Antiamyloidogenic Effects of Ellagic Acid on Human Serum Albumin Fibril Formation Induced by Potassium Sorbate and Glucose

Oxidative stress has the main role in protein conformational changes and consequent direct involvement in different kind of diseases. Potassium sorbate as a widespread industrial preservative and glucose are two important oxidants that can be involved in oxidative stress. In this study the effect of ellagic acid as a phenolic antioxidant on amyloid fibril formation of human serum albumin upon incubation of potassium sorbate and glucose was studied using thioflavin T assay, surface tension, atomic force microscopy, Amadori product, and carbonyl content assays. The thioflavin T assay and atomic force microscopy micrographs demonstrated the antiamyloidogenic effect of ellagic acid on the human serum albumin fibril formation. This antioxidant also had the repair effect on surface tension of the modified human serum albumin (amyloid intermediates), which was destructed, caused by potassium sorbate and glucose. This mechanism takes place because of potent carbonyl stress suppression effect of ellagic acid, which was strengthening by potassium sorbate in the presence and absence of glucose. Copyright � 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Characterizing the Path Coverage of Random Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are widely used in security monitoring applications to sense and report specific activities in a field. In path coverage, for example, the network is in charge of monitoring a path and discovering any intruder trying to cross it. In this paper, we investigate the path coverage properties of a randomly deployed wireless sensor network when the number of sensors and also the length of the path are finite. As a consequence, Boolean model, which has been widely used previously, is not applicable. Using results from geometric probability, we determine the probability of full path coverage, distribution of the number of uncovered gaps over the path, and the probability of having no uncovered gaps larger than a specific size. We also find the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of the covered part of the path. Based on our results on the probability of full path coverage, we derive a tight upper bound for the number of nodes guaranteeing the full path coverage with a desired reliability. Through computer simulations, it is verified that for networks with nonasymptotic size, our analysis is accurate where the Boolean model can be inaccurate