Involvement of AMP-activated protein kinase in beneficial effects of betaine on high-sucrose diet-induced hepatic steatosis

Although simple steatosis was originally thought to be a pathologically inert histological change, fat accumulation in the liver may play a critical role not only in disease initiation, but also in the progression to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and cirrhosis. Therefore, prevention of fat accumulation in the liver may be an effective therapy for multiple stages of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Promising beneficial effects of betaine supplementation on human NAFLD have been reported in some pilot clinical studies; however, data related to betaine therapy in NAFLD are limited. In this study, we examined the effects of betaine on fat accumulation in the liver induced by high-sucrose diet and evaluated mechanisms by which betaine could attenuate or prevent hepatic steatosis in this model. Male C57BL/6 mice weighing 20 +/- 0.5 g (means +/- SE) were divided into four groups (8 mice per group) and started on one of four treatments: standard diet (SD), SD+betaine, high-sucrose diet (HS), and HS + betaine. Betaine was supplemented in the drinking water at a concentration of 1% (wt/vol) (anhydrous). Long-term feeding of high-sucrose diet to mice caused significant hepatic steatosis accompanied by markedly increased lipogenic activity. Betaine significantly attenuated hepatic steatosis in this animal model, and this change was associated with increased activation of hepatic AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and attenuated lipogenic capability (enzyme activities and gene expression) in the liver. Our findings are the first to suggest that betaine might serve as a therapeutic tool to attenuate hepatic steatosis by targeting the hepatic AMPK system.     

Potent BRAF kinase inhibitors based on 2,4,5-trisubstituted imidazole with naphthyl and benzothiophene 4-substituents

The RAS–RAF–MEK–ERK pathway is hyperactivated in 30% of human cancers. BRAF is a serine–threonine kinase, belonging to this pathway that is mutated with high frequency in human melanoma and other cancers thus BRAF is an important therapeutic target in melanoma. We have designed inhibitors of BRAF based on 2,4,5-trisubstituted imidazoles with naphthyl and benzothiophene-4-substituents. Two compounds were discovered to be potent BRAF inhibitors: 1-(6-{2-[4-(2-dimethylamino-ethoxy)phenyl]-5-(pyridin-4-yl)-1H-imidazol-4-yl} benzo[b]thiophen-3-yl)-2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (1i) with BRAF IC₅₀ = 190 nM and with cellular GI₅₀ = 2100 nM, and 6-{2-[4-(2-dimethylamino-ethoxy)-phenyl]-5-pyridin-4-yl-3H-imidazol-4-yl}-naphthalen-1-ol (1q) with IC₅₀ = 9 nM and GI₅₀ = 220 nM.     

Hydrocyclones as cell retention device for CHO perfusion processes in single-use bioreactors

In this study, a hydrocyclone (HC) especially designed for mammalian cell separation was applied for the separation of Chinese hamster ovary cells. The effect of key features on the separation efficiency, such as type of pumphead in the peristaltic feed pump, use of an auxiliary pump to control the perfusate flow rate, and tubing size in the recirculation loop were evaluated in batch separation tests. Based on these preliminary batch tests, the HC was then integrated to 50-L disposable bioreactor bags. Three perfusion runs were performed, including one where perfusion was started from a low-viability late fed-batch culture, and viability was restored. The successive runs allowed optimization of the HC-bag configuration, and cultivations with 20–25 days duration at cell concentrations up to 50 × 10⁶ cells/ml were performed. Separation efficiencies up to 96% were achieved at pressure drops up to 2.5 bar, with no issues of product retention. To our knowledge, this is the first report in literature of high cell densities obtained with a HC integrated to a disposable perfusion bioreactor.     

The significance of the lung biopsy in congenital cardiovascular malformations

The microscopic changes of pulmonary arteries in 18 patients with congenital cardiovascular malformations were studied on lung biopsies and appreciated by the Heath-Edwards' scale. A correlation between the nature of the malformation and the patient's age on the one hand, and the severity of arterial lesions on the other hand, was observed, suggesting the utility of the lung biopsy for a better prognosis of the surgical corrective intervention. The role of inflammatory factors in the genesis of arterial changes leading to hypertension is also discussed.     

Cellularity and structure of fresh human coronary thrombectomy specimens; presence of cells with markers of progenitor cells

Acute coronary syndromes and acute myocardial infarctions are often related to plaque rupture and the formation of thrombi at the site of the rupture. We examined fresh coronary thrombectomy specimens from patients with acute coronary syndromes and assessed their structure and cellularity. The thrombectomy specimens consisted of platelets, erythrocytes and inflammatory cells. Several specimens contained multiple cholesterol crystals. Culture of thrombectomy specimens yielded cells growing in various patterns depending on the culture medium used. Culture in serum‐free stem cell enrichment medium yielded cells with features of endothelial progenitor cells which survived in culture for a year. Immunohistochemical analysis of the thrombi revealed cells positive for CD34, cells positive for CD15 and cells positive for desmin in situ, whereas cultured cell from thrombi was desmin positive but pancytokeratin negative. Cells cultured in endothelial cell medium were von Willebrand factor positive. The content of coronary thrombectomy specimens is heterogeneous and consists of blood cells but also possibly cells from the vascular wall and cholesterol crystals. The culture of cells contained in the specimens yielded multiplying cells, some of which demonstrated features of haematopoietic progenitor cells and which differentiated into various cell‐types.     

A sequence-based analysis of the pointer distribution of stichotrichous ciliates

Micronuclear genes in stichotrichous ciliates are broken into blocks separated by noncoding sequences, sometimes with the blocks in a shuffled order, some even inverted. During reproduction, all blocks are assembled in the correct order and orientation. This process is possible due to the special structure of micronuclear genes: each coding block M ends with a short nucleotide sequence (called pointer) that is repeated at the beginning of the coding block that should follow M in the assembled gene. Many of the pointers have multiple occurrences along both strands of the gene. This yields a very high number of pointer-induced possible divisions into coding and noncoding blocks.We investigate the distribution of pointers for all currently sequenced micronuclear ciliate genes with the goal of identifying what distinguishes the real gene structure among all possible coding/noncoding divisions. We find a sharp criterion in the average a/t-content of the noncoding blocks: the real division has, in most cases, the maximum such content among all possible combinations. Even for pointers as short as two nucleotides, the real division is one of very few with an average a/t-content of its noncoding blocks over 80%. The separation is most clear when the loci of pointers of up to four nucleotides (even three in the case of unscrambled genes) are fixed (e.g., through a template-based recombination mechanism).     

Exact and approximation algorithms for DNA tag set design.

In this paper, we propose new solution methods for designing tag sets for use in universal DNA arrays. First, we give integer linear programming formulations for two previous formalizations of the tag set design problem. We show that these formulations can be solved to optimality for problem instances of moderate size by using general purpose optimization packages and also give more scalable algorithms based on an approximation scheme for packing linear programs. Second, we note the benefits of periodic tags and establish an interesting connection between the tag design problem and the problem of packing the maximum number of vertex-disjoint directed cycles in a given graph. We show that combining a simple greedy cycle packing algorithm with a previously proposed alphabetic tree search strategy yields an increase of over 40% in the number of tags compared to previous methods.