Renal blood flow using arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI: experimental protocol and principles

A noninvasive, robust, and reproducible method to measure renal perfusion is important to understand the physiology of kidney. Arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI technique labels the endogenous blood water as freely diffusible tracers to measure perfusion quantitatively without relying on exogenous contrast agent. Therefore, it alleviates the safety concern involving gadolinium chelates. To obtain quantitative tissue perfusion information is particularly relevant for multisite and longitudinal imaging of living subjects.This chapter is based upon work from the PARENCHIMA COST Action, a community-driven network funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program of the European Union, which aims to improve the reproducibility and standardization of renal MRI biomarkers. This experimental protocol chapter is complemented by two separate chapters describing the basic concept and data analysis

Inhibition of Akt sensitises neuroblastoma cells to gold(III) porphyrin 1a, a novel antitumour drug induced apoptosis and growth inhibition

Background:Gold(III) porphyrin 1a is a new class of anticancer drug, which inhibits cell proliferation of wide range of human cancer cell lines and induces apoptosis in human nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells. However, the underlying signalling mechanism by which gold(III) porphyrin 1a modifies the intracellular apoptosis pathways in tumour cells has not been explained in detail in neuroblastoma cells.Methods:Cell proliferation and apoptosis were determined by measuring 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) and Annexin V binding, respectively. Western blot assay was used to detect proteins involved in apoptotic and Akt pathways. In vivo tumour growth was assessed by inoculating tumour cells to nude mice subcutaneously, and gold(III) porphyrin 1a was administrated intravenously.Results:This study assessed the antitumour effect and mechanism of gold(III) porphyrin 1a on neuroblastoma in vitro and in vivo. Gold(III) porphyrin 1a displayed a growth inhibition and induction of apoptosis in neuroblastoma cells effectively in vitro, which was accompanied with release of cytochrome c and Smac/DIABLO and caspases activation. Further studies indicated that gold(III) porphyrin 1a inhibited X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis (XIAP). However, we found that gold(III) porphyrin 1a can induce a survival signal, Akt activation within minutes and could last for at least 24 h. To further confirm association between activation of Akt and the effectiveness of gold(III) porphyrin 1a, neuroblastoma cells were treated with API-2, an Akt-specific inhibitor. API-2 sensitised cells to gold(III) porphyrin 1a-induced apoptosis and growth inhibition.Conclusion:These results suggested that Akt may be considered as a molecular brake that neuroblastoma cells rely on to slow down gold(III) porphyrin 1a-induced apoptosis and antiproliferation. Gold(III) porphyrin 1a is a mitochondrial apoptotic stimulus but also activates Akt, suggesting an involvement of Akt in mediating the effectiveness to growth inhibition and apoptosis by gold(III) porphyrin 1a and that inhibition of Akt can enhance the anticancer activity of gold(III) porphyrin 1a in neuroblastoma. © 2009 Cancer Research UK.published_or_final_versio

Reduction and densification characteristics of iron oxide metallic waste during solid state recycling

Powder technology can be used for solid state recycling of metallic waste (e.g. iron oxide as forging scales in the forge shop and grinding sludge from the machine shop). Whereas recycling of such shop floor waste by melting and landfill are well known, that by powder metallurgical process has not received significant attention in published literature. The present work attempts to fill this gap. Initially, waste material (forging scale and grinding sludge) was separately pulverised using ball mill to obtain the respective powders. For carbothermic reduction, graphite (powder of particle size < 5 mu m) was homogeneously mixed with the two oxide powders. Each of the two mixtures was compacted in a die into a number of pellets. These were sintered for in-situ reduction of the metallic waste. The effect of the source of powder (grinding sludge or oxide scale), quantity of reducing agent cum lubricant, i.e., graphite powder, compaction parameters such as compaction pressure, compact weight and sintering parameters such as sintering temperature and time on reduction and densification characteristics were analysed using Taguchi based experimental design. The results showed significant effect of graphite content and sintering temperature on the degree of reduction and densification. The source of scrap was found to be important since samples from grinding sludge showed higher reduction and densification than forging scale. The analysis of variance was used to establish the individual effects and interactions like that between source of scrap and graphite addition. This was found to contribute most towards degree of reduction and densification. It was found that degree of reduction alone does not necessarily guarantee high degree of densification. (C) 2014 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B. V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved

NIASM Annual Report 2015-16

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