Effect of dialysis or centrifugation on post-thaw motility and fertility of Santa Gertrudis bull semen collected by electroejaculation

Electroejaculated semen from Santa Gertrudis bulls was used to study the effect of centrifugation (600 x g for 5 min) or dialysis [molecular weight cutoff <14,000 Daltons (Da)] on post-thaw motility and on fertility in beef cattle. Analysis of post-thaw motility showed that the main effects (bulls and semen treatment) were significant (P<0.05). Dialysis significantly improved post-thaw motility in four of seven bulls. Initial volume of seminal plasma in the ejaculate was negatively correlated to post-thaw motility (r = -0.73). No significant improvement in post-thaw motility was observed for bulls with high volumes of ejaculate. In a fertility trial, calving rates of heifers synchronized with PGF(2)alpha and inseminated at 72 and 96 h after the second PGF(2)alpha injection with dialyzed or commercial semen were not statistically different (P>0.05; 54.4% vs 55.4%). These results show that dialysis could be used to improve post-thaw motility of electroejaculated bull semen without altering its fertilizing capacity. However, a high initial volume of seminal plasma seems to have a deleterious effect on sperm freezability that cannot be reversed by dialysis.     

Gene expression analysis of intestinal IL-8, IL-17 A and IL-10 in patients with celiac and inflammatory bowel diseases

Molecular Biology Reports - Celiac disease (CeD) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are accompanied by impaired immune responses. To study the immune regulation of these diseases, we evaluated...     

Reduced frequency of circulating regulatory T cells and their related immunosuppressive mediators in treated celiac patients

Background

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) have an important role in the control of the immune responses. This study aimed to compare the frequency of peripheral blood (PB) CD4+?CD25+?FoxP3+?Treg cells and PB and duodenal expression levels of pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators in treated celiac disease (CD) patients and healthy controls.

Methods and results

Duodenal biopsy specimens and PB samples were collected from 60 treated CD patients and 60 controls. Flow cytometry analysis was conducted on peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) specimens and relative PB and duodenal mRNA expression levels of CD25, forkhead box P3 (Foxp3), interleukin (IL)-10 and granzyme B (GrzB) were evaluated using quantitative real-time PCR. The levels of serum IL-10 and IL-6 were tested with sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits. p values?<?0.05 were considered significant. Flow cytometry analysis showed a significant decrease in the number of Tregs in CD patients’ PBMC specimens (p?=?0.012). CD25 and Foxp3 PB mRNA expressions were also lower in CD patients without reaching the significance level (p?>?0.05). IL-10 PB mRNA and protein expression did not differ between the groups (p?>?0.05), and GrzB PB expression was significantly reduced in CD patients (p?=?0.001). In duodenal specimens of CD patients, while significantly increased CD25, Foxp3 mRNA expression (p?=?0.01 and 0.001, respectively) and decreased IL-10 mRNA expression (p?=?0.02) were observed, GrzB mRNA expression did not differ between groups (p?>?0.05). Moreover, a high serum level of IL-6 was observed in CD patients (p?=?0.001).

Conclusions

Despite following the gluten free diet, there may still be residual inflammation in the intestine of CD patients. Accordingly, finding a therapeutic approach based on strengthening the function of Treg cells in CD might be helpful.

     

Model complexes for amavadine,a vanadium natural product

Amavadine is a vanadium natural product from the mushroom Amanita muscaria. Earlier reports have characterized the compound as a vanadyl (VO²⁺) complex with two N-hydroxy-αα-iminodipropionic acid ligands, but no hypothesis as to its function has yet been put forward. We report here the synthesis, isolation, and properties of bis(iminodiacetato)oxovanadium(IV) and bis(αα-iminodipropionato)oxovanadium(IV). The complex bis(ββ-iminodipropionato)oxovanadium(IV) has been prepared in solution. These complexes serve as models for Amavadine. The structures of the models are analogous to that of Amavadine, with two bidentate, singly charged ligands bonding through one oxygen and one nitrogen atom. The visible spectra suggest the possibility of 1:1 complexes in solution in addition to the 2:1 ligand to metal complexes. Preliminary electrochemical data suggest reversible V(IV) ? V(III) couples.     

Unmet Needs for Cardiovascular Care in Indonesia

Background

In the past twenty years the heaviest burden of cardiovascular diseases has begun to shift from developed to developing countries. However, little is known about the real needs for cardiovascular care in these countries and how well those needs are being met. This study aims to investigate the prevalence and determinants of unmet needs for cardiovascular care based on objective assessment.

Methods and Findings

Multilevel analysis is used to analyse the determinants of met needs and multilevel multiple imputation is applied to manage missing data. The 2008 Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS4) survey is the source of the household data used in this study, while district data is sourced from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance. The data shows that nearly 70% of respondents with moderate to high cardiovascular risk failed to receive cardiovascular care. Higher income, possession of health insurance and residence in urban areas are significantly associated with met needs for cardiovascular care, while health facility density and physician density show no association with them.

Conclusions

The prevalence of unmet needs for cardiovascular care is considerable in Indonesia. Inequality persists as a factor in meeting needs for cardiovascular care as the needs of people with higher incomes and those living in urban areas are more likely to be met. Alleviation of poverty, provision of health care insurance for the poor, and improvement in the quality of healthcare providers are recommended in order to meet this ever-increasing need.     

Screening of plant growth promoting traits in heavy metals resistant bacteria: Prospects in phytoremediation

Phytoremediation is considered as a novel environmental friendly technology, which uses plants to remove or immobilize heavy metals. The use of metal-resistant plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) constitutes an important technology for enhancing biomass production as well as tolerance of the plants to heavy metals. In this study, we isolated twenty seven (NF1-NF27) chromium resistant bacteria. The bacteria were tested for heavy metals (Cr, Zn, Cu, Ni, Pb and Co) resistance, Cr(VI) reduction and PGPB characters (phosphate solubilization, production of IAA and siderophores). The results showed that the bacterial isolates resist to heavy metals and reduce Cr(VI), with varying capabilities. 37.14% of the isolates have the capacity of solubilizing phosphate, 28.57% are able to produce siderophores and all isolates have the ability to produce IAA. Isolate NF2 that showed high heavy metal resistance and plant growth promotion characteristics was identified by 16S rDNA sequence analysis as a strain of Cellulosimicrobium sp.. Pot culture experiments conducted under greenhouse conditions showed that this strain was able to promote plant growth of alfalfa in control and in heavy metals (Cr, Zn and Cu) spiked soils and increased metal uptake by the plants. Thus, the potential of Cellulosimicrobium sp. for both bioremediation and plant growth promotion has significance in the management of environmental pollution.     

Hybrid Symbiotic Organisms Search Optimization Algorithm for Scheduling of Tasks on Cloud Computing Environment

Cloud computing has attracted significant attention from research community because of rapid migration rate of Information Technology services to its domain. Advances in virtualization technology has made cloud computing very popular as a result of easier deployment of application services. Tasks are submitted to cloud datacenters to be processed on pay as you go fashion. Task scheduling is one the significant research challenges in cloud computing environment. The current formulation of task scheduling problems has been shown to be NP-complete, hence finding the exact solution especially for large problem sizes is intractable. The heterogeneous and dynamic feature of cloud resources makes optimum task scheduling non-trivial. Therefore, efficient task scheduling algorithms are required for optimum resource utilization. Symbiotic Organisms Search (SOS) has been shown to perform competitively with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The aim of this study is to optimize task scheduling in cloud computing environment based on a proposed Simulated Annealing (SA) based SOS (SASOS) in order to improve the convergence rate and quality of solution of SOS. The SOS algorithm has a strong global exploration capability and uses fewer parameters. The systematic reasoning ability of SA is employed to find better solutions on local solution regions, hence, adding exploration ability to SOS. Also, a fitness function is proposed which takes into account the utilization level of virtual machines (VMs) which reduced makespan and degree of imbalance among VMs. CloudSim toolkit was used to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed method using both synthetic and standard workload. Results of simulation showed that hybrid SOS performs better than SOS in terms of convergence speed, response time, degree of imbalance, and makespan.     

National Economic Development Status May Affect the Association between Central Adiposity and Cognition in Older Adults

Background

Obesity is becoming a global problem, rather than one found only in developed countries. Although recent studies have suggested a detrimental effect of obesity on cognition, studies of the relationship between obesity and cognition among older adults have been limited to developed countries. We aimed to examine the associations between central obesity, as measured by waist circumference, and cognition level in adults aged 50 years and older in England and Indonesia.

Methods

We used linear regression models to analyse these associations and multiple imputation to manage missing data. The 2006 English Longitudinal Study of Ageing Wave 3 is the source of data from England, while data from Indonesia is sourced from the 2007 Indonesian Family Life Survey Wave 4.

Findings

Centrally obese respondents had lower cognition levels than non-centrally obese respondents in England. In contrast, central adiposity had a statistically significant positive association with cognition in Indonesia. Higher levels of education and higher economic status were associated with higher cognitive ability, while age was associated with lower cognition in both countries. Elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) concentrations and smoking behaviour, both linked to higher risk of obesity, were negatively associated with cognitive ability among older adults in England, but they had no statistically significant association with cognition among Indonesians.

Interpretation

The contradictory findings on obesity and cognition in England and Indonesia not only create a puzzle, but they may also have different policy implications in these countries. Reducing the prevalence of obesity may be the main focus in England and other developed countries to maintain older adults’ cognition. However, Indonesia and other developing countries should place more emphasis on education, in addition to continued efforts to tackle the double burden of malnutrition, in order to prevent cognitive impairment among older adults.     

Inventing Engineered Organoids for end-stage liver failure patients

Journal of Molecular Histology - End-stage liver disease (ESLD) is a term used clinically in reference to a group of liver diseases with liver transplantation as the choice of treatment. Due to the...