Intestinal fungi contribute to development of alcoholic liver disease

This study was supported in part by NIH grants R01 AA020703, U01 AA021856 and by Award Number I01BX002213 from the Biomedical Laboratory Research & Development Service of the VA Office of Research and Development (to B.S.). K.H. was supported by a DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) fellowship (HO/ 5690/1-1). S.B. was supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (P2SKP3_158649). G.G. received funding from the Yale Liver Center NIH P30 DK34989 and R.B. from NIAAA grant U01 AA021908. A.K. received support from NIH grants RC2 AA019405, R01 AA020216 and R01 AA023417. G.D.B. is supported by funds from the Wellcome Trust. We acknowledge the Human Tissue and Cell Research (HTCR) Foundation for making human tissue available for research and Hepacult GmbH (Munich, Germany) for providing primary human hepatocytes for in vitro analyses. We thank Dr. Chien-Yu Lin Department of Medicine, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taiwan for statistical analysis.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Green Nanocomposites from Renewable Plant Oils and Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes

Green nanocomposites based on renewable plant oils and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) have been developed. An acid-catalyzed curing of epoxidized plant oils with oxirane-containing POSS derivatives produced transparent nanocomposite coatings with high gloss surface, in which the organic and inorganic components were linked via covalent bonds. The hardness and mechanical strength were improved by the incorporation of the POSS unit into the organic polymer matrix. Nanostructural analyses of the nanocomposites showed the formation of homogeneous structures at the micrometer scale. On the other hand, such improvements of the coating and mechanical properties were not observed in the composite without covalent bonds between the plant oil-based polymer and POSS unit. The study demonstrates the correlation between the nanostructure of composites and macroscopic properties