A spectral line survey of IRC +10216 between 13.3 and 18.5 GHz

A spectral line survey of IRC +10216 between 13.3 and 18.5 GHz is carried out using the Shanghai Tian Ma 65 m Radio Telescope (TMRT-65m) with a sensitivity of < 7 mK. Thirty-five spectral lines of 12 different molecules and radicals are detected in total. Except for SiS, the detected molecules are all carbon-chain molecules, including HC3N, HC5N, HC7N, HC9N, C6H, C6H-, C8H, SiC2, SiC4, c-C3H2 and l-C5H. The presence of rich carbon-bearing molecules is consistent with the identity of IRC +10216 as a carbon-rich AGB star. The excitation temperatures and column densities of the observed species are derived by assuming a local thermodynamic equilibrium and homogeneous conditions.Comment: This is the authors' version of the manuscript; 16 pages, 5 figures, 6 tables; Accepted for publication in A&A 8/17/201

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Children: Role of the Gut Microbiota

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has emerged as the most common cause of liver disease among children and adolescents in industrialized countries due to increasing prevalence of obesity. It is generally recognized that both genetic and environmental risk factors contribute to the pathogenesis of NAFLD. Convincing evidences have shown that gut microbiota alteration is associated with NAFLD pathogenesis both in patients and animal models. Bacterial overgrowth and increased intestinal permeability are evident in NAFLD patients and lead to increased delivery of gut-derived bacterial products, such as lipopolysaccharide and bacterial DNA, to the liver through portal vein and then activation of toll-like receptors (TLRs), mainly TLR4 and TLR9, and their downstream cytokines and chemokines, resulting in hepatic inflammation. Currently, the role of gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of NAFLD is still the focus of many active clinical/basic researches. Modulation of gut microbiota with probiotics or prebiotics has been targeted as a preventive or therapeutic strategy on this pathological condition. Their beneficial effects on the NAFLD have been demonstrated in animal models and limited human studies

RNA-seq analysis of synovial fibroblasts brings new insights into rheumatoid arthritis

BACKGROUND: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune-disease of unknown origin that primarily affects the joints and ultimately leads to their destruction. Growing evidence suggests that synvovial fibroblasts play important roles in the initiation and the perpetuation of RA but underlying molecular mechanisms are not understood fully. In the present study, Illumina RNA sequencing was used to profile two human normal control and two rheumatoid arthritis synvovial fibroblasts (RASFs) transcriptomes to gain insights into the roles of synvovial fibroblasts in RA. RESULTS: We found that besides known inflammatory and immune responses, other novel dysregulated networks and pathways such as Cell Morphology, Cell-To-Cell Signaling and Interaction, Cellular Movement, Cellular Growth and Proliferation, and Cellular Development, may all contribute to the pathogenesis of RA. Our study identified several new genes and isoforms not previously associated with rheumatoid arthritis. 122 genes were up-regulated and 155 genes were down-regulated by at least two-fold in RASFs compared to controls. Of note, 343 known isoforms and 561 novel isoforms were up-regulated and 262 known isoforms and 520 novel isoforms were down-regulated by at least two-fold. The magnitude of difference and the number of differentially expressed known and novel gene isoforms were not detected previously by DNA microarray. CONCLUSIONS: Since the activation and proliferation of RASFs has been implicated in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis, further in-depth follow-up analysis of the transcriptional regulation reported in this study may shed light on molecular pathogenic mechanisms underlying synovial fibroblasts in arthritis and provide new leads of potential therapeutic targets

Intra-Storm Temporal Patterns of Rainfall in China Using Huff Curves

Intra-storm temporal distributions of precipitation are important for infiltration, runoff, and erosion process understanding and models. A convenient and established method for characterizing precipitation hyetographs is the use of non-dimensional Huff curves. In this study, 11,801 erosive rainfall events with 1 min resolution data collected over 30 to 40 years from 18 weather stations located across the central and eastern parts of China were analyzed to produce Huff curves. Each event was classified according to the quartile period within the event that contained the greatest fraction of rainfall. The results showed that 38.3% of events had the maximum rainfall amounts in the first quartile, followed by the second (26.8%), third (22.4%), and fourth (12.5%) quartiles. Quartile I and II events were generally characteristic of shorter duration and heavier intensity events. Quartile I events averaged 23% shorter durations than quartile IV events, whereas the mean intensity (Iavg), mean maximum 30 min intensity (I30), and mean rainfall erosivity index (EI30) were 1.71, 1.22, and 1.23 times greater, respectively, than those for quartile IV and were significant at a 5% level based on two-sample t-tests. The proportion of quartile I events was less for events of longer duration, whereas the proportions of quartile III and IV events were greater. Two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests suggested that regional Huff curves can be derived for the central and eastern parts of China. Regional Huff curves developed in this study exhibited dissimilarities in terms of the percentages of storms for different quartiles and the shapes of the curves compared to those reported for Illinois, peninsular Malaysia, and Santa Catarina in Brazil

Augmentation of Pulmonary Epithelial Cell IL-8 Expression and Permeability by Pre-B-cell Colony Enhancing Factor

© 2008 Li et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens