Gallic acid markedly stimulates GLUT1-mediated glucose uptake by the AsPC-1 pancreatic cancer cell line.

Phenolic acids are recognized as chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic agents. Altered glucose and glutamine metabolism are recognized hallmarks of cancer cells. We aimed to test the influence of phenolic acids on glucose and glutamine cellular uptake by a breast (MCF-7) and a pancreatic (AsPC-1) cancer cell line. Several phenolic acids (caffeic, ferrulic, proctocatechuic, coumaric and gallic acid) affected 3H-glutamine and/or 3H-deoxy-d-glucose (3H-DG) uptake. Gallic acid (100 µM) caused a 3-fold increase in 3H-DG uptake by AsPC-1 cells, associated with a 3.7-fold increase in lactic acid production. Gallic acid stimulated GLUT1-mediated 3H-DG uptake and increased the affinity of this transporter for 3H-DG. We further verified that gallic acid does not change GLUT1 transcription rates and cellular redox state and that its effect does not involve PI3K, mTOR and MAP kinases and is not associated with a proproliferative effect. Gallic acid also increased 3H-DG uptake by MCF-7 cells, although less potently. Further investigation is necessary to elucidate the cellular pathways involved in this effect of gallic acid.

Attention allocation to 2D and 3D emotion-inducing scenes: A neurophysiological study.

Past research on emotions was mostly supported on emotion inducing slides, but studies in the field are moving towards more ecological stimuli, including 3D stimuli and virtual reality scenes. The present study aims to compare the effects of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) emotion-inducing scenes in the modulation of attention, as indexed by the amplitude of the P3 event-related component in a dual-task paradigm. We recorded the EEG signal of 31 healthy male participants performing an active auditory oddball task, while simultaneously observing pleasant, unpleasant and neutral scenes in 2D or 3D. We analyzed the effects of emotional valence and visualization mode in the mean amplitude of the P3 component at Pz. The results revealed than revealed that 2D scenarios were as effective as 3D stimuli in capturing attention resources and this effect was consistently observed in all emotional scenes.