This study is an attempt to empirically analyze the effect of fiscal transfers on growth and regional growth convergence in India during 2005-2019, using the standard growth convergence model for ...panel data. Results indicate the growth convergence across Indian States. The regional income gaps reduced at a rate of 17.7-31.9% per annum. The fiscal transfers contribute to the growth of 22 out of 29 States and also contribute significantly to the convergence. Moreover, there is strong evidence for convergence across General Category States and across Special Category States. The average income growth is higher in Special Category States and higher in post global crisis period. It is our hope that these results will be useful to policymakers and other stakeholders to take appropriate strategies to design fiscal transfer policy such that it will speed up the convergence process in India.
Autophagy, also known as macroautophagy, is a tightly regulated process involved in the stress responses, such as starvation. It is a vacuolar, lysosomal pathway for the degradation of damaged ...proteins and organelles in eukaryotic cells. Autophagy also plays a key role in various tissue processes and immune responses and in the regulation of inflammation. Over the past decade, three levels of autophagy regulation have been identified in mammalian cells: 1) signaling, 2) autophagosome formation, and 3) autophagosome maturation and lysosomal degradation. Any deregulation of the autophagy processes can lead to the development of diverse chronic diseases, such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease, and malignancies. However, the potential role of autophagy in cancer is rather complex and has been associated with both the induction and the inhibition of neoplasia. Several synthetic autophagy modulators have been identified as promising candidates for cancer therapy. In addition, diverse phytochemicals derived from natural sources, such as curcumin, ursolic acid, resveratrol, thymoquinone, and γ‐tocotrienol, also have attracted attention as promising autophagy modulators with minimal side effects. In this review, the authors discuss the importance of autophagy regulators and various natural compounds that induce and/or inhibit autophagy in the prevention and therapy of cancer.
Autophagy, an evolutionally conserved, tightly regulated process, can lead to the development of diverse chronic diseases, including cancer. Various bioactive natural compounds either induce and/or inhibit autophagy, with potential for cancer prevention and therapy.
Deregulated inflammatory response plays a pivotal role in the initiation, development and progression of tumours. Potential molecular mechanism(s) that drive the establishment of an ...inflammatory-tumour microenvironment is not entirely understood owing to the complex cross-talk between pro-inflammatory and tumorigenic mediators such as cytokines, chemokines, oncogenes, enzymes, transcription factors and immune cells. These molecular mediators are critical linchpins between inflammation and cancer, and their activation and/or deactivation are influenced by both extrinsic (i.e. environmental and lifestyle) and intrinsic (i.e. hereditary) factors. At present, the research pertaining to inflammation-associated cancers is accumulating at an exponential rate. Interest stems from hope that new therapeutic strategies against molecular mediators can be identified to assist in cancer treatment and patient management. The present review outlines the various molecular and cellular inflammatory mediators responsible for tumour initiation, progression and development, and discusses the critical role of chronic inflammation in tumorigenesis.
Abstract Identification of active constituents and their molecular targets from traditional medicine is an enormous opportunity for modern pharmacology. Celastrol is one such compound that was ...originally identified from traditional Chinese medicine (Thunder of God Vine) almost three decades ago and generally used for the treatment of inflammatory and auto-immune diseases. Celastrol has attracted great interest recently, especially for its potential anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities. The anti-inflammatory effects of this triterpene have been demonstrated in animal models of different inflammatory diseases, including arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, and systemic lupus erythematosus. This triterpene has also been found to inhibit the proliferation of a variety of tumor cells and suppress tumor initiation, promotion and metastasis in various cancer models in vivo. Celastrol’s ability to modulate the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines, MHC II, HO-1, iNOS, NF-κB, Notch-1, AKT/mTOR, CXCR4, TRAIL receptors DR4 and DR5, CHOP, JNK, VEGF, adhesion molecules, proteasome activity, topoisomerase II, potassium channels, and heat shock response has been reported. This review describes the various molecular targets of celastrol, cellular responses to celastrol, and animal studies with celastrol in cancer and other inflammatory disorders.
The Role of Resveratrol in Cancer Therapy Ko, Jeong-Hyeon; Sethi, Gautam; Um, Jae-Young ...
International journal of molecular sciences,
2017-Dec-01, 2017-12-01, 20171201, Letnik:
18, Številka:
12
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Natural product compounds have recently attracted significant attention from the scientific community for their potent effects against inflammation-driven diseases, including cancer. A significant ...amount of research, including preclinical, clinical, and epidemiological studies, has indicated that dietary consumption of polyphenols, found at high levels in cereals, pulses, vegetables, and fruits, may prevent the evolution of an array of diseases, including cancer. Cancer development is a carefully orchestrated progression where normal cells acquires mutations in their genetic makeup, which cause the cells to continuously grow, colonize, and metastasize to other organs such as the liver, lungs, colon, and brain. Compounds that modulate these oncogenic processes can be considered as potential anti-cancer agents that may ultimately make it to clinical application. Resveratrol, a natural stilbene and a non-flavonoid polyphenol, is a phytoestrogen that possesses anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, cardioprotective, and anti-cancer properties. It has been reported that resveratrol can reverse multidrug resistance in cancer cells, and, when used in combination with clinically used drugs, it can sensitize cancer cells to standard chemotherapeutic agents. Several novel analogs of resveratrol have been developed with improved anti-cancer activity, bioavailability, and pharmacokinetic profile. The current focus of this review is resveratrol's in vivo and in vitro effects in a variety of cancers, and intracellular molecular targets modulated by this polyphenol. This is also accompanied by a comprehensive update of the various clinical trials that have demonstrated it to be a promising therapeutic and chemopreventive agent.
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•Glucose and xylose were co-fermented by a co-culture of engineered E. coli and yeast.•Co-fermentation of sugars from sugar cane bagasse slurry at 20% solids was achieved.•Xylose ...fermentation rate of E. coli in media with glucose was 1.58 ± 0.21 g.L−1.h−1.
Microorganisms ferment xylose at high rate only when glucose concentration in the medium falls below a critical level. Since the specific productivity of product is highest during exponential to early stationary phase of growth, a glucose utilization negative ethanologenic E. coli (strain LW419a) was constructed for high rate of xylose fermentation in combination with Turbo yeast. This co-culture fermented all the released sugars in an acid/enzyme-treated sugar cane bagasse slurry (10% solids) to an ethanol titer of 24.9 ± 0.8 g.L−1 (70% of the theoretical yield) in <30 h. Ethanol titer increased to 48.6 ± 1.04 g.L−1 (yield, 0.45 g.g−1 sugars) at a solids content of 20% and the highest rate of xylose consumption was 1.58 ± 0.21 g.L−1.h−1. This study demonstrates the potential of a co-culture of strain LW419a and yeast to rapidly ferment all the sugars in pretreated biomass slurries to ethanol at their respective highest rates.
In 2019, the United States Food and Drug Administration accorded restricted approval to Sanofi Pasteur's Dengvaxia, a live attenuated vaccine (LAV) for dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral disease, ...caused by four antigenically distinct dengue virus serotypes (DENV 1-4). The reason for this limited approval is the concern that this vaccine sensitized some of the dengue-naïve recipients to severe dengue fever. Recent knowledge about the nature of the immune response elicited by DENV viruses suggests that all LAVs have inherent capacity to predominantly elicit antibodies (Abs) against the pre-membrane (prM) and fusion loop epitope (FLE) of DENV. These antibodies are generally cross-reactive among DENV serotypes carrying a higher risk of promoting Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE). ADE is a phenomenon in which suboptimal neutralizing or non-neutralizing cross-reactive antibodies bind to virus and facilitate Fcγ receptor mediated enhanced entry into host cells, followed by its replication, and thus increasing the cellular viral load. On the other hand, antibody responses directed against the host-cell receptor binding domain of DENV envelope domain-III (EDIII), exhibit a higher degree of type-specificity with lower potential of ADE. The challenges associated with whole DENV-based vaccine strategies necessitate re-focusing our attention toward the designed dengue vaccine candidates, capable of inducing predominantly type-specific immune responses. If the designed vaccines elicited predominantly EDIII-directed serotype specific antibodies in the absence of prM and FLE antibodies, this could avoid the ADE phenomenon largely associated with the prM and FLE antibodies. The generation of type-specific antibodies to each of the four DENV serotypes by the designed vaccines could avoid the immune evasion mechanisms of DENVs. For the enhanced vaccine safety, all dengue vaccine candidates should be assessed for the extent of type-specific (minimal ADE) vs. cross-reactive (ADE promoting) neutralizing antibodies. The type-specific EDIII antibodies may be more directly related to protection from disease in the absence of ADE promoted by the cross-reactive antibodies.
Despite significant advances in treatment modalities over the last decade, neither the incidence of the disease nor the mortality due to cancer has altered in the last thirty years. Available ...anti-cancer drugs exhibit limited efficacy, associated with severe side effects, and are also expensive. Thus identification of pharmacological agents that do not have these disadvantages is required. Curcumin, a polyphenolic compound derived from turmeric (Curcumin longa), is one such agent that has been extensively studied over the last three to four decades for its potential anti-inflammatory and/or anti-cancer effects. Curcumin has been found to suppress initiation, progression, and metastasis of a variety of tumors. These anti-cancer effects are predominantly mediated through its negative regulation of various transcription factors, growth factors, inflammatory cytokines, protein kinases, and other oncogenic molecules. It also abrogates proliferation of cancer cells by arresting them at different phases of the cell cycle and/or by inducing their apoptosis. The current review focuses on the diverse molecular targets modulated by curcumin that contribute to its efficacy against various human cancers.
The fermentative metabolism of Escherichia coli was reengineered to efficiently convert glycerol to succinate under anaerobic conditions without the use of foreign genes. Formate and ethanol were the ...dominant fermentation products from glycerol in wild-type Escherichia coli ATCC 8739, followed by succinate and acetate. Inactivation of pyruvate formate-lyase (pflB) in the wild-type strain eliminated the production of formate and ethanol and reduced the production of acetate. However, this deletion slowed growth and decreased cell yields due to either insufficient energy production or insufficient levels of electron acceptors. Reversing the direction of the gluconeogenic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase reaction offered an approach to solve both problems, conserving energy as an additional ATP and increasing the pool of electron acceptors (fumarate and malate). Recruiting this enzyme through a promoter mutation (pck*) to increase expression also increased the rate of growth, cell yield, and succinate production. Presumably, the high NADH/NAD⁺ ratio served to establish the direction of carbon flow. Additional mutations were also beneficial. Glycerol dehydrogenase and the phosphotransferase-dependent dihydroxyacetone kinase are regarded as the primary route for glycerol metabolism under anaerobic conditions. However, this is not true for succinate production by engineered strains. Deletion of the ptsI gene or any other gene essential for the phosphotranferase system was found to increase succinate yield. Deletion of pflB in this background provided a further increase in the succinate yield. Together, these three core mutations (pck*, ptsI, and pflB) effectively redirected carbon flow from glycerol to succinate at 80% of the maximum theoretical yield during anaerobic fermentation in mineral salts medium.
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