Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a binary treatment involving selective accumulation of boron carriers in a tumor followed by irradiation with a thermal or epithermal neutron beam. The neutron capture reaction with a boron-10 nucleus yields high linear energy transfer (LET) particles, alpha and 7Li, with a range of 5 to 9 µm. These particles can only travel very short distances and release their damaging energy directly into the cells containing the boron compound. We aimed to evaluate proliferation, apoptosis and extracellular matrix (ECM) modifications of B16F10 melanoma and normal human melanocytes after BNCT. The amounts of soluble collagen and Hsp47, indicating collagen synthesis in the ECM, as well as the cellular markers of apoptosis, were investigated. BNCT decreased proliferation, altered the ECM by decreasing collagen synthesis and induced apoptosis by regulating Bcl-2/Bax in melanoma. Additionally, BNCT also increased the levels of TNF receptor and the cleaved caspases 3, 7, 8 and 9 in melanoma. These results suggest that multiple pathways related to cell death and cell cycle arrest are involved in the treatment of melanoma by BNCT. 相似文献
Secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) in CKD is associated with an increased risk for mortality, but definitive data showing that parathormone control decreases mortality is still lacking. This study aimed to compare the mortality of patients with severe SHPT submitted to parathyroidectomy(PTX) with those who did not have access to surgery.
Methods
This is a retrospective study in a cohort of 251 CKD patients with severe SHPT who were referred to a CKD-MBD Center for PTX from 2005 until 2012.
Results
Most of our patients had indication of PTX, but only 49% of them had access to this surgical procedure. After a mean follow-up of 23 months, 72 patients had died. Non-survivors were older; more often had diabetes, lower serum 25 vitamin D and mostly had not been submitted to surgery. The relative risk of death was lower in the PTX patients (0.428; 95% CI, 0.28 to 0.67; p<0.0001). After adjustments, mortality risk was dependent on age (1.04; 95% CI, 1.01 to 1.07; p = 0.002), 25 vitamin D (0.43; 95% CI, 0.24 to 0.81; p = 0.006) and no access to PTX (4.13; 95% CI, 2.16 to 7.88; p<0.0001). Results remained the same in a second model using the PTX date as the study start date for the PTX group.
Conclusions
Our data confirms the benefit of PTX on mortality in patients with severe SHPT. The high mortality encountered in our population is significant and urges the need to better treat these patients. 相似文献
Obesity and emaciation in horses have major detrimental effects on health and morbidity, reproductive failure, work performance or carcass quality. Scoring is a current management tool used to assess and monitor equine body condition due to its simplicity and low cost. However, accurate assessment of obesity remains a challenge, even though a number of approaches have been tested, particularly for research purposes on adiposity. Their merit is usually validated by comparison with standard scoring methods. The overall aim of this study was to establish the correlation between post-mortem nape fat measurements obtained after photographic image analysis and cresty neck score (CNS) in horses. Data were collected from seventeen horses with a hot carcass weight of 165 ± 51 kg. Pre-slaughter CNS measurements were obtained using a six-point scale (from 0 to 5). Image capture was performed post-mortem, in the slaughter line; for each carcass, images of the dorsal and medial views were collected and afterwards transferred to a computer for analysis. After outlining the cresty neck fat, its area, major axis and thickness were determined. Correlation coefficients between nape fat measurements, CNS and carcass fatness were determined.
Results
The horses in the study show similar variation for CNS and hot carcass weight [Coefficient of variation (CV) = 32 and 31 %, respectively], but a high variation for carcass fattening (CV = 41 %). The nape fat area measurement was the parameter exhibiting the greatest variation (CV = 50 %). Correlations established between CNS and the variables tested revealed the existence of moderate to strong correlations among CNS, nape fat measurements, and carcass fatness. The highest correlation coefficients were found between CNS and nape fat thickness (r = 0.882; P < 0.01). The linear regression between CNS and nape fat thickness accounted for 77 % of the recorded variation for nape fat thickness.
Conclusions
The present study showed that there is a strong correlation between horse CNS and post-mortem nape fat measurements or carcass fatness.
New proposals for models and applications of prediction processes with data on molecular markers may help reduce the financial costs of and identify superior genotypes in maize breeding programs. Studies evaluating Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (GBLUP) models including dominance effects have not been performed in the univariate and multivariate context in the data analysis of this crop. A single cross hybrid construction procedure was performed in this study using phenotypic data and actual molecular markers of 4,091 maize lines from the public database Panzea. A total of 400 simple hybrids resulting from this process were analyzed using the univariate and multivariate GBLUP model considering only additive effects additive plus dominance effects. Historic heritability scenarios of five traits and other genetic architecture settings were used to compare models, evaluating the predictive ability and estimation of variance components. Marginal differences were detected between the multivariate and univariate models. The main explanation for the small discrepancy between models is the low- to moderate-magnitude correlations between the traits studied and moderate heritabilities. These conditions do not favor the advantages of multivariate analysis. The inclusion of dominance effects in the models was an efficient strategy to improve the predictive ability and estimation quality of variance components. 相似文献
BackgroundWhole breast irradiation reduces loco-regional recurrence and risk of death in patients submitted to breast-conserving treatment. Data show that radiation to the index quadrant alone may be enough in selected patients.AimTo report the experience with intra-operative radiotherapy (IORT) with Electron-beam Cone in Linear Accelerator (ELIOT) and the results in overall survival, local control and late toxicity of patients submitted to this treatment.Materials and Methods147 patients treated with a median follow up of 6.9 years (0.1?11.5 years). The actuarial local control and overall survival probabilities were estimated using the Kaplan Meier method. All tests were two-sided and p ? 0.05 was considered statistically significant.ResultsOverall survival of the cohort in 5 years, in the median follow up and in 10 years was of 98.3%, 95.1% and 95.1%, respectively, whereas local control in 5 years, in the median follow up and in 10 years was of 96%, 94.9% and 89.5%, respectively. Two risk groups were identified for local recurrence depending on the estrogen or progesterone receptors, axillary or margin status and lymphovascular invasion (LVI) (p = 0.016).ConclusionsIORT is a safe and effective treatment. Rigorous selection is important to achieve excellent local control results. 相似文献
Recent environmental concerns have prompted a re-evaluation of conventional management strategies and refueled the search of innovative waste management practices. In this sense, the anaerobic digestion of both fat and the remaining complex organic matter present in dairy wastewaters is attractive, although the continuous operation of high rate anaerobic processes treating this type of wastewaters causes the failure of the process. This work accesses the influence of non-feeding period length on the intermittent operation of mesophilic UASB reactors treating dairy wastewater, in order to allow the biological degradation to catch up with adsorption phenomenon. During the experiments, two UASB reactors were subject to three organic loading rates, ranging from 6 to 12 g(COD) x L(-1) x d(-1), with the same daily load applied to both reactors, each one with a different non-feeding period. Both reactors showed good COD removal efficiencies (87-92%). A material balance for COD in the reactors during the feeding and non-feeding periods showed the importance of the feedless period, which allowed the biomass to degrade substrate that was accumulated during the feeding period. The reactor with the longest non-feeding period had a better performance, which resulted in a higher methane production and adsorption capacity for the same organic load applied with a consequent less accumulation of substrate into the biomass. In addition, both reactors had a stable operation for the organic load of 12 g(COD) x L(-1) x d(-1), which is higher than the maximum applicable load reported in literature for continuous systems (3-6 g(COD) x L(-1) x d(-1)). 相似文献
To survive, animals must constantly update the internal value of stimuli they encounter; a process referred to as incentive learning. Although there have been many studies investigating whether dopamine is necessary for reward, or for the association between stimuli and actions with rewards, less is known about the role of dopamine in the updating of the internal value of stimuli per se. We used a single-bottle forced-choice task to investigate the role of dopamine in learning the value of tastants. We show that dopamine transporter knock-out mice (DAT-KO), which have constitutively elevated dopamine levels, develop a more positive bias towards a hedonically positive tastant (sucrose 400 mM) than their wild-type littermates. Furthermore, when compared to wild-type littermates, DAT-KO mice develop a less negative bias towards a hedonically negative tastant (quinine HCl 10 mM). Importantly, these effects develop with training, because at the onset of training DAT-KO and wild-type mice display similar biases towards sucrose and quinine. These data suggest that dopamine levels can modulate the updating of tastant values, a finding with implications for understanding sensory-specific motivation and reward seeking. 相似文献
Aquatic Ecology - In epiphytic associations, cyanobacteria form the periphyton with phytoplanktonic algae and with aquatic macrophytes. In this study, we found homocytous and heterocytous... 相似文献
Alternative methods of pest control can and should be encouraged, especially those that consider the reality of smallholder family farmers. Here, we evaluated the potential of Agave americana (agave) extracts for the control of the aphid Brevicoryne brassicae in cabbage (Brassica oleracea L. var acephala) in the field and laboratory. The field experiments consisted of the evaluation of the proportion of dead aphids on cabbage plants after application of agave extracts. In the field, agave mixed with cow milk caused mortality above 80% and was the most effective extract. Agave mixed with water and agave mixed with ethanol elicited mortality above 60%. In the laboratory, we evaluated the mortality of aphids after the application of different concentrations of aqueous agave extracts; the commercial insecticide deltamethrin was included as positive control. Evaluation took place at 3, 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 hr after applying the treatment. As expected, deltamethrin was the most effective treatment. However, agave extract at concentrations of 0.750 and 0.500 g/mL caused >70% mortality 3 hr after application. We conclude that A. americana extracts decreased aphid populations and is a promising alternative to the commercial insecticide against aphids in cabbage. 相似文献