Isolation of Porphyrins from Heavy Oil Objects

The chapter describes the opportunities of extracting porphyrins by polar solvents (acetone, N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), isopropanol, and acetonitrile) and sulfuric acid from various highly molecular petroleum fractions and residues. It has been found that the predissolution of petroleum objects such as asphaltenes and resins in aromatic solvents allows improving the extraction of porphyrins by means of reducing their association with polycondensed heteroatomic structures. Based on the absorption spectra and mass spectra, primary types of porphyrins in obtained extracts were revealed. The distinctions between porphyrin extractions in resins and asphaltenes were revealed. Sulfuric acid extraction allows producing highly concentrated primary extracts of demetallated porphyrins. The share of porphyrin fractions in obtained extractions was 13.0–24.2 wt%, which depends on the concentration of metal porphyrins in initial asphaltenes and resins

Genome-Wide Association Study Reveals a Novel Association Between MYBPC3 Gene Polymorphism, Endurance Athlete Status, Aerobic Capacity and Steroid Metabolism.

The genetic predisposition to elite athletic performance has been a controversial subject due to the underpowered studies and the small effect size of identified genetic variants. The aims of this study were to investigate the association of common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with endurance athlete status in a large cohort of elite European athletes using GWAS approach, followed by replication studies in Russian and Japanese elite athletes and functional validation using metabolomics analysis. The association of 476,728 SNPs of Illumina DrugCore Gene chip and endurance athlete status was investigated in 796 European international-level athletes (645 males, 151 females) by comparing allelic frequencies between athletes specialized in sports with high ( = 662) and low/moderate ( = 134) aerobic component. Replication of results was performed by comparing the frequencies of the most significant SNPs between 242 and 168 elite Russian high and low/moderate aerobic athletes, respectively, and between 60 elite Japanese endurance athletes and 406 controls. A meta-analysis has identified rs1052373 (GG homozygotes) in Myosin Binding Protein (; implicated in cardiac hypertrophic myopathy) gene to be associated with endurance athlete status ( = 1.43 × 10, odd ratio 2.2). Homozygotes carriers of rs1052373 G allele in Russian athletes had significantly greater VO than carriers of the AA + AG ( = 0.005). Subsequent metabolomics analysis revealed several amino acids and lipids associated with rs1052373 G allele (1.82 × 10) including the testosterone precursor androstenediol (3beta,17beta) disulfate. This is the first report of genome-wide significant SNP and related metabolites associated with elite athlete status. Further investigations of the functional relevance of the identified SNPs and metabolites in relation to enhanced athletic performance are warranted

Novel robust biomarkers for human bladder cancer based on activation of intracellular signaling pathways

Sherpa Romeo blue journal. Open access article. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC BY 3.0) applies.We recently proposed a new bioinformatic algorithm called OncoFinder for quantifying the activation of intracellular signaling pathways. It was proved advantageous for minimizing errors of high-throughput gene expression analyses and showed strong potential for identifying new biomarkers. Here, for the first time, we applied OncoFinder for normal and cancerous tissues of the human bladder to identify biomarkers of bladder cancer. Using Illumina HT12v4 microarrays, we profiled gene expression in 17 cancer and seven non-cancerous bladder tissue samples. These experiments were done in two independent laboratories located in Russia and Canada. We calculated pathway activation strength values for the investigated transcriptomes and identified signaling pathways that were regulated differently in bladder cancer (BC) tissues compared with normal controls. We found, for both experimental datasets, 44 signaling pathways that serve as excellent new biomarkers of BC, supported by high area under the curve (AUC) values. We conclude that the OncoFinder approach is highly efficient in finding new biomarkers for cancer. These markers are mathematical functions involving multiple gene products, which distinguishes them from “traditional” expression biomarkers that only assess concentrations of single genes.Ye

An experimental and theoretical study of the evaporation of non-ideal solutions droplets

This work presents the results of an experimental study of the dynamics of evaporation of suspended droplets in the air stream. Droplets of pure liquids (water, ethanol) and their mixtures of various compositions are considered. Dependences of the size of droplets and their surface temperature on time in a wide range of velocities of the flowing stream and its temperature, as well as the variation of the composition of the droplets, are obtained. The paper presents a mathematical model used to compare the experimental data

An experimental and theoretical study of the evaporation of non-ideal solutions droplets

This work presents the results of an experimental study of the dynamics of evaporation of suspended droplets in the air stream. Droplets of pure liquids (water, ethanol) and their mixtures of various compositions are considered. Dependences of the size of droplets and their surface temperature on time in a wide range of velocities of the flowing stream and its temperature, as well as the variation of the composition of the droplets, are obtained. The paper presents a mathematical model used to compare the experimental data