The Effect of Sn(IV) Chlorin e6 on HepG2 Cancer Cell Lines

This research investigated the effect of Sn(IV) chlorin e6 dichloride trisodium salt photosensitizer on the viability of HepG2 cancer cell lines in vitro. The effect of light on the viability of cells without the photosensitiser and the toxicity of the photosensitiser in the absence of light were examined in this research. No toxic effects with the absence of light were found and no photodamge effect on the cells without the presence of photosensitiser. The effect of different concentrations of the photosensitiser with fixed light dose of 70 J/cm2 on the viability of HepG2 cancer cells were performed. Then, two concentrations 25 and 30 μg/ml were investigated at different light doses 60-100 J/cm2. The effect of the photosensitiser on the viability of HepG2 at different light doses and different concentrations was found to have low viability over concentrations of 25 μg/ml. This could be due to that the photosensitiser reached a saturated status after this concentration. Key words: PDT; Sn(IV) chlorin e6; liver cancer; phototoxicity; viability assa

Temporal isolation of neural processes underlying face preference decisions

Decisions about whether we like someone are often made so rapidly from first impressions that it is difficult to examine the engagement of neural structures at specific points in time. Here, we used a temporally extended decision-making paradigm to examine brain activation with functional MRI (fMRI) at sequential stages of the decision-making process. Activity in reward-related brain structures—the nucleus accumbens (NAC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)—was found to occur at temporally dissociable phases while subjects decided which of two unfamiliar faces they preferred. Increases in activation in the OFC occurred late in the trial, consistent with a role for this area in computing the decision of which face to choose. Signal increases in the NAC occurred early in the trial, consistent with a role for this area in initial preference formation. Moreover, early signal increases in the NAC also occurred while subjects performed a control task (judging face roundness) when these data were analyzed on the basis of which of those faces were subsequently chosen as preferred in a later task. The findings support a model in which rapid, automatic engagement of the NAC conveys a preference signal to the OFC, which in turn is used to guide choice

Optical Phonon Lasing in Semiconductor Double Quantum Dots

We propose optical phonon lasing for a double quantum dot (DQD) fabricated in a semiconductor substrate. We show that the DQD is weakly coupled to only two LO phonon modes that act as a natural cavity. The lasing occurs for pumping the DQD via electronic tunneling at rates much higher than the phonon decay rate, whereas an antibunching of phonon emission is observed in the opposite regime of slow tunneling. Both effects disappear with an effective thermalization induced by the Franck-Condon effect in a DQD fabricated in a carbon nanotube with a strong electron-phonon coupling.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Spin chirality induced by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and the polarized neutron scattering

We discuss the influence of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction in the Heizenberg spin chain model for the observables in the polarized neutron scattering experiments. We show that different choices of the parameters of DM interaction may leave the spectrum of the problem unchanged, while the observable spin-spin correlation functions may differ qualitatively. Particularly, for the uniform DM interaction one has the incommensurate fluctuations and polarization-dependent neutron scattering in the paramagnetic phase. We sketch the possible generalization of our treatment to higher dimensions.Comment: 4 pages, REVTEX, no figures, references added, to appear in PR

High-pressure enzymatic hydrolysis to reveal physicochemical and thermal properties of bamboo fiber using a supercritical water fermenter

Bamboo fiber was treated using a high-pressure enzyme hydrolysis process. The process performance was compared with the pulping and bleaching process for bamboo fiber.Several analytical methods, including field emission scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetry, and differential scanning calorimetry, were employed to determine the physicochemical and thermal properties of the treated cellulosic bamboo fiber. It was found that the pressurized enzyme hydrolysis treated bamboo fiber had the most uniform morphological structure, along with lowest crystallinity and highest thermal stability. Thus, utilizing high-pressure enzyme hydrolysis is the most effective process for treating fiber to remove non-cellulosic components from the raw material, including lignin, hemicelluloses, and waxy materials

Expression of cyclin D1a and D1b as predictive factors for treatment response in colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to investigate the value of the cyclin D1 isoforms D1a and D1b as prognostic factors and their relevance as predictors of response to adjuvant chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil and levamisole (5-FU/LEV) in colorectal cancer (CRC). METHODS: Protein expression of nuclear cyclin D1a and D1b was assessed by immunohistochemistry in 335 CRC patients treated with surgery alone or with adjuvant therapy using 5-FU/LEV. The prognostic and predictive value of these two molecular markers and clinicopathological factors were evaluated statistically in univariate and multivariate survival analyses. RESULTS: Neither cyclin D1a nor D1b showed any prognostic value in CRC or colon cancer patients. However, high cyclin D1a predicted benefit from adjuvant therapy measured in 5-year relapse-free survival (RFS) and CRC-specific survival (CSS) compared to surgery alone in colon cancer (P=0.012 and P=0.038, respectively) and especially in colon cancer stage III patients (P=0.005 and P=0.019, respectively) in univariate analyses. An interaction between treatment group and cyclin D1a could be shown for RFS (P=0.004) and CSS (P=0.025) in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSION: Our study identifies high cyclin D1a protein expression as a positive predictive factor for the benefit of adjuvant 5-FU/LEV treatment in colon cancer, particularly in stage III colon cancer

Expanding the Utilization of Formalin-Fixed, Paraffin-Embedded Archives : Feasibility of miR-Seq for Disease Exploration and Biomarker Development from Biopsies with Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Novel predictive tools for clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) are urgently needed. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been increasingly investigated for their predictive value, and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded biopsy archives may potentially be a valuable source of miRNA sequencing material, as they remain an underused resource. Core biopsies of both cancerous and adjacent normal tissues were obtained from patients (n = 12) undergoing nephrectomy. After small RNA-seq, several analyses were performed, including classifier evaluation, obesity-related inquiries, survival analysis using publicly available datasets, comparisons to the current literature and ingenuity pathway analyses. In a comparison of tumour vs. normal, 182 miRNAs were found with significant differential expression; miR-155 was of particular interest as it classified all ccRCC samples correctly and correlated well with tumour size (R-2 = 0.83); miR-155 also predicted poor survival with hazard ratios of 2.58 and 1.81 in two different TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) datasets in a univariate model. However, in a multivariate Cox regression analysis including age, sex, cancer stage and histological grade, miR-155 was not a statistically significant survival predictor. In conclusion, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded biopsy tissues are a viable source of miRNA-sequencing material. Our results further support a role for miR-155 as a promising cancer classifier and potentially as a therapeutic target in ccRCC that merits further investigation.Peer reviewe

Nel positively regulates the genesis of retinal ganglion cells by promoting their differentiation and survival during development

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Land cover type modulates the distribution of litter in a Nordic cultural landscape

Litter pollution is a global environmental problem that occurs in virtually all ecosystems. Scientific research on anthropogenic litter and its environmental impacts focusses predominantly on plastics and the marine environment. Little empirical knowledge exists about the distribution and ecological impacts of litter in terrestrial environments, where most litter is produced. To start closing that knowledge gap, we investigated the distribution of litter in a cultural landscape in central Norway and in relation to land cover types. We registered and collected litter in 110 survey plots that were randomly stratified across various land cover types. Our results show that land cover type modulates the occurrence, abundance, fragments size, and that litter is most present and abundant in or near land cover types associated with high human activities. Plastic was by far the most common litter material type, although the litter community (in terms of materials type) was not independent from land cover type. This knowledge can help to inform and optimize litter management and clean-up activities in terrestrial landscapes. How and to what extent the spatial structure of the litter community mediates ecological effects across various land cover types remains unknown to a large extent and warrants further study.publishedVersio

363P A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness breathing exercise in patients with advanced lung cancer

Background: Study of mindfulness breathing exercise in dyspnea reduction of patients with advanced lung cancer is lacking. Methods: This is a parallel-group, nonblinded randomized controlled trial of mindfulness breathing exercise versus placebo (best medical care alone) in patients with advanced lung cancer admitted to the respiratory unit and palliative unit of University Malaya Medical Center from 1st August 2017 to 31st March 2018. Results: A total of 34 patients were equally assigned to mindfulness breathing exercise group and control group (Table). For patients receiving mindfulness breathing exercise, 10 (58.8%) of them had reduction in modified Borg dyspnea scale (MBDS) score at 5-minutes (OR, 9.33; 95% CI, 1.80–48.38; p¼0.005) and 20-minutes (OR, 2.86; 95% CI, 0.67–12.11; p¼0.149), compared to only 3 (17.6%) and 7 (41.1%) of them in control arm at 5-minutes and 20-minutes, respectively. 5 patients (29.4%) on mindfulness breathing exercise achieved improvement in their SpO2 compare to only 2 patients (11.8%) of control arm had that at 5-minutes (OR, 3.75; 95% CI, 0.61–23.35; p¼0.209). 4 patients (23.5%) on mindfulness breathing exercise had SpO2 improvement at 20-minutes, while none in control arm had SpO2 improvement at same time. Similar number of patients had reduced respiratory rate after mindfulness breathing exercise or at control for 5-minutes [9 (52.9%) versus 10 (58.8%), (OR, 1.05; 95% CI, 0.26–4.32; p¼0.946)]. At 20-minutes, similar number of patients on mindfulness breathing exercise still had sustained reduction in respiratory rate while only 7 patients (41.1%) in control arm had similar respiratory benefit (OR, 2.14; 95% CI, 0.52–8.81; p¼0.288). Conclusions: Mindfulness breathing exercise is effective in reducing dyspnea among patients with advanced lung cancer