Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins - The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is an essential reservoir of serotonin or 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), which possesses a set of bacterial species communities.... 相似文献
The overexpression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) enzyme has been strongly contributed to tumorigenesis. The efficacy of celecoxib as a selective COX-2 inhibitor has been shown in many studies, but the underlying mechanism as a chemopreventative agent has not yet been well known. For better understanding the chemopreventative molecular mechanisms, we used a comparative proteomics analysis of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treated and untreated J774.A1 macrophage-like cell lines before and after treatment with celecoxib. Our findings define the contribution of several interesting proteins, including ferritin heavy chain, glyoxalase-1, cofilin, vimentin, and galectin-1, which could extend our understanding of the chemopreventative effects of celecoxib and provide new valuable tools for further anticancer research. 相似文献
Finite element analysis (FEA), CT based structural rigidity analysis (CTRA) and mechanical testing is performed to assess the compressive failure load of rat tibia with simulated lytic defects. 相似文献
Preeclampsia remains a leading cause of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity worldwide; however, its specific etiology still remains obscure. Some studies implicate poor maternal selenium status predisposing the mother to preeclampsia. This study was designed to determine changes in plasma selenium levels in women having preeclampsia as compared with those with normal pregnancy. In a nested case–control study, 650 normal primigravida in their first 24–28 weeks participated in the study. After 3 months of follow-up of all subjects, blood selenium levels were measured in 38 women presenting consecutively with preeclampsia and in 38 women having a normal pregnancy by atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Birth outcomes were recorded, such as gestational age at delivery, height, weight, birth head circumflex and 1-min Apgar score. Preeclampsia affects about 5.84 % of pregnancies, and in our study, there were no significant differences in age, anthropometric indices, and family history of preeclampsia between the preeclamptic and control groups. The selenium concentrations in plasma in women with preeclampsia were significantly lower as compared with those in women with normal pregnancy (70.63?±?21.41 versus 82.03?±?15.54 μg/L, p?<?0.05). Being in the bottom tertile of selenium concentration (less than 62.2 μg/L) was associated with greater risk of preeclampsia in pregnant women. The reduced selenium in the maternal circulations observed in the preeclamptic mothers support the hypothesis that insufficient selenium concentration may be a contributing factor to the pathophysiological mechanisms associated with preeclampsia, and optimizing the dietary selenium intake through supplementation could produce demonstrable clinical benefits. 相似文献
International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - The 22 kDa of human growth hormone (hGH) is naturally produced and secreted by somatotrophic cells in the anterior part of the... 相似文献
Although malnutrition affects thousands of children throughout the Sahel each year and predisposes them to infections, there is little data on the etiology of infections in these populations. We present a clinical and biological characterization of infections in hospitalized children with complicated severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in Maradi, Niger.
Methods
Children with complicated SAM hospitalized in the intensive care unit of a therapeutic feeding center, with no antibiotics in the previous 7 days, were included. A clinical examination, blood, urine and stool cultures, and chest radiography were performed systematically on admission.
Results
Among the 311 children included in the study, gastroenteritis was the most frequent clinical diagnosis on admission, followed by respiratory tract infections and malaria. Blood or urine culture was positive in 17% and 16% of cases, respectively, and 36% had abnormal chest radiography. Enterobacteria were sensitive to most antibiotics, except amoxicillin and cotrimoxazole. Twenty-nine (9%) children died, most frequently from sepsis. Clinical signs were poor indicators of infection and initial diagnoses correlated poorly with biologically or radiography-confirmed diagnoses.
Conclusions
These data confirm the high level of infections and poor correlation with clinical signs in children with complicated SAM, and provide antibiotic resistance profiles from an area with limited microbiological data. These results contribute unique data to the ongoing debate on the use and choice of broad-spectrum antibiotics as first-line treatment in children with complicated SAM and reinforce the call for an update of international guidelines on management of complicated SAM based on more recent data. 相似文献
Accidents resulting in widespread dispersal of radioactive materials have given rise to a need for materials that are convenient in allowing individual dose assessment. The present study examines natural Dead Sea salt adopted as a model thermoluminescence dosimetry system. Samples were prepared in two different forms, loose-raw and loose-ground, subsequently exposed to 60Co gamma-rays, delivering doses in the range 2–10 Gy. Key thermoluminescence (TL) properties were examined, including glow curves, dose response, sensitivity, reproducibility and fading. Glow curves shapes were found to be independent of given dose, prominent TL peaks for the raw and ground samples appearing in the temperature ranges 361–385 ºC and 366–401 ºC, respectively. The deconvolution of glow curves has been undertaken using GlowFit, resulting in ten overlapping first-order kinetic glow peaks. For both sample forms, the integrated TL yield displays linearity of response with dose, the loose-raw salt showing some 2.5 × the sensitivity of the ground salt. The samples showed similar degrees of fading, with respective residual signals 28 days post-irradiation of 66% and 62% for the ground and raw forms respectively; conversely, confronted by light-induced fading the respective signal losses were 62% and 80%. The effective atomic number of the Dead Sea salt of 16.3 is comparable to that of TLD-200 (Zeff 16.3), suitable as an environmental radiation monitor in accident situations but requiring careful calibration in the reconstruction of soft tissue dose (soft tissue Zeff 7.2). Sample luminescence studies were carried out via Raman and Photoluminescence spectroscopy as well as X-ray diffraction, ionizing radiation dependent variation in lattice structure being found to influence TL response.
Reporter genes have proved to be an excellent tool for studying disease progression. Recently, the green fluorescent protein (GFP) ability to quantitatively monitor gene expression has been demonstrated in different organisms. This report describes the use of Leishmania tarentolae (L. tarentolae) expression system (LEXSY) for high and stable levels of GFP production in different Leishmania species including L. tarentolae, L. major and L. infantum. The DNA expression cassette (pLEXSY-EGFP) was integrated into the chromosomal ssu locus of Leishmania strains through homologous recombination. Fluorescent microscopic image showed that GFP transgenes can be abundantly and stably expressed in promastigote and amastigote stages of parasites. Furthermore, flow cytometry analysis indicated a clear quantitative distinction between wild type and transgenic Leishmania strains at both promastigote and amastigote forms. Our data showed that the footpad lesions with GFP-transfected L. major are progressive over time by using fluorescence small-animal imaging system. Consequently, the utilization of stable GFP-transfected Leishmania species will be appropriate for in vitro and in vivo screening of anti-leishmanial drugs and vaccine development as well as understanding the biology of the host–parasite interactions at the cellular level. 相似文献
Autotransporters (ATs) of Gram-negative bacteria contain an N-proximal passenger domain that is transported to the extracellular milieu and a C-terminal β-domain that inserts into the outer membrane (OM) in a β-barrel conformation. This β-domain facilitates translocation of the passenger domain across the OM and has long been considered to be the translocation pore. However, available crystal structures of β-domains show that the β-barrel pore is too narrow for the observed transport of folded elements within the passenger domains. ATs have recently been shown to interact with the β-barrel assembly machinery. These findings questioned a direct involvement of the β-domain in passenger translocation and suggested that it may only target the passenger to the β-barrel assembly machinery pore. To address the function of the β-domain in more detail, we have replaced the β-domain of the Escherichia coli AT hemoglobin protease by β-domains originating from other OM proteins. Furthermore, we have modified the diameter of the β-domain pore. The mutant proteins were analyzed for their capacity to insert into the OM and for surface display of the passenger. Our results show that efficient passenger secretion requires a specific β-domain that not only functions as a targeting device but also is directly involved in the translocation of the passenger to the cell surface. 相似文献