Metal nanoparticle-induced micronuclei and oxidative DNA damage in mice

Several mechanisms regarding the adverse health effects of nanomaterials have been proposed. Among them, oxidative stress is considered to be one of the most important. Many in vitro studies have shown that nanoparticles generate reactive oxygen species, deplete endogenous antioxidants, alter mitochondrial function and produce oxidative damage in DNA. 8-Hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine is a major type of oxidative DNA damage, and is often analyzed as a marker of oxidative stress in human and animal studies. In this study, we focused on the in vivo toxicity of metal oxide and silver nanoparticles. In particular, we analyzed the induction of micronucleated reticulocyte formation and oxidative stress in mice treated with nanoparticles (CuO, Fe3O4, Fe2O3, TiO2, Ag). For the micronucleus assay, peripheral blood was collected from the tail at 0, 24, 48 and 72 h after an i.p. injection of nanoparticles. Following the administration of nanoparticles by i.p. injection to mice, the urinary 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine levels were analyzed by the HPLC-ECD method, to monitor the oxidative stress. The levels of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine in liver DNA were also measured. The results showed increases in the reticulocyte micronuclei formation in all nanoparticle-treated groups and in the urinary 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine levels. The 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine levels in the liver DNA of the CuO-treated group increased in a dose-dependent manner. In conclusion, the metal nanoparticles caused genotoxicity, and oxidative stress may be responsible for the toxicity of these metal nanoparticles

3D-aware Image Generation and Editing with Multi-modal Conditions

3D-consistent image generation from a single 2D semantic label is an important and challenging research topic in computer graphics and computer vision. Although some related works have made great progress in this field, most of the existing methods suffer from poor disentanglement performance of shape and appearance, and lack multi-modal control. In this paper, we propose a novel end-to-end 3D-aware image generation and editing model incorporating multiple types of conditional inputs, including pure noise, text and reference image. On the one hand, we dive into the latent space of 3D Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and propose a novel disentanglement strategy to separate appearance features from shape features during the generation process. On the other hand, we propose a unified framework for flexible image generation and editing tasks with multi-modal conditions. Our method can generate diverse images with distinct noises, edit the attribute through a text description and conduct style transfer by giving a reference RGB image. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms alternative approaches both qualitatively and quantitatively on image generation and editing

Early markers of angiogenesis and ischemia during bowel conduit neovascularization

Background Bowel flaps are a good and reliable method to restore the continuity of the aerodigestive tract. Radiated fields, contaminated recipient sites, or depleted recipient vessels may increase the risk for ischemic injury after transfer. During ischemic events, we believe that bowel conduits with serosa have a delayed neovascularization process at its new recipient site. We conducted an ischemia/reperfusion murine model to understand the difference among bowel conduits with and without serosa. Materials and Methods Two groups of rats were compared: control group (jejunal conduit with serosa) and a target group (jejunal conduit without serosa). These conduits were harvested from the peritoneal cavity and transferred into a subcutaneous pocket. After 72 hours of transfer and pedicle ligation, histological changes related to ischemia/reperfusion were assessed. In addition, tissue markers of angiogenesis (CD34), ischemia (lactate dehydrogenase [LDH]), and inflammation (interleukin [IL]-1β and IL-6) were analyzed. Results Two groups (n = 20) of male rats were analyzed. Histology showed intact jejunal mucosa in the target group. The control group showed decreased number of mucin, globet cells, decreased height, and fragmentation of villi with the absence of intestinal glands. Markers of angiogenesis (CD34) were higher in the target group. In addition, markers of ischemia (LDH) (p = 0.0045) and inflammation (IL-1b, p = 0.0008, and IL-6, p = 0.0008) were significantly lower in the target group as compared with the control group. Conclusions In circumstances in which the recipient site does not offer an adequate and healthy bed or a vascular insult occurs, bowel flaps with less amount of serosa may be able to neovascularize faster thereby increasing its chances of survival

Cloning and characterization of an S-RNase gene in Camellia sinensis

AbstractSelf-incompatibility (SI) prevents inbreeding depression in angiosperms. Camellia sinensis is an important cash crop, but breeding improvements and genetic studies of the plant are hindered by SI. However, the SI mechanism in C. sinensis remains unclear. In this study, a putative S-RNase gene (KU852488) was cloned from C. sinensis. The full-length cDNA of CsS-RNase is 1121bp, which encodes 238 amino acids. It shares the closest relationship with an S-RNase gene (ADA67883.1), which was cloned from a self-incompatibility Citrus reticulata cultivar ‘Wuzishatangju’. The expression level of CsS-RNase in the styles were 3–259 (‘Fuding Dabaicha’) and 5.6–119 (‘Zhongcha108’) times higher than the other tissues, for example petals, pollen grains, filaments and buds. And its expression rose in self-pollinated styles with 24h earlier than cross-pollinated styles. The genotypes of CsS-RNase in 10 cultivars and one breeding line of C. sinensis were analyzed. Totally, 11 polymorphic amino acid residues were identified. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker of CsS-RNase was developed. Finally, the CsS-RNase was mapped onto a reference genetic linkage map of tea plant

Interaction between Angiotensin II and Insulin/IGF-1 Exerted a Synergistic Stimulatory Effect on ERK1/2 Activation in Adrenocortical Carcinoma H295R Cells

The cross talk between angiotensin II (Ang II) and insulin has been described mainly in cardiovascular cells, hepatocytes, adipocytes, and so forth, and to date no such cross talk was reported in adrenal. In this study, we examined the interaction between Ang II and insulin/IGF-1 in ERK and AKT signaling pathways and expression of steroidogenic enzymes in H295R cells. Compared to the control, 100 nM Ang II increased phospho-ERK1/2 approximately 3-fold. Insulin (100 nM) or IGF-1 (10 nM) alone raised phospho-ERK1/2 1.8- and 1.5-fold, respectively, while, after pretreatment with 100 nM Ang II for 30 min, insulin (100 nM) or IGF-1 (10 nM) elevated phospho-ERK1/2 level 8- and 7-fold, respectively. The synergistic effect of Ang II and insulin/IGF-1 on ERK1/2 activation was inhibited by selective AT1 receptor blocker, PKC inhibitor, and MEK1/2 inhibitor. Ang II marginally suppressed AKT activation under the basal condition, while it had no effect on phospho-AKT induced by insulin/IGF-1. Ang II significantly stimulated mRNA expression of CYP11B1 and CYP11B2, and such stimulatory effects were enhanced when cells were cotreated with insulin/IGF-1. We are led to conclude that Ang II in combination with insulin/IGF-1 had an evident synergistic stimulatory effect on ERK1/2 activation in H295R cells and the effect may be responsible for the enhanced steroid hormone production induced by Ang II plus insulin/IGF-1

Aqua­[N-phenyl-2-(quinolin-8-yl­oxy)acetamide]dinitratozinc(II)

In the title complex, [Zn(NO3)2(C17H14N2O2)(H2O)], the six-coordinated Zn atom is in a distorted octa­hedral geometry, the donor centers being two O atoms and one N atom from the tridentate organic ligand, a water O atom and two O atoms from two monodentate nitrate ions. In the crystal, O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between the coordinated water mol­ecules and nitrate O atoms and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between the main ligand and nitrate O atoms consolidate the three-dimensional network

Optogenetic Control of Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels

Voltage-gated Ca(2+) (CaV ) channels mediate Ca(2+) entry into excitable cells to regulate a myriad of cellular events following membrane depolarization. We report the engineering of RGK GTPases, a class of genetically encoded CaV channel modulators, to enable photo-tunable modulation of CaV channel activity in excitable mammalian cells. This optogenetic tool (designated optoRGK) tailored for CaV channels could find broad applications in interrogating a wide range of CaV -mediated physiological processes