High dose concentration administration of ascorbic acid inhibits tumor growth in BALB/C mice implanted with sarcoma 180 cancer cells via the restriction of angiogenesis

To test the carcinostatic effects of ascorbic acid, we challenged the mice of seven experimental groups with 1.7 × 10-4 mol high dose concentration ascorbic acid after intraperitoneal administrating them with sarcoma S-180 cells. The survival rate was increased by 20% in the group that received high dose concentration ascorbic acid, compared to the control. The highest survival rate was observed in the group in which 1.7 × 10-4 mol ascorbic acid had been continuously injected before and after the induction of cancer cells, rather than just after the induction of cancer cells. The expression of three angiogenesis-related genes was inhibited by 0.3 times in bFGF, 7 times in VEGF and 4 times in MMP2 of the groups with higher survival rates. Biopsy Results, gene expression studies, and wound healing analysis in vivo and in vitro suggested that the carcinostatic effect induced by high dose concentration ascorbic acid occurred through inhibition of angiogenesis

Factors influencing prenatal and postpartum depression in Korea: a prospective cohort study

Purpose This study explored the prevalence of prenatal and postpartum depression in Korea and its influencing factors from 20 weeks of pregnancy to 12 weeks postpartum. Methods Using a prospective cohort study design, data on women’s depression and its influencing factors were collected at 20, 28, and 36 weeks of pregnancy and at 2, 6, and 12 weeks postpartum. The participants were 219 women and 181 spouses during pregnancy; and 183 mothers and 130 spouses after childbirth. Depressive symptoms were assessed by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and influencing factors were measured by the Postpartum Depression Predictors Inventory-Revised, parity, and spousal depression. Results The prevalence of maternal depression was 10.5% to 21.5% before birth, and it was 22.4% to 32.8% postpartum. The prevalence slightly decreased during the prenatal period but peaked at 2 weeks postpartum. Antenatal depression was influenced by low socioeconomic status, lower self-esteem, having experienced prenatal depression, having experienced prenatal anxiety, a previous history of depression, lower social support, lower marital satisfaction, and higher life stress. The factors influencing postpartum depression were lower self-esteem, having experienced prenatal depression, having experienced prenatal anxiety, lower social support, lower marital satisfaction, and higher life stress, as well as infant temperament and maternal blues. Parity and spousal depression had no impacts. Conclusion The prevalence and influencing factors of maternal depression changed over time. Nurses need to screen women accordingly during the perinatal period and should provide education or counseling to prevent depression and promote adjustment to parenthood

Effects of driving style and bedding in pigs transported to slaughterhouse in different temperatures

Animal welfare during transport became an largely issue because of increasing demand for improved animal welfare standards. Most studies on the animal welfare during transportation have concentrated on the atmosphere and the temperature of the truck compartments. Thus, the objective of study was to collect and quantify three axis acceleration and determine the effect of bedding for transporting pigs from farm to slaughterhouse. A total of 2,840 crossbred fattening pigs with a live weight of approximately 115 kg were used. They were raised in the same commercial farms and transported to the same commercial slaughterhouse. A 3×2×2 completely randomized factorial design was used to investigate effects of rubber type bedding (bedding or non-bedding) and two levels of driving style (aggressive or normal) in three different time periods with different outside temperatures. Air temperature treatments were as follow: high temperature ([HT] higher than 24°C); low temperature ([LT] lower than 10°C); normal temperature ([NT] 10°C to 24°C). In our experiment, pigs transported under aggressive driving style showed lower (p < 0.05) pH and water holding capacity (WHC) than those transported under normal driving style. Pigs transported under normal driving style showed a lower percentage of drip loss (DL) (p < 0.05) than those transported with an aggressive driving style. Also, transported with bedding showed higher (p < 0.05) lying behavior but lower (p < 0.05) sitting behavior than those transported without bedding. Pigs transported under normal driving style showed lower (p < 0.05) cortisol level than those transported under aggressive driving style. In conclusion, aggressive driving style cause acute stress in pigs, while bedding helps alleviate acute stress in pigs during transportation in LT

NGL-1/LRRC4C Deletion Moderately Suppresses Hippocampal Excitatory Synapse Development and Function in an Input-Independent Manner

Netrin-G ligand-1 (NGL-1), also known as LRRC4C, is a postsynaptic densities (PSDs)-95-interacting postsynaptic adhesion molecule that interacts trans-synaptically with presynaptic netrin-G1. NGL-1 and its family member protein NGL-2 are thought to promote excitatory synapse development through largely non-overlapping neuronal pathways. While NGL-2 is critical for excitatory synapse development in specific dendritic segments of neurons in an input-specific manner, whether NGL-1 has similar functions is unclear. Here, we show that Lrrc4c deletion in male mice moderately suppresses excitatory synapse development and function, but surprisingly, does so in an input-independent manner. While NGL-1 is mainly detected in the stratum lacunosum moleculare (SLM) layer of the hippocampus relative to the stratum radiatum (SR) layer, NGL-1 deletion leads to decreases in the number of PSDs in both SLM and SR layers in the ventral hippocampus. In addition, both SLM and SR excitatory synapses display suppressed short-term synaptic plasticity in the ventral hippocampus. These morphological and functional changes are either absent or modest in the dorsal hippocampus. The input-independent synaptic changes induced by Lrrc4c deletion involve abnormal translocation of NGL-2 from the SR to SLM layer. These results suggest that Lrrc4c deletion moderately suppresses hippocampal excitatory synapse development and function in an input-independent manner

Cyclic Glucans Enhance Solubility of Bioavailable Flavonoids

Diverse flavonoids are abundant in dietary food constituents and possess useful biological activities. However, some flavonoids have limited bioavailability due to their low solubility in water. As an important approach to enhance aqueous solubility, inclusion of hydrophobic guest molecules in hydrophilic hosts such as cyclic glucans has been used. This review summarizes applications of β-cyclodextrin, synthetic β-cyclodextrin derivatives, and newly synthesized derivatives of cyclosophoraoses as complexing agents to enhance the bioavailability of flavonoids such as baicalein, kaempferol, and naphthoflavones

The Effects of High Concentrations of Vitamin C on Cancer Cells

The effect of high doses of vitamin C for the treatment of cancer has been controversial. Our previous studies, and studies by others, have reported that vitamin C at concentrations of 0.25–1.0 mM induced a dose- and time-dependent inhibition of proliferation in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cell lines and in leukemic cells from peripheral blood specimens obtained from patients with AML. Treatment of cells with high doses of vitamin C resulted in an immediate increase in intracellular total glutathione content and glutathione-S transferase activity that was accompanied by the uptake of cysteine. These results suggest a new role for high concentrations of vitamin C in modulation of intracellular sulfur containing compounds, such as glutathione and cysteine. This review, discussing biochemical pharmacologic studies, including pharmacogenomic and pharmacoproteomic studies, presents the different pharmacological effects of vitamin C currently under investigation

Polyphenol Compound as a Transcription Factor Inhibitor

A target-based approach has been used to develop novel drugs in many therapeutic fields. In the final stage of intracellular signaling, transcription factor–DNA interactions are central to most biological processes and therefore represent a large and important class of targets for human therapeutics. Thus, we focused on the idea that the disruption of protein dimers and cognate DNA complexes could impair the transcriptional activation and cell transformation regulated by these proteins. Historically, natural products have been regarded as providing the primary leading compounds capable of modulating protein–protein or protein-DNA interactions. Although their mechanism of action is not fully defined, polyphenols including flavonoids were found to act mostly as site-directed small molecule inhibitors on signaling. There are many reports in the literature of screening initiatives suggesting improved drugs that can modulate the transcription factor interactions responsible for disease. In this review, we focus on polyphenol compound inhibitors against dimeric forms of transcription factor components of intracellular signaling pathways (for instance, c-jun/c-fos (Activator Protein-1; AP-1), c-myc/max, Nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) and β-catenin/T cell factor (Tcf))

Modulation of Hair Growth Promoting Effect by Natural Products

A large number of people suffer from alopecia or hair loss worldwide. Drug-based therapies using minoxidil and finasteride for the treatment of alopecia are available, but they have shown various side effects in patients. Thus, the use of new therapeutic approaches using bioactive products to reduce the risk of anti-hair-loss medications has been emphasized. Natural products have been used since ancient times and have been proven safe, with few side effects. Several studies have demonstrated the use of plants and their extracts to promote hair growth. Moreover, commercial products based on these natural ingredients have been developed for the treatment of alopecia. Several clinical, animal, and cell-based studies have been conducted to determine the anti-alopecia effects of plant-derived biochemicals. This review is a collective study of phytochemicals with anti-alopecia effects, focusing mainly on the mechanisms underlying their hair-growth-promoting effects

INFINEL: An efficient GPU-based processing method for unpredictable large output graph queries

<p>This repository contains artifact for the paper INFINEL, an efficient GPU-based processing method for unpredictable large output graph queries.</p><p>We provide most of the experiments we performed in the paper, and detailed descriptions can be found in file: README.md</p&gt