The Impact of Korean Medicine Treatment on the Incidence of Parkinson's Disease in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study in South Korea

We aimed to investigate the association between Korean medicine (KM) treatment and the risk of Parkinson's Disease (PD) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in South Korea. This study analyzed data from the National Health Insurance Service-Senior cohort in South Korea. The 1816 IBD patients enrolled in the analysis comprised 411 who received only conventional treatment (monotherapy group) and 1405 who received both conventional and KM treatments (integrative therapy group). The risk of PD in patients with IBD was significantly lower in the integrative therapy group than in the monotherapy group after adjusting for confounding variables (adjusted hazard ratio (HR), 0.56; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.34-0.92). In the mild Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) group, the risk of PD in patients with IBD in the integrative therapy group was 0.39 times lower (adjusted HR, 95% CI = 0.20-0.77) than that in the monotherapy group. However, there was no significant difference in the risk of PD in patients with IBD between the integrative therapy and monotherapy groups among individuals with severe CCI (adjusted HR, 0.90; 95% CI = 0.41-1.96). IBD patients are at a decreased risk of PD when they receive integrative therapy. KM treatment may prevent PD in IBD patients.Y

Dataset on electro-optically tunable smart-supercapacitors based on oxygen-excess nanograin tungsten oxide thin film

The dataset presented here is related to the research article entitled ???Highly Efficient Electro-optically Tunable Smart-supercapacitors Using an Oxygen-excess Nanograin Tungsten Oxide Thin Film??? (Akbar et al., 2017) [9] where we have presented a nanograin WO3 film as a bifunctional electrode for smart supercapacitor devices. In this article we provide additional information concerning nanograin tungsten oxide thin films such as atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction spectroscopy. Moreover, their electrochemical properties such as cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical supercapacitor properties, and electrochromic properties including coloration efficiency, optical modulation and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy are presented

A Systematic Review of Herbal Medicine for Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy

Background. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a common adverse effect in cancer patients. The aim of this review was to assess the effectiveness of herbal medicine in preventing and treating CIPN. Methods. Randomised controlled trials were included in this review. Extracting and assessing the data independently, two authors searched 13 databases. Results. Twenty-eight trials involving 2174 patients met the inclusion criteria. Although there were some exceptions, the methodological quality was typically low. Seventeen trials reported the incidence rate of CIPN assessed by various tools and 14 showed a significant difference regarding the decrease of the incidence rate between the two groups. For clinical improvement, 12 trials reported it using various tools and 10 showed a significant difference between two groups. Two cases of adverse events occurred in one trial; the other nine trials reported no adverse events. Conclusions. We found that herbal medicines in combination with and/or without other therapies potentially have preventive or therapeutic effects on CIPN. However, conclusions cannot be drawn because of the generally low quality of the methodology, the clinical heterogeneity, and the small sample size for each single herbal medicine. Trials that are more rigorous and report sufficient methodological data are needed

Pattern transfer printing of multiwalled carbon nanotube multilayers and application in biosensors

We developed a simple, versatile technique to pattern multiwalled carbon nanotubes on any substrate. This approach involves the multilayer assembly of multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT) suspensions with opposite charges onto the patterned poly(dimethylsiloxane) via layer-by-layer assembly, followed by the pattern transfer onto various substrates, including silicon wafer, transparent glass slide, flexible and conducting polymeric substrate. The transferred MWNT pattern was precisely tunable with the thickness and exhibits a capacitor behavior that increases with growing film thickness. By taking advantage of patterned electrodes with high surface functionality within a MWNT network, we demonstrate the potential application of patterned MWNT electrodes as sensitive biosensor for glucose. Because of the characteristic electronic properties of carbon nanotubes, we anticipate this approach would provide a new route to integrating an active MWNT matrix for advanced electronic, energy, and sensor applications.close191

Crystal Structure of NADPH-Dependent Methylglyoxal Reductase Gre2 from Candida Albicans

Gre2 is a key enzyme in the methylglyoxal detoxification pathway; it uses NADPH or NADH as an electron donor to reduce the cytotoxic methylglyoxal to lactaldehyde. This enzyme is a member of the short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase (SDR) superfamily whose members catalyze this type of reaction with a broad range of substrates. To elucidate the structural features, we determined the crystal structures of the NADPH-dependent methylglyoxal reductase Gre2 from Candida albicans (CaGre2) for both the apo-form and NADPH-complexed form at resolutions of 2.8 and 3.02 Å, respectively. The CaGre2 structure is composed of two distinct domains: the N-terminal cofactor-binding domain and the C-terminal substrate-binding domain. Extensive comparison of CaGre2 with its homologous structures reveals conformational changes in α12 and β3′ of the NADPH-complex forms. This study may provide insights into the structural and functional variation of SDR family proteins

Crystal Structure of Nitrilase-Like Protein Nit2 from Kluyveromyces lactis

The nitrilase superfamily, including 13 branches, plays various biological functions in signaling molecule synthesis, vitamin metabolism, small-molecule detoxification, and posttranslational modifications. Most of the mammals and yeasts have Nit1 and Nit2 proteins, which belong to the nitrilase-like (Nit) branch of the nitrilase superfamily. Recent studies have suggested that Nit1 is a metabolite repair enzyme, whereas Nit2 shows ω-amidase activity. In addition, Nit1 and Nit2 are suggested as putative tumor suppressors through different ways in mammals. Yeast Nit2 (yNit2) is a homolog of mouse Nit1 based on similarity in sequence. To understand its specific structural features, we determined the crystal structure of Nit2 from Kluyveromyces lactis (KlNit2) at 2.2 Å resolution and compared it with the structure of yeast-, worm-, and mouse-derived Nit2 proteins. Based on our structural analysis, we identified five distinguishable structural features from 28 structural homologs. This study might potentially provide insights into the structural relationships of a broad spectrum of nitrilases

Anisotropic Growth Control of Polyaniline Nanostructures and Their Morphology-Dependent Electrochemical Characteristics

Polyaniline (PANI) is one of the most widely investigated conducting polymers and is considered to be of practical use for many future applications. Here, we first demonstrate that the anisotropic growth of PANI at the nanometer scale can be kinetically controlled by employing a polymeric stabilizer, poly(<i>N</i>-vinylpyrrolidone). The polymerization rate became slower in the presence of the stabilizer (the rate constants calculated at the initial stage decreased with increasing concentration of the stabilizer), yielding PANI nanostructures with lower aspect ratios. Therefore, it is believed that the stabilizer sterically restricts the directional fiber growth mechanism governing PANI chain growth in aqueous solution. Three PANI nanostructures, specifically nanospheres, nanorods, and nanofibers, were fabricated and their oxidation/protonation levels were investigated systematically. It was found that the nanofibers had the most outstanding oxidation/protonation level accompanied by structural ordering (note that the only difference between the polymerization conditions in each case was the concentration of the stabilizer). We also examine the electrochemical properties of PANI nanostructure electrodes in three-electrode and two-electrode (actual capacitor cell) configurations. The intrinsic charge-transport ability of individual nanostructures strongly affected the electrochemical properties of the electrodes. Briefly, the nanofiber electrode had faster electrode kinetics and better capacitance than the nanorods and nanospheres. Lastly, an extrinsic factor, the interparticle contact resistance, also turned out to noticeably influence the capacitances of the electrodes

Imparting Chemical Stability in Nanoparticulate Silver via a Conjugated Polymer Casing Approach

Only limited information is available on the design and synthesis of functional materials for preventing corrosion of metal nanostructures. In the nanometer regime, even noble metals are subject to chemical attack. Here, the corrosion behavior of noble metal nanoparticles coated with a conjugated polymer nanolayer was explored for the first time. Specifically, electrochemical corrosion and sulfur tarnishing behaviors were examined for Ag-polypyrrole (PPy) core–shell nanoparticles using potentiodynamic polarization and spectrophotometric analysis, respectively. First, the Ag-PPy nanoparticles exhibited enhanced resistance to electrochemically induced corrosion compared to their exposed silver counterparts. Briefly, a neutral PPy shell provided the highest protection efficiency (75.5%), followed by sulfate ion- (61.3%) and dodecylbenzenesulfonate ion- (53.6%) doped PPy shells. However, the doping of the PPy shell with chloride ion induced an adverse effect (protection efficiency, −120%). Second, upon exposure to sulfide ions, the Ag-PPy nanoparticles preserved their morphology and colloidal stability while the bare silver analog underwent significant structural deformation. To further understand the function of the PPy shell as a protection layer for the silver core, the catalytic activity of the nanostructures was also evaluated. Using the reduction of 4-nitrophenol as a representative example of a catalytic reaction, the rate constant for that reduction using the PPy encased Ag nanoparticles was found to be 1.1 × 10^–3 s^–1, which is approximately 33% less than that determined for the parent silver. These results demonstrate that PPy can serve as both an electrical and chemical barrier for mitigating undesirable chemical degradation in corrosive environments, as well as provide a simple physical barrier to corrosive substances under appropriate conditions