Prompt charm production in pp collisions at &#8730;<span style="text-decoration:overline">s</span>=7 TeV

Charm production at the LHC in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV is studied with the LHCb detector. The decays D0→K−π+, D+→K−π+π+, D⁎+→D0(K−π+)π+, D+s→ϕ(K−K+)π+, Λ+c→pK−π+, and their charge conjugates are analysed in a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 15 nb−1. Differential cross-sections dσ/dpT are measured for prompt production of the five charmed hadron species in bins of transverse momentum and rapidity in the region 0&#60;pT&#60;8 GeV/c and 2.0&#60;y&#60;4.5. Theoretical predictions are compared to the measured differential cross-sections. The integrated cross-sections of the charm hadrons are computed in the above pT-y range, and their ratios are reported. A combination of the five integrated cross-section measurements gives σ(cc¯)pT&#60;8 GeV/c,2.0&#60;y&#60;4.5=1419±12(stat)±116(syst)±65(frag) μb, where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and due to the fragmentation functions

The Function of Saffron and its Constituent in Gastroenterological Tissues

Japan has been moving towards a super aging society, resulting in a rapidly increasing prevalence of lifestyle diseases, including colon cancer. Japanese patients survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported 235,000 colon cancer patients in 2015, and this number is quickly increasing due to the change of dietary life style from the typical Japanese food to the westernized style food. Although the cancer chemotherapy has been widely developing recently, some natural product support, having wide spectra of bioactivity, however mild, are required. Saffron finds use as folk medicines as well as a flavoring and a coloring agent. Saffron consists of three main chemical components; red color, crocetin glycosides; a bitter taste, picrocrocin; and spicy aroma, safranal. In this chapter, we evaluate the activities of saffron extracts and a major crocetin glycoside, crocin. against colorectal cancer in in vitro and in vivo trials. Saffron crude extracts, which contain approximately 40% of crocin, significantly inhibited the growth of colorectal cancer cell lines HCT-116, HT-29 and SW-480, although crocin did not affect for non-cancer cells. Crocin significantly inhibited the development of colonic adenocarcinomas induced by azoxymethane and dextran sodium sulfate in mice during 18 weeks feeding. The crocin feeding experiment for 4 weeks evidently inhibits the dextran sodium sulfate induced colitis and, then, the clear suppression for the mRNA expression of tumor necrosis factor α, interleukin- (IL-) 1β,IL-6, interferon γ, NF-κB, cyclooxygenase-2, and inducible nitric oxide synthase, and the increase of Nrf2 mRNA expression in the colorectal mucosa occurred. From these results we suggest that crocin can suppress chemically induced colitis and colitis-related colon carcinogenesis in mice mainly through the inhibition of inflammation related cytokines, indicating that saffron and crocin are suitable candidates for the prevention of colitis and inflammation-associated colon carcinogenesis. We further review the supporting phenomena like strong anti-oxidant and anti-inflammation activities of crocin using our previous publications

Identifying new resistance to Cassava Mosaic Disease and validating markers for the CMD2 locus

Open Access Journal; Published online: 30 Aug 2021Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a crucial staple crop, and provides carbohydrate energy to more than half a billion people in the tropics. Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) is the most important disease of cassava in Africa. Since Sri Lanka Cassava Mosaic Virus (SLCMV) was first reported in South East Asia in 2015, establishing sustainable solutions to CMD has become a top priority for the cassava program at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and its partners. In the present study, we screened two populations for CMD resistance: VNM142, 142 clones collected from farms throughout Vietnam, and CIAT102, 102 clones resistant to CMD or mites, which were introduced from CIAT. High broad-sense heritability was observed in all the trials (>0.80). From the population VNM142, eight clones showed high CMD resistance with CMD severity scores less than 2.0. Two resistant clones had the same DNA fingerprinting with the accessions CR63 (PER262 or TAI9) and KM57 (VNM8) in the genebank, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first report of CMD resistance in the genebank at CIAT. We also used the two populations to validate the CMD markers S12_7926132 and S14_4626854. Both markers explained 51% of the population variance in the segregating population CIAT102, but only 11% in the diverse population VNM142. Thus, we concluded that the two CMD markers could not be used to select for CMD resistance in diverse populations, but could predict the CMD resistance in segregating populations when the susceptible parents do not have resistant marker alleles and the resistance of the CMD2 donors is confirmed