Immunomodulation of Antimicrobial Peptides Expression in the Gastrointestinal Tract by Probiotics in Response to Stimulation by Salmonella minnesota Lipopolysaccharides

The aim was to determine whether probiotics-feeding can affect the expression and localization of avian beta defensins (AvBDs) and proinflammatory cytokines in response to Salmonella minnesota lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the gastrointestinal tract. One-day-old male Chunky broiler chicks were fed with or without 0.4% probiotics for 7 days (P-group and non-P-group, respectively). Then, they were orally challenged with no LPS (0-LPS), 1 µg LPS (1-LPS), or 100 µg LPS (100-LPS) (n = 5, each), in experiment 1, and with no LPS and 1 µg LPS (n = 6, each) in experiment 2. Five hours after LPS challenge, the proventriculi and ceca were collected. A total of seven and eight AvBDs were identified in proventriculus and cecum, respectively. The density of ir-AvBD12 in the surface epithelium of proventriculus increased in the P-group in response to 1-LPS and 100-LPS stimulation. In experiment 1, the expression of two AvBDs in the proventriculus and six AvBDs in the cecum of 1-LPS chicks was higher in P-group than in the non-P-group. Results of experiment 2 showed similar tendency to experiment 1. These results suggest that probiotics-feeding may enhance the immunodefense system mediated by AvBDs but not by cytokine, against infection by Gram-negative bacteria.

     

Evaluation of antitumor effects of VEGFR-2 inhibitor F16 in a colorectal xenograft model

Biotechnology Letters - Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most prevalent type of cancer in the United States. The treatment options for cancer include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation,...     

First record of non-marine ostracods from the Paleogene “hamadian deposits” of Méridja area,west of Bechar (southwestern Algeria)

A new non-marine ostracod fauna from the Paleogene “hamadian deposits” outcropping west of Bechar (southwestern Algeria) has been recovered from lacustrine to fluvial deposits of the Oued Méridja section and fluvial deposits on the southern edge of the Hamada de Méridja section. Recently, these sections have been dated as late Thanetian – early Ypresian (latest Paleocene to earliest Eocene) and Ypresian – earliest Lutetian (early to earliest middle Eocene), respectively, based on charophytes. The associated ostracod fauna recovered consists of relatively mostly moderately to badly preserved specimens and comprises 14 taxa, none of which could be identified to species level in view of its poor state of preservation; we have nevertheless been able to identify and describe the following taxa: Herpetocypris sp., Cyprinotus? sp., Heterocypris? sp. 1 and sp. 2, Cypris? sp., Ilyocypris sp., Cytheroidea indet. sp. 1 and sp. 2, Limnocytheridae indet. sp. 1, Cypridoidea indet. sp. 1, Cyprididae indet. sp. 1, and Ostracoda indet. sp. 1, 2 and 3. Only Heterocypris sp. 1 occurs in both sections. Although the fauna can as yet not be related to the few other contemporaneous faunas reported from the wider palaeogeographic area, it adds important new information to our poor knowledge on Eocene non-marine ostracods in North Africa and southern Europe. The Méridja sections and area are promising regarding the discovery of more, better preserved material and further studies, and one main limitation to the correlation of the fauna is the hitherto insufficient taxonomic knowledge on many faunal elements of Eocene non-marine ostracods to which our section contributes considerably.     

Polymorphism of Fecundity Genes (FecB,FecX, and FecG) in the Indian Bonpala Sheep

The 37-kDa laminin receptor precursor/67-kDa laminin receptor (LRP/LR, also known as ribosomal protein SA, RPSA) has been reported to be involved in cancer development and prion internalization. Previous studies have shown that the LRP/LR is expressed in a wide variety of tissues. In particular, expression of LRP/LR mRNA may be closely related to the degree of PrP^Sc propagation. This study presents a detailed investigation of the LRP/LR mRNA expression levels in eleven normal ovine tissues. Using real-time quantitative PCR, the highest LRP/LR expression was found in neocortex (p < 0.05). Slightly lower levels were found in the heart and obex. Intermediate levels were seen in hippocampus, cerebellum, spleen, thalamus, mesenteric lymph node, and the lowest levels were present in liver, kidney, and lung. In general, the LRP/LR mRNA levels were much higher in neuronal tissues than in peripheral tissues. The observation that differences in LRP/LR mRNA expression levels are consistent with the corresponding variation in PrP^Sc accumulation suggests that the 37-kDa/67-kDa laminin receptor may be involved in the regulation of PrP^Sc propagation.     

Cation transport mechanisms in Mycoplasma mycoides var. Capri cells. The nature of the link between K+ and Na+ transport

We have studied the links between the mechanisms of Na(+), K(+) and H(+) movements in glycolysing Mycoplasma mycoides var. Capri cells. In the light of the results reported in the preceding paper [Benyoucef, Rigaud & Leblanc (1982) Biochem. J.208, 529-538], we investigated certain properties of the membrane-bound ATPase of Mycoplasma cells, with special reference to its ionic requirements and sensitivity to specific inhibitors. Our findings show, first, that, although Na(+) stimulated ATPase activity, K(+) did not affect it, and, secondly, that NN'-dicyclocarboidi-imide and 7-chloro-4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD) were potent inhibitors of the basal ATPase activity, which was unaffected by vanadate and ouabain. We also investigated the movements of Na(+) and H(+) under the experimental conditions applied to the study of the K(+) uptake reported in the preceding paper, and found that when ;Na(+)-loaded cells' previously equilibrated with (22)Na(+) were diluted in a sodium-free medium, addition of glucose induced a rapid efflux of (22)Na(+). This energy-dependent efflux was independent of the presence of KCl in the medium. Studies of the changes in internal pH by 9-aminoacridine fluorescence or [(14)C]methylamine distribution indicated that the movement of Na(+) was coupled to that of protons moving in the opposite direction, a finding that supports the presence of an Na(+)/H(+) antiport. When Na(+)-loaded cells are diluted in an Na(+)-rich medium the Na(+)/H(+) antiport is still active, but cannot decrease the intracellular Na(+) concentration. Under such conditions, net (22)Na(+) extrusion is specifically dependent on the presence of K(+) in the medium. The present results and those derived from the study of K(+) accumulation (the preceding paper) can be rationalized by assuming that Mycoplasma mycoides var. Capri cells contain two transport systems for Na(+) extrusion: an Na(+)/H(+) antiport and an ATP-consuming Na(+)/K(+)-exchange system.     

An in vitro demonstration of peroxisome proliferation and increase in peroxisomal β-oxidation system mRNAs in cultured rat hepatocytes treated with ciprofibrate

Using the normal adult rat hepatocytes, plated on rat tail collagen-coated dishes and fed a chemically defined medium, we demonstrate here that ciprofibrate at 0.1 mM concentration, increases significantly the mRNA levels of fatty acyl-CoA oxidase, enoyl-CoA hydratase/3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase bifunctional protein, and thiolase (the three enzymes of the β-oxidation system), and causes peroxisome proliferation. Increase in mRNA levels of these genes was evident within 1 h and was maximal 24 h after the addition of ciprofibrate. In hepatocytes cultured in the absence of ciprofibrate, the basal levels of these enzymes were low and further declined with time. Concomitant treatment of hepatocytes with cycloheximide did not inhibit or superinduce the mRNA levels, indicating that this induction may represent a primary (direct) effect of this compound on the expression of these genes and does not apparently involve short-lived repressor protein(s).     

Harmony Search Algorithm for Word Sense Disambiguation

Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) is the task of determining which sense of an ambiguous word (word with multiple meanings) is chosen in a particular use of that word, by considering its context. A sentence is considered ambiguous if it contains ambiguous word(s). Practically, any sentence that has been classified as ambiguous usually has multiple interpretations, but just one of them presents the correct interpretation. We propose an unsupervised method that exploits knowledge based approaches for word sense disambiguation using Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA) based on a Stanford dependencies generator (HSDG). The role of the dependency generator is to parse sentences to obtain their dependency relations. Whereas, the goal of using the HSA is to maximize the overall semantic similarity of the set of parsed words. HSA invokes a combination of semantic similarity and relatedness measurements, i.e., Jiang and Conrath (jcn) and an adapted Lesk algorithm, to perform the HSA fitness function. Our proposed method was experimented on benchmark datasets, which yielded results comparable to the state-of-the-art WSD methods. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the dependency generator, we perform the same methodology without the parser, but with a window of words. The empirical results demonstrate that the proposed method is able to produce effective solutions for most instances of the datasets used.