Preventive effect of the flavonoid, quercetin, on hepatic cancer in rats via oxidant/antioxidant activity: molecular and histological evidences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma is increasing in many countries. The estimated number of new cases annually is over 500,000, and the yearly incidence comprises between 2.5 and 7% of patients with liver cirrhosis. The incidence varies between different geographic areas, being higher in developing areas; males are predominantly affected, with a 2:3 male/female ratio</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Experiments were designed to examine the effect of <it>N</it>-Nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA) as cancer-inducer compound and to confirm the preventive effect of the flavonoid quercetin on hepatocellular carcinoma in rats. Briefly, thirty six male albino rats of Wistar strain were divided into 3 groups: the 1^stgroup was administered NDEA alone (NDEA-treated), the 2^ndgroup was treated simultaneously with NDEA and quercetin (NDEA+Q) and the 3^rdgroup was used as control (CON). Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA polymerase chain reaction (RAPD-PCR) as well as <it>p53</it>-specifi PCR assays were employed to determine genomic difference between treated, and control animals. Histological confirmation as well as oxidant/antioxidant status of the liver tissue was done.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>RAPD analysis of liver samples generated 8 monomorphic bands and 22 polymorphic bands in a total of 30-banded RAPD patterns. Cluster analysis and statistical analyses of RAPD data resulted in grouping control and NDEA+Q samples in the same group with 80% similarity cut-off value. NDEA-treated samples were clustered in a separate group. Specific PCR assay for polymorphism of <it>P</it>⁵³gene revealed a uniform pattern of allele separation in both control and NDEA+Q samples. Quercetin anticancer effect was exhibited in significant decrease of oxidative stress and significant decrease of antioxidant activity. Histopathological studies showed normal liver histology of the NDEA+Q samples. Meanwhile, several cancer-induced features were clearly observable in NDEA-treated samples.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This paper demonstrated that preventive effect of quercetin on hepatocarcinoma in rats by RAPD-PCR, tracing the effect on <it>p53 </it>gene and by histopathological evidence. Hereby, it was proved that quercetin exerted its preventive effect via decreased oxidative stress and decreased antioxidant activity.</p

Mathematical formulae for neutron self-shielding properties of media in an isotropic neutron field

The complexity of the neutron transport phenomenon throws its shadows on every physical system wherever neutron is produced or used. In the current study, an ab initio derivation of the neutron self-shielding factor to solve the problem of the decrease of the neutron flux as it penetrates into a material placed in an isotropic neutron field. We have employed the theory of steady-state neutron transport, starting from Stuart's formula. Simple formulae were derived based on the integral cross-section parameters that could be adopted by the user according to various variables, such as the neutron flux distribution and geometry of the simulation at hand. The concluded formulae of the self-shielding factors comprise an inverted sigmoid function normalized with a weight representing the ratio between the macroscopic total and scattering cross-sections of the medium. The general convex volume geometries are reduced to a set of chord lengths, while the neutron interactions probabilities within the volume are parameterized to the epithermal and thermal neutron energies. The arguments of the inverted-sigmoid function were derived from a simplified version of neutron transport formulation. Accordingly, the obtained general formulae were successful in giving the values of the experimental neutron self-shielding factor for different elements and different geometries.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 1 graphical abstract, 73 references, and 2 tables, include improvement of illustration and story-telling writing styl

Stimulated perturbation on the neutron flux distribution in the mutually-dependent source-to-absorber geometry

The complexity of the neutron transport phenomenon throws its shadows on every physical system wherever neutron is produced or absorbed. The Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code (MCNP) was used to investigate the flux perturbations in the neutron field caused by an absorber. The geometry of the present experiment was designed to reach a simulation of an isotopic neutron field. The neutron source was a ${}^{241}$AmBe with the production physics of neutrons is dependent only on alpha-beryllium interaction and is independent of what happened to the neutron after it was generated. The geometries have been designed to get a volume of uniform neutron densities within a spherical volume of radius 15 cm in every neutron energy group up to 10 MeV. Absorbers of different dimensions were placed within the volume to investigate the field perturbation. Different neutron absorbers were used to correlate the phenomenon to the integral cross-section of the absorber. Flux density inside and outside the absorber samples was determined, while the spatial neutron flux distribution produced by the AmBe source without an absorber was taken as a reference. This study displayed that absorbers of various dimensions perturb the neutron field in a way that is dependent on the absorption and scattering cross-sections, particularly in the neutron resonance region. Unlike the simple picture of reducing the number density of neutrons, the perturbation was found to influence the moderation of neutrons in the medium, significantly above 1 MeV.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, 26 reference

Criticality Analysis of Activity Networks under Interval Uncertainty

Dedicated to the memory of Professor Stefan Chanas - The extended abstract version of this paper has appeared in Proceedings of 11th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP2005) ("Interval Analysis in Scheduling", Fortin et al. 2005)International audienceThis paper reconsiders the Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) scheduling problem when information about task duration is incomplete. We model uncertainty on task durations by intervals. With this problem formulation, our goal is to assert possible and necessary criticality of the different tasks and to compute their possible earliest starting dates, latest starting dates, and floats. This paper combines various results and provides a complete solution to the problem. We present the complexity results of all considered subproblems and efficient algorithms to solve them

Fluctuations in measured radioactive decay rates inside a modified Faraday cage: Correlations with space weather

[EN] For several years, reports have been published about fluctuations in measured radioactive decay time-series and in some instances linked to astrophysical as well as classical environmental influences. Anomalous behaviors of radioactive decay measurement and measurement of capacitance inside and outside a modified Faraday cage were documented by our group in previous work. In the present report, we present an in-depth analysis of our measurement with regard to possible correlations with space weather, i.e. the geomagnetic activity (GMA) and cosmic-ray activity (CRA). Our analysis revealed that the decay and capacitance time-series are statistically significantly correlated with GMA and CRA when specific conditions are met. The conditions are explained in detail and an outlook is given on how to further investigate this important finding. 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