Obrienserup7311

Development of sensitive, facile and rapid biosensors is important for widespread applications. Nanozymes can be ideal signal donors for constructing dual-readout lateral flow immunoassays (LFIA) because they are an excellent class of optical reporters. Herein, a magnetic prussian blue nanozyme (MPBN) mediated dual-readout on-demand multiplex lateral flow immunoassay (MLFIA) was established by employing ractopamine (RAC) and clenbuterol (CLE) as the model analytes. The MPBN was synthesized through in-suit shell-growing and introduced as a bifunctional signal tag owing to their darker original color and peroxidase-like activity. Based on the catalytic signal created by catalyzing oxidation of chromogenic substrate 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) and colorimetric signal generated by tag's original color, improved precision and broadened detection range were acquired by implementing a dual-readout strategy. Lenalidomide datasheet And a two-fold increase in the detection range could fulfill different limit requirements of the same target in various regions. The obtained recoveries from 84.01% to 119.94% indicating the repeatability and reliability of the proposed method. This method provides an attractive platform for the detection of a same target with different detection limits, which possesses a considerable potential in monitoring of other targets.Homogeneous sandwich immunofluorimetric assays are valued for the rapid, low-cost and accurate detection of analytes in liquid phase. However, their exploitation with analytes covering a wide range of concentrations is limited by low sensitivity and the hook effect. Here, we describe a homogeneous immunofluorimetric system based on the quenching of fluorescence in a Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) donor/acceptor couple of antibody functionalized with two different dyes, respectively fluorescein (donor) and eosin (acceptor), which form a sandwich multi-component assembly with antibody-functionalized gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in the presence of the analyte. The resulting cooperative fluorescence quenching is assisted by the GNPs scaffold through the nanomaterial-surface energy transfer (NSET) effect, which gives an extended linear response versus the antigen concentration that is not possible with the bi-component assays. This immunofluorimetric method allows accurate, reproducible and immediate detection of C-reactive protein (CRP) in the wide concentration range of clinical interest (over two orders of magnitude from 3.5 to 455 nM, 0.4-52 mg/L), without the hook effect. Moreover, the method does not require sample treatment or washing steps. The concept of this multi-component FRET/NSET fluorescence quenching system can be extended to any analyte amenable to the detection with homogeneous sandwich assays.With the broadly application of antibiotics to treat infectious diseases in humans and animals, antibiotic contaminants such as tetracycline (TC) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) have been detected in soil environments, where iron oxide minerals and phosphate are ubiquitous. To date, the influence of phosphate on the adsorption behaviors of TC/CIP onto iron oxides is still poorly understood. In this study, the effects of phosphate on the adsorptions of TC and CIP onto iron oxide minerals were investigated. Adsorption isotherms showed that the adsorption affinities of TC and CIP onto the three iron oxide minerals were in the order of goethite > hematite > magnetite with or without phosphate, the trend was dominated by different surface area and amount of surface hydroxyl groups of iron oxide minerals. Meanwhile, TC contains more functional groups than CIP for bonding, which resulted in greater adsorption affinity of three iron oxides to TC than that to CIP. Interestingly, phosphate weakened TC adsorption, while enhanced CIP adsorption, on the three iron oxides. This observation was ascribed to that phosphate anion enhanced the surface negative charge of iron oxides, which reinforced the electrostatic repulsion between iron oxides and negatively charged TC, also reinforced the electrostatic attraction between iron oxides and positively charged CIP. Furthermore, the inhibitory effect of phosphate on TC adsorption was dramatically enhanced at high pH, while the promoting effect of phosphate on CIP adsorption was slightly changed with various pH. Our results highlight the importance of phosphate in exploring the environmental fate of antibiotics in natural environment.Hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] is ubiquitous in the environment and is commonly used in various industrial processes. Clusterin (CLU) is an extracellular chaperone protein which exerts the anti-apoptotic function. In this study, we aimed to explore the effect of CLU on Cr(VI)-induced mitochondrial fission and apoptosis. We revealed that the apoptosis rate of L02 hepatocytes treated with Cr (VI) was increased. CLU over-expression could protect the hepatocytes from Cr(VI)-induced mitochondrial apoptosis. Furthermore, Cr(VI) triggered the intracellular calcium overload, resulting in the activation of xanthine oxidase (XO). Cr(VI) induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) overproduction, led to dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) translocation to mitochondria and the subsequent mitochondrial fission, contributing to the caspase-3-dependent mitochondrial apoptosis as evidenced by higher mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) opening rate, lower mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), and more alanine transaminase (ALT)/aspartate transaminase (AST) leakage into the culture medium. However, CLU over-expression could trigger the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway, which was followed by the increase of sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA2a) expression. CLU-induced AMPK/SERCA2a activation attenuated calcium overload, caspase-3 activation, and ultimate mitochondrial apoptosis. All in all, the present study demonstrated that Cr(VI) induced hepatocytes apoptosis via Ca2+-ROS-Drp1-mitochondrial fission axis and CLU alleviated the mitochondrial apoptosis through activation of the AMPK/SERCA2a pathway.Diatoms respond to toxicants in lotic systems, and they are commonly considered to be sensitive indicators in environmental safety assessment. In addition to the structural characteristics of the algal populations, recent studies have shown that endpoints such as nuclear anomalies or diatom motility measures can be affected quickly by environmental changes. We sought to determine if cell density, cell size, nuclear anomalies and motility of the diatom Nitzschia palea were useful indicators of sediment quality from agricultural streams. For this purpose, we exposed cultures of the diatom to elutriates from sediments of a stream that flows through an intensive agricultural area, and measured the responses of the populations for 7 days in laboratory tests. The bioassays showed that motility measures in Nitzschia palea and the condition of their nuclear membranes rapidly reflected the effects of sediment quality after only 48 h of exposure; mean cell density and length were affected by day 7. The sediment elutriates affected cell movements by shortening the total path length and decreasing cell velocity; they also increased the number of cells with nuclear membrane breakage. Our results from these bioassays show that diatom motility measurements and the condition of the nuclei might be indicators that respond faster to impacts than the traditional structural parameters, such as cell density, specific composition of the assemblage or diversity metrics of the algal communities more often used in biomonitoring.Exposure to PM2.5 can cause serious harm to the respiratory system. Until now, although many toxicological studies have shown that pulmonary fibrosis can be caused by long-term PM2.5 exposure, there is no evidence that Endothelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EndMT) can trigger the process of pulmonary fibrosis after exposure. LncRNAs are a class of non-coding RNAs detected in mammalian cells. Nevertheless, researchers have not found whether lncRNAs participate in PM2.5 induced EndMT during pathophysiological duration. The Balb/c mouse model was exposed to PM2.5 for 4 months by dynamic intoxication. The levels of specific endothelial and mesenchymal markers were evaluated by molecular biology experiments to elucidate the mechanisms of EndMT induced by PM2.5 in lung tissues. LncRNA microarray analysis of the established mouse model of PM2.5 exposure was performed. Based on a bioinformatics analysis and RT-qPCR analysis, lncRNA Gm16410 attracted our attention. The change of lncRNA Gm16410 in mouse pulmonary vascular endothelial cells (MHCs) exposed to PM2.5 was verified, and the mechanism of lncRNA Gm16410 in EndMT was discussed. The changes of cell function were evaluated by cell migration and proliferation experiments. The molecular biology experiments proved that PM2.5 induced EndMT by activating the TGF-β1/Smad3/p-Smad3 pathway in vitro. The relationship of EndMT and lncRNA Gm16410 was verified in mouse lung tissues and MHC cells by PM2.5 exposure. The involvement of lncRNA Gm16410 in PM2.5-induced EndMT highlights the potential of lncRNA to promote pulmonary fibrosis under environmental pollution.Bacterial resistance caused by the abuse of antibiotics has attracted worldwide attention. However, there are few studies exploring bacterial resistance under the environmental exposure condition of antibiotics that is featured by low-dose and mixture. In this study, sulfonamides (SAs), sulfonamide potentiators (SAPs) and tetracyclines (TCs) were used to determine the effects of antibiotics on plasmid RP4 conjugative transfer of Escherichia coli (E. coli) under single or combined exposure, and the relationship between the effects of antibiotics on conjugative transfer and growth was investigated. The results show that the effects of single or binary antibiotics on plasmid RP4 conjugative transfer all exhibit a hormetic phenomenon. The linear regression reveals that the concentrations of the three antibiotics promoting conjugative transfer are correlated with the concentrations promoting growth and the physicochemical properties of the compounds. The combined effects of SAs-SAPs and SAs-TCs on plasmid conjugative transfer are mainly synergistic and antagonistic. While SAPs provide more effective concentrations for the promotion of conjugative transfer in SAs-SAPs mixtures, SAs play a more important role in promoting conjugative transfer in SAs-TCs mixtures. Mechanism explanation shows that SAs, SAPs and TCs inhibit bacterial growth by acting on their target proteins DHPS, DHFR and 30S ribosomal subunit, respectively. This study indicates that toxic stress stimulates the occurrence of conjugative transfer and promotes the development of bacterial resistance, which will provide a reference for resistance risk assessment of antibiotic exposure.Famoxadone-cymoxanil is a new protective and therapeutic fungicide, but little research has been done on it or its toxicity in aquatic organisms. In this study, we used zebrafish to investigate the cardiotoxicity of famoxadone-cymoxanil and the potential mechanisms involved. Zebrafish embryos were exposed to different concentrations of famoxadone-cymoxanil until 72 h post-fertilization (hpf), then changes of heart morphology in zebrafish embryos were observed. We also detected the levels of oxidative stress, myocardial-cell proliferation and apoptosis, ATPase activity, and the expression of genes related to the cardiac development and calcium-signaling pathway. After famoxadone-cymoxanil exposure, pericardial edema, cardiac linearization, and reductions in the heart rate and cardiac output positively correlated with concentration. Although myocardial-cell apoptosis was not detected, proliferation of the cells was severely reduced and ATPase activity significantly decreased, resulting in a severe deficiency in heart function.