Endothelin receptor B antagonists decrease glioma cell viability independently of their cognate receptor

Background: Endothelin receptor antagonists inhibit the progression of many cancers, but research into their influence on glioma has been limited. Methods: We treated glioma cell lines, LN-229 and SW1088, and melanoma cell lines, A375 and WM35, with two endothelin receptor type B (ETRB)-specific antagonists, A-192621 and BQ788, and quantified viable cells by the capacity of their intracellular esterases to convert non-fluorescent calcein AM into green-fluorescent calcein. We assessed cell proliferation by labeling cells with carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester and quantifying the fluorescence by FACS analysis. We also examined the cell cycle status using BrdU/propidium iodide double staining and FACS analysis. We evaluated changes in gene expression by microarray analysis following treatment with A-192621 in glioma cells. We examined the role of ETRB by reducing its expression level using small interfering RNA (siRNA). Results: We report that two ETRB-specific antagonists, A-192621 and BQ788, reduce the number of viable cells in two glioma cell lines in a dose- and time-dependent manner. We describe similar results for two melanoma cell lines. The more potent of the two antagonists, A-192621, decreases the mean number of cell divisions at least in part by inducing a G2/M arrest and apoptosis. Microarray analysis of the effects of A-192621 treatment reveals up-regulation of several DNA damage-inducible genes. These results were confirmed by real-time RT-PCR. Importantly, reducing expression of ETRB with siRNAs does not abrogate the effects of either A-192621 or BQ788 in glioma or melanoma cells. Furthermore, BQ123, an endothelin receptor type A (ETRA)-specific antagonist, has no effect on cell viability in any of these cell lines, indicating that the ETRB-independent effects on cell viability exhibited by A-192621 and BQ788 are not a result of ETRA inhibition. Conclusion: While ETRB antagonists reduce the viability of glioma cells in vitro, it appears unlikely that this effect is mediated by ETRB inhibition or cross-reaction with ETRA. Instead, we present evidence that A-192621 affects glioma and melanoma viability by activating stress/DNA damage response pathways, which leads to cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. This is the first evidence linking ETRB antagonist treatment to enhanced expression of DNA damage-inducible genes

China’s urban methane emissions from municipal wastewater treatment plant

The increased number and capacity of municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in China has driven the emission of methane (CH4). Few studies have focused on quantification of CH4 emissions from municipal WWTPs of different cities and analysis of socioeconomic factors influencing the quantity of emissions. Here we estimated CH4 emissions from WWTPs in China for 229 prefectural‐level cities, based on data from 2,019 working municipal WWTPs. The results show the total CH4 emissions to be 1,169.8 thousand tons (29.2 MtCO2e) in 2014, which is over three times that of the municipal WWTPs in the United States in 2016. Large cities along the east coast regions had larger CH4 emissions in absolute and per capita terms. Correlation analysis shows that cities with higher gross domestic product, household food consumption expenditure, or household consumption expenditure produced more degradable organics in wastewater, thus more CH4 emissions. Measures to control the sources of degradable organics and regulate WWTP processes with less emission factor are key to mitigate CH4 emissions. In addition to aerobic or anaerobic wastewater treatment systems, factors such as wastewater temperature, length of sewer, and the addition of nitrate that influencing emission factor are suggested to be involved in CH4 emission modeling

Spatio-Temporal Characteristics of Global Warming in the Tibetan Plateau during the Last 50 Years Based on a Generalised Temperature Zone - Elevation Model

Temperature is one of the primary factors influencing the climate and ecosystem, and examining its change and fluctuation could elucidate the formation of novel climate patterns and trends. In this study, we constructed a generalised temperature zone elevation model (GTEM) to assess the trends of climate change and temporal-spatial differences in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) using the annual and monthly mean temperatures from 1961-2010 at 144 meteorological stations in and near the TP. The results showed the following: (1) The TP has undergone robust warming over the study period, and the warming rate was 0.318°C/decade. The warming has accelerated during recent decades, especially in the last 20 years, and the warming has been most significant in the winter months, followed by the spring, autumn and summer seasons. (2) Spatially, the zones that became significantly smaller were the temperature zones of -6°C and -4°C, and these have decreased 499.44 and 454.26 thousand sq km from 1961 to 2010 at average rates of 25.1% and 11.7%, respectively, over every 5-year interval. These quickly shrinking zones were located in the northwestern and central TP. (3) The elevation dependency of climate warming existed in the TP during 1961-2010, but this tendency has gradually been weakening due to more rapid warming at lower elevations than in the middle and upper elevations of the TP during 1991-2010. The higher regions and some low altitude valleys of the TP were the most significantly warming regions under the same categorizing criteria. Experimental evidence shows that the GTEM is an effective method to analyse climate changes in high altitude mountainous regions

A novel technique for detoxification of phenol from wastewater: Nanoparticle Assisted Nano Filtration (NANF)

© 2016 Naidu et al. Background: Phenol is one of the most versatile and important organic compound. It is also a growing concern as water pollutants due to its high persistence and toxicity. Removal of Phenol from wastewaters was investigated using a novel nanoparticle adsorption and nanofiltration technique named as Nanoparticle Assisted Nano Filtration (NANF). Methods: The nanoparticle used for NANF study were silver nanoparticles and synthesized to three distinct average particle sizes of 10 nm, 40 nm and 70 nm. The effect of nanoparticle size, their concentrations and their tri and diparticle combinations upon phenol removal were studied. Results: Total surface areas (TSA) for various particle size and concentrations have been calculated and the highest was 4710 × 1012 nm2 for 10 nm particles and 180 ppm concentration while the lowest was for 2461 × 1011 for 70 nm and 60 ppm concentrations. Tri and diparticle studies showed more phenol removal % than that of their individual particles, particularly for using small particles on large membrane pore size and large particles at low concentrations. These results have also been confirmed with COD and toxicity removal studies. Conclusions: The combination of nanoparticles adsorption and nanofiltration results in high phenol removal and mineralization, leading to the conclusion that NANF has very high potential for treating toxic chemical wastewaters

Transcriptome Analysis of the Oriental Fruit Fly (Bactrocera dorsalis)

The oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel), is one of the most economically important pests in the world, causing serious damage to fruit production. However, lack of genetic information on this organism is an obstacle to understanding the mechanisms behind its development and its ability to resist insecticides. Analysis of the B. dorsalis transcriptome and its expression profile data is essential to extending the genetic information resources on this species, providing a shortcut that will support studies on B. dorsalis.We performed de novo assembly of a transcriptome using short read sequencing technology (Illumina). The results generated 484,628 contigs, 70,640 scaffolds, and 49,804 unigenes. Of those unigenes, 27,455 (55.13%) matched known proteins in the NCBI database, as determined by BLAST search. Clusters of orthologous groups (COG), gene orthology (GO), and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) annotations were performed to better understand the functions of these unigenes. Genes related to insecticide resistance were analyzed in additional detail. Digital gene expression (DGE) libraries showed differences in gene expression profiles at different developmental stages (eggs, third-instar larvae, pupae, and adults). To confirm the DGE results, the expression profiles of six randomly selected genes were analyzed.This transcriptome greatly improves our genetic understanding of B. dorsalis and makes a huge number of gene sequences available for further study, including both genes of known importance and genes of unknown function. The DGE data provide comprehensive insight into gene expression profiles at different developmental stages. This facilitates the study of the role of each gene in the developmental process and in insecticide resistance

Reduction of Orc6 Expression Sensitizes Human Colon Cancer Cells to 5-Fluorouracil and Cisplatin

Previous studies from our group have shown that the expression levels of Orc6 were highly elevated in colorectal cancer patient specimens and the induction of Orc6 was associated with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) treatment. The goal of this study was to investigate the molecular and cellular impact of Orc6 in colon cancer. In this study, we use HCT116 (wt-p53) and HCT116 (null-p53) colon cancer cell lines as a model system to investigate the impact of Orc6 on cell proliferation, chemosensitivity and pathways involved with Orc6. We demonstrated that the down regulation of Orc6 sensitizes colon cancer cells to both 5-FU and cisplatin (cis-pt) treatment. Decreased Orc6 expression in HCT-116 (wt-p53) cells by RNA interference triggered cell cycle arrest at G1 phase. Prolonged inhibition of Orc6 expression resulted in multinucleated cells in HCT-116 (wt-p53) cell line. Western immunoblot analysis showed that down regulation of Orc6 induced p21 expression in HCT-116 (wt-p53) cells. The induction of p21 was mediated by increased level of phosphorylated p53 at ser-15. By contrast, there is no elevated expression of p21 in HCT-116 (null-p53) cells. Orc6 down regulation also increased the expression of DNA damaging repair protein GADD45β and reduced the expression level of JNK1. Orc6 may be a potential novel target for future anti cancer therapeutic development in colon cancer

Hydrogeochemical evolution of groundwater in a Quaternary sediment and Cretaceous sandstone unconfined aquifer in Northwestern China

A better understanding of the hydrogeochemical evolution of groundwater in vulnerable aquifers is important for the protection of water resources. To assess groundwater chemistry, groundwater sampling was performed from different representative aquifers in 2012–2013. A Piper trilinear diagram showed that the groundwater types can be classified into Na–SO4 and Na–Cl types. Only one groundwater sample was Na–HCO3 type. The dominant cations for all samples were Na+. However, the dominant anions varied from HCO3− to SO42−, and as well Cl−. The mean total dissolved solid (TDS) content of groundwater in the region was 1889 mg/L. Thus, only 20% of groundwater samples meet Chinese drinking water standards (< 1000 mg/L). Principal component analysis (PCA) combined with hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and self-organizing maps (SOM) were applied for the classification of the groundwater geochemistry. The three first principal components explained 58, 20, and 16% of the variance, respectively. The first component reflects sulfate minerals (gypsum, anhydrite) and halite dissolution, and/or evaporation in the shallow aquifer. The second and third components are interpreted as carbonate rock dissolution. The reason for two factors is that the different aquifers give rise to different degree of hydrogeochemical evolution (different travel distances and travel times). Identified clusters for evolution characteristic and influencing factors were confirmed by the PCA–HCA methods. Using information from eight ion components and SOM, formation mechanisms and influencing factors for the present groundwater quality were determined

Observation of a ppb mass threshoud enhancement in \psi^\prime\to\pi^+\pi^-J/\psi(J/\psi\to\gamma p\bar{p}) decay

The decay channel $\psi^\prime\to\pi^+\pi^-J/\psi(J/\psi\to\gamma p\bar{p})$ is studied using a sample of $1.06\times 10^8$ $\psi^\prime$ events collected by the BESIII experiment at BEPCII. A strong enhancement at threshold is observed in the $p\bar{p}$ invariant mass spectrum. The enhancement can be fit with an $S$-wave Breit-Wigner resonance function with a resulting peak mass of $M=1861^{+6}_{-13} {\rm (stat)}^{+7}_{-26} {\rm (syst)} {\rm MeV/}c^2$ and a narrow width that is $\Gamma<38 {\rm MeV/}c^2$ at the 90% confidence level. These results are consistent with published BESII results. These mass and width values do not match with those of any known meson resonance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Chinese Physics

Comparing oil based ointment versus standard practice for the treatment of moderate burns in Greece: a trial based cost effectiveness evaluation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The local treatment of burn wounds has long been a subject of debate. The objective of this study was to compare the cost and the effectiveness of Moist Exposed Burn Ointment -MEBO versus a combination of <it>povidone iodine </it>plus <it>bepanthenol </it>cream for partial thickness burns.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study was carried out in the Burn Center of a state hospital in Athens, Greece. 211 patients needing conservative therapy were prospectively selected according to the depth of the burn wound. The treatment was allocated according to the Stratified Randomization Design. The outcomes measured were mean cost of in-hospital stay, rate of complications, time of 50% wound healing, pain scores, in hospital stay diminution. We have adopted a societal perspective.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the total groups MEBO presented lower cost, (although not significantly different: p = 0.10) and better effectiveness. The data suggest that MEBO is the dominant therapy for superficial partial burn wound with significantly lower costs and significantly higher effectiveness due to a lesser time of recovery and consequently lower time of hospitalization and follow-up. MEBO presented similar percentages of complications with the comparator, lower pain levels and smaller time of no healthy appearance of the burn limits for superficial partial thickness burns.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The data suggested that topical application of MEBO may be considered for further investigation as a potential first-line treatment modality for superficial partial thickness burns.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>The trial has been registered on the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Register (ISRCTN) and given the registration number <a href="http://www.controlled-trials.com/ISRCTN74058791">ISRCTN74058791</a>.</p