2011 March - 43 articles
We have in vitro tested the ability of common, commercially available, cholinesterase reactivators (pralidoxime, obidoxime, methoxime, trimedoxime and HI-6) to reactivate human acetylcholinesterase (AChE), inhibited by five structurally different org...
Cancer is the leading cause of death in the world. Development of minimally invasive biomarkers for early detection of cancer is urgently needed to reduce high morbidity and mortality associated with malignancy. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small regulator...
Expression of human granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (hGMCSF), a cytokine of therapeutic importance, as a thioredoxin (TRX) fusion has been investigated in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) codon plus cells. The expression of this protein w...
In order to achieve a continuous tuning of laser emission, the authors designed and fabricated three types of cholesteric liquid crystal cells with pitch gradient, a wedge cell with positive slope, a wedge cell with negative slope, and a parallel cel...
The cholesteryl-ester transfer protein (CETP) facilitates the transfer of cholesterol esters and triglycerides between lipoproteins in plasma where the critical site for its function is situated in the C-terminal domain. Our group has previously show...
A recent advance in the field of light emitting polymers has been the discovery of electroluminescent conjugated polymers, that is, kind of fluorescent polymers that emit light when excited by the flow of an electric current. These new generation flu...
The principles obtained from studies on molecular chaperones have provided explanations for the assisted protein folding in vivo. However, the majority of proteins can fold without the assistance of the known molecular chaperones, and little attentio...
We investigated the efficacy of Ligusticum wallichi aqueous extract (LWE) for myocardial protection against ischemia-reperfusion injury. Rats were fed for five weeks with either a control diet (sham and ischemia reperfusion (IR) model control groups)...
The objective of this study was to use DRIFT spectroscopy with uni- and multivariate molecular spectral analyses as a novel approach to detect molecular features of spectra mainly associated with carbohydrate in the co-products (wheat DDGS, corn DDGS...
Chitin-based materials and their derivatives are receiving increased attention in tissue engineering because of their unique and appealing biological properties. In this review, we summarize the biomedical potential of chitin-based materials, specifi...
Zn(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II) complexes of N-methyl-N-phenyl dithiocarbamate have been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis and spectral studies (IR, 1H and 13C-NMR). The single crystal X-ray structure of the mercury complex revealed that...
Oxidative stress is implicated in the pathogenesis and/or complications of hypertension and/or diabetes mellitus. A combination of these disorders increases the risk of developing cardiovascular events. This study investigated the effects of streptoz...
Chitosan is an amino polysaccharide found in nature, which is biodegradable, nontoxic and biocompatible. It has versatile features and can be used in a variety of applications including films, packaging, and also in medical surgery. Recently a possib...
Tissue engineering/regeneration is based on the hypothesis that healthy stem/progenitor cells either recruited or delivered to an injured site, can eventually regenerate lost or damaged tissue. Most of the researchers working in tissue engineering an...
The objectives were to assess total dietary fiber intake, identify the major sources of dietary fiber, and examine its association with socio-economic factors among Flemish preschoolers. Three-day estimated dietary records were collected from a repre...
A simple solid-phase extraction (SPE) method for the determination of sulforaphane in broccoli has been developed. The optimal conditions were found to be use of a silica SPE cartridge, and ethyl acetate and dichloromethane as washing and eluting sol...
Tea is believed to be beneficial for health, and the effects of the fermentation process on its contributions to apoptosis and cell cycle arrest of gastric cancer cells have not been completely investigated. In this study, the chemical components in...
To decontaminate dredged harbor sediments by bioremediation or electromigration processes, adding biosurfactants could enhance the bioavailability or mobility of contaminants in an aqueous phase. Pure amphisin from Pseudomonas fluorescens DSS73 displ...
An abnormal ubiquitin-proteasome is found in many human diseases, especially in cancer, and has received extensive attention as a promising therapeutic target in recent years. In this work, several in silico models have been built with two classes of...
A clean-route synthesis of Zn-Al-hydrotalcites (Zn-Al-LDHs) using zinc oxide and sodium aluminate solution has been developed. The as-obtained materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), a...
Bacillus species produce extracellular, surface-active lipopeptides such as surfactin that have wide applications in industry and medicine. The steps involved in the synthesis of 3-hydroxyacyl-coenzyme A (CoA) substrates needed for surfactin biosynth...
Five potential reference genes for RT-qPCR application, namely histone H3, beta-actin, GAPDH, ubiquitin and 18S rRNA, were evaluated for normalization of gene expression in four selected tissues (liver, kidney, thyroid and abdominal fat). Tissues wer...
Fmoc-3-nitrotyrosine (Fmoc-3-NT) molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were synthesized to understand the influence of several functional monomers on the efficiency of the molecular imprinting process. Acidic, neutral and basic functional monomers, s...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and advantages of constructing a novel tissue engineering bone, using β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) and rat bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), modified with human bone morphogeneti...
Muscular dystrophies are a group of diseases that primarily affect striated muscle and are characterized by the progressive loss of muscle strength and integrity. Major forms of muscular dystrophies are caused by the abnormalities of the dystrophin g...
An investigation of the structure and drug release mechanism of a drug delivery system is proposed on the basis of semi-empirical and ab initio computations in vacuum stage. Cis-aconityl linkage is used to improve the interaction between an anti-canc...
In this work, novel docetaxel (DTX) -loaded Tween 80-free Pluronic P123 (P123) micelles with improved therapeutic effect were developed. The freeze-dried DTX-loaded P123 micelles (DTX-micelles) were analyzed by HPLC, TEM and DLS to determine the DTX...
Mitsui and Ohshima (2008) criticized the power-stroke model for muscle contraction and proposed a new model. In the new model, about 41% of the myosin heads are bound to actin filaments, and each bound head forms a complex MA3 with three actin molecu...
Photopyroelectric (PPE) spectroscopy is a nondestructive tool that is used to study the optical properties of the ceramics (ZnO + 0.4MnO2 + 0.4Co3O4 + xV2O5), x = 0–1 mol%. Wavelength of incident light, modulated at 10 Hz, was in the range of 300–800...
Since the inception of microfluidics, the electric force has been exploited as one of the leading mechanisms for driving and controlling the movement of the operating fluid and the charged suspensions. Electric force has an intrinsic advantage in min...
This article discusses the hypothesized composition and organization of cytoplasm in prebiotic cells from a theoretical perspective and also based upon what is currently known about bacterial cytoplasm. It is unknown if the first prebiotic, microscop...
This article introduces a previous study and tremendous progress in basic theoretical modeling, material developments and device engineering for polymer light-emitting devices (PLEDs).
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies with poor prognosis. Previously, we found that a subpopulation of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in the Panc-1 pancreatic cancer cell line could propagate to form spheres. Here we characterized the m...
Aurora kinases have emerged as attractive targets for the design of anticancer drugs. 3D-QSAR (comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) and comparative molecular similarity indices analysis (CoMSIA)) and Surflex-docking studies were performed on...
Six hull-less barley cultivars widely grown in China were roller-milled to produce bran, shorts and flour fractions. The distribution and molecular characteristics of β-glucans from the three roller-milled fractions were investigated. The β-glucan co...
Mammalian genomes encode genes for more than 30 phospholipase A2s (PLA2s) or related enzymes, which are subdivided into several subgroups based on their structures, catalytic mechanisms, localizations and evolutionary relationships. More than one thi...
The optical band-gap energy (Eg) is an important feature of semiconductors which determines their applications in optoelectronics. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the electronic states of ceramic ZnO and the effect of doped impurities under...
Melanoma accounts for only a small portion of skin cancer but it is associated with high mortality. Melanoma serum biomarkers that may aid early diagnosis or guide therapy are needed clinically. However, studies of serum biomarkers have often been ha...
Epidemiological studies have suggested that there are many risk factors associated with breast cancer. Silencing tumor suppressor genes through epigenetic alterations play critical roles in breast cancer initiation, promotion and progression. As a gr...
Ever since the hypothesis was put forward that estrogens could protect against cerebral ischemia, numerous studies have investigated the mechanisms of their effects. Despite initial studies showing ameliorating effects, later trials in both humans an...
Proteins are uniquely capable of identifying targets with unparalleled selectivity, but, in addition to the precision of the binding phenomenon, nature has the ability to find its targets exceptionally quickly. Transcription factors for instance can...
This study evaluates the pre-treatment of cellulose from kenaf plant to yield sugar precursors for the production of ethanol or butanol for use as biofuel additives. In order to convert the crystalline cellulosic form to the amorphous form that can u...
Self-assembled nanostructures of zwitterionic octaphosphanatoporphyrin 1, of either nanoparticles or nanorods, depending on small changes in the pH, is demonstrated based on the J-aggregates. Porphyrin 1 self-assembled into nanosphere aggregates with...
