Curcumin inhibits cell proliferation of MDA-MB-231 and BT-483 breast cancer cells mediated by down-regulation of NFκB, cyclinD and MMP-1 transcription

Curcumin, an active constituent of turmeric, has been shown to possess inhibitory effect of cell proliferation and induction of apoptosis towards a board range of tumors. Cell inhibition activities of curcumin are behaved differently in various cell types. To investigate the mechanism basis for the cell inhibition of curcumin on breast cancer cell lines, we examine curcumin effect on NFκB, cell cycle regulatory proteins and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in two breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231 and BT-483). Cell proliferation was performed by water soluble tetrazolium WST-1 assay. The effect of curcumin's on the activity of matrix metalloproteinase-1, 3, 9 were analyzed by RT-PCR. Cell cycle regulatory protein including cyclin D1, CDK4 and p21 were examined by immunochemistry. The expressions of NFκB in breast cancer cells treated with curcumin were studied by immunochemistry and western blot. The results from WST-1 cell proliferation assay showed that curcumin exhibited the anti-proliferation effect on MDA-MB-231 and BT-483 cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner. In response to the treatment, while, the expression of cyclin D1 had declined in MDA-MB-231 and the expression of CDK4 in BT-483 had declined. MMP1 mRNA expression in BT-483 and MDA-MB-231 had significantly decreased in curcumin treatment group compared with control group. Our finding extrapolates the antitumor activity of curcumin in mediating the breast cancer cell proliferative rate and invasion by down-regulating the NFκB inducing genes. © 2009 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.postprin

Anti-metastatic mechanism of Tian-Xian Liquid (TXL) and its bioactive fractions in human colorectal cancer cells and xenograft models

Poster Session A: abstract no. 29Colorectal carcinoma is the second most prevalent cancer with an up-rising trend in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Cancer Registry). Traditional Chinese medicine acts as a complementary alternative for tumour therapy with minimal side-effects and traumatic injuries. Tian-Xian Liquid (TXL), one of the well-known natural medicinal herbal formulations, has been commercially used as an anticancer dietary supplement for a decade without known adverse effects. This study aimed to investigate the anti-metastatic property of TXL and its bioactive fractions [butanol fraction (BU), ethyl-acetate fraction (EA) and aqueous fraction (WA)] at molecular level on human colorectal cancer in vitro (HT-29 cancer cells) and in vivo (nude mice xenografts). For the cell model, TXL and its bioactive fractions have similar anti-proliferative effects by MTT assay. At 4-hour-incubation, IC50 values were obtained at 1% (V/V) TXL, 1.25% (V/V) BU, 5% (V/V) EA and 0.3125% (V/V) WA. At IC50, TXL and its bioactive fractions significantly reduced the MMP2 and MMP7 expressions at mRNA level by real-time PCR. At protein level, TXL, BU and EA correspondingly down-regulated MMP2 (active form) and MMP7 protein from 24 to 48 hours; TXL and BU also down-regulated VEGF protein expression; however, no such effect was found in WA-treated cells. Further, only TXL, EA and WA effectively inhibited the cell migration at 48 hours incubation by woundhealing assay. For the xenografts models, MMP2 and MMP7 mRNA expressions were reduced by TXL-, BU- and EA-treated xenografts; however no effects on MMP2 protein expression in all drug-treated xenografts. The VEGF protein expression was significantly down-regulated in TXL- and WA-treated xenografts. Further, TXL, BU and WA effectively inhibited the tumor growth without altering the body weight of the xenografts. In summary, the Chinese medicinal formulation, TXL, demonstrated the most effective anti-metastatic ability on human colorectal cancer in vitro and in vivo.published_or_final_versio

Direct tunneling through high-κ\kappa amorphous HfO2_2: effects of chemical modification

We report first principles modeling of quantum tunneling through amorphous HfO$_2$ dielectric layer of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) nanostructures in the form of n-Si/HfO$_2$/Al. In particular we predict that chemically modifying the amorphous HfO$_2$ barrier by doping N and Al atoms in the middle region - far from the two interfaces of the MOS structure, can reduce the gate-to-channel tunnel leakage by more than one order of magnitude. Several other types of modification are found to enhance tunneling or induce substantial band bending in the Si, both are not desired from leakage point of view. By analyzing transmission coefficients and projected density of states, the microscopic physics of electron traversing the tunnel barrier with or without impurity atoms in the high-$\kappa$ dielectric is revealed.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Stroke-Associated Differences in Rates of Activity of Daily Living Loss Emerge Years Before Stroke Onset

To compare typical age-related changes in activities of daily living (ADL) independence in stroke-free adults to long-term ADL trajectories before and after stroke

Large-Scale Surface Shape Sensing with Learning-Based Computational Mechanics

Proprioception, the ability to perceive one's own configuration and movement in space, enables organisms to safely and accurately interact with their environment and each other. The underlying sensory nerves that make this possible are highly dense and use sophisticated communication pathways to propagate signals from nerves in muscle, skin, and joints to the central nervous system wherein the organism can process and react to stimuli. In a step forward to realize robots with such perceptive capability, a flexible sensor framework that incorporates a novel modeling strategy, taking advantage of computational mechanics and machine learning, is proposed. The sensor framework on a large flexible sensor that transforms sparsely distributed strains into continuous surface is implemented. Finite element (FE) analysis is utilized to determine design parameters, while an FE model is built to enrich the morphological data used in the supervised training to achieve continuous surface reconstruction. A mapping between the local strain data and the enriched surface data is subsequently trained using ensemble learning. This hybrid approach enables real time, robust, and high‐order surface reconstruction. The sensing performance is evaluated in terms of accuracy, repeatability, and feasibility with numerous scenarios, which has not been demonstrated on such a large‐scale sensor before

Identification of the major chemical constituents and their metabolites in rat plasma and various organs after oral administration of effective Erxian Decoction (EXD) fraction by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry

A simple and specific LC-DAD-ESI-MS/MS method has been developed and applied for the primary investigation of the chemical constituents absorbed or metabolized in vivo, after the rat oral administration of Erxian Decoction (EXD), a Chinese medicine prescription for menopausal syndromes. Through the online ESI-MS n analysis, a total of 35 compounds have been identified or tentatively characterized from the seven tested samples, and 13 of them were unambiguously identified through a direct comparison of the retention time, UV spectra and MS n fragmentation patterns with the authentic ones. The results showed that 21 compounds were detected from rat plasma, 20 compounds were detected from rat kidneys and adrenal glands, 19 compounds were detected from rat ovaries, 12 compounds were found in rat intestines, nine compounds were identified from rat livers and nine compounds were detected from rat brains at certain time points after oral administration of the eff ective EXD fraction. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.postprin

Extended layerwise method for laminated composite plates with multiple delaminations and transverse cracks

In this paper, the extended layerwise method (XLWM), which was developed for laminated composite beams with multiple delaminations and transverse cracks (Li et al. in Int J Numer Methods Eng 101:407–434, 2015), is extended to laminated composite plates. The strong and weak discontinuous functions along the thickness direction are adopted to simulate multiple delaminations and interlaminar interfaces, respectively, whilst transverse cracks are modeled by the extended finite element method (XFEM). The interaction integral method and maximum circumferential tensile criterion are used to calculate the stress intensity factor (SIF) and crack growth angle, respectively. The XLWM for laminated composite plates can accurately predicts the displacement and stress fields near the crack tips and delamination fronts. The thickness distribution of SIF and thus the crack growth angles in different layers can be obtained. These information cannot be predicted by using other existing shell elements enriched by XFEM. Several numerical examples are studied to demonstrate the capabilities of the XLWM in static response analyses, SIF calculations and crack growth predictions.postprin

Intrinsic hole mobility and trapping in a regio-regular poly(thiophene)

The transport properties of high-performance thin-film transistors (TFT) made with a regio-regular poly(thiophene) semiconductor (PQT-12) are reported. The room-temperature field-effect mobility of the devices varied between 0.004 cm2/V s and 0.1 cm2/V s and was controlled through thermal processing of the material, which modified the structural order. The transport properties of TFTs were studied as a function of temperature. The field-effect mobility is thermally activated in all films at T<200 K and the activation energy depends on the charge density in the channel. The experimental data is compared to theoretical models for transport, and we argue that a model based on the existence of a mobility edge and an exponential distribution of traps provides the best interpretation of the data. The differences in room-temperature mobility are attributed to different widths of the shallow localized state distribution at the edge of the valence band due to structural disorder in the film. The free carrier mobility of the mobile states in the ordered regions of the film is the same in all structural modifications and is estimated to be between 1 and 4 cm2/V s.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure