Dual-channel compressed ultrafast photography for Z-pinch dynamic imaging.

The compressed ultrafast photography (CUP) can capture non-repetitive time-evolving events at 7 × 1013 fps, which is anticipated to find a diverse range of applications in physics, biomedical imaging, and materials science. The feasibility of diagnosing ultrafast phenomenon of Z-pinch by using the CUP has been analyzed in this article. Specifically, a dual-channel CUP design has been adopted for acquiring high quality reconstructed images and the strategies of identical masks, uncorrelated masks, and complementary masks have been compared. Furthermore, the image of the first channel was rotated by 90° to balance the spatial resolution between the sweep direction and the non-sweep direction. Both five synthetic videos and two simulated Z-pinch videos were chosen as the ground truth to validate this approach. The average peak signal to noise ratio of the reconstruction results is 50.55 dB for the self-emission visible light video and 32.53 dB for the laser shadowgraph video with unrelated masks (rotated channel 1). The simulation results show that the time-space-evolving process of plasma distribution can be well retold, and the phenomenon of plasma instability can be accurately diagnosed by the dual-channel CUP with unrelated masks (rotated channel 1). This study may promote the practical applications of the CUP in the field of accelerator physics.

The impact of highly active antiretroviral treatment on the blood profiles of patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

This study retrospectively investigated the short- and long-term impact of highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) on the blood profiles of patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and their relationship with disease progression. CD4(+) T-cell count was measured by flow cytometry, plasma viral load of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) RNA was detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, and blood profile was determined by an automated analyser. CD4(+) T-cell count, total lymphocyte count (TLC) and haemoglobin concentration improved gradually in patients with AIDS after the initiation of HAART. Long-term effective HAART significantly increased CD4(+) T-cell counts TLC and haemoglobin concentrations, and reduced viral load to undetectable levels. An increase in haemoglobin was positively correlated with an increase in CD4(+) T-cells. These findings suggest that TLC is a valuable tool for determining the initiation of HAART, and that the haemoglobin concentration could be an additional indicator for long-term monitoring of HAART in resource-limited settings.

Implantation of bone marrow-derived buffy coat can supplement bone marrow stimulation for articular cartilage repair.

OBJECTIVE: Bone marrow stimulation (BMS) has been regarded as a first line procedure for repair of articular cartilage. However, repaired cartilage from BMS is known to be unlike that of hyaline cartilage and its inner endurance is not guaranteed. The reason presumably came from a shortage of cartilage-forming cells in blood clots derived by BMS. In order to increase repairable cellularity, the feasibility of autologous bone marrow-derived buffy coat transplantation in repair of large full-thickness cartilage defects was investigated in this study. METHODS: Rabbits were divided into four groups: the defect remained untreated as a negative control; performance of BMS only (BMS group); BMS followed by supplementation of autologous bone marrow buffy coat (Buffy coat group); transplantation of autologous osteochondral transplantation (AOTS) as a positive control. RESULTS: Repair of cartilage defects in the Buffy coat group in a rabbit model was more effective than BMS alone and similar to AOTS. Gross findings, histological analysis, histological scoring, immunohistochemistry, and chemical assay demonstrated that supplementation of autologous bone marrow buffy coat after BMS arthroplasty effectively repaired cartilage defects in a rabbit model, and was more effective than BMS arthroplasty alone. CONCLUSION: Supplementation of autologous bone marrow-derived buffy coat in cases of BMS could be a useful clinical protocol for cartilage repair.

Membrane proteins at the interface of erythrocytes fused by treatment with polyethylene glycol.

Fusion of human red cells through the action of polyethylene glycol gives rise to pairs or higher clusters with a common membrane envelope, in which a barrier at the position of the original interface can be seen in phase contrast. At early times this septum contains lipids, as judged by labelling with a fluorescent lipophile, and transmembrane protein; this was shown by the presence of the preponderant component, band 3, detected by a fluorescent label, covalently attached before fusion at an extracellular site, or by immunofluorescence with anti-band 3 antibody. Ankyrin, which is bound to band 3, is also observed in the septum. The lipid thereafter disappears from the interface, carrying most of the band 3 with it. A continuous membrane skeletal network, defined by the presence of spectrin (detected by immunofluorescent staining in epifluorescence and confocal microscopy) appears to persist for long periods, but in many cells interruptions develop in the septum. In other fused pairs, particularly at longer times, the interface is seen to have vanished completely. Protease inhibitors have no discernible effect on any of these observations. The results suggest a model for the events that follow fusion. Covalent cross-linking of membrane proteins beyond a critical level causes inhibition of fusion, suggesting that proteins, probably the membrane skeletal network, regulate the fusion process. The efficiency of fusion is strikingly dependent on the composition of the isotonic medium, being relatively high at an orthophosphate concentration of 5 mM and minimal at 20 mM.

Design, synthesis, and biological activity of anti-angiogenic hypoxic cell radiosensitizer haloacetylcarbamoyl-2-nitroimidazoles.

We designed, synthesized, and evaluated haloacetylcarbamoyl-2-nitroimidazoles, including chloro (KIN-1800, TX-1835, and TX-1836) and bromo derivatives (TX-1844, TX-1845, and TX-1846), as potential hypoxic cell radiosensitizers with antiangiogenic activities. To establish biological function owing to the haloacetylcarbamoyl group in the side-chain, we compared their in vitro radiosensitizing activities with those of their parent 2-nitroimidazoles without haloacetylcarbamoyl groups: misonidazole (MISO), TX-1831, and TX-1832, respectively. Both tert-butoxy substituted derivatives. TX-1835 and TX-1845, were more potent radiosensitizers than TX-1831. The p-tert-butylphenoxy-substituted derivatives, TX-1836 and TX-1846, and the methoxysubstituted derivatives, KIN-1800 and TX-1844, were stronger radiosensitizers than TX-1832 and MISO. We examined the anti-angiogenic activities of these 2-nitroimidazole derivatives containing haloacetylcarbamoyl group by the rat lung endothelial (RLE) cell proliferation assay and chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (chick CAM) angiogenesis assay and showed that haloacetylcarbamoyl-2-nitroimidazoles were more potent angiogenic inhibitors than the corresponding desacetylcarbamoyl-2-nitroimidazoles. The in vivo chick CAM angiogenesis assay showed that the strong bromoacetylcarbamoyl-2-nitroimidazole radiosensitizers, such as TX-1845 and TX-1846, were the strongest angiogenic inhibitors among them. We concluded that the bromoacetylcarbamoyl-2-nitroimidazole radiosensitizers, such as TX-1845 and TX-1846, are promising as anti-angiogenic hypoxic cell radiosensitizers.

Design and synthesis of new mitochondrial cytotoxin N-thiadiazolylanilines that inhibit tumor cell growth.

New N-thiadiazolylanilines were designed and synthesized to develop mitochondrial cytotoxins superior to SF 6847. The mitochondrial cytotoxin N-thiadiazolylanilines, TX-108 and TX-109, inhibited EMT6/KU mammary sarcoma cell growth at a low micromolar concentration. Their inhibitory activities were parallel to their mitochondrial cytotoxicity, such as uncoupling oxidative phosphorylation and inhibiting ATP synthesis. This report also supports the notion that the inhibition of tumor cell growth of inhibitor of protein tyrosine kinase AG17, which is identical to SF 6847, may be due to its mitochondrial cytotoxicity.

Dynamics of membrane skeleton in fused red cell membranes.

The dynamic nature of the red cell membrane cytoskeleton was examined by the method of fluorescence redistribution after fusion (FRAF). Ghosts, labelled at the interior membrane surface, and intact cells, labelled at the outer surface with a different fluorophore, were fused and the passage of the fluorescent label into the unlabelled part of the membrane was followed in the fluorescence microscope. To achieve specific labelling of a cytoskeletal component only, a fluorescent analogue of phalloidin was used to label the actin. It was shown that there was no dissociation of the phalloidin during the time of the experiment, and no exchange of phalloidin between labelled and unlabelled actin in unsealed mixtures of ghosts. In the fused membrane pairs at 37 degrees C the phalloidin-linked fluorescence diffused in the plane of the membrane and became distributed through the membrane envelope in 1-2 h. It was shown by gel electrophoretic analysis that no detectable loss of or damage to membrane proteins resulted from the fusion process. It is concluded that, at least in membrane pairs treated with fusogen, exchange of actin or actin-containing elements occurs within the cytoskeletal network.