The Role of Matrine and Mitogen-Ativated Protein Kinase/Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Signal Transduction in the Inhibition of the Proliferation and Migration of Human Umbilical Veins Endothelial Cells Induced by Lung Cancer cells

Background and objective Matrine, one of the major alkaloid components of the traditional Chinese medicine Sophora roots, has a wide range of pharmacological effects including anti-inflammatory activities, growth inhibition and induction of cell differentiation and apoptosis. Motigen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) has found to be a crucial signaling pathway in endothelial cells. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of Matrine and MAPK/ERK signal transduction in the inhibition of the proliferation and migration of human umbilical veins endothelial cells (HUVECs) induced by lung cancer cells. Methods HUVECs were cultured with A549CM. Mat or PD98059 (i.e PD), specific inhibitor of MAPK/ERK, was added into the A549CM. The proliferation of the HUVECs was measured by cell counting. The migration of the HUVECs was observed by wound healing assay. The expression levels of ERK and p-ERK protein were detected by Western Blot analysis. Results On 24 hours after intervention, the A549CM significantly stimulated the proliferation, migration and expression of p-ERK of HUVECs. Compared with the A549CM group, Mat significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration and p-ERK expression of HUVECs induced by A549CM. While PD only decreased the proliferation and p-ERK expression of HUVECs induced by A549CM. PD had no effect in the migration of HUVECs. Conclusion The results demonstrated that Mat and PD98059 can effectively decrease proliferation and expression of p-ERK of HUVECs induced by A549CM. Furthermore Mat can also inhibit migration of HUVECs induced by A549CM that did not changed by PD98059. These data implied that suppressing MAPK/ERK signal transduction may play the crucial role in resisting lung cacinoma angiogenesis with Mat

Insights into the Role of Nanorod-Shaped MnO2 and CeO2 in a Plasma Catalysis System for Methanol Oxidation

Published papers highlight the roles of the catalysts in plasma catalysis systems, and it is essential to provide deep insight into the mechanism of the reaction. In this work, a coaxial dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor packed with γ-MnO2 and CeO2 with similar nanorod morphologies and particle sizes was used for methanol oxidation at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. The experimental results showed that both γ-MnO2 and CeO2 exhibited good performance in methanol conversion (up to 100%), but the CO2 selectivity of CeO2 (up to 59.3%) was much higher than that of γ-MnO2 (up to 28.6%). Catalyst characterization results indicated that CeO2 contained more surface-active oxygen species, adsorbed more methanol and utilized more plasma-induced active species than γ-MnO2. In addition, in situ Raman spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) were applied with a novel in situ cell to reveal the major factors affecting the catalytic performance in methanol oxidation. More reactive oxygen species (O22−, O2−) from ozone decomposition were produced on CeO2 compared with γ-MnO2, and less of the intermediate product formate accumulated on the CeO2. The combined results showed that CeO2 was a more effective catalyst than γ-MnO2 for methanol oxidation in the plasma catalysis system.</jats:p

Plasma-Catalytic CO₂ Hydrogenation over a Pd/ZnO Catalyst: <i>In Situ</i> Probing of Gas-Phase and Surface Reactions

Plasma-catalytic CO2 hydrogenation is a complex chemical process combining plasma-assisted gas-phase and surface reactions. Herein, we investigated CO2 hydrogenation over Pd/ZnO and ZnO in a tubular dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor at ambient pressure. Compared to the CO2 hydrogenation using Plasma Only or Plasma + ZnO, placing Pd/ZnO in the DBD almost doubled the conversion of CO2 (36.7%) and CO yield (35.5%). The reaction pathways in the plasma-enhanced catalytic hydrogenation of CO2 were investigated by in situ Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy using a novel integrated in situ DBD/FTIR gas cell reactor, combined with online mass spectrometry (MS) analysis, kinetic analysis, and emission spectroscopic measurements. In plasma CO2 hydrogenation over Pd/ZnO, the hydrogenation of adsorbed surface CO2 on Pd/ZnO is the dominant reaction route for the enhanced CO2 conversion, which can be ascribed to the generation of a ZnO x overlay as a result of the strong metal-support interactions (SMSI) at the Pd-ZnO interface and the presence of abundant H species at the surface of Pd/ZnO; however, this important surface reaction can be limited in the Plasma + ZnO system due to a lack of active H species present on the ZnO surface and the absence of the SMSI. Instead, CO2 splitting to CO, both in the plasma gas phase and on the surface of ZnO, is believed to make an important contribution to the conversion of CO2 in the Plasma + ZnO system

Data from: Nitrogen and chlorine co-doped carbon dots as probe for sensing and imaging in biological samples

A facile one step hydrothermal synthesis approach was proposed to prepare nitrogen and chlorine co-doped carbon dots using l-ornithine hydrochloride as the sole precursor. The configuration and component of carbon dots were characterized by TEM, XPS, and FTIR. The obtained CDs (Orn-CDs) with a mean diameter of 2.1 nm were well monodispersed in aqueous solutions. The as-prepared CDs exhibited a bright blue fluorescence with a high yield of 60%, good photostability and low cytotoxicity. The emission of Orn-CDs could be selectively and effectively suppressed by Fe3+. Thus, a quantitative assay of Fe3+ was realized by this nanoprobe with a detection limit of 95.6 nmol L-1 in the range of 0.3-50 µmol L-1. Furthermore, ascorbic acid could recover the fluorescence of Orn-CDs suppressed by Fe3+, owing to the transformation of Fe3+ to Fe2+ by ascorbic acid. The limit of detection for ascorbic acid was 137 nmol L-1 in the range of 0.5-10 µmol L-1. In addition, the established method was successfully applied for Fe3+ and ascorbic acid sensing in human serum and urine specimans and for imaging of Fe3+ in living cells. With merits of low economic cost, easy to scale up, without additional functionalized and sample pretreatment, Orn-CDs based sensing platform showed its potential to be used for biomedical related study

Effects of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine for the Treatment of Lupus Nephritis: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials

After a thorough search through the database as CNKI database, VIP database, Wanfang database, PubMed, and Cochrane Library, the clinical experimental articles have been selected out on the effects of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine on the treatment of lupus nephritis. A meta-analysis was carried out in terms of clinical efficacy criteria and safety criteria by RevMan 5.3 software. Based on the results, we cautiously conclude that Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine used for lupus nephritis could improve the clinical efficacy while at same time lower the 24-hour urine protein, serum creatinine, and adverse drug reactions

Investigation of the Impacts of Thermal Shock on Carbon Composite Materials

Carbon composite is widely used in various fields, including the aerospace industry, electrical engineering, transportation engineering, etc. For electrified railways, the pantograph strip utilizes carbon composite as the current collector, which might bear multiple impacts from electrical, mechanical, or thermal aspects, from unwanted arcing, rain, and other diverse operation conditions. In this paper, a thermal shock damage experiment on the carbon composite of a pantograph strip was carried out. The thermal shock processes were realized by the adoption of muffle furnace heating and water cooling. The effect of thermal shock processes on carbon strip porosity, compressive strength, electrical resistivity, and surface topography were studied. In order to verify the mechanism of thermal shock damage to the pantograph strip, the porosity of the pantograph strip is discussed in detail. The results showed that the thermal shock process increased the porosity of the carbon strip and caused reductions in compressive strength and electrical resistivity. The multiple thermal shock processes caused irreversible damage to the pantograph strip, which was attributed to the spillover and scouring of large quantities of water vapor in the pores

Novel anion exchange membrane based on copolymer of methyl methacrylate, vinylbenzyl chloride and ethyl acrylate for alkaline fuel cells

A series of novel anion exchange membranes based on the copolymer of methyl methacrylate, vinylbenzyl chloride and ethyl acrylate has been prepared for the potential applications for direct methanol alkaline fuel cell. The structure and thermal stability of the copolymer membranes have been characterized by FT-IR and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA). The ion exchange capacity (IEC), water uptake, chemical stability, methanol permeability and conductivity of these membranes have been investigated. It is found that the ionic conductivity of the membrane is as high as 1.479 x 10(-2) S cm(-1) in deionizer water at 30 degrees C and the ionic conductivity increases with the increase of temperature from 30 to 90 degrees C. The methanol permeability coefficient of the membrane is less than 10(-9) mol cm(-2) min(-1) at 1 mol L-1 in methanol solution within temperature between 30 and 60 degrees C. The membrane is stable in 1.0 M KOH solution at the temperature as high as 60 degrees C. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.High-Tech Research and Development Program of China [2008AA05Z107]; National Nature Science Foundation of China [20876129