1,786 research outputs found
Effects of behavioral response and vaccination policy on epidemic spreading - an approach based on evolutionary-game dynamics
date of Acceptance: 23/06/2014 This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11331009, 11135001, 11105025). Y.-C.L. was supported by AFOSR under Grant No. FA9550-10-1-0083.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
The rare semi-leptonic decays involving orbitally excited final mesons
The rare processes , where
stands for the final meson ,
,~, ,
or~, are studied within the Standard Model. The hadronic matrix
elements are evaluated in the Bethe-Salpeter approach and furthermore a
discussion on the gauge-invariant condition of the annihilation hadronic
currents is presented. Considering the penguin, box, annihilation,
color-favored cascade and color-suppressed cascade contributions, the
observables , , and are
calculated
TGF-β1 and IL-10 expression in epithelial ovarian cancer cell line A2780
Purpose: Ovarian cancer is a leading cause of death among gynaecological malignancies. Transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF β1) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) are cytokines in the tumour microenvironment and may play critical roles in immune suppression. This study highlights these roles and immunosuppressive functions in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).Methods: TGF-β1 and IL-10 expression was compared in malignant, benign, and borderline cancerous tissues and tumour-free tissue by immunohistochemistry. Relationships among the levels of these cytokines, correlation of expression level with EOC prognosis, and cytokine involvement in immunosuppression were investigated.Results: Immunohistochemical analysis of TGF-β1 and IL-10 in epithelial cells showed the presence of epithelial, borderline, and benign ovarian tumour growth, and normal ovarian growth. TGF-β1 (P = 0.121), residual tumour after surgery (P = 0.231) and standard chemotherapy (P = 0.121) were prognostic factors for EOC. There were no significant differences in clinicopathologic factors between specimens expressing TGF-β1 at low and high levels, indicating that TGF-β1 is an independent factor in EOC diagnosis. Higher concentrations of TGF-β1 (1754.690 ¹ 3416.487 pg/ml) and IL 10 (2731.7101 ¹ 6.1613 pg/ml) were observed in A2780-conditioned than in control medium.Conclusion: TGF-β1 and IL-10 play pivotal roles in EOC and can lead to immune evasion. Targeting these cytokines for tumour treatment, specifically at early stages, may prevent tumour progression.Keywords: Epithelial ovarian cancer, TGF-β1, IL-10, histopatholog
Silencing of two insulin receptor genes disrupts nymph-adult transition of alate brown citrus aphid
Insulin receptors play key roles in growth, development, and polymorphism in insects. Here, we report two insulin receptor genes (AcInR1 and AcInR2) from the brown citrus aphid, Aphis (Toxoptera) citricidus. Transcriptional analyses showed that AcInR1 increased during the nymph-adult transition in alate aphids, while AcInR2 had the highest expression level in second instar nymphs. AcInR1 is important in aphid development from fourth instar nymphs to adults as verified by dsRNA feeding mediated RNAi. The silencing of AcInR1 or/and AcInR2 produced a variety of phenotypes including adults with normal wings, malformed wings, under-developed wings, and aphids failing to develop beyond the nymphal stages. Silencing of AcInR1 or AcInR2 alone, and co-silencing of both genes, resulted in 73% or 60%, and 87% of aphids with problems in the transition from nymph to normal adult. The co-silencing of AcInR1 and AcInR2 resulted in 62% dead nymphs, but no mortality occurred by silencing of AcInR1 or AcInR2 alone. Phenotypes of adults in the dsInR1 and dsInR2 were similar. The results demonstrate that AcInR1 and AcInR2 are essential for successful nymph-adult transition in alate aphids and show that RNAi methods may be useful for the management of this pest
Preparation and characterization of solid lipid nanoparticles loaded with frankincense and myrrh oil
The aim of the present study was to prepare solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) for the oral delivery of frankincense and myrrh essential oils (FMO). Aqueous dispersions of SLNs were successfully prepared by a high-pressure homogenization method using Compritol 888 ATO as the solid lipid and soybean lecithin and Tween 80 as the surfactants. The properties of the SLNs such as particle size, zeta potential (ZP), and drug encapsulation efficiency (EE) were investigated. The morphology of SLNs was observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The crystallinity of the formulation was analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). In addition, drug evaporation release and antitumor activity were also studied. Round SLNs with a mean size of 113.3 Âą 3.6 nm, a ZP of â16.8 Âą 0.4 mV, and an EE of 80.60% Âą 1.11% were obtained. DSC and XRD measurements revealed that less ordered structures were formed in the inner cores of the SLN particles. Evaporation loss of the active components in FMO could be reduced in the SLNs. Furthermore, the SLN formulation increased the antitumor efficacy of FMO in H22-bearing Kunming mice. Hence, the presented SLNs can be used as drug carriers for hydrophobic oil drugs extracted from traditional Chinese medicines
Fractional Denoising for 3D Molecular Pre-training
Coordinate denoising is a promising 3D molecular pre-training method, which
has achieved remarkable performance in various downstream drug discovery tasks.
Theoretically, the objective is equivalent to learning the force field, which
is revealed helpful for downstream tasks. Nevertheless, there are two
challenges for coordinate denoising to learn an effective force field, i.e. low
coverage samples and isotropic force field. The underlying reason is that
molecular distributions assumed by existing denoising methods fail to capture
the anisotropic characteristic of molecules. To tackle these challenges, we
propose a novel hybrid noise strategy, including noises on both dihedral angel
and coordinate. However, denoising such hybrid noise in a traditional way is no
more equivalent to learning the force field. Through theoretical deductions, we
find that the problem is caused by the dependency of the input conformation for
covariance. To this end, we propose to decouple the two types of noise and
design a novel fractional denoising method (Frad), which only denoises the
latter coordinate part. In this way, Frad enjoys both the merits of sampling
more low-energy structures and the force field equivalence. Extensive
experiments show the effectiveness of Frad in molecular representation, with a
new state-of-the-art on 9 out of 12 tasks of QM9 and on 7 out of 8 targets of
MD17
Role of adiponectin/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B signaling pathway on limb ischemic preconditioning on myocardial protection
The adiponectin/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B (ADP/PI3k/Akt) signal transduction pathway has an important role in promoting cell survival. This study was designed to determine if the ADP/PI3K/Akt signaling pathway has a role in the mechanism of ischemiaâreperfusion injury in vivo. SpragueâDawley rats were divided into five groups of six: Group A was the sham group, group B was the myocardial ischemiaâreperfusion injury (MIRI) group; the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) was ligated and, after 30 min of ischemia, reperfusion was conducted for 120 min, group C was the limb ischemia preconditioning (LIPC) group; the femoral artery was blocked continuously for 5 min, and sustainable reperfusion was carried out for 5 min, and this procedure was repeated thrice. The MIRI experiment was carried out on the fourth day after consecutive preconditioning for 3 days. The surgical procedure was the same as with the MIRI model. Group D was the LY294002 pretreatment group: 15 min before reperfusion, ischemic rats underwent pretreatment with LY294002. The final group was the LIPC+LY294002 group; after limb ischemia preconditioning, rats underwent LY294002 pretreatment 15 min before reperfusion. Expression of ADP and adiponectin receptor 1 (ADPR1) messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), PI3k and p-Akt protein increased significantly in the myocardial tissue of the LIPC group in comparison with that in the sham group. This finding suggests that limb ischemic preconditioning increased the expression of ADP in the myocardial tissue of rats with myocardial ischemiaâreperfusion injury. It also demonstrated that ADP activated PI3k by the ADP/PI3k/Akt signaling pathway to increase the phosphorylation of the effector protein Akt.Key words: Limb ischemic preconditioning, ischemiaâreperfusion injury, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3k), protein kinase (p-Akt), signal transduction
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