13 research outputs found
A novel technique for selective NF-kappa B inhibition in Kupffer cells: contrary effects in fulminant hepatitis and ischaemia-reperfusion.
Background and aims: The transcription factor nuclear
factor kappa B (NF-kB) has risen as a promising target for
anti-inflammatory therapeutics. In the liver, however, NFkB
inhibition mediates both damaging and protective
effects. The outcome is deemed to depend on the liver
cell type addressed. Recent gene knock-out studies
focused on the role of NF-kB in hepatocytes, whereas the
role of NF-kB in Kupffer cells has not yet been
investigated in vivo. Here we present a novel approach,
which may be suitable for clinical application, to
selectively target NF-kB in Kupffer cells and analyse the
effects in experimental models of liver injury.
Methods: NF-kB inhibiting decoy oligodeoxynucleotides
were loaded upon gelatin nanoparticles (D-NPs) and their
in vivo distribution was determined by confocal microscopy.
Liver damage, NF-kB activity, cytokine levels and
apoptotic protein expression were evaluated after
lipopolysaccharide (LPS), D-galactosamine (GalN)/LPS, or
concanavalin A (ConA) challenge and partial warm
ischaemia and subsequent reperfusion, respectively.
Results: D-NPs were selectively taken up by Kupffer cells
and inhibited NF-kB activation. Inhibition of NF-kB in
Kupffer cells improved survival and reduced liver injury
after GalN/LPS as well as after ConA challenge. While
anti-apoptotic protein expression in liver tissue was not
reduced, pro-apoptotic players such as cJun N-terminal
kinase (JNK) were inhibited. In contrast, selective
inhibition of NF-kB augmented reperfusion injury.
Conclusions: NF-kB inhibiting decoy oligodeoxynucleotide-
loaded gelatin nanoparticles is a novel tool to
selectively inhibit NF-kB activation in Kupffer cells in vivo.
Thus, liver injury can be reduced in experimental fulminant
hepatitis, but increased at ischaemia–reperfusion
A Column Generation Approach for Optimized Routing and Coordination of a UAV Fleet
Unmanned Aerial Vecicles (UAVs) in
civil and military applications are becoming increasingly
popular. Various platform types have already
shown their great potential in missions that require
rapid surveillance capabilities or logistic support.
Large scale incidents require the deployment of several
platforms with various capabilities. In this case,
coordinated use will lead to more efficient use of the
given resources. Problems to resolve resemble known
optimization problems from the field of vehicle routing
or scheduling. The problem considered in this work
includes a given team of homogenous UAVs and a set
of target locations with certain requests that need to
be served. It is modeled as a variant of the Vehicle
Routing Problem (VRP) that is known to be NP
hard, i.e. until now no algorithm is known that can
solve the problem in polynomial run-time. In this
paper, the problem is formulated using a path flow
formulation and a column generation algorithm has
been implemented and tested to solve simulated realtime
instances of the problem in suitable time