Several studies have investigated the possibility of dairy foods and calcium (Ca) mediating weight and body composition, but a consensus has not been reached. We aimed to investigate ...weight-loss-related outcomes during intervention with low-fat dairy foods or Ca + vitamin D supplements, both as complements to hypocaloric diets. Overweight/obese Caucasian, early-postmenopausal women (
= 135) were recruited for a 6 month energy-restricted weight loss study complemented with either low-fat dairy foods (D; 4-5 servings/day), or Ca + vitamin D supplements (S); both to amount a total of ~1500 mg/day and 600 IU/day of Ca and vitamin D, respectively, or placebo pills (C). Bone mineral density (BMD) and lean and fat tissue were measured by Lunar iDXA. Serum and urinary markers of bone turnover were analyzed. Diet and physical activity were assessed with 3-day records. Participants on average lost ~4%, ~3%, and ~2% of body weight, fat, and lean tissue, respectively. The significantly better outcomes were noticed in participants in the D group regarding body composition (fat loss/lean tissue preservation) and in participants in the S group regarding the BMD outcomes, compared to those in the C group. Therefore, increasing low-fat dairy foods to 4-5 servings/day and/or increasing Ca & vitamin D intake by supplements (in those who are at the borderline dietary intake) may be beneficial for weight loss/maintenance and may lead to more favorable bone and body composition outcomes in postmenopausal women during moderate weight loss.
Circadian rhythms of behavior are driven by oscillators in the brain that are coupled to the environmental light cycle. Circadian rhythms of gene expression occur widely in peripheral organs. It is ...unclear how these multiple rhythms are coupled together to form a coherent system. To study such coupling, we investigated the effects of cycles of food availability (which exert powerful entraining effects on behavior) on the rhythms of gene expression in the liver, lung, and suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). We used a transgenic rat model whose tissues express luciferase in vitro. Although rhythmicity in the SCN remained phase-locked to the light-dark cycle, restricted feeding rapidly entrained the liver, shifting its rhythm by 10 hours within 2 days. Our results demonstrate that feeding cycles can entrain the liver independently of the SCN and the light cycle, and they suggest the need to reexamine the mammalian circadian hierarchy. They also raise the possibility that peripheral circadian oscillators like those in the liver may be coupled to the SCN primarily through rhythmic behavior, such as feeding.
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The DESH (disproportionately enlarged subarachnoid-space hydrocephalus) pattern of "tight high-convexity and medial subarachnoid spaces, and enlarged Sylvian fissures with ventriculomegaly" is used ...to determine which patients undergo an operation for adult hydrocephalus at many centers. Our aim was to review adult hydrocephalus cases when DESH has not been a criterion for an operation to determine the prevalence of DESH among the cohort and compare the surgical outcomes in the presence or absence of DESH.
A retrospective cohort study was conducted at a single institution (Johns Hopkins Hospital) to include patients surgically treated for adult hydrocephalus between 2003 and 2014 drawn from a data base of patients who had undergone standardized hydrocephalus protocol MR imaging. Preoperative imaging was reviewed by 2 blinded neuroradiologists to characterize the presence of DESH. Preoperative and postoperative clinical symptomatology was recorded. Frequencies were compared using the Fisher exact test, and nonparametric means were compared using the Mann-Whitney
Test.
One hundred thirty-three subjects were identified and included (96 DESH absent, 37 DESH present). Shunting led to significant improvement in gait and urinary and cognitive symptoms for the overall cohort and for patients with and without DESH (
< .05). The Fisher exact test did not demonstrate any significant differences in either gait or urinary or cognitive symptom improvement between patients with or without DESH (
> .05).
The current study demonstrated symptom improvement in patients with adult hydrocephalus following shunting, with no significant differences between subjects with and without DESH. Thus, shunt insertion for patients with adult hydrocephalus should not rely solely on the presence of preoperative DESH findings.
The development of a multimaterial extrusion bioprinting platform is reported. This platform is capable of depositing multiple coded bioinks in a continuous manner with fast and smooth switching ...among different reservoirs for rapid fabrication of complex constructs, through digitally controlled extrusion of bioinks from a single printhead consisting of bundled capillaries synergized with programmed movement of the motorized stage.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Purpose: The multidrug resistance Enterobacteriaceae cause many serious infections resulting in prolonged hospitalization, increased treatment charges and mortality rate. In this study, we ...characterized bla.sub.NDM-5-positive multidrug resistance commensal Escherichia coli (CE) isolated from diarrheal patients in Kolkata, India. Methods: Three CE strains were isolated from diarrheal stools, which were negative for different pathogroups of diarrheagenic E. coli (DEC). The presence of carbapenemases encoding genes and other antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) was detected using PCR. The genetic arrangement adjoining bla.sub.NDM-5 was investigated by plasmid genome sequencing. The genetic relatedness of the strains was determined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) methods. Results: In addition to colistin, the bla.sub.NDM-5-positive CE strains showed resistance to most of the antibiotics. Higher MICs were detected for ciprofloxacin (>32 mg/L) and imipenem (8 mg/L). Molecular typing revealed that three CE strains belonged to two different STs (ST 101 and ST 648) but they were 95% similar in the PFGE analysis. Screening for ARGs revealed that CE strains harbored Int-1, bla.sub.TEM, bla.sub.CTX-M3, bla.sub.OXA-1, bla.sub.OXA-7, bla.sub.OXA-9, tetA, strA, aadA1, aadB, sul2, floR, mph(A), and aac(6')-Ib-cr. In conjugation experiment, transfer frequencies ranged from 2.5 x 10.sup.-3 to 8.4 x 10.sup.-5. The bla.sub.NDM-5 gene was located on a 94-kb pNDMTC-CE-89 type plasmid, which is highly similar to the IncFII plasmid harboring an IS26-IS30-bla.sub.NDM-5-ble.sub.MBL-trpF- dsbd-IS91-dhps structure. Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on carbapenem resistance involving the bla.sub.NDM- 5 gene in CE from diarrheal patients. The circulation of bla.sub.NDM-5 gene in CE is worrisome, since it has the potential to transfer bla.sub.NDM-5 gene to other enteric pathogens. Keywords: antimicrobial resistance, carbapenem-resistance, commensal E. coli, plasmid; bla.sub.NDM-5
Nucleases are a very diverse group of enzymes that play important roles in many crucial physiological processes in plants. We previously reported that the highly conserved region (HCR), domain of ...unknown function 151 (DUF151) and UV responsive (UVR) domain-containing OmBBD is a novel nuclease that does not share homology with other well-studied plant nucleases. Here, we report that DUF151 domain-containing proteins are present in bacteria, archaea and only Viridiplantae kingdom of eukarya, but not in any other eukaryotes. Two
homologs of OmBBD, AtBBD1 and AtBBD2, shared 43.69% and 44.38% sequence identity and contained all three distinct domains of OmBBD. We confirmed that the recombinant MBP-AtBBD1 and MBP-AtBBD2 exhibited non-substrate-specific DNase and RNase activity, like OmBBD. We also found that a metal cofactor is not necessarily required for DNase activity of AtBBD1 and AtBBD2, but their activities were much enhanced in the presence of Mg
or Mn
. Using a yeast two-hybrid assay, we found that AtBBD1 and AtBBD2 each form a homodimer but not a heterodimer and that the HCR domain is possibly crucial for dimerization.
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Berberine is a pure phenanthren alkaloid isolated from the roots and bark of herbal plants such as
Berberis,
Hydrastis canadensis and
Coptis chinensis. Berberine has been established to inhibit the ...growth of breast cancer cells, but its effects on the drug resistance and anoikis-resistance of breast cancer cells have yet to be elucidated. Anoikis, or detachment-induced apoptosis, may prevent cancer progression and metastasis by blocking signals necessary for survival of localized cancer cells. Resistance to anoikis is regarded as a prerequisite for metastasis; however, little is known about the role of berberine in anoikis-resistance. We established anoikis-resistant cells from the breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 by culturing them on a Poly-Hema substratum. We then investigated the effects of berberine on the growth of these cells. The anoikis-resistant cells had a reduced growth rate and were more invasive than their respective adherent cell lines. The effect of berberine on growth was compared to that of doxorubicine, which is a drug commonly used to treat breast cancer, in both the adherent and anoikis-resistant cell lines. Berberine promoted the growth inhibition of anoikis-resistant cells to a greater extent than doxorubicine treatment. Treatment with berberine-induced cell cycle arrest at G0/G1 in the anoikis-resistant MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells as compared to untreated control cells. In summary, these results revealed that berberine can efficiently inhibit growth by inducing cell cycle arrest in anoikis-resistant MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells. Further analysis of these phenotypes is essential for understanding the effect of berberine on anoikis-resistant breast cancer cells, which would be relevant for the therapeutic targeting of breast cancer metastasis.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Abstract
The AMoRE collaboration is preparing for the second phase of
the experiment, AMoRE-II, which will exploit a 100 kg of
100
Mo
isotopes to search for neutrinoless double beta decay from the
...isotope. Most of the
100
Mo isotopes will be contained in the
lithium molybdate (Li
2
MoO
4
) crystals, which will act as
absorbers of cryogenic calorimeters coupled to MMC (metallic
magnetic calorimeter) sensors. The detector array will have a total
mass of approximately 200 kg with hundreds of detector
modules. Hence, considerable effort has been taken to optimize the
lithium molybdate crystal detector in terms of the detector
performance and preparation procedure to build many detector modules
in a reasonable schedule without compromising the detector
performance. We found some critical experimental conditions to
improve the energy resolution in a series of test experiments. In
this paper, we discuss the effect of surface treatment and thermal
link connection in improving the energy resolution from 14–15 keV
to below 7 keV at 2.615 MeV,
208
Tl gamma line, which is near
the Q-value of the decay of
100
Mo, 3.034MeV. We also report
the high discrimination power for the separation of alpha particles
using the simultaneous scintillation light detection with a test
performed in the cryogen-free dilution refrigerator.
Haematopoietic cells arise from spatiotemporally restricted domains in the developing embryo. Although studies of non-mammalian animal and in vitro embryonic stem cell models suggest a close ...relationship among cardiac, endocardial and haematopoietic lineages, it remains unknown whether the mammalian heart tube serves as a haemogenic organ akin to the dorsal aorta. Here we examine the haemogenic activity of the developing endocardium. Mouse heart explants generate myeloid and erythroid colonies in the absence of circulation. Haemogenic activity arises from a subset of endocardial cells in the outflow cushion and atria earlier than in the aorta-gonad-mesonephros region, and is transient and definitive in nature. Interestingly, key cardiac transcription factors, Nkx2-5 and Isl1, are expressed in and required for the haemogenic population of the endocardium. Together, these data suggest that a subset of endocardial/endothelial cells serve as a de novo source for transient definitive haematopoietic progenitors.
We report the identification of metastable isomeric states of
228
Ac at 6.28 keV, 6.67 keV and 20.19 keV, with lifetimes of an order of 100 ns. These states are produced by the
β
-decay of
228
Ra, a ...component of the
232
Th decay chain, with
β
Q-values of 39.52 keV, 39.13 keV and 25.61 keV, respectively. Due to the low Q-value of
228
Ra as well as the relative abundance of
232
Th and their progeny in low background experiments, these observations potentially impact the low-energy background modeling of dark matter search experiments.
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