PROTEUS SYNDROME: NEED FOR PATIENT CENTRIC THERAPY

Proteus syndrome (PS) is a hamartomatous disorder with multisystem involvement that results from mutation in the AKT1gene. Since the symptoms and severity of PS are unique to each patient, diagnosis and treatment become hard for the physician. This article is concentrated upon the identification and recognition of specific characteristics of the disease, pathophysiology, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and the necessity of advanced diagnosis, effective generalized and personalized therapy, as well as the requirement of new drugs for the management of PS. Detailed studies on the PS and evidence from the case reports revealed the requirement of intensive care, accurate diagnosis, and an effective treatment for each patient preferably patient-centric drug delivery due to the high degree of variation in the symptoms and clinical features among patients

Supplemental Oxygen Protects Heart Against Acute Myocardial Infarction

Myocardial infarction (MI), which occurs often due to acute ischemia followed by reflow, is associated with irreversible loss (death) of cardiomyocytes. If left untreated, MI will lead to progressive loss of viable cardiomyocytes, deterioration of cardiac function, and congestive heart failure. While supplemental oxygen therapy has long been in practice to treat acute MI, there has not been a clear scientific basis for the observed beneficial effects. Further, there is no rationale for the amount or duration of administration of supplemental oxygenation for effective therapy. The goal of the present study was to determine an optimum oxygenation protocol that can be clinically applicable for treating acute MI. Using EPR oximetry, we studied the effect of exposure to supplemental oxygen cycling (OxCy) administered by inhalation of 21–100% oxygen for brief periods (15–90 min), daily for 5 days, using a rat model of acute MI. Myocardial oxygen tension (pO2), cardiac function and pro-survival/apoptotic signaling molecules were used as markers of treatment outcome. OxCy resulted in a significant reduction of infarct size and improvement of cardiac function. An optimal condition of 30-min OxCy with 95% oxygen + 5% CO2 under normobaric conditions was found to be effective for cardioprotection

Evaluation of bioceramic coated materials for orthopaedic applications

637-644Many surgical metals such as stainless steel, titanium, magnesium and its alloys have been extensively used for the recovery of body structures in human beings. Corrosion is the major reason for failure in metallic implants, when the metal comes in contact with the body fluids it releases metal ions into the surrounding tissues. This may even lead to the second surgery which can be eradicated by the surface modification of the implant with bioceramics using coating techniques. The present work involves the development of coatings on the surface of 316L SS type of stainless steel using a biphasic mixture of bio ceramics HAP/β-TCP in ratio of 7.5:2.5 by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) from a suspension of ethanol. The presence of biphasic coating imparts the property of both bioactivity and bioresorbability to the implant with good adherence of the coatings in body fluids. These coatings provide corrosion resistance and also favour new bone growth. Further, the biocompatibility of these materials can be evaluated by in-vitro assay. This includes cytotoxicity tests carried out with normal cell line (Vero cell line) and cancerous cell line (HEP II cell Line). The coated samples have been tested for their biochemical nature using DPPH (2,2 diphenyl 1 picryl hydrazil compound) activity to confirm whether the coated implant is suitable for cancerous patients with its antioxidant property which helps to trap the free radicals

Automated Security Analysis of IoT Software Updates

IoT devices often operate unsupervised in ever-changing environments for several years. Therefore, they need to be updated on a regular basis. Current approaches for software updates on IoT, like the recent SUIT proposal, focus on granting integrity and confidentiality but do not analyze the content of the software update, especially the IoT application which is deployed to IoT devices. To this aim, in this paper, we present IoTAV, an automated software analysis framework for systematically verifying the security of the applications contained in software updates w.r.t. a given security policy. Our proposal can be adopted transparently by current IoT software updates workflows. We prove the viability of IoTAV by testing our methodology on a set of actual RIOT OS applications. Experimental results indicate that the approach is viable in terms of both reliability and performance, leading to the identification of 26 security policy violations in 31 real-world RIOT applications

Synthesis and characterization of nano-hydroxyapatite/graphene oxide composite materials for medical implant coating applications

In this present work, nano-hydroxyapatite/Graphene Oxide were synthesized, and the composite were prepared in different ratios. The structural and morphological changes of synthesized nano hydroxyapatite, graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide was investigated. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FTIR) was used to investigate the chemical structural composition of the synthesized nano hydroxyapatite and its composite, which confirms that presence of presence of reduced graphene oxide, graphene oxide in the prepared composite. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) analysis was employed to examine the surface morphology of the composite materials which confirms the presence graphene flakes and nanosized hydroxyapatite on the surface

Integrated Remediation Processes Toward Heavy Metal Removal/Recovery From Various Environments-A Review

Addressing heavy metal pollution is one of the hot areas of environmental research. Despite natural existence, various anthropomorphic sources have contributed to an unusually high concentration of heavy metals in the environment. They are characterized by their long persistence in natural environment leading to serious health consequences in humans, animals, and plants even at very low concentrations (1 or 2 μg in some cases). Failure of strict regulations by government authorities is also to be blamed for heavy metal pollution. Several individual treatments, namely, physical, chemical, and biological are being implied to remove heavy metals from the environment. But, they all face challenges in terms of expensiveness and in-situ treatment failure. Hence, integrated processes are gaining popularity as it is reported to achieve the goal effectively in various environmental matrices and will overcome a major drawback of large scale implementation. Integrated processes are the combination of two different methods to achieve a synergistic and an effective effort to remove heavy metals. Most of the review articles published so far mainly focus on individual methods on specific heavy metal removal, that too from a particular environmental matrix only. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review of this kind that summarizes on various integrated processes for heavy metal removal from all environmental matrices. In addition, we too have discussed on the advantages and disadvantages of each integrated process, with a special mention of the few methods that needs more research attention. To conclude, integrated processes are proved as a right remedial option which has been detaily discussed in the present review. However, more research focus on the process is needed to challenge the in situ operative conditions. We believe, this review on integrated processes will surely evoke a research thrust that could give rise to novel remediation projects for research community in the future

Polarized localization of phosphatidylserine in the endothelium regulates Kir2.1

Lipid regulation of ion channels is largely explored using in silico modeling with minimal experimentation in intact tissue; thus, the functional consequences of these predicted lipid-channel interactions within native cellular environments remain elusive. The goal of this study is to investigate how lipid regulation of endothelial Kir2.1 - an inwardly rectifying potassium channel that regulates membrane hyperpolarization - contributes to vasodilation in resistance arteries. First, we show that phosphatidylserine (PS) localizes to a specific subpopulation of myoendothelial junctions (MEJs), crucial signaling microdomains that regulate vasodilation in resistance arteries, and in silico data have implied that PS may compete with phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) binding on Kir2.1. We found that Kir2.1-MEJs also contained PS, possibly indicating an interaction where PS regulates Kir2.1. Electrophysiology experiments on HEK cells demonstrate that PS blocks PIP2 activation of Kir2.1 and that addition of exogenous PS blocks PIP2-mediated Kir2.1 vasodilation in resistance arteries. Using a mouse model lacking canonical MEJs in resistance arteries (Elnfl/fl/Cdh5-Cre), PS localization in endothelium was disrupted and PIP2 activation of Kir2.1 was significantly increased. Taken together, our data suggest that PS enrichment to MEJs inhibits PIP2-mediated activation of Kir2.1 to tightly regulate changes in arterial diameter, and they demonstrate that the intracellular lipid localization within the endothelium is an important determinant of vascular function

HIF-transcribed p53 chaperones HIF-1α

Chronic hypoxia is associated with a variety of physiological conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, ischemia/reperfusion injury, stroke, diabetic vasculopathy, epilepsy and cancer. At the molecular level, hypoxia manifests its effects via activation of HIF-dependent transcription. On the other hand, an important transcription factor p53, which controls a myriad of biological functions, is rendered transcriptionally inactive under hypoxic conditions. p53 and HIF-1α are known to share a mysterious relationship and play an ambiguous role in the regulation of hypoxia-induced cellular changes. Here we demonstrate a novel pathway where HIF-1α transcriptionally upregulates both WT and MT p53 by binding to five response elements in p53 promoter. In hypoxic cells, this HIF-1α-induced p53 is transcriptionally inefficient but is abundantly available for protein-protein interactions. Further, both WT and MT p53 proteins bind and chaperone HIF-1α to stabilize its binding at its downstream DNA response elements. This p53-induced chaperoning of HIF-1α increases synthesis of HIF-regulated genes and thus the efficiency of hypoxia-induced molecular changes. This basic biology finding has important implications not only in the design of anti-cancer strategies but also for other physiological conditions where hypoxia results in disease manifestation