The Effect of Iron Overload on the Mobilization of Peripheral Blood Hematopoietic Stem Cells in Pediatric Patients with Thalassemia Major.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of iron overload on the mobilization of peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) in pediatric patients with ß-thalassemia major (TM). METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the records of 226 patients with TM from whom PBSCs were collected. Iron overload was based on serum ferritin level, and liver and cardiac iron overload was measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) T2*. RESULTS: The mean age of the TM patients was 7.35 ± 3.41 years. Of the patients, only 171 received MRI. Of the 171 patients, 35 had normal liver iron levels, 39 mild liver iron overload, 90 intermediate liver iron overload, and 7 severe liver iron overload. The intermediate + severe group was associated with significantly higher age and BMI and lower leukapheresis product white blood cell count and CD34+ cell levels (all, p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Leukapheresis indices were similar between patients with different degrees of iron overload according to the ferritin level and cardiac iron overload, in which the later might be due to the small number of patients with cardiac overload. In patients with TM, the intermediate and severe liver iron overload was associated with poorer mobilization of PBSCs.

Circular RNA in tumor metastasis.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a type of endogenous non-coding RNA that were discovered to regulate gene expression through multiple pathways. Metastasis remains one of the biggest obstacles in cancer treatment. In this review, we focus on circRNAs involved in cancer tumorigenesis and metastasis. We present recently identified tumor-related circRNAs and discuss their functioning in tumor progression and metastasis. These circRNAs are categorized into different functional mechanisms, including microRNA (miRNA) sponging, protein binding, regulation of host genes, translation of circRNAs, and exosomal circRNAs. Additionally, the indirect functions of circRNAs that regulate epithelial-mesenchymal transition and autophagy are also discussed.

Dynamic solvation in imidazolium-based ionic liquids on short time scales.

Steady-state and time-resolved Stokes shift data for the probe coumarin 153 in two imidazoles, six imidazolium-based ionic liquids, and several other solvents are presented. These results are consistent with our original suggestion (J. Phys. Chem. B 2004, 108, 10245-10255) that initial solvation is dominated by the organic moiety of the ionic liquid, and they show that for the imidazole-based liquids initial solvation is in all cases very rapid. Solvation by methylimidazole and butylimidazole is complete in 100 ps, and all of the imidazolium ionic liquids demonstrate similarly rapid initial solvation. Owing to the importance of determining the amount of initial solvation that is missed in a given experiment with finite time resolution, we discuss a method of estimating the intramolecular contribution to the reorganization energy. This method yields 2068 cm(-1) and is compared with an alternative method.

Structure and properties of high stability geminal dicationic ionic liquids.

Thirty-nine geminal dicationic ILs were synthesized and characterized in terms of their surface tensions, densities, melting points, refractive indices, viscosities, and miscibilities with a polar and nonpolar solvent. Two imidazolium or pyrrolidinium cations were joined via different length hydrocarbon linkage chains (from 3 to 12 carbons long). The various geminal dications were paired with up to four different anions. The effect of the dication type, linkage chain, alkyl substituents, and anion type on the physicochemical properties of these compounds was examined. Among the more interesting findings for this class of compounds was that their liquid and thermal stability ranges generally exceeded those of the more conventional, better known ILs. Indeed, this range was from -4 to >400 degrees C for one of the pyrrolidinium-based geminal dicationic liquids. X-ray crystallography of the smaller solid ionic compounds indicated that there may be a correlation between the configurational degrees of freedom of the ILs and their melting points/glass transition temperatures. In one case, the crystal structure showed that a dicationic moiety had three distinct conformations in an asymmetric unit cell. The solvation properties of the geminal dicationic ILs tend to be similar to those of their monocationic analogues.

Use of chiral ionic liquids as solvents for the enantioselective photoisomerization of dibenzobicyclo[2.2.2]octatrienes.

[Reaction: see text] Six chiral ionic liquids were prepared and evaluated as "chiral induction solvents" in which two different dibenzobicyclo[2.2.2]octatrienes were photoisomerized to chiral products. Enantiomeric excesses from 3 to 12% were obtained from the photochemical di-pi-methane rearrangement. Results indicate that the chiral induction derives from an ion pairing interaction of the deprotonated diacids with the ionic liquid cation. This is the first report on chiral induction via a chiral IL for an irreversible, unimolecular photochemical isomerization.