The ER Stress/UPR axis in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

Cellular protein homeostasis in the lungs is constantly disrupted by recurrent exposure to various external and internal stressors, which may cause considerable protein secretion pressure on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), resulting in the survival and differentiation of these cell types to meet the increased functional demands. Cells are able to induce a highly conserved adaptive mechanism, known as the unfolded protein response (UPR), to manage such stresses. UPR dysregulation and ER stress are involved in numerous human illnesses, such as metabolic syndrome, fibrotic diseases, and neurodegeneration, and cancer. Therefore, effective and specific compounds targeting the UPR pathway are being considered as potential therapies. This review focuses on the impact of both external and internal stressors on the ER in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and discusses the role of the UPR signaling pathway activation in the control of cellular damage and specifically highlights the potential involvement of non-coding RNAs in COPD. Summaries of pathogenic mechanisms associated with the ER stress/UPR axis contributing to IPF and COPD, and promising pharmacological intervention strategies, are also presented

The effect of Al2O3 nanopowder addition on the phase formation and the superconducting properties of Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr1.9Ca2.1Cu3O10-y

  In this work Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr1.9Ca2.1Cu3O10-y superconducting system (Bi2223) has been prepared by solid state reaction and the effect of nanoalumina additive on the phase formation and supercoducting properties have been investigated. XRD investigations show that addition of 0.2 wt% of nanoalumina on the superconducting system improved Bi-2223 phase formation . The results show that Jc increases from 36 A/cm2 for the nanoalumina free sample to 107 A/cm2 for the sample with 0.5 wt% nanoalumina.On the other hand results show that the transition temperature (Tc) of all samples is around 108 K and addition of nanoalumina has not affected Tc significantly

Knowledge, attitude, and practice of Iranian health sciences students regarding hepatitis B and C virus infections: A national survey

Background: The World Health Organization seeks to achieve the goal of viral hepatitis elimination by 2030 and lack of general knowledge about viral hepatitis seems to be a barrier to reaching this goal. This study was designed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) regarding hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections among Iranian health sciences students in 12 Iranian medical sciences universities using a national survey. Methods: This survey was conducted during the second Hepatitis Awareness Campaign, which was held during the Iranian National Hepatitis Week (October 22-28, 2016). Students who visited our booths and were willing to participate in our survey were selected using convenience sampling and their HBV- and HCV-related KAP were evaluated. Results: Two thousand one hundred fifty-six health sciences students with mean age of 21.24 years participated in our survey. The mean KAP scores were 7.35 (out of 10), 4.88 (possible score, -20 to +20), and 5.67 (out of 9). Students with experience of accidental exposures to blood (21.6) had better KAP scores compared with the students without such experiences. The mean KAP scores were associated with subjects' year of education, field of study, university, and province (P < .05). Conclusions: Our study showed that HBV- and HCV-related KAP in a sample of Iranian health sciences students was not satisfying. The results also demonstrated priority of needing intervention regarding KAP in some subject areas, lower years of education, and some universities compared with others. © 2017 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc