Guarding food safety with conventional and up-conversion near-infrared fluorescent sensors.

BACKGROUND: Acknowledged by the World Health Organisation (WHO), over 200 diseases ranging from mild to fatal are linked to the consumption of food products subjected to physical, chemical, or biological contamination. Nevertheless, conventional methods commonly used for the identification of health hazards in foodstuffs have problems coping with the sensitivity requirements imposed by latest-hour regulations in the field. Additionally, their use and availability is wildly limited by aspects such as instrument dimension, prohibitive costs, detection complexity and required operational knowledge. AIM OF REVIEW: This review provides an overview of recent efforts that have focused on the assesment of food contamination based on near infrared (NIR) photoluminescent sensors. Important endeavors that have targeted the precise detection of various inorganic and organic contaminants, including hydrogen sulfide, cyanide anions, mycotoxins, antibiotic residues, etc., are presented and relevant challenges that lie en route as stumbling blocks for such sensors to reach the next level of maturity and to become more available, are systematically discussed and enunciated. KEY SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS OF REVIEW: Ingenious food contamination sensors that rely on conventional or up-conversion photoluminescence in the NIR region represent an emerging topic. To date, such sensors have been demonstrated as promising detection candidates, possessing important advantages such as: high efficiency, facile implementation, and convenient flexibility, thereby promising significant contributions to expand the current state of the art in food security.

Phosphorylation of eIF2α mitigates endoplasmic reticulum stress and hepatocyte necroptosis in acute liver injury.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Necroptosis and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress has been implicated in acute and chronic liver injury. Activated eukaryotic initiation factor 2 alpha (eIF2α) attenuates protein synthesis and relieves the load of protein folding in the ER. In this study, we aimed to analyze the impact of eIF2α phosphorylation on hepatocyte necroptosis in acute liver injury. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Male BALB/c mice were injected with tunicamycin or d-galactosamine, and LO2 cells were incubated with tunicamycin to induce acute liver injury. 4-Phenylbutyric acid (PBA) and salubrinal were used to inhibit ER stress and eIF2α dephosphorylation, respectively. We analyzed the eIF2α phosphorylation, ER stress, and hepatocyte necroptosis in mice and cells model. RESULTS: Tunicamycin or d-galactosamine significantly induced ER stress and necroptosis, as well as eIF2α phosphorylation, in mice and LO2 cells (p<0.05). ER stress aggravated tunicamycin-induced hepatocyte necroptosis in mice and LO2 cells (p<0.05). Elevated eIF2α phosphorylation significantly mitigated hepatocyte ER stress (p<0.05) and hepatocyte necroptosis in mice (34.37±3.39% vs 22.53±2.18%; p<0.05) and LO2 cells (1±0.11 vs 0.33±0.05; p<0.05). Interestingly, tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) 1 protein levels were not completely synchronized with necroptosis. TNFR1 expression was reduced in d-galactosamine-treated mice (p<0.05) and cells incubated with tunicamycin for 12 and 24h (p<0.05). ER stress partially restored TNFR1 expression and increased necroptosis in tunicamycin-incubated cells (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: These results imply that ER stress can mediate hepatocyte necroptosis independent of TNFR1 signaling and elevated eIF2α phosphorylation can mitigate ER stress during acute liver injury.

Rapamycin Combi with TAE on the Growth, Metastasis, and Prognosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Rat Models.

INTRODUCTION AND AIM: To investigate the effect of mTOR inhibitor Rapamycin combined with transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) on the growth, metastasis, and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in rat model. MATERIAL AND METHOD: McARH7777 cells were used to construct rat models of HCC, which were randomly divided into Model, Rapamycin, TAE, and Rapamycin + TAE groups. Quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) and Western Blot were used to detect the expression of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT)-related molecules, and immunohistochemical staining to determine the expression of EMTrelated proteins, angiogenic factors as well as microvessel density (MVD)-CD34. RESULTS: The hepatic tumor volume of rats in the other three groups were all significantly smaller than the Model group on the 7th, 14th, and 21st day after treatment and the combination treatment was apparently more effective than either treatment alone. Besides, both the number and the size of metastatic nodules of HCC rats after combination treatment were remarkably reduced. In addition, compared with rats in the Rapamycin + TAE group, N-cadherin, Vimentin, HIF-1α, VEGF, and MVD-CD34 were obviously enhanced, while E-cadherin was lowered in those TAE group, which were the complete opposite to the Rapamycin group. Besides, the median survival time of rats in the Rapamycin + TAE group was evidently longer than the resting groups. CONCLUSION: Rapamycin combined with TAE may effectively suppress the EMT formation and angiogenesis, thereby inhibiting the growth and lung metastasis of HCC rats, which provides a new idea for countering the recurrence and metastasis of HCC.

High-speed visualization of disturbed pathlines in axial flow ventricular assist device under pulsatile conditions.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate potentially prothrombotic flow patterns within an axial flow ventricular assist device under clinically relevant pulsatile hemodynamic conditions. METHODS: A transparent replica of the HeartMate-II left ventricular assist device (Thoratec, Pleasanton, Calif) was visualized using a high speed camera at both low and high frame rates (125 and 3000 fps). Three steady-state conditions were studied: nominal (4.5 lpm), low flow (3.0 lpm), and high flow (6.0 lpm). Time-varying conditions were introduced with an external pulsatile pump that modulated the flow rate by approximately ± 50% of the mean, corresponding to a pulsatility index of 1.0. RESULTS: At nominal and high flow rates, the path lines within the upstream region were generally stable, well attached, and streamlined. As the flow rate was reduced below 3.8 lpm, a rapid transition to a chaotic velocity field occurred, exhibiting a large toroidal vortex adjacent to the upstream bearing. The pathlines in the downstream stator section were consistently chaotic for all hemodynamic conditions investigated. It was common to observe tracer particles trapped within recirculation bubbles and drawn retrograde, causing repeated contact with the bearing surfaces. The addition of pulsatility caused the flow field to become periodically chaotic during the diastolic portion of the cardiac cycle depending on the instantaneous flow rate and acceleration. CONCLUSIONS: The contribution of pulsatility by the native heart may induce a periodic disturbance to an otherwise stable flow field within an axial flow ventricular assist device, particularly during the diastolic and decelerating portion of the cardiac cycle. Potentially prothrombotic flow features were found to occur periodically in the region of the upstream bearing.

Population normative data for the 10/66 Dementia Research Group cognitive test battery from Latin America, India and China: a cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: 1) To report site-specific normative values by age, sex and educational level for four components of the 10/66 Dementia Research Group cognitive test battery; 2) to estimate the main and interactive effects of age, sex, and educational level by site; and 3) to investigate the effect of site by region and by rural or urban location. METHODS: Population-based cross-sectional one phase catchment area surveys were conducted in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, China and India. The protocol included the administration of the Community Screening Instrument for Dementia (CSI 'D', generating the COGSCORE measure of global function), and the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) verbal fluency (VF), word list memory (WLM, immediate recall) and recall (WLR, delayed recall) tests. Only those free of dementia were included in the analysis. RESULTS: Older people, and those with less education performed worse on all four tests. The effect of sex was much smaller and less consistent. There was a considerable effect of site after accounting for compositional differences in age, education and sex. Much of this was accounted for by the effect of region with Chinese participants performing better, and Indian participants worse, than those from Latin America. The effect of region was more prominent for VF and WLM than for COGSCORE and WLR. CONCLUSION: Cognitive assessment is a basic element for dementia diagnosis. Age- and education-specific norms are required for this purpose, while the effect of gender can probably be ignored. The basis of cultural effects is poorly understood, but our findings serve to emphasise that normative data may not be safely generalised from one population to another with quite different characteristics. The minimal effects of region on COGSCORE and WLR are reassuring with respect to the cross-cultural validity of the 10/66 dementia diagnosis, which uses only these elements of the 10/66 battery.