The phenolic compounds of 15 strawberry cultivars grown in Spain were analyzed and quantified: anthocyanins (20.2−47.4 mg/100 g of fw) (cyanidin 3-glucoside and pelargonidin 3-glucoside, ...3-rutinoside, and 3-malonyl glucoside), flavonols (1.5−3.4 mg/100 g of fw) (quercetin 3-glucuronide and kaempferol 3-glucoside and 3-p-coumaroyl-glucoside), proanthocyanidins (53.9−163.2 mg/100 g), p-coumaroyl-glucose (0.84−6.70 mg/100 g), ellagitannins (9.67−22.86 mg/100 g) (sanguiin H-6, lambertianin C, and galloyl bis-HHDP-glucose), and ellagic acid glycosides (0.88−2.06 mg/100 g of fw) (two ellagic acid deoxyhexosides). Proanthocyanidins, the main phenolic compounds, were characterized by phloroglucinol degradation. Their mean degree of polymerization ranged from 3.4 for cv. Chiflon to 5.8 for cv. Ventana, the average value being 4.3. The terminal unit of proanthocyanidin oligomers was always (epi)catechin (17.36−29.93%) and (epi)catechin (61.66−75.39%) or (epi)afzelechin (4.50−10.54%) as extension units. Different combinations of (epi)catechin and (epi)afzelechin were detected, and their sequence of linkage was characterized by HPLC-MS-MS. Relative percentages of dimers, trimers, tetramers, and pentamers were evaluated by the extracted ion chromatogram (EIC) analysis.
About 14% of US adults aged 40 to 79 years have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and it is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Persons with severe COPD are often ...unable to participate in normal physical activity due to deterioration of lung function.
To update the 2008 US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation on screening for COPD in asymptomatic adults.
The USPSTF reviewed the evidence on whether screening for COPD in asymptomatic adults (those who do not recognize or report respiratory symptoms) improves health outcomes. The USPSTF reviewed the diagnostic accuracy of screening tools (including prescreening questionnaires and spirometry); whether screening for COPD improves the delivery and uptake of targeted preventive services, such as smoking cessation or relevant immunizations; and the possible harms of screening for and treatment of mild to moderate COPD.
Similar to 2008, the USPSTF did not find evidence that screening for COPD in asymptomatic persons improves health-related quality of life, morbidity, or mortality. The USPSTF determined that early detection of COPD, before the development of symptoms, does not alter the course of the disease or improve patient outcomes. The USPSTF concludes with moderate certainty that screening for COPD in asymptomatic persons has no net benefit.
The USPSTF recommends against screening for COPD in asymptomatic adults. (D recommendation).
In this paper, we develop models applicable to phenomenological particle physics by using the string analogy of particles. These theories can be used to investigate the phenomenology of confinement, ...deconfinement, chiral condensate, QGP phase transitions, and even the evolution of the early universe. Other confining properties such as scalar glueball mass, gluon mass, glueball-meson mixing states, QCD vacuum, and color superconductivity can also be investigated in these model frameworks. We use one of the models to describe the phenomenon of color confinement among glueballs at the end of the paper. The models are built based on the Dirac–Born–Infeld (DBI) action modified for open strings with their endpoints on a D
p
-brane or brane–anti-brane at a tachyonic vacuum.
•LC, UV and MS (QQQ and QTOF) characteristics of urolithin standards were studied.•Relative response factors in UV at 305nm respect to Uro-A or EA were calculated.•We provide useful data for ...urolithin analysis when standards are not available.•Methods were validated for their application in urine, feces and plasma samples.•Biological samples were analyzed after the intake of ellagitannin-containing foods.
Ellagitannins and ellagic acid (EA) are metabolized by the gut microbiota to produce urolithins that could be responsible for the health effects attributed to ellagitannin-containing food products. Several urolithin aglycones could be present in fecal samples while glucuronide and sulphate conjugates are mainly found in plasma and urine. So far, the lack of available standards has made difficult their correct identification and quantification. In the present study, UV and MS spectra characteristics of urolithins and their phase II metabolites have been determined using different systems based on liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with diode-array or mass spectrometer detectors with different analyzers (triple quadrupole (QqQ) and quadrupole time-of-flight (QTOF)). Chromatographic separation was achieved on a reversed-phase Poroshell C18 column (3×100mm, 2.7μm). Elution order, characteristic UV spectra, and relative response factors (RRFs) with respect to their parental compound (EA) and the most common metabolite urolithin A (Uro-A) were determined. This contribution, along with the most important mass spectra characteristics (MRM transitions, qualifier/quantifier ratio, accurate mass and fragmentation pattern) will allow the determination of urolithin metabolites in different biological samples and their quantification even if not all metabolites are commercially available. The methods developed in the three systems have been fully validated in terms of linearity, sensitivity, precision, recovery, matrix effect, selectivity and stability. After that, they were successfully applied to complex biological matrices (urine, feces and plasma) from two human studies in which volunteers consumed ellagitannin-containing foods, such as walnuts and pomegranate extracts.
Based on data from the 1990s, estimated prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in the United States is 10% for mild OSA and 3.8% to 6.5% for moderate to severe OSA; current prevalence may be ...higher, given the increasing prevalence of obesity. Severe OSA is associated with increased all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular events, diabetes, cognitive impairment, decreased quality of life, and motor vehicle crashes.
To issue a new US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation on screening for OSA in asymptomatic adults.
The USPSTF reviewed the evidence on the accuracy, benefits, and potential harms of screening for OSA in asymptomatic adults seen in primary care, including those with unrecognized symptoms. The USPSTF also evaluated the evidence on the benefits and harms of treatment of OSA on intermediate and final health outcomes.
The USPSTF found insufficient evidence on screening for or treatment of OSA in asymptomatic adults or adults with unrecognized symptoms. Therefore, the USPSTF was unable to determine the magnitude of the benefits or harms of screening for OSA or whether there is a net benefit or harm to screening.
The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for OSA in asymptomatic adults. (I statement).
Strigolactones are natural products that are exuded by plants and stimulate parasitic weed germination. Their use in herbicides is limited since they are produced in small quantities, but the ...synthesis of bioactive analogues provides an alternative source. In this work, eleven analogues have been synthesized. Among them, nine compounds belong to a novel family named eudesmanestrigolactones. The procedure is short (3–6 steps), the starting materials are isolated on a multigram scale, and global yields are up to 8%, which significantly enhance isolated yields. In bioassay, the compounds germinated high percentages of Phelipanche ramosa, Orobanche cumana, and Orobanche crenata seeds, even at nanogram doses (100 nM). Bioactivity was stereochemistry-dependent, and it was discussed in terms of the presence and geometry of the enol ether, orientation of the butenolide, and unsaturation of ring A. The reported compounds provide a set of readily obtained allelochemicals with potential applications as preventive herbicides.
Flavanones, flavonoids abundant in Citrus, have been shown to interfere with quorum sensing (QS) and affect related physiological processes. We have investigated the QS-inhibitory effects of an ...orange extract enriched in O-glycosylated flavanones (mainly naringin, neohesperidin, and hesperidin). The QS-inhibitory capacity of this extract and its main flavanone components was first screened using the bacteriological monitoring system Chromobacterium violaceum. We next examined the ability of the orange extract and of some of the flavanones to (i) reduce the levels of the QS mediators produced by Y. enterocolitica using HPLC-MS/MS, (ii) inhibit biofilm formation, and (iii) inhibit swimming and swarming motility. Additionally, we evaluated changes in the expression of specific genes involved in the synthesis of the lactones (yenI, yenR) and in the flagellar regulon (flhDC, fleB, fliA) by RT-PCR. The results showed that the orange extract and its main flavanone components inhibited QS in C. violaceum, diminished the levels of lactones secreted by Y. enterocolitica to the media, and decreased QS-associated biofilm maturation without affecting bacterial growth. Among the tested compounds, naringin was found to inhibit swimming motility. Exposure to the orange extract and (or) to naringin was also found to be associated with induction of the transcription levels of yenR, flhDC, and fliA. This work shows the in vitro QS-inhibitory effects of an orange extract enriched in flavanones against a human enteropathogen at doses that can be achieved through the diet and suggests that consumption of these natural extracts may have a beneficial antipathogenic effect.
ABSTRACT
We have recently presented observational evidence which suggests that the origin of the second-generation (G2) stars in globular clusters (GCs) is due to the binary-mediated collision of ...primordial (G1) low-mass main-sequence (MS) stars. This mechanism avoids both the mass budget problem and the need of external gas for dilution. Here, we report on another piece of evidence supporting this scenario: (1) the fraction of MS binaries is proportional to the fraction of G1 stars in GCs and, at the same time, (2) the smaller the fraction of G1 stars is, the more deficient binaries of higher mass ratio (q>0.7) are. They are, on average, harder than their smaller mass-ratio counterparts due to higher binding energy at a given primary mass. Then (2) implies that (1) is due to the merging/collisions of hard binaries rather than to their disruption. These new results complemented by the present-day data on binaries lead to the following conclusions: (i) the mass-ratio distribution of binaries, particularly short-period ones, with low-mass primaries, MP < 1.5 M⊙, is strongly peaked close to q=1.0, whereas (ii) dynamical processes at high stellar density tend to destroy softer binaries and make hard (nearly) twin binaries to become even harder and favour their mergers and collisions. G2 stars formed this way gain mass that virtually doubles the primary one, 2MP, at which the number of G1 stars is approximately five times smaller than at MP according to the slope of a Milky Way-like initial mass function at MMS < 1.0 M⊙.
Cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis is a disease with important clinical and molecular heterogeneity. CYP27A1 gene was described as the cause of these defects, with more than 50 mutations involved in the ...disease. The objective of this study was to carry out a genetic study and a clinical description of a patient with unusual clinical manifestation of the disease.
DNA sequencing was used for the evaluation of CYP27A1 exon sequences and their intron/exon boundaries. Copy number variants were calculated using a method based on depth of sequencing coverage. In addition, the potential effects of the missense variants were analyzed, and an in-silico protein modeling tool was used. Finally, a patient case description was performed in order to evaluate patient phenotype according to genetic results.
Patient clinical features indicate the possible presence of a disease milder phenotype. When analyzing the CYP27A1 gene, patient presents a pathogenic variant (p.Arg474Trp) and a variant of unknown significance (p.Met130Ile) that causes a slight modification of the protein functional structure. This variant in homozygosis or double or compound heterozygosis together with other biallelic pathological mutations may be the cause of the clinical phenotype observed in the reported patient.
Clinical manifestations of cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis are heterogeneous, and sometimes wrongly suggest the presence of other diseases. Some patients seem to present an "incomplete" phenotype, which could be redefined as a variant of the disease with further studies. The evaluation of new mutations allows for earlier diagnosis and greater effectiveness in its treatment.
Application of natural products as new green agrochemicals with low average lifetime, low concentration doses, and safety is both complex and expensive due to chemical modification required to obtain ...desirable physicochemical properties. Transport, aqueous solubility, and bioavailability are some of the properties that have been improved using functionalized metal–organic frameworks based on zinc for the encapsulation of bioherbicides (ortho-disulfides). An in situ method has been applied to achieve encapsulation, which, in turn, led to an improvement in water solubility by more than 8 times after 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin HP-β-CD surface functionalization. High-resolution high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HR HAADF-STEM) and integrated differential phase contrast (iDPC) imaging techniques were employed to verify the success of the encapsulation procedure and crystallinity of the sample. Inhibition studies on principal weeds that infect rice, corn, and potato crops gave results that exceed those obtained with the commercial herbicide Logran. This finding, along with a short synthesis period, i.e., 2 h at 25 °C, make the product an example of a new generation of natural-product-based herbicides with direct applications in agriculture.
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