Effect of Ecklonia kurome extract on thyroid hormone disorder in rats

Purpose: To investigate the effect of Ecklonia kurome extract (EKE) on thyroid hormone concentrations in male mice.Methods: Mice were administered EKE by gastric intubation for 15 days. PTU or L-T4 was set as positive control. Twenty-four hours after the last administration, all animals were sacrificed by cervical dislocation. Blood was collected and serum samples assayed for T3 and T4. Furthermore, the liver was removed for biochemical analysis.Results: T3 and T4 serum levels in mice decreased after the administration of EKE. The relative potency of EKE was calculated in terms of percent increase or decrease in thyroid hormones. Compared with the control value, the decrease in T3  concentration by a high dose of EKE was approximately 64.32 %. Compared with the control group, hepatic LPO decreased (p < 0.01) while superoxide dismutase (SOD, p < 0.01) and catalase (CAT, p < 0.01) activities were significantly increased by the high dose of EKE, thus indicating its anti-peroxidative role.Conclusion: This suggests that EKE may be useful for the treatment of  hyperthyroidism, but further studies are required to ascertain this.Keywords: Ecklonia kurome, Thyroid hormone, Anti-peroxidative, Hyperthyroidis

Identifying Tmem59 related gene regulatory network of mouse neural stem cell from a compendium of expression profiles

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neural stem cells offer potential treatment for neurodegenerative disorders, such like Alzheimer's disease (AD). While much progress has been made in understanding neural stem cell function, a precise description of the molecular mechanisms regulating neural stem cells is not yet established. This lack of knowledge is a major barrier holding back the discovery of therapeutic uses of neural stem cells. In this paper, the regulatory mechanism of mouse neural stem cell (NSC) differentiation by <it>tmem59 </it>is explored on the genome-level.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified regulators of <it>tmem59 </it>during the differentiation of mouse NSCs from a compendium of expression profiles. Based on the microarray experiment, we developed the parallelized SWNI algorithm to reconstruct gene regulatory networks of mouse neural stem cells. From the inferred <it>tmem59 </it>related gene network including 36 genes, <it>pou6f1 </it>was identified to regulate <it>tmem59 </it>significantly and might play an important role in the differentiation of NSCs in mouse brain. There are four pathways shown in the gene network, indicating that <it>tmem59 </it>locates in the downstream of the signalling pathway. The real-time RT-PCR results shown that the over-expression of <it>pou6f1 </it>could significantly up-regulate <it>tmem59 </it>expression in C17.2 NSC line. 16 out of 36 predicted genes in our constructed network have been reported to be AD-related, including <it>Ace</it>, <it>aqp1</it>, <it>arrdc3</it>, <it>cd14</it>, <it>cd59a</it>, <it>cds1</it>, <it>cldn1</it>, <it>cox8b</it>, <it>defb11</it>, <it>folr1</it>, <it>gdi2</it>, <it>mmp3</it>, <it>mgp</it>, <it>myrip</it>, <it>Ripk4</it>, <it>rnd3</it>, and <it>sncg</it>. The localization of <it>tmem59 </it>related genes and functional-related gene groups based on the Gene Ontology (GO) annotation was also identified.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings suggest that the expression of <it>tmem59 </it>is an important factor contributing to AD. The parallelized SWNI algorithm increased the efficiency of network reconstruction significantly. This study enables us to highlight novel genes that may be involved in NSC differentiation and provides a shortcut to identifying genes for AD.</p

Current Reversals in a inhomogeneous system with asymmetric unbiased fluctuations

We present a study of transport of a Brownian particle moving in periodic symmetric potential in the presence of asymmetric unbiased fluctuations. The particle is considered to move in a medium with periodic space dependent friction. By tuning the parameters of the system, the direction of current exhibit reversals, both as a function of temperature as well as the amplitude of rocking force. We found that the mutual interplay between the opposite driving factors is the necessary term for current reversals.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

A dual interpolation boundary face method for 3D elasticity

The dual interpolation boundary face method (DiBFM) proposed recently has been successfully applied to solve various problems in two dimensions. Compared with the conventional boundary element method (BEM), it has been proved that the DiBFM has the advantages of higher accuracy, convergence rate and computational efficiency. In addition, the DiBFM is suitable to unify the conforming and nonconforming elements in the BEM implementation, as well as to approximate both continuous and discontinuous fields. Moreover, there are no geometric errors by the DiBFM in the computational process. In this paper, the DiBFM is extended successfully to solve the elasticity problems in three-dimensions (3D) with formulations derived in details. A number of numerical examples are presented in order to validate the accuracy and convergence rate of the proposed method

{μ-6,6′-Dimeth­oxy-2,2′-[ethane-1,2-diyl­bis(nitrilo­methanylyl­idene)]diphenolato-1κ4 O 6,O 1,O 1′,O 6′;2κ4 O 1,N,N′,O 1′}(methanol-1κO)(tetra­fluoridoborato-1κ2 F,F′)-2-copper(II)-1-sodium

In the dinuclear salen-type title complex, [CuNa(BF4)(C18H18N2O4)(CH3OH)], the CuII atom is chelated by two O atoms and two N atoms of the deprotonated Schiff base in a square-planar geometry. The Na atom is seven-coordinate as it is linked to four O atoms of the same Schiff base ligand, one O atom of the methanol and two tetra­fluorido­borate F atoms. The remaining two F atoms of the anion are disordered over two sites in a 0.598 (18):0.402 (18) ratio

Strange stars with different quark mass scalings

We investigate the stability of strange quark matter and the properties of the corresponding strange stars, within a wide range of quark mass scaling. The calculation shows that the resulting maximum mass always lies between 1.5 solor mass and 1.8 solor mass for all the scalings chosen here. Strange star sequences with a linear scaling would support less gravitational mass, and a change (increase or decrease) of the scaling around the linear scaling would lead to a larger maximum mass. Radii invariably decrease with the mass scaling. Then the larger the scaling, the faster the star might spin. In addition, the variation of the scaling would cause an order of magnitude change of the strong electric field on quark surface, which is essential to support possible crusts of strange stars against gravity and may then have some astrophysical implications.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. accepted by M

Pie-like electrode design for high-energy density lithium–sulfur batteries

Owing to the overwhelming advantage in energy density, lithium–sulfur (Li–S) battery is a promising next-generation electrochemical energy storage system. Despite many efforts in pursuing long cycle life, relatively little emphasis has been placed on increasing the areal energy density. Herein, we have designed and developed a ‘pie’ structured electrode, which provides an excellent balance between gravimetric and areal energy densities. Combining lotus root-like multichannel carbon nanofibers ‘filling’ and amino-functionalized graphene ‘crust’, the free-standing paper electrode (S mass loading: 3.6 mg cm[superscript −2]) delivers high specific capacity of 1,314 mAh g[superscript −1] (4.7 mAh cm[superscript −2]) at 0.1 C (0.6 mA cm[superscript −2]) accompanied with good cycling stability. Moreover, the areal capacity can be further boosted to more than 8 mAh cm[superscript −2] by stacking three layers of paper electrodes with S mass loading of 10.8 mg cm[superscript −2].National Science Foundation (U.S.) (DMR-1120901)Wuxi Weifu High-technology Group Co., Ltd

Generating Giant and Tunable Nonlinearity in a Macroscopic Mechanical Resonator from Chemical Bonding Force

Nonlinearity in macroscopic mechanical system plays a crucial role in a wide variety of applications, including signal transduction and processing, synchronization, and building logical devices. However, it is difficult to generate nonlinearity due to the fact that macroscopic mechanical systems follow the Hooke's law and response linearly to external force, unless strong drive is used. Here we propose and experimentally realize a record-high nonlinear response in macroscopic mechanical system by exploring the anharmonicity in deforming a single chemical bond. We then demonstrate the tunability of nonlinear response by precisely controlling the chemical bonding interaction, and realize a cubic elastic constant of \mathversion{bold}$2 \times 10^{18}~{\rm N}/{\rm m^3}$, many orders of magnitude larger in strength than reported previously. This enables us to observe vibrational bistate transitions of the resonator driven by the weak Brownian thermal noise at 6~K. This method can be flexibly applied to a variety of mechanical systems to improve nonlinear responses, and can be used, with further improvements, to explore macroscopic quantum mechanics