Jellyfish as food

Jellyfish have been exploited commercially by Chinese as an important food for more than a thousand years. Semi-dried jellyfish represent a multi-million dollar seafood business in Asia. Traditional processing methods involve a multi-phase processing procedure using a mixture of salt (NaCl) and alum (AlK[SO₄]₂12 H₂O) to reduce the water content, decrease the pH, and firm the texture. Processed jellyfish have a special crunchy and crispy texture. They are then desalted in water before preparing for consumption. Interest in utilizing Stomolophus meleagris L. Agassiz, cannonball jellyfish, from the U. S. as food has increased recently because of high consumer demand in Asia. Desalted ready-to-use (RTU) cannonball jellyfish consists of approximately 95% water and 4–5% protein, which provides a very low caloric value. Cannonball jellyfish collagen has shown a suppressing effect on antigen-induced arthritis in laboratory rats. With the great abundance of cannonball jellyfish in the U. S. coastal waters, turning this jellyfish into value-added products could have tremendous environmental and economic benefits.     

Indigenous New Zealand honeys exhibit multiple anti-inflammatory activities

Recent evidence suggests a potential role for honeys in mediating clinical inflammation and tissue damage. Here, we investigated the anti-inflammatory activity of a selection of previously untested indigenous New Zealand (NZ) honeys. We found that several, but not all, New Zealand rewarewa, manuka and kanuka honey samples exhibited potent, dose-dependent reduction of human neutrophil superoxide production in?vitro. This inhibitory activity did not correlate with levels of known phenolic-based free radical scavengers. Furthermore, the active honeys did not scavenge superoxide generated in a cell-free xanthine/xanthine oxidase assay. In C57BL/6?J mice, topical application of manuka and rewarewa honey samples with the highest in?vitro activity suppressed arachidonic acid-induced ear oedema, and rewarewa honey suppressed both oedema and leukocyte (monocyte and neutrophil) infiltration. Together, these findings demonstrate that some indigenous NZ honeys exhibit clinically relevant anti-inflammatory activity. Further investigation is warranted to identify the active component(s) and mechanisms responsible for these activities and to determine potential applications for anti-inflammatory honeys in the topical treatment of clinical inflammation.     

The effect of diabetes on the diagnostic and prognostic performance of mid-region pro-atrial natriuretic peptide and mid-region pro-adrenomedullin in patients with acute dyspnea

Serum mid-regional pro-atrial natriuretic peptide (MR-proANP) and pro-adrenomedullin (MR-proADM) are novel biomarkers for acute heart failure (AHF). Like other AFH biomarkers, the performance of these tests are affected by the presence of clinical variables such as renal failure and obesity. In a substudy of the Biomarkers from Acute Heart Failure Study, we show that diabetes did not influence the performance of these markers with regards to AHF diagnosis or 90-day all cause death. However, in patients without AHF, increased MR-proADM alone was associated with the presence of diabetes.     

Pyridostigmine bromide protection against acetylcholinesterase inhibition by pesticides

Pyridostigmine bromide (PB) has been used to protect soldiers from the toxic effects of soman, a chemical warfare agent. Recent research shows that pyridostigmine bromide protects a significant percentage of acetylcholinesterase in isolated human intercostal muscle. Findings presented here indicate that red blood cell acetylcholinesterase is similarly protected by pyridostigmine bromide from the action of diisopropyl fluorophosphate and several organophosphate pesticides including chlorpyrifos-oxon, diazinon-oxon, and paraoxon, but not malaoxon, using the bovine red blood cell as a subject. These findings suggest that pretreatment with PB may protect growers, farmworkers, first responders, and the public, in general, from the effects of selected pesticides.     

Weather Effects on Mobile Social Interactions: A Case Study of Mobile Phone Users in Lisbon,Portugal

The effect of weather on social interactions has been explored through the analysis of a large mobile phone use dataset. Time spent on phone calls, numbers of connected social ties, and tie strength were used as proxies for social interactions; while weather conditions were characterized in terms of temperature, relative humidity, air pressure, and wind speed. Our results are based on the analysis of a full calendar year of data for 22,696 mobile phone users (53.2 million call logs) in Lisbon, Portugal. The results suggest that different weather parameters have correlations to the level and character of social interactions. We found that although weather did not show much influence upon people''s average call duration, the likelihood of longer calls was found to increase during periods of colder weather. During periods of weather that were generally considered to be uncomfortable (i.e., very cold/warm, very low/high air pressure, and windy), people were found to be more likely to communicate with fewer social ties. Despite this tendency, we found that people are more likely to maintain their connections with those they have strong ties with much more than those of weak ties. This study sheds new light on the influence of weather conditions on social relationships and how mobile phone data can be used to investigate the influence of environmental factors on social dynamics.     

Oligodendrocyte precursor cell transplantation into organotypic cerebellar shiverer slices: a model to study myelination and myelin maintenance

Current in vitro models to investigate the consequence of oligodendrocyte-specific loss-of-function mutations on myelination are primarily limited to co-culture experiments, which do not accurately recapitulate the complex in vivo environment. Here, we describe the development of an in vitro model of myelination and myelin maintenance in which oligodendrocyte precursor cells are transplanted into organotypic cerebellar slice cultures derived from dysmyelinated shiverer mice. Compared to neuron-oligodendrocyte co-cultures, organotypic slices more closely mimic the environment in vivo, while utilizing a genetic background that allows for straight-forward identification of myelin generated by transplanted cells. We show at the ultrastructural level that the myelin generated by wild-type transplanted oligodendrocytes is compact and terminates in cytoplasmic loops that form paranodal junctions with the axon. This myelination results in the appropriate sequestering of axonal proteins into specialized domains surrounding the nodes of Ranvier. We also demonstrate the applicability of this approach for xenograft transplantation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells derived from rat or human sources. This method provides a time-efficient and cost-effective adjunct to conditional knockout mouse lines or in vivo transplantation models to study oligodendrocyte-specific loss-of-function mutations. Furthermore, the approach can be readily used to assess the effect of pharmacological manipulations on myelin, providing a tool to better understand myelination and develop effective therapeutic strategies to treat myelin-related diseases.     

Proteomic analyses reveal high expression of decorin and endoplasmin (HSP90B1) are associated with breast cancer metastasis and decreased survival

Background

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women worldwide in terms of incidence and mortality. About 10% of North American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime and 20% of those will die of the disease. Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease and biomarkers able to correctly classify patients into prognostic groups are needed to better tailor treatment options and improve outcomes. One powerful method used for biomarker discovery is sample screening with mass spectrometry, as it allows direct comparison of protein expression between normal and pathological states. The purpose of this study was to use a systematic and objective method to identify biomarkers with possible prognostic value in breast cancer patients, particularly in identifying cases most likely to have lymph node metastasis and to validate their prognostic ability using breast cancer tissue microarrays.

Methods and Findings

Differential proteomic analyses were employed to identify candidate biomarkers in primary breast cancer patients. These analyses identified decorin (DCN) and endoplasmin (HSP90B1) which play important roles regulating the tumour microenvironment and in pathways related to tumorigenesis. This study indicates that high expression of Decorin is associated with lymph node metastasis (p<0.001), higher number of positive lymph nodes (p<0.0001) and worse overall survival (p = 0.01). High expression of HSP90B1 is associated with distant metastasis (p<0.0001) and decreased overall survival (p<0.0001) these patients also appear to benefit significantly from hormonal treatment.

Conclusions

Using quantitative proteomic profiling of primary breast cancers, two new promising prognostic and predictive markers were found to identify patients with worse survival. In addition HSP90B1 appears to identify a group of patients with distant metastasis with otherwise good prognostic features.     

Age-related adaptation of bone-PDL-tooth complex: Rattus-Norvegicus as a model system

Functional loads on an organ induce tissue adaptations by converting mechanical energy into chemical energy at a cell-level. The transducing capacity of cells alters physico-chemical properties of tissues, developing a positive feedback commonly recognized as the form-function relationship. In this study, organ and tissue adaptations were mapped in the bone-tooth complex by identifying and correlating biomolecular expressions to physico-chemical properties in rats from 1.5 to 15 months. However, future research using hard and soft chow over relevant age groups would decouple the function related effects from aging affects. Progressive curvature in the distal root with increased root resorption was observed using micro X-ray computed tomography. Resorption was correlated to the increased activity of multinucleated osteoclasts on the distal side of the molars until 6 months using tartrate resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP). Interestingly, mononucleated TRAP positive cells within PDL vasculature were observed in older rats. Higher levels of glycosaminoglycans were identified at PDL-bone and PDL-cementum entheses using alcian blue stain. Decreasing biochemical gradients from coronal to apical zones, specifically biomolecules that can induce osteogenic (biglycan) and fibrogenic (fibromodulin, decorin) phenotypes, and PDL-specific negative regulator of mineralization (asporin) were observed using immunohistochemistry. Heterogeneous distribution of Ca and P in alveolar bone, and relatively lower contents at the entheses, were observed using energy dispersive X-ray analysis. No correlation between age and microhardness of alveolar bone (0.7 ± 0.1 to 0.9 ± 0.2 GPa) and cementum (0.6 ± 0.1 to 0.8 ± 0.3 GPa) was observed using a microindenter. However, hardness of cementum and alveolar bone at any given age were significantly different (P<0.05). These observations should be taken into account as baseline parameters, during development (1.5 to 4 months), growth (4 to 10 months), followed by a senescent phase (10 to 15 months), from which deviations due to experimentally induced perturbations can be effectively investigated.