Personal exposure to gaseous and particulate phase polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and nanoparticles and lung deposited surface area (LDSA) for soot among Norwegian chimney sweepers.

Exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) of high molecular weight from chimney soot can cause cancer among chimney sweepers. These sweepers may also be exposed to high concentrations of nanosized particles, which can cause significant inflammatory responses due to their relatively greater surface area per mass. In this study, the authors aimed to assess the exposure profiles of airborne personal exposure to gaseous and particulate PAHs, and real-time samples of the particle number concentrations (PNCs), particle sizes, and lung-deposited surface areas (LDSAs), for chimney sweepers in Norway. Additionally, the authors aimed to assess the task-based exposure concentrations of PNCs, sizes, and LDSAs while working on different tasks. The results are based on personal samples of particulate PAHs (n = 68), gaseous PAHs (n = 28), and real-time nanoparticles (n = 8) collected from 17 chimney sweepers. Samples were collected during a "typical work week" of chimney sweeping and fire safety inspections, then during a "massive soot" week, where larger sweeping missions took place. Significantly higher PAH concentrations were measured during the "massive soot" week compared to the "typical work week," however, the time-weighted average (TWA) (8-hr) of all gaseous and particulate PAHs ranged from 0.52 to 4.47 µg/m3 and 0.49 to 2.50 µg/m3, respectively, well below the Norwegian occupational exposure limit (OEL) of 40 µg/m3. The PNCs were high during certain activities, such as emptying the vacuum cleaner. Additionally, during 2 days of sweeping in a waste sorting facility, the TWAs of the PNCs were 3.6 × 104 and 7.1 × 104 particles/cm3 on the first and second days, respectively, which were near and above the proposed nano reference limit TWA value of 4.0 × 104 particles/cm3 proposed by the International Workshop on Nano Reference Values. The corresponding TWAs of the LDSAs were 49.5 and 54.5 µm2/cm3, respectively. The chimney sweepers seemed aware of the potential health risks associated with exposure, and suitable personal protective equipment was used. However, the PNCs reported for the activities show that when the activities change or increase, the PNCs' TWAs can become unacceptably high.

Enhancing arthropod occurrence in wheat cropping systems: the role of non-chemical pest management and nitrogen optimization.

This study analyzes arthropod biomass and abundance to track the changes in arthropod occurrence in relation to pesticide use in three winter wheat cropping systems managed at different intensities (organic, conventional, and hybrid). Arthropod occurrence was surveyed using three collection tools: sweeping nets, eclector traps, and yellow traps. Sampling was conducted over three years from 2020 to 2022 with 588 samples collected. The wet weight of the captured organisms was determined and arthropod abundance calculated. The application of a NOcsPS (no chemical-synthetic pesticides) strategy, a new hybrid cultivation method realized with optimized use of nitrogen fertilizers but without chemical-synthetic pesticides, showed a higher arthropod occurrence and performed more convincingly regarding produced arthropod biomass and abundance than the other cropping variants. The results also demonstrate a dependence of the obtained insect indices on the collection method. Although arthropod biomass and abundance correlated for all collection methods, the combination of various methods as well as multiple procedures of sample analysis gives a more realistic and comprehensive view of the impact of the wheat cultivation systems on the arthropod fauna than one-factor analyses.

A homozygous missense mutation in the fibroblast growth factor 5 gene is associated with the long-hair trait in Angora rabbits.

BACKGROUND: Rabbits are well-domesticated animals. As a crucial economic animal, rabbit has been successfully bred into wool-use, meat-use and fur-use breeds. Hair length is one of the most economically important traits affecting profitability in wool rabbits. In this study, to identify selection signatures with the long-hair trait, whole-genomic resequencing of long-haired rabbits (Angora rabbits) and short-haired rabbits (Rex and New Zealand rabbits) was performed. RESULTS: By genome-wide selective sweeping analysis based on population comparison, we identified a total of 5.85 Mb regions (containing 174 candidate genes) with strong selection signals. Six of these genes (Dusp1, Ihh, Fam134a, Map3k1, Spata16, and Fgf5) were enriched in the MAPK signalling and Hedgehog signalling pathways, both of which are closely associated with hair growth regulation. Among these genes, Fgf5 encodes the FGF5 protein, which is a well-established regulator of hair growth. There was a nonsynonymous nucleotide substitution (T19234C) in the Fgf5 gene. At this locus, the C allele was present in all of the tested Angora rabbits, while the T allele was dominant in New Zealand and Rex rabbits. We further confirmed that the C allele was conserved in Angora rabbits by screening an additional 135 rabbits. Moreover, the results of functional predictions and co-immunoprecipitation revealed that the T19234C mutation impaired the binding capacity of FGF5 to its receptor FGFR1. CONCLUSIONS: We discovered that the homozygous missense mutation T19234C within Fgf5 might contribute to the long-hair trait of Angora rabbits by reducing its receptor binding capacity. This finding will provide new insights into the genetic basis underlying the genetic improvement of Angora rabbits and benefit the improvement of rabbit breeding in the future.

Method Development for Determination of Doripenem in Human Plasma via Capillary Electrophoresis Coupled with Field-Enhanced Sample Stacking and Sweeping.

In this study, we established a novel capillary electrophoresis method for monitoring the concentration of doripenem in human plasma. As a time-dependent antibiotic, doripenem maximizes its antibacterial effects and minimizes the potential for antibiotic resistance through careful therapeutic drug monitoring. Two online preconcentration techniques, field-enhanced sample stacking (FESS) and sweeping, were coupled to enhance the detection sensitivity. Briefly, an uncoated fused silica capillary (40 cm × 50 µm i.d) was rinsed with a high conductivity buffer (HCB) composed of 150 mM phosphate buffer (NaH2PO4, pH 2.5) and 20% methanol. A large sample plug prepared in a low-conductivity phosphate buffer (50 mM NaH2PO4, pH 2.5) was then hydrodynamically injected (5 psi, 80 s) into the capillary. Under an applied voltage of -30 kV, the analyte was accumulated at the FESS boundary and swept by the negatively charged micelles toward the UV detector. Plasma samples were pretreated by solid-phase extraction (SPE) to eliminate endogenous interferences. The validation results demonstrated a high coefficient of determination (r2 > 0.9995) for the regression curve with impressive precision and accuracy: relative standard deviation (RSD) <5.86% and relative error <4.63%. The limit of detection (LOD, S/N = 3) for doripenem was determined to be 0.4 µg/mL. Compared to the conventional micellar electrokinetic chromatography method, our developed method achieved a sensitivity enhancement of up to 488-fold for doripenem. Furthermore, the newly developed method successfully quantified doripenem concentrations in plasma samples obtained from patients accepting doripenem regimens, proving its application potential in the clinical realm.

EnRDeA U-Net Deep Learning of Semantic Segmentation on Intricate Noise Roads.

Road segmentation is beneficial to build a vision-controllable mission-oriented self-driving bot, e.g., the Self-Driving Sweeping Bot, or SDSB, for working in restricted areas. Using road segmentation, the bot itself and physical facilities may be protected and the sweeping efficiency of the SDSB promoted. However, roads in the real world are generally exposed to intricate noise conditions as a result of changing weather and climate effects; these include sunshine spots, shadowing caused by trees or physical facilities, traffic obstacles and signs, and cracks or sealing signs resulting from long-term road usage, as well as different types of road materials, such as cement or asphalt; all of these factors greatly influence the effectiveness of road segmentation. In this work, we investigate the extension of Primordial U-Net by the proposed EnRDeA U-Net, which uses an input channel applying a Residual U-Net block as an encoder and an attention gate in the output channel as a decoder, to validate a dataset of intricate road noises. In addition, we carry out a detailed analysis of the nets' features and segmentation performance to validate the intricate noises dataset on three U-Net extensions, i.e., the Primordial U-Net, Residual U-Net, and EnRDeA U-Net. Finally, the nets' structures, parameters, training losses, performance indexes, etc., are presented and discussed in the experimental results.

Sector arc routing-based spatial decision support system for waste collection in Brazil.

We present a sector arc routing problem-based spatial decision support system technology to develop tactical and operational plans and manage solid waste collection activities including household refuse collection and human and mechanical street sweeping. The proposed technology can also manage solid waste services through optimization (minimizing sector costs, distances and resources). The proposed technology is called optimized planning and integrated logistics management. It can be directly applied to Brazilian municipalities as it contains its major natural features. The system uses advanced technics from sector arc routing and sector scheduling, fleet and staff scheduling and daily plan management using mobile smartphone apps. The technology also allows for waste system inspections that are transparent to all participants in real time. We present the results of cases evaluated in the field for residential refuse collection and human and mechanical street sweeping in two Brazilian cities (Campo Grande and São Paulo). The plan implementations achieved from 12 to 28% actual fixed and variable cost savings for sectors (vehicles and workers) and routes (time and distances) for residential refuse collection and from 7 to 42% savings for human and mechanical street sweeping for the companies.

Simultaneous determination of mitotane, its metabolite, and five steroid hormones in urine samples by capillary electrophoresis using ß-CD2 SDS1 complexes as hydrophobic compounds solubilizers.

Mitotane is a cytotoxic drug used in the treatment of inoperable adrenocortical carcinoma, it inhibits steroidogenesis as well, and therefore monitoring the level of steroid hormones in patients treated with mitotane is a crucial point of therapy. Hence, we have developed a simple, fast, and efficient electrophoretic method combined with reverse polarity sweeping as online preconcentration technique and dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for the simultaneous determination of mitotane, its main metabolite DDA, and five steroid hormones (progesterone, testosterone, epitestosterone, cortisol, and corticosterone) in urine samples. In addition, a new sample matrix consisting of ß-CD2 SDS1 complexes for a high hydrophobic compounds solubilization was developed. Approach based on the application of ß-cyclodextrin and SDS complex of a ratio 2:1 allowed for hydrodynamic injection into the capillary of a solution containing both mitotane and other analytes. The detection limits of the analytes for the reverse polarity sweeping-dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction method were found to be in the range of 1.5-3 ng/mL, which were approximately 1000 times lower than in the conventional hydrodynamic injection (5 s, 0.5 psi) without any preconcentration procedure. All analytes were completely resolved in less than 13 min by uncoated silica capillary with an inner diameter of 75 µm (ID) × 60 cm. Electrophoretic separation was performed in reverse polarity with a voltage of -25 kV with a background electrolyte (BGE) consisting of 100 mM SDS, 25% ACN, 25 mM phosphate buffer (pH 2.5), and 7 mM ß-cyclodextrin.

Dynamic Distance Measurement Based on a Fast Frequency-Swept Interferometry.

To improve the precision of dynamic distance measurement based on the frequency-swept interferometry (FSI) system, a Doppler-induced error compensation model based on a scheme increasing the frequency sweeping rate is proposed. A distance demodulation method based on a Fourier transformation is investigated when the defined quasi-stationary coefficient approaches a constant. Simulations and experiments based on dynamic distance with a sinusoidal change demonstrate that the proposed method has a standard deviation of 0.09 µm within a distance range of 4 µm at a sweeping rate of 60 KHz.

Effectiveness and safety of membrane sweeping in the prevention of post-term pregnancy: a randomised controlled trial.

There is a rising concern with increasing rates of pharmacologically induced labour and its complications. Membrane sweeping is a simple and less invasive means of initiating spontaneous labour onset. We compared the safety and efficacy of membrane sweeping. A total of 186 women (62 in each arm) were recruited at the antenatal clinic at 39 weeks. The intervention groups had membrane sweeping once and twice weekly respectively while the control arm had no membrane sweeping. They were all monitored and followed up till delivery. The trial was registered with the South Africa registry www.pactr.org (PACTR202112841108933) The incidence of prolonged pregnancy was 32.3%, 19.4% and 11.7% among the control, once-weekly, and twice-weekly groups respectively. The sweeping to the delivery interval was significantly shorter for the twice-weekly group (7.4 days) compared to once weekly (8.8 days) and the control group (10.6 days). There were significantly higher odds of spontaneous labour onset in the twice-weekly group (HR 1.53, p = .029) compared to the control group (HR 0.65, p = .033) and the once-weekly group using once weekly as reference. Membrane sweeping is a safe and effective means of preventing prolonged pregnancy. Twice-weekly sweeping of foetal membranes is more effective than once-weekly or no sweeping without added adverse feto-maternal outcomes.IMPACT STATEMENTWhat is already known about the subject? There is no evidence supporting any increase in maternal or foetal morbidity suggesting that membrane sweeping is a safe procedure to offer to all low-risk pregnant women so as to initiate spontaneous labour onset.What do the results of the study add? Membrane sweeping twice weekly after 39weeks for low-risk pregnant women is more effective than once weekly or no sweep with no added adverse maternal or perinatal risks.What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and or further research? Twice-weekly membrane sweeping is encouraged in selected patients to reduce the risks associated with post-term pregnancy.

Total body irradiation for standard treatment rooms: a robust sweeping beam technique with respect to the body shape.

Background: The purpose of this work is to improve a sweeping beam technique for total body irradiation (TBI) on a low flat couch using a varying patient thickness model. We designed a flat couch for total body irradiation in supine and prone position. Three generic arcs with rectangular segments for a patient torso thickness of 16, 22 and 28 cm were generated with respect to varying patient thickness of four particular parts of the body: head, torso, thighs and calves. Materials and methods: Longitudinal and transversal dose profiles were measured using an ionization chamber and the EBT3 gafchromic film in a solid water slab phantom. The robustness of the method was examined in phantoms of different thicknesses. Results: Measured dose homogeneity stays within ±10% of prescribed dose for all of the three patient thickness models. The robustness of the method was evaluated as the increase in dose in the phantom center of 0.7% per 1 cm reduction in phantom thickness. Conclusion: The method is applicable for the broad range of patient sizes, comfortable for patients, robust and suitable for standard treatment rooms with a standard linear accelerator. It requires minimal investments into equipment.

Whole-genome resequencing of three Coilia nasus population reveals genetic variations in genes related to immune, vision, migration, and osmoregulation.

BACKGROUND: Coilia nasus is an important anadromous fish, widely distributed in China, Japan, and Korea. Based on morphological and ecological researches of C. nasus, two ecotypes were identified. One is the anadromous population (AP). The sexually mature fish run thousands of kilometers from marine to river for spawning. Another one is the resident population which cannot migrate. Based on their different habitats, they were classified into landlocked population (LP) and sea population (SP) which were resident in the freshwater lake and marine during the entire lifetime, respectively. However, they have never been systematically studied. Moreover, C. nasus is declining sharply due to overfishing and pollution recently. Therefore, further understandings of C. nasus populations are needed for germplasm protection. RESULTS: Whole-genome resequencing of AP, LP, and SP were performed to enrich the understanding of different populations of C. nasus. At the genome level, 3,176,204, 3,307,069, and 3,207,906 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 1,892,068, 2,002,912, and 1,922,168 insertion/deletion polymorphisms (InDels) were generated in AP, LP, and SP, respectively. Selective sweeping analysis showed that 1022 genes were selected in AP vs LP; 983 genes were selected in LP vs SP; 116 genes were selected in AP vs SP. Among them, selected genes related to immune, vision, migration, and osmoregulation were identified. Furthermore, their expression profiles were detected by quantitative real-time PCR. Expression levels of selected genes related to immune, and vision in LP were significantly lower than AP and SP. Selected genes related to migration in AP were expressed significantly more highly than LP. Expression levels of selected genes related to osmoregulation were also detected. The expression of NKAα and NKCC1 in LP were significantly lower than SP, while expression of NCC, SLC4A4, NHE3, and V-ATPase in LP was significantly higher than SP. CONCLUSIONS: Combined to life history of C. nasus populations, our results revealed that the molecular mechanisms of their differences of immune, vision, migration, and osmoregulation. Our findings will provide a further understanding of different populations of C. nasus and will be beneficial for wild C. nasus protection.

pH-responsive antibodies for therapeutic applications.

Therapeutic antibodies are instrumental in improving the treatment outcome for certain disease conditions. However, to enhance their efficacy and specificity, many efforts are continuously made. One of the approaches that are increasingly explored in this field are pH-responsive antibodies capable of binding target antigens in a pH-dependent manner. We reviewed suitability and examples of these antibodies that are functionally modulated by the tumor microenvironment. Provided in this review is an update about antigens targeted by pH-responsive, sweeping, and recycling antibodies. Applicability of the pH-responsive antibodies in the engineering of chimeric antigen receptor T-cells (CAR-T) and in improving drug delivery to the brain by the enhanced crossing of the blood-brain barrier is also discussed. The pH-responsive antibodies possess strong treatment potential. They emerge as next-generation programmable engineered biologic drugs that are active only within the targeted biological space. Thus, they are valuable in targeting acidified tumor microenvironment because of improved spatial persistence and reduced on-target off-tumor toxicities. We predict that the programmable pH-dependent antibodies become powerful tools in therapies of cancer.

Intraoperative optical coherence tomography guided corneal sweeping for removal of remnant Interface fluid during ultra-thin Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty.

BACKGROUND: Remnant interface fluid following Descemet stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) is associated with postoperative detachments. The aim of this study was to assess outcomes of intraoperative optical coherence tomography (iOCT) guided meticulous peripheral corneal sweeping for removal of interface fluid during ultra-thin (UT) DSAEK. METHODS: This retrospective study included all eyes underwent iOCT guided UT-DSAEK from October 2016 to February 2018 at the Hanusch Hospital, Vienna, Austria. Peripheral meticulous corneal sweeping was performed to remove excess fluid. Central graft thickness (CGT) was measured prior to surgery, after graft bubbling and after corneal sweeping. Remnant interface fluid rates were compared between eyes that underwent rebubbling and those that did not. RESULTS: Overall, 28 eyes of 28 patients with a mean age of 73.9 ± 10.0 years were included. An iOCT guided meticulous peripheral sweeping was performed in 89.3% (n = 25) of the cases. Following 84% (n = 21) of the peripheral sweeping performed, remnant fluid was no longer identified. Following peripheral sweeping the interface fluid height was reduced from 17.31 ± 15.96 µm to 3.46 ± 9.52 µm (p < 0.001) and CGT was reduced by 7% (p < 0.001). Rebubbling was performed in 17.9% (n = 5) of the cases. The rebubbling group had a greater proportion of patients that had remnant fluid identified with iOCT at the end of surgery despite meticulous peripheral sweeping (60.0% versus 4.4%, p = 0.01). CONCLUSION: The iOCT identified subclinical remnant fluid in nearly 90% of UT-DSAEK cases. An iOCT guided peripheral corneal sweeping led to resolution of interface fluid in a majority of cases. Eyes with persistent remnant fluid despite peripheral corneal sweeping are more likely to require subsequent rebubbling.

Identification of a potential source of error for 6FFF beams delivered on an AgilityTM multileaf collimator.

PURPOSE: The performance of the AgilityTM multileaf collimator was investigated with a focus on dynamic, small fields for flattening filter free (FFF) beams. METHODS: In this study we have developed a simple tool to test the robustness of the control mechanisms during dynamic beam delivery for Elekta's VersaHD linear accelerator with Integrity 4.0.4 control software. We have programed the planning system to calculate dose for delivery of sweeping gaps. These sweeping gaps have a constant speed, constant size, and are delivered at a constant dose rate. Therefore they specifically identify delivery problems in dynamic mode. RESULTS: The Elekta AgilityTM control mechanism fails to maintain accurate delivery for small, dynamic sweeping gaps. For small gap sizes, the AgilityTM control mechanism delivers a field that is more than four times the size of the planned field width without generating an interlock. This has dosimetric implications: The discrepancy between calculated and measured doses increases with decreasing gap size and exceeds 10% and 60% at isocenter for a 3.5 mm and 1 mm gap size, respectively. CONCLUSION: A deficiency of the AgilityTM control system was identified in this study. This deficiency is a potential source of error for volumetric modulated arc therapy fields and could therefore contribute to relatively high failure rates in quality assurance measurements, especially for FFF beams.

Whole-genome resequencing reveals loci under selection during silkworm improvement.

Breeding or genetic improvement refers to the process of artificial selection following domestication; as such, it has had a major influence on modern agriculture and animal production. Improvement generally focuses on traits that greatly affect the economic performance. Therefore, understanding the genetic basis underlying improvement will contribute to the identification of genes controlling economic traits and will facilitate future crop and animal breeding. However, genome-wide study of the molecular basis underlying improvement remains rare. The silkworm is a unique, entirely domesticated economically important invertebrate; genetic improvement has had a huge effect on the silkworm regarding silk-related traits. Herein, we performed whole-genomic sequencing on local and genetically improved silkworm lines to identify the genomic regions under strong selection in silkworm breeding/improvement. By genomic-wide selective sweeping analysis, we identified 24 genomic regions with strong selection signals, eight of which contained 13 candidate genes underlying silkworm breeding. Interestingly, six of these genes were annotated with functions related to neural signal response. Among the six genes, BGIBMGA004050 encodes silkworm CREB-regulated_transcription_coactivator_1 (BmCRTC1), which was reported to be involved in energy-sensing pathways. These results suggested that improvement may have affected the nervous system of the silkworm. This research will provide new insights into the genetic basis underlying the genetic improvement of silkworms and possibly of other species.

Deep Learning Based Pavement Inspection Using Self-Reconfigurable Robot.

The pavement inspection task, which mainly includes crack and garbage detection, is essential and carried out frequently. The human-based or dedicated system approach for inspection can be easily carried out by integrating with the pavement sweeping machines. This work proposes a deep learning-based pavement inspection framework for self-reconfigurable robot named Panthera. Semantic segmentation framework SegNet was adopted to segment the pavement region from other objects. Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) based object detection is used to detect and localize pavement defects and garbage. Furthermore, Mobile Mapping System (MMS) was adopted for the geotagging of the defects. The proposed system was implemented and tested with the Panthera robot having NVIDIA GPU cards. The experimental results showed that the proposed technique identifies the pavement defects and litters or garbage detection with high accuracy. The experimental results on the crack and garbage detection are presented. It is found that the proposed technique is suitable for deployment in real-time for garbage detection and, eventually, sweeping or cleaning tasks.

Ultimate Spatial Resolution Realisation in Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry with Equal Frequency Resampling.

A method based on equal frequency resampling is proposed to suppress laser nonlinear frequency sweeping for the ultimate spatial resolution in optical frequency domain reflectometry. Estimation inaccuracy of the sweeping frequency distribution caused by the finite sampling rate in the auxiliary interferometer can be efficiently compensated by the equal frequency resampling method. With the sweeping range of 130 nm, a 12.1 µm spatial resolution is experimentally obtained. In addition, the sampling limitation of the auxiliary interferometer-based correction is discussed. With a 200 m optical path delay in the auxiliary interferometer, a 21.3 µm spatial resolution is realised at the 191 m fibre end. By employing the proposed resampling and a drawing tower FBG array to enhance the Rayleigh backscattering, a distributed temperature sensing over a 105 m fibre with a sensing resolution of 1 cm is achieved. The measured temperature uncertainty is limited to ±0.15 °C.

Selective Ion Sweeping on Prussian Blue Analogue Nanoparticles and Activated Carbon for Electrochemical Kinetic Energy Harvesting.

Kinetic energy is an ideal energy source for powering wearable devices or internet of things (IoTs) because of its abundant availability. Currently, most kinetic energy harvesting systems are based on friction or deformation, which require high-frequency motion or high material durability for sustainable energy harvesting. Here, we introduce selective ion sweeping in a hybrid cell consisting of an ion-adsorbing activated carbon and an ion-hosting Prussian blue analogue nanoparticle for electrochemical kinetic energy harvesting. The flow of electrolyte induced by kinetic motion of the cell causes ion sweeping only on the surface of the supercapacitor and induces current flow between the supercapacitor and the battery electrode. This method exhibits 24.9 µW cm-2 as maximum power of system with 34 Ω load in half-cell test, which is several thousand times smaller than the load used in conventional methods. In a long-term test with full cell, this method supplies a continuous current flow ∼6 µA cm-2 at the flow of 40 mL min-1 for 500 cycles without performance decay. The prototype of the hybrid cell demonstrated kinetic energy harvesting from bare hand press with the various flow speeds from 0.41 to 1.39 cm s-1 as well as walking, running, and door closing, which are representative examples of low-frequency kinetic motions in daily life. We believe that the simple structure of the hybrid cell will enable power supply to various applications from miniaturized systems (e.g., IoTs and wearables) to large-scale systems (e.g., ocean wave energy harvesting).

Determination of 13-cis-Retinoic Acid and Its Metabolites in Plasma by Micellar Electrokinetic Chromatography Using Cyclodextrin-Assisted Sweeping for Sample Preconcentration.

The online preconcentration technique, cyclodextrin-assisted sweeping (CD-sweeping), coupled with micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) was established to determine 13-cis-retinoic acid (13-cis-RA), all-trans-retinoic acid (all-trans-RA) and 4-oxo-13-cis-retinoic acid (4-oxo-13-cis-RA) in human plasma. A CD-sweeping buffer (45 mM borate (pH 9.2), containing 80 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and 22 mM hydroxypropyl ß-CD (HP-ß-CD) was introduced into the capillary and, then, the sample dissolved in 70 mM borate (pH 9.2): methanol = 9:1 (v/v) was injected into capillary by pressure. The separation voltage was 23 kV. Compared to the conventional cyclodextrin-micellar electrokinetic chromatography (CD-MEKC) method, the new technique achieved 224-257-fold sensitivity enrichment of analytes. The limits of detection of 13-cis-RA, all-trans-RA were 1 ng/mL, whereas that of 4-oxo-13-cis-RA was 25 ng/mL in plasma. The linear ranges of 13-cis-RA, all-trans-RA were between 15 and 1000 ng/mL, whereas that of 4-oxo-13-cis-RA was between 75 and 1500 ng/mL. The coefficient of correlation between the concentration of analytes and peak area ratio of analytes and internal standard (2, 4-dihydroxy-benzophenone) for intra-day (n = 3) and inter-day (n = 5) analyses were both greater than 0.999. The optimized experimental conditions were successfully applied to determine 13-cis-retinoic acid and its metabolites in plasma samples from a patient during the administration of 13-cis-RA for treating acne.

Identification, expression, and artificial selection of silkworm epigenetic modification enzymes.

BACKGROUND: Understanding the genetic basis of phenotype variations during domestication and breeding is of great interest. Epigenetics and epigenetic modification enzymes (EMEs) may play a role in phenotypic variations; however, no comprehensive study has been performed to date. Domesticated silkworm (Bombyx mori) may be utilized as a model in determining how EMEs influence domestication traits. RESULTS: We identified 44 EMEs in the genome of silkworm (Bombyx mori) using homology searching. Phylogenetic analysis showed that genes in a subfamily among different animals were well clustered, and the expression pattern of EMEs is constant among Bombyx mori, Drosophila melanogaster, and Mus musculus. These are most highly expressed in brain, early embryo, and internal genitalia. By gene-related selective sweeping, we identified five BmEMEs under artificial selection during the domestication and breeding of silkworm. Among these selected genes, BmSuv4-20 and BmDNMT2 harbor selective mutations in their upstream regions that alter transcription factor-binding sites. Furthermore, these two genes are expressed higher in the testis and ovary of domesticated silkworm compared to wild silkworms, and correlations between their expression pattern and meiosis of the sperm and ova were observed. CONCLUSIONS: The domestication of silkworm has induced artificial selection on epigenetic modification markers that may have led to phenotypic changes during domestication. We present a novel perspective to understand the genetic basis underlying animal domestication and breeding.