Ellagitannin content and anti-enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli activity of aqueous extracts derived from commercial pomegranate products.

This study compared the efficacy of aqueous extracts of commercially available pomegranate peel products and a juice powder in inhibiting the growth of two enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli strains. Cell suspension of each E. coli strain (5 Log CFU/ml) was added into tryptic soy broth amended with 9 or 23% of each extract prepared with two different methods. After treatment for 5, 10, and 24 h at 25 °C, surviving E. coli cells were enumerated on tryptic soy agar to determine cell population reduction compared to the controls. The concentrations of six different ellagitannins and titratable activity in each treatment system were determined and correlated to E. coli cell population reduction. The extracts from three powdered pomegranate peels caused a significantly greater (p ≤ 0.05) reduction in E. coli population than the extract from the whole peel and juice powder. The higher dose of extracts resulted in a greater cell population reduction than the lower dose. The level of E. coli population reduction correlated positively with the total ellagitannins content (R2 0.67-0.98) and the titratable acidity (R2 0.69-0.98) in the treatment systems. The study suggests that pomegranate peels are promising natural additives or preservatives to control pathogens like EHEC.

Liraglutide Improves PCOS Symptoms in Rats by Targeting FDX1.

BACKGROUND: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a gynecological endocrine disorder characterized by ovulatory disorders, hyperandrogenemia, and polycystic changes in the ovaries. FDX1 is a ferredoxin-reducing protein on human mitochondria that plays an important role in steroid anabolism. Liraglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA), has recently emerged as a potential therapeutic agent for PCOS. Recent studies have suggested that FDX1 may be associated with the development of PCOS. This study aims to explore the pivotal role of FDX1 in the amelioration of PCOS through liraglutide intervention. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A PCOS rat model was induced via subcutaneous DHEA injections. Following successful model establishment, the rats were treated with liraglutide combined with metformin, or with each drug individually, over a six-week period. After 6 weeks of treatment, we assessed changes in body weight, fasting blood glucose, sex hormone levels, estrous cycle regularity, ovarian morphology, FDX1 expression in ovarian tissue, and ovarian ROS levels. RESULTS: PCOS rats exhibited significant increases in body weight and fasting blood glucose levels, disrupted estrous cycles, and polycystic ovarian morphology. FDX1 expression was notably reduced in the ovarian tissues of PCOS rats. Treatment with liraglutide, both alone and in combination with metformin, led to improvements in body weight, fasting blood glucose, sex hormone balance, estrous cycle regularity, ovarian morphology, and ovarian ROS levels. Notably, FDX1 expression was significantly restored in all treatment groups, with the most substantial increase observed in the liraglutide-treated group. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that FDX1 could serve as a potential biomarker for elucidating the underlying mechanisms of liraglutide's therapeutic effects in PCOS management.

Fusion of Multi-Modal Features to Enhance Dense Video Caption.

Dense video caption is a task that aims to help computers analyze the content of a video by generating abstract captions for a sequence of video frames. However, most of the existing methods only use visual features in the video and ignore the audio features that are also essential for understanding the video. In this paper, we propose a fusion model that combines the Transformer framework to integrate both visual and audio features in the video for captioning. We use multi-head attention to deal with the variations in sequence lengths between the models involved in our approach. We also introduce a Common Pool to store the generated features and align them with the time steps, thus filtering the information and eliminating redundancy based on the confidence scores. Moreover, we use LSTM as a decoder to generate the description sentences, which reduces the memory size of the entire network. Experiments show that our method is competitive on the ActivityNet Captions dataset.

Differential expression of microRNA in the serum of patients with polycystic ovary syndrome with insulin resistance.

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common reproductive endocrine disease in women of childbearing age, and insulin resistance is an important etiological mechanism in PCOS. This study revealed the microRNA (miRNA) expression profile of PCOS with insulin resistance and explored the potential biological functions of differentially expressed miRNA. Methods: A total of 76 patients with PCOS and 30 normal healthy women were recruited in the gynecological clinic of the Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University. We divided the patients with PCOS into a group with insulin resistance (n=46) and a group without insulin resistance (n=30). Peripheral venous serum samples from each group were used for deep sequencing to identify differentially expressed miRNAs. Hierarchical clustering heat maps were used to show differences in miRNA expression. Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis, and target gene network databases were used to explore the potential target genes of differentially expressed miRNAs and to analyze their specific biological functions. Results: A case-control analysis found that the levels of body mass index (BMI), prolactin (PRL), total testosterone (T), fasting blood glucose (FBG), and fasting insulin (INS) in patients with PCOS were higher than those in healthy controls. High BMI, high blood sugar, and hyperinsulinemia were more significant in the PCOS with insulin resistance group than without insulin resistance group. Among the patients with PCOS, miR-122-5p was found to have more significant differences in the PCOS with insulin resistance group. GO and KEGG pathway analysis showed that the identified miRNAs were involved in the regulation of different biological processes, such as signal transduction, negative regulation of GTPase activity, chloride channel complex. The predicted target genes were related to the citrate cycle (TCA cycle) and the biosynthesis of mucin-type O-glycans. Conclusions: Our research demonstrated the use of miRNAs as new biomarkers for the diagnosis, treatment and presented a new strategy to lessen the symptoms of PCOS with insulin resistance.

CME-1, a novel polysaccharide, suppresses iNOS expression in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated macrophages through ceramide-initiated protein phosphatase 2A activation.

CME-1, a novel water-soluble polysaccharide purified from Ophiocordyceps sinensis mycelia, has anti-oxidative, antithrombotic and antitumour properties. In this study, other major attributes of CME-1, namely anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties, were investigated. Treating lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells with CME-1 concentration-dependently suppressed nitric oxide formation and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression. In the CME-1-treated RAW 264.7 cells, LPS-induced IκBα degradation and the phosphorylation of p65, Akt and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), including extracellular signal-regulated kinase, c-Jun N-terminal kinase and p38, were reduced. Treatment with a protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A)-specific inhibitor, significantly reversed the CME-1-suppressed iNOS expression; IκBα degradation; and p65, Akt and MAPK phosphorylation. PP2A activity up-regulation and PP2A demethylation reduction were also observed in the cells. Moreover, CME-1-induced PP2A activation and its subsequent suppression of LPS-activated RAW 264.7 cells were diminished by the inhibition of ceramide signals. LPS-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) and hydroxyl radical formation were eliminated by treating RAW 264.7 cells with CME-1. Furthermore, the role of ceramide signalling pathway and anti-oxidative property were also demonstrated in CME-1-mediated inhibition of LPS-activated primary peritoneal macrophages. In conclusion, CME-1 suppressed iNOS expression by up-regulating ceramide-induced PP2A activation and reducing ROS production in LPS-stimulated macrophages. CME-1 is a potential therapeutic agent for treating inflammatory diseases.