synthesized ZnO micro/nanotubes have uniform growth directions along the [0001] orientations with diameters in the range of 100–700 nm. These micro/nanotubes showed a strong emission peak at 387 nm and two weak emission peaks at 422 and 485 nm, respectively, and have the hydrophobic properties with a contact angle of 121°. Single ZnO micro/nanotube-based field-effect transistor was also fabricated, which shows typical n-type semiconducting behavior

Spectral plots and the representation and interpretation of biological data

It is basic question in biology and other fields to identify the char- acteristic properties that on one hand are shared by structures from a particular realm, like gene regulation, protein-protein interaction or neu- ral networks or foodwebs, and that on the other hand distinguish them from other structures. We introduce and apply a general method, based on the spectrum of the normalized graph Laplacian, that yields repre- sentations, the spectral plots, that allow us to find and visualize such properties systematically. We present such visualizations for a wide range of biological networks and compare them with those for networks derived from theoretical schemes. The differences that we find are quite striking and suggest that the search for universal properties of biological networks should be complemented by an understanding of more specific features of biological organization principles at different scales.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

EM-mosaic detects mosaic point mutations that contribute to congenital heart disease.

BackgroundThe contribution of somatic mosaicism, or genetic mutations arising after oocyte fertilization, to congenital heart disease (CHD) is not well understood. Further, the relationship between mosaicism in blood and cardiovascular tissue has not been determined.MethodsWe developed a new computational method, EM-mosaic (Expectation-Maximization-based detection of mosaicism), to analyze mosaicism in exome sequences derived primarily from blood DNA of 2530 CHD proband-parent trios. To optimize this method, we measured mosaic detection power as a function of sequencing depth. In parallel, we analyzed our cohort using MosaicHunter, a Bayesian genotyping algorithm-based mosaic detection tool, and compared the two methods. The accuracy of these mosaic variant detection algorithms was assessed using an independent resequencing method. We then applied both methods to detect mosaicism in cardiac tissue-derived exome sequences of 66 participants for which matched blood and heart tissue was available.ResultsEM-mosaic detected 326 mosaic mutations in blood and/or cardiac tissue DNA. Of the 309 detected in blood DNA, 85/97 (88%) tested were independently confirmed, while 7/17 (41%) candidates of 17 detected in cardiac tissue were confirmed. MosaicHunter detected an additional 64 mosaics, of which 23/46 (50%) among 58 candidates from blood and 4/6 (67%) of 6 candidates from cardiac tissue confirmed. Twenty-five mosaic variants altered CHD-risk genes, affecting 1% of our cohort. Of these 25, 22/22 candidates tested were confirmed. Variants predicted as damaging had higher variant allele fraction than benign variants, suggesting a role in CHD. The estimated true frequency of mosaic variants above 10% mosaicism was 0.14/person in blood and 0.21/person in cardiac tissue. Analysis of 66 individuals with matched cardiac tissue available revealed both tissue-specific and shared mosaicism, with shared mosaics generally having higher allele fraction.ConclusionsWe estimate that ~ 1% of CHD probands have a mosaic variant detectable in blood that could contribute to cardiac malformations, particularly those damaging variants with relatively higher allele fraction. Although blood is a readily available DNA source, cardiac tissues analyzed contributed ~ 5% of somatic mosaic variants identified, indicating the value of tissue mosaicism analyses