Validation of Monitoring Septic Thymus Involution in Mice Using Ultrasound.

Sepsis is a dangerous condition commonly seen in the intensive care unit (ICU) of hospitals. It causes the thymus, a crucial immune organ, to shrink. This process is known as thymus involution. Although thymus involution is a natural process that occurs as we age, it is accelerated during sepsis. This process is associated with poor outcomes in septic patients, yet it had never been studied using ultrasonography in a septic mouse model. Researchers from the University of Kentucky have validated a non-invasive ultrasound imaging approach to monitor septic thymus involution in a cecum ligation and puncture (CLP) sepsis mouse model. In this study, scientists randomly divided 35 C57BL/6J mice into three groups: baseline, post-CLP at 3 days, and post-CLP at 10 days. In each group, they first obtained estimated thymus area and volumes using 2D and 3D ultrasound imaging. The mice were then euthanized to measure thymus weights ex-vivo. The ex-vivo weights were correlated with the in-vivo 2D and 3D estimated areas and volumes and proved the reliability of this approach for monitoring thymus changes during sepsis. The study, led by Dr. Xiang-An Li, a professor of physiology at the University of Kentucky, was published in Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. It has paved the way for further studies investigating the mechanism of thymus involution during sepsis, which is a crucial but poorly understood phenomenon that exacerbates immunosuppression in septic patients

Hyperglycemia: Cell death in a cave

AbstractMitochondria play a central role in mediating high glucose-induced apoptosis. A recent study has shown that increases in glucose levels induce significant alterations in caveolae components, suggesting that high glucose may affect apoptotic signaling initiated in caveolae

HDL in Endocrine Carcinomas: Biomarker, Drug Carrier, and Potential Therapeutic

High-density lipoprotein (HDL) have long been studied for their protective role against cardiovascular diseases, however recently relationship between HDL and cancer came into focus. Several epidemiological studies have shown an inverse correlation between HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) and cancer risk, and some have even implied that HDL-C can be used as a predictive measure for survival prognosis in for specific sub-population of certain types of cancer. HDL itself is an endogenous nanoparticle capable of removing excess cholesterol from the periphery and returning it to the liver for excretion. One of the main receptors for HDL, scavenger receptor type B-I (SR-BI), is highly upregulated in endocrine cancers, notably due to the high demand for cholesterol by cancer cells. Thus, the potential to exploit administration of cholesterol-free reconstituted or synthetic HDL (sHDL) to deplete cholesterol in endocrine cancer cell and stunt their growth of use chemotherapeutic drug loaded sHDL to target payload delivery to cancer cell has become increasingly attractive. This review focuses on the role of HDL and HDL-C in cancer and application of sHDLs as endocrine cancer therapeutics

5,5′-(p-Phenyl­ene)di-1H-tetra­zole

Crystals of the title organic compound, C8H6N8, were generated in situ through the [2 + 3]-cyclo­addition reaction involving the precursor 1,4-dicyano­benzene and azide in water with Zn2+ as Lewis acid. The asymmetric unit consists of one half-mol­ecule, and a twofold axis of symmetry passes through the centre of the benzene ring. There is an inter­molecular N—H⋯N hydrogen bond. The mol­ecules are assembled into a three-dimensional supra­molecular framework by π–π stacking inter­actions, with a perpendicular distance of 3.256 Å [centroid–centroid = 3.9731 (8) Å] between two tetra­zole ring planes, and 3.382 Å between the benz­ene ring and tetra­zole ring planes [centroid–centroid = 3.5010 (9) Å]

Entangling two distant nanocavities via a waveguide

In this paper, we investigate the generation of continuous variable entanglement between two spatially-separate nanocavities mediated by a coupled resonator optical waveguide in photonic crystals. By solving the exact dynamics of the cavity system coupled to the waveguide, the entanglement and purity of the two-mode cavity state are discussed in detail for the initially separated squeezing inputs. It is found that the stable and pure entangled state of the two distant nanocavities can be achieved with the requirement of only a weak cavity-waveguide coupling when the cavities are resonant with the band center of the waveguide. The strong couplings between the cavities and the waveguide lead to the entanglement sudden death and sudden birth. When the frequencies of the cavities lie outside the band of the waveguide, the waveguide-induced cross frequency shift between the cavities can optimize the achievable entanglement. It is also shown that the entanglement can be easily manipulated through the changes of the cavity frequencies within the waveguide band.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure