The effect of pulsed electromagnetic fields on secondary skin wound healing: an experimental study

A variety of pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) have already been experimentally used, in an effort to promote wound healing. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of short duration PEMF on secondary healing of full thickness skin wounds in a rat model. Full thickness skin wounds, 2 by 2 cm, were surgically inflicted in two groups of male Wistar rats, 24 animals each. In the first group (experimental group - EG), the animals were placed and immobilized in a special constructed cage. Then the animals were exposed to a short duration PEMF for 20 min daily. In the second group (control group - CG), the animals were also placed and immobilized in the same cage for the same time, but not exposed to PEMF. On days 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 22, following the infliction of skin wounds, the size and healing progress of each wound were recorded and evaluated by means of planimetry and histological examination. According to our findings with the planimetry, there was a statistically significant acceleration of the healing rate for the first 9 days in EG, whereas a qualitative improvement of healing progress was identified by histological examination at all time points, compared to the control group.     

The effect of ATP on cucumber (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cucumis sativus</Emphasis> L.) regeneration from nodal explants: association with α-tocopherol,H<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>2</Subscript> and size of culture vessel

We investigated the effect of adenosine 5-triphosphate (ATP), -tocopherol and H₂0₂ on the micropropagation of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) from nodal explants. The effect of the size of the liquid culture vessel (250-ml flask vs. 2.5-l airlift bioreactor) was also evaluated. The addition of ATP alone caused a significant increase in the number of branches (internodes) and in internodal length, but also a reduction of leaf number, compared to control cultures. It also increased significantly the accumulation of NO₃^– and K⁺ . The application of ATP + -tocopherol was associated with a significant increase in bud, internodal, leaf and petiole number, internodal, petiole and root length, as well as plant fresh weight, but reduced PO₄^3– and Ca²⁺ accumulation. The combined application of ATP + -tocopherol + H₂O₂ was associated with maximum petiole length and increased plant fresh weight but reduced Ca²⁺ accumulation. Compared to all other treatments, application of ATP + -tocopherol in bioreactor-incubated cultures produced significantly larger plants, with an increased bud number, internode lenght and soluble carbohydrate concentration, but also with a reduced fresh weight, root length and reduced NO₃^– and PO₄^3– and Ca²⁺ concentrations. These effects were associated with changes in the redox status of the regenerants, as well as dehydrogenase and peroxidase activities. The perspective for an application of ATP and antioxidants as novel, cost-efficient growth regulators in the micropropagation of this commercially important vegetable species is discussed.     

Scale-up production of puerarin from hairy roots of Pueraria phaseoloides in an airlift bioreactor

Hairy roots of the Chinese herb, Pueraria phaseoloides, obtained from leaf explants and transformed with the Agrobacterium rhizogenes, were cultured in 2.5 l airlift bioreactors for three weeks. Puerarin accumulated at 5,570 microg g(-1) dry wt, which is near 200 times as much as in 250 ml flask cultures. In addition, puearin was exuded into the nutrient medium at final concentrations higher than in the hairy roots themselves.     

Kernel-based self-organized maps trained with supervised bias for gene expression data analysis

Self-Organized Maps (SOMs) are a popular approach for analyzing genome-wide expression data. However, most SOM based approaches ignore prior knowledge about functional gene categories. Also, Self Organized Map (SOM) based approaches usually develop topographic maps with disjoint and uniform activation regions that correspond to a hard clustering of the patterns at their nodes. We present a novel Self-Organizing map, the Kernel Supervised Dynamic Grid Self-Organized Map (KSDG-SOM). This model adapts its parameters in a kernel space. Gaussian kernels are used and their mean and variance components are adapted in order to optimize the fitness to the input density. The KSDG-SOM also grows dynamically up to a size defined with statistical criteria. It is capable of incorporating a priori information for the known functional characteristics of genes. This information forms a supervised bias at the cluster formation and the model owns the potentiality of revising incorrect functional labels. The new method overcomes the main drawbacks of most of the existing clustering methods that lack a mechanism for dynamical extension on the basis of a balance between unsupervised and supervised drives.     

Ancient diversity of splicing motifs and protein surfaces in the wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides) LR10 coiled coil (CC) and leucine-rich repeat (LRR) domains

In this study, we explore the diversity and its distribution along the wheat leaf rust resistance protein LR10 three-dimensional structure. Lr10 is a leaf rust resistance gene encoding a coiled coil-nucleotide-binding site-leucine-rich repeat (CC-NBS-LRR) class of protein. Lr10 was cloned and sequenced from 58 accessions representing diverse habitats of wild emmer wheat in Israel. Nucleotide diversity was very high relative to other wild emmer wheat genes (π= 0.029). The CC domain was found to be the most diverse domain and subject to positive selection. Superimposition of the diversity on the CC three-dimensional structure showed that some of the variable and positively selected residues were solvent exposed and may interact with other proteins. The LRR domain was relatively conserved, but showed a hotspot of amino acid variation between two haplotypes in the ninth repeat. This repeat was longer than the other LRRs, and three-dimensional modelling suggested that an extensive α helix structure was formed in this region. The two haplotypes also differed in splicing regulation motifs. In genotypes with one haplotype, an intron was alternatively spliced in this region, whereas, in genotypes with the other haplotype, this intron did not splice at all. The two haplotypes are proposed to be ancient and maintained by balancing selection.     

Tyrosinase Degradation Is Prevented when EDEM1 Lacks the Intrinsically Disordered Region

EDEM1 is a mannosidase-like protein that recruits misfolded glycoproteins from the calnexin/calreticulin folding cycle to downstream endoplasmic reticulum associated degradation (ERAD) pathway. Here, we investigate the role of EDEM1 in the processing of tyrosinase, a tumour antigen overexpressed in melanoma cells. First, we analyzed and modeled EDEM1 major domains. The homology model raised on the crystal structures of human and Saccharomyces cerevisiae ER class I α1,2-mannosidases reveals that the major mannosidase domain located between aminoacids 121-598 fits with high accuracy. We have further identified an N-terminal region located between aminoacids 40-119, predicted to be intrinsically disordered (ID) and susceptible to adopt multiple conformations, hence facilitating protein-protein interactions. To investigate these two domains we have constructed an EDEM1 deletion mutant lacking the ID region and a triple mutant disrupting the glycan-binding domain and analyzed their association with tyrosinase. Tyrosinase is a glycoprotein partly degraded endogenously by ERAD and the ubiquitin proteasomal system. We found that the degradation of wild type and misfolded tyrosinase was enhanced when EDEM1 was overexpressed. Glycosylated and non-glycosylated mutants co-immunoprecipitated with EDEM1 even in the absence of its intact mannosidase-like domain, but not when the ID region was deleted. In contrast, calnexin and SEL 1L associated with the deletion mutant. Our data suggest that the ID region identified in the N-terminal end of EDEM1 is involved in the binding of glycosylated and non-glycosylated misfolded proteins. Accelerating tyrosinase degradation by EDEM1 overexpression may lead to an efficient antigen presentation and enhanced elimination of melanoma cells.     

Insight in glioma susceptibility through an analysis of 6p22.3, 12p13.33-12.1, 17q22-23.2 and 18q23 SNP genotypes in familial and non-familial glioma

The risk of glioma has consistently been shown to be increased twofold in relatives of patients with primary brain tumors (PBT). A recent genome-wide linkage study of glioma families provided evidence for a disease locus on 17q12-21.32, with the possibility of four additional risk loci at 6p22.3, 12p13.33-12.1, 17q22-23.2, and 18q23. To identify the underlying genetic variants responsible for the linkage signals, we compared the genotype frequencies of 5,122 SNPs mapping to these five regions in 88 glioma cases with and 1,100 cases without a family history of PBT (discovery study). An additional series of 84 familial and 903 non-familial cases were used to replicate associations. In the discovery study, 12 SNPs showed significant associations with family history of PBT (P?相似文献   

Cellular redox-status is associated with regulation of frond division in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Spirodela polyrrhiza</Emphasis>

We investigated a possible relationship between the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the stimulation of frond division of the aquatic plant Spirodela polyrrhiza (duckweed) during a 7-day experimental culture period. In particular, we monitored superoxide concentration using a state-of-the-art cell biosensor. A considerable reduction in ROS and superoxide concentration was observed during the first 2 days of culture, whereas duckweed cultures achieved near exponential growth rates after the second day. In addition, apoptotic markers such as the cytoplasmic concentration of cytochrome c, mitochondrial membrane depolarization and the activity of caspase-3 declined during the culture period and at least before daughter frond maturation. We suggest that S. polyrrhiza frond division may have been stimulated by the observed reduction of free radicals and the associated avoidance of cell apoptotic pathways in cultured plants.     

Terrestrial Plant-Derived Anticancer Agents and Plant Species Used in Anticancer Research

Cancer is a major cause of death and the number of new cases, as well as the number of individuals living with cancer, is expanding continuously. Due to the enormous propensity of plants that synthesize mixtures of structurally diverse bioactive compounds, the plant kingdom is potentially a very diverse source of chemical constituents with tumor cytotoxic activity. Despite the successful utilization of few phytochemicals, such as vincristine and taxol, into mainstream cancer chemotherapy, commercial plant-derived anticancer formulations represent only one-fourth of the total repertoire of the available treatment options. Though significant progress has been made towards the characterization of isolated compounds and their structure-related activities, the complex composition of plant extracts, along with the lack of reproducibility of activity and the synergy between different, even unidentified, components of an extract, prohibits the full utilization of plants in pharmaceutical research. In this review, the results of an extensive literature survey on the anticancer properties of terrestrial plants, covering a thirty-five-year-long span (1970–2005) are presented. A total of 187 plant species, belonging to 102 genera and 61 families have been identified as an active or promising source of phytochemicals with antitumor properties, corresponding to a 41 percent increase during the last five years. Among them, only 15 species (belonging to ten genera and nine families) have been utilized in cancer chemotherapy at a clinical level, whereas the rest of the identified species are either active against cancer cell lines or exhibit chemotherapeutic properties on tumor-bearing animals under experimental conditions. Phenylpropanoids are the most widely distributed compounds (18 families), followed by terpenoids (14 families), and alkaloids (13 families). Analytical, species-specific information on bioactive constituents and target cancers is provided. The outlook of phytochemistry-based cancer therapy is discussed, particularly in the perspective of identifying immunomodulatory anticancer agents with minimal toxicity on healthy tissues.

     

Initial Value Dependence: A Comparison of Two Methods For Its Study

This article is concerned with the comparison of slope estimator precision in regression analysis and the structural relationships approach (e.g., Humak, 1983, ch. 3; Kendall and Stuart, 1977), as it is relevant for their applications when testing for initial value dependence in biomedical and behavioral contexts of repeated assessments (e.g., Blomqvist, 1977; Wall, 1977). As a basis for the comparison of the two methods, the mean square error is adopted. In the general case, it is argued for an informed (data-dependent) choice between regression analysis and the structural relationships approach. For the apparent majority of biomedical and behavioral studies of the phenomenon of initial value depenence, this comparison suggests that structural relationships is the preferable approach leading to more trustworthy substantive conclusions.