Stanleythuesen3592

The bark and petal of Hibiscus syriacus L. (Malvaceae) have been used to relieve pain in traditional Korean medicine. Recently, we identified anthocyanin-enriched polyphenols from the petal of H. syriacus L. (AHs) and determined its anti-melanogenic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-oxidative properties. Nevertheless, the osteogenic potential of AHs remains unknown.

This study was aimed to investigating the effect of AHs on osteoblast differentiation and osteogenesis in osteoblastic cell lines and zebrafish larvae. Furthermore, we investigated whether AHs ameliorates prednisolone (PDS)-induced osteoporosis.

Cell viability was assessed by cellular morphology, MTT assay, and flow cytometry analysis, and osteoblast differentiation was measured alizarin red staining, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, and osteoblast-specific marker expression. Osteogenic and anti-osteoporotic effects of AHs were determined in zebrafish larvae.

AHs enhanced calcification and ALP activity concomitant with the increased expresssteogenic activities through the inhibition of GSK-3β and subsequent activation of β-catenin, leading to anti-osteoporosis effects.

AHs stimulate osteogenic activities through the inhibition of GSK-3β and subsequent activation of β-catenin, leading to anti-osteoporosis effects.

Cutibacterium acnes is a major colonizer and inhabitant of human skin and contributes to the pathogenesis of acne vulgaris. C. acnes either alone or with Staphylococcus aureus, which also inhabits skin, readily forms biofilms that are often tolerant of conventional antibiotics and the host immune system. It was hypothesized that the amphiphilic nature of some fatty acids (FAs) inhibit C. acnes or mixed biofilm formation.

The antibacterial and antibiofilm activities of 24 saturated and unsaturated FAs were investigated against C. acnes as well as a mixture of the bacteria C. acnes and S. aureus.

Anti-biofilm assays, antimicrobial assays, confocal laser scanning microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, extracellular polymeric substance production, and microbial adherence to hydrocarbon assay were utilized to elucidate how active FAs influence biofilm development.

Seventeen FAs at 20µg/ml inhibited C. acnes biofilm formation by 60-99%. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 20 FAs were ≥ 500µg/This study examined whether and how closeness affected the calculation and selection processes underlying perspective taking. Using the visual dot perspective taking task, we introduced a close friend and a stranger from the participants' university as the perspective-taking targets. Friend and stranger trials were mixed in a block in Experiment 1 but separated in different blocks in Experiment 2. Results revealed a significant effect of closeness on egocentric but not altercentric interference. The analyses on other-consistent and other-inconsistent trials suggested that closeness impeded responding from the avatar's perspective when self and other perspectives differed but facilitated responding from the avatar's perspective when self and other perspectives were consistent. However, the analyses on self-consistent and self-inconsistent trials revealed that the processing cost induced by implicit perspective calculation and other-inhibition was comparable between friends and strangers. These suggested that closeness selectively impeded self-perspective inhibition whereas facilitated explicit perspective calculation.

Recent phase II-III trials of immuno(chemo)therapy before resection in locally advanced resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) report high rates of pathological response and promising survival. However, primarily, patients who did not undergo resection were excluded from these studies. Moreover, there are no data on chemoradiotherapy (CRT) after immuno(chemo)therapy in patients who are primarily not amenable to CRT. We hypothesised that induction immuno(chemo)therapy may enable patients with NSCLC with a potentially curative stage (III-IVA), for whom primary curative treatment (either resection or CRT) is not possible for anatomical or functional reasons, to receive curative treatment.

We enrolled 35 patients with NSCLC with aforementioned characteristics into a prospective real-world trial of induction immuno(chemo)therapy followed by morphologic and metabolic reassessment and multidisciplinary board-guided curative treatment (resection [preferred] or CRT) or palliative therapy. The primary end-pomo)therapy results in a high rate of curative treatment with promising early survival data. patients who underwent resection achieved a high rate of prognostically favourable pathological response.Plastic pollution has increased significantly in the past decades and is now a major global environmental issue. Plastic objects enter the ocean and are broken down into smaller pieces, while wastewater and runoff also carry microplastics (plastics less then 5 mm) into the ocean. Plastic has been found in over 700 different species of marine wildlife but little research has examined fish sold for human consumption. We determined the microplastic abundance in nine commercially important, wild-caught fish species purchased from seafood markets across 4000 km of Australia (Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales). For microplastic quantification, fish gastro-intestinal tracts were chemically digested and the amount and type of microplastic identified under a microscope and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. Across all states, an average of 35.5% of fish samples had at least one piece of microplastic in their gastro-intestinal tract. South Australia had the highest percentage of fish with plastic (49%) and Tasmania the lowest (20%). The average microplastic load was 0.94 piece per fish but ranged from 0 to 17 pieces, with polyolefin identified as the dominant polymer group. Overall, the ingestion of microplastic was widespread across species, locations, diets and habitat niches of fish species investigated, but the average plastic ingestion was less than other similar global studies. This study provides novel insights on the use of fish species from seafood markets to assess environmental contamination by microplastic, as well as an important perspective of the potential for microplastic contamination to enter the human food chain.Propylene glycol (PG; 1,2-propanediol) has been commonly used as a food additive and vehicle in pharmaceutical preparations. PG can form rectus (R-) enantiomers and sinister (S-) enantiomers. Herein, Kunming mice were used as the animal model to evaluate the acute and subacute oral toxicity of R-PG, S-PG and RS-PG (11 racemic mixture of R-PG and S-PG). The median lethal doses of R-PG, S-PG and RS-PG administered by oral gavage to mice were 22.81 g/kg, 26.62 g/kg and 24.92 g/kg, respectively. In the 28-day oral subacute toxicity study, the body weight, organ weights, serum biochemical, and renal histology were examined. There was no difference in subacute toxicity among R-PG, S-PG and RS-PG. The administration of 1 and 5 g/kg/day PG for 28 days caused nephrotoxicity. The kidney somatic index and levels of blood urea nitrogen exhibited a significant increase. Moreover, the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase significantly decreased after the treatment with PG. The levels of malondialdehyde, tumor necrosis factor α, interleukin 1β, and interleukin 6 significantly increased in the kidney. The results show that the nephrotoxic effects of PG are induced by oxidative stress, and the activation of the inflammatory response is mediated by the NF-κB signaling pathway. Together, these findings provide information on R-PG, S-PG and RS-PG treatments for the risk assessment of toxicity and effects on human health.Simultaneous stabilization of cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As) in co-contaminated soil is challenging in environmental remediation because of their opposite properties. In this study, biochar-supported nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI-BC) was designed for simultaneously decreasing the soil availability of Cd and As and their bioaccumulation in vegetables. It was found that nZVI-BC exhibited remarkable performance for the stabilization of Cd and As in soil, and their availability decreased by 34.93% and 32.64% compared to the control sample, respectively, under 1.00% nZVI-BC treatment. this website The increase of soil pH and complexation dominated the Cd remediation process, while the formation of precipitation together and surface complexes transformed labile As into stable forms. Pot experiments showed that nZVI-BC application inhibited the bioaccumulation of Cd and As in vegetables by 23.63-36.48% and 43.09-45.10%, respectively, and hence effectively decreased the cancer risks by 38.19-42.93% related with vegetable consumption (P less then 0.05). This study revealed that nZVI-BC is a promising amendment for achieving the simultaneous remediation of Cd and As co-contaminated farmland soil.Zero valent iron (ZVI)-microbe technology has an increasing application on the removal of organic pollution, yet the molecular mechanism of microbe respond to ZVI is still a mystery. Here, we established a successive ZVI-enhanced microbial system to remove azo dye (a typical organic pollutant) by Shewanella decolorationis S12 (S. decolorationis S12, an effective azo dye degradation bacterium) and examined the gene expression time course (10, 30, 60, and 120 min) by whole genome transcriptional analysis. The addition of ZVI to the microbial degradation system increases the rate of azo reduction from ~60% to over 99% in 16 h reaction, suggesting the synergistic effect of ZVI and S12 on azo dye degradation. Comparing with the treatment without ZVI, less filamentous cells were observed in ZVI treated system, and approximately 8% genes affiliated with 10 different gene expression profiles in S. decolorationis S12 were significantly changed in 120 min during the ZVI-enhanced azo reduction. Intriguingly, MarR transcriptional factor might play a vital role in regulating ZVI-enhanced azo reduction in the aspect of energy production, iron homeostasis, and detoxification. Further investigation showed that the induced [Ni-Fe] H2ase genes (hyaABCDEF) and azoreductase genes (mtrABC-omcA) contributed to ZVI-enhanced energy production, while the reduced iron uptake (hmuVCB and feoAB), induced sulfate assimilation (cysPTWA) and cysteine biosynthesis (cysM) related genes were essential to iron homeostasis and detoxification. This study disentangles underlying mechanisms of ZVI-enhanced organic pollution biotreatment in S. decolorationis S12.Pollution damages ecosystems around the globe and some forms of pollution, like oil pollution, can be either man-made or derived from natural sources. Despite the pervasiveness of oil pollution, certain organisms are able to colonise polluted or toxic environments, yet we only have a limited understanding of how they are affected by it. Here, we analysed phenotypic responses to oil pollution in guppies (Poecilia reticulata) living in oil-polluted habitats across southern Trinidad. We analysed body-shape and life-history traits for 352 individuals from 11 independent populations, six living in oil-polluted environments (including the naturally oil-polluted Pitch Lake), and five stemming from non-polluted habitats. Based on theory of, and previous studies on, responses to environmental stressors, we predicted guppies from oil-polluted waters to have larger heads and shallower bodies, to be smaller, to invest more into reproduction, and to produce more but smaller offspring compared to guppies from non-polluted habitats.