Dietary Supplementation of Aspirin Promotes Drosophila Defense against Viral Infection.

Aspirin, also known as acetylsalicylic acid, is widely consumed as a pain reliever and an anti-inflammatory as well as anti-platelet agent. Recently, our studies using the animal model of Drosophila demonstrated that the dietary supplementation of aspirin renovates age-onset intestinal dysfunction and delays organismal aging. Nevertheless, it remains probable that aspirin plays functional roles in other biological activities, for instance antiviral defense reactions. Intriguingly, we observed that the replications of several types of viruses were drastically antagonized in Drosophila macrophage-like S2 cells with the addition of aspirin. Further in vivo experimental approaches illustrate that adult flies consuming aspirin harbor higher resistances to viral infections with respect to flies without aspirin treatment. Mechanistically, aspirin positively contributes to the Drosophila antiviral defense largely through mediating the STING (stimulator of interferon genes) but not the IMD (immune deficiency) signaling pathway. Collectively, our studies uncover a novel biological function of aspirin in modulating Drosophila antiviral immunity and provide theoretical bases for exploring new antiviral treatments in clinical trials.

Simultaneous determination of atropine, scopolamine, and anisodamine in Flos daturae by capillary electrophoresis using a capillary coated by graphene oxide.

A novel CE method was developed for the separation and determination of three main tropane alkaloids in Flos daturae with a capillary coated by graphene oxide (GO). The GO-coated capillary was characterized by SEM, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, and the results indicated that the inner surface of the capillary was partially coated by GO. A phosphate solution (40 mM, pH7.0) containing 20% v/v methanol and 30% v/v acetonitrile was used as the running buffer for the analysis of the atropine, scopolamine, and anisodamine. The linear ranges of atropine, scopolamine, and anisodamine was 0.5-200 µg/mL with satisfactory correlation coefficients (R(2)) > 0.9987, and this novel method provided an efficient separation for three tropane alkaloids as well as a good reproducibility and stability. Finally, the method was successfully applied for the determination of these three tropane alkaloids in plant extracts.

Graphene oxide coated capillary for chiral separation by CE.

This article describes a new application of graphene oxide (GO) in CE based on the coating of fused silica capillary for chiral separation. The coated capillary was characterized by SEM, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and Raman spectra. The results indicated that the capillary was coated with GO. Chiral separations were carried out in the GO-coated capillary for the ephedrine-pseudoephedrine (E-PE) isomers and ß-methylphenethylamine (ß-Me-PEA) isomers at the optimal buffer conditions without any chiral selector by CE. The precision and reproducibility of GO-coated capillary were investigated, and the RSDs of migration time (n = 6) for the E-PE isomers were 1.35-1.41%, and 0.97-3.50% for ß-Me-PEA isomers, respectively. The LOD for E-PE isomers and ß-Me-PEA isomers was 3 µM and 18 µM, respectively.