RETRACTED: Monolayers of pigment-protein complexes on a bare gold electrode:Orientation controlled deposition and comparison of electron transfer rate for two configurations

Photosynthetic protein complexes are very efficient in solar energy absorption, excitation transfer, and subsequent electron transfer. These complexes have the potential to be exploited as circuit elements for various bio-hybrid devices, ranging from biosensors to solar cells. In this report, we characterized a bioelectronic composite fabricated by interfacing reaction center-light harvesting 1 (RC-LH1) complex with an un-functionalized gold surface in defined orientation. The orientation of RC-LH1 complex was controlled by using Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) deposition technique: RC-LH1 complexes were attached to the electrode facing either with their primary donor or the acceptor sides by'"forward" or'"reverse" dipping, respectively. Photochronoamperometry was utilized to confirm the integrity of the protein complexes and their orientation. Electrical transport of protein complexes coupled to gold electrode was studied by using conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM). Two distinct current-voltage (I-. V) curves were observed for two different deposition schemes, indicating opposite orientations of RC-LH1 complexes on the electrode. I-. V spectroscopy was also carried out under light illumination, the magnitude of current was considerably increased by the light illumination and the asymmetry of the curves was more pronounced. We show that, RC-LH1 complexes attached to the electrode with primary donor side facing the electrode exhibit much faster electron transfer compared to opposite orientatio

Serum Neuroactive Metabolites of the Tryptophan Pathway in Patients With Acute Phase of Affective Disorders

BACKGROUND: Many studies showed disrupted tryptophan metabolism in patients with affective disorders. The aims of this study were to explore the differences in the metabolites of tryptophan pathway (TP) and the relationships between TP metabolites and clinical symptoms, therapeutic effect in patients with bipolar disorder with acute manic episode (BD-M), depressive episode (BD-D) and major depressive disorder (MDD). METHODS: Patients with BD-M (n=52) and BD-D (n=39), MDD (n=48) and healthy controls (HCs, n=49) were enrolled. The serum neuroactive metabolites levels of the TP were measured by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Hamilton Depression Scale-17 item (HAMD-17) and Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) were used to evaluate depressive and manic symptoms at baseline and after 8 weeks of antidepressants, mood stabilizers, some also received antipsychotic medication. RESULTS: The levels of tryptophan (TRP) and kynurenic acid (KYNA) were significantly lower and the ratios of tryptophan/kynurenine (TRP/KYN), 5-hydroxytryptamine/tryptophan (5-HT/TRP), quinolinic acid/kynurenic acid (QUIN/KYNA) were higher in BD-M, BD-D, MDD vs. HC. The levels of QUIN and the ratios of QUIN/KYNA were higher in BD-M than in BD-D, MDD, and HCs. The 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) levels of patients with MDD were significantly higher than those in BD-M and BD-D. Binary logistic regression analysis showed the lower peripheral KYNA, the higher the QUIN level, and the higher the risk of BD-M; the lower peripheral KYNA and the higher KYN/TRP and 5-HT/TRP, the higher the risk of BD-D; and the lower the peripheral KYNA level and the higher the KYN/TRP and 5-HT/TRP, the higher the risk of MDD. Correlation analysis, showing a significant association between tryptophan metabolites and improvement of clinical symptoms, especially depression symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with affective disorders had abnormal tryptophan metabolism, which involved in 5-HT and kynurenine pathway (KP) sub-pathway. Tryptophan metabolites might be potential biomarkers for affective disorders and some metabolites have been associated with remission of depressive symptoms

An enhanced brain storm sine cosine algorithm for global optimization problems

The conventional sine cosine algorithm (SCA) does not appropriately balance exploration and exploitation, causing premature convergence, especially for complex optimization problems, such as the complex shifted or shifted rotated problems. To address this issue, this paper proposes an enhanced brain storm SCA (EBS-SCA), where an EBS strategy is employed to improve the population diversity, and by combining it with two different update equations, two new individual update strategies [individual update strategies (IUS): IUS-I and IUS-II] are developed to make effective balance between exploration and exploitation during the entire iterative search process. Double sets of benchmark suites involving 46 popular functions and two real-world problems are employed to compare the EBS-SCA with other metaheuristic algorithms. The experimental results validate that the proposed EBS-SCA achieves the overall best performance including the global search ability, convergence speed, and scalability

A Vector Grouping Learning Brain Storm Optimization Algorithm for Global Optimization Problems

The original brain storm optimization (BSO) method does not rationally compromise global exploration and local exploitation capability, which results in the premature convergence when solving complicated optimization problems like the shifted or shifted rotated functions. To address this problem, the paper develops a vector grouping learning BSO (VGLBSO) method. In VGLBSO, the individuals’ creation based on vector grouping learning (IC-VGL) scheme is first developed to improve the population diversity and compromise the global exploration and local exploitation capability. Moreover, a hybrid individuals’ update (H-IU) scheme is established by reasonably combing two different individuals’ update schemes, which further compromises the global exploration and local exploitation capability. Finally, the random grouping (RG) scheme, instead of K-means grouping is allowed to shrink the computational cost and maintain the diversity of the information exchange between different individuals. Twenty-eight popular benchmark functions are used to compare VGLBSO with 12 BSO and nine swarm intelligence methods. Experimental results present that VGLBSO achieves the best overall performance including the global search ability, convergence speed, and scalability amongst all the compared algorithms

Visualizing alpha-synuclein and iron deposition in M83 mouse model of Parkinson's disease in vivo

BACKGROUND Abnormal alpha-synuclein and iron accumulation in the brain play an important role in Parkinson's disease (PD). Herein, we aim at visualizing alpha-synuclein inclusions and iron deposition in the brains of M83 (A53T) mouse models of PD in vivo . METHODS Fluorescently labelled pyrimidoindole-derivative THK-565 was characterized by using recombinant fibrils and brains from 10-11 months old M83 mice, which subsequently underwent in vivo concurrent wide-field fluorescence and volumetric multispectral optoacoustic tomography (vMSOT) imaging. The in vivo results were verified against structural and susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at 9.4 Tesla and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) of perfused brains. Brain slice immunofluorescence and Prussian blue staining were further performed to validate the detection of alpha-synuclein inclusions and iron deposition in the brain, respectively. RESULTS THK-565 showed increased fluorescence upon binding to recombinant alpha-synuclein fibrils and alpha-synuclein inclusions in post-mortem brain slices from patients with Parkinson's disease and M83 mice. i.v. administration of THK-565 in M83 mice showed higher cerebral retention at 20 and 40 minutes post-injection by wide-field fluorescence compared to non-transgenic littermate mice, in congruence with the vMSOT findings. SWI/phase images and Prussian blue indicated the accumulation of iron deposits in the brains of M83 mice, presumably in the Fe $^{3+}$ form, as evinced by the STXM results. CONCLUSION We demonstrated in vivo mapping of alpha-synuclein by means of non-invasive epifluorescence and vMSOT imaging assisted with a targeted THK-565 label and SWI/STXM identification of iron deposits in M83 mouse brains ex vivo