A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of supplementing different levels of lysophospholipid (LPL) to normal or reduced energy diets on growth performance, carcass yield, intestinal ...morphology, and skeletal development in broilers. A total of 960 one-day-old Cobb 500 male birds were allocated using a 2 × 4 factorial arrangement with 2 energy levels (NE: normal and RE: 100 kcal/kg metabolizable energy reduction) and 4 LPL supplement levels (0, 0.025, 0.050, and 0.075%). Three diet phases were fed throughout the trial: starter (days 0 to 7), grower (days 8 to 21), and finisher (days 22 to 42) phases. Body weight (BW), feed intake (FI), and feed conversion ratio were calculated at the end of each phase. At day 7 and 21, duodenum and jejunum samples were collected for intestinal morphology and claudin-3 expression analyses, and tibia were sampled for bone quality analyses. At day 42, 4 birds per replicate were selected to measure carcass yield. The results showed low metabolizable energy diets impaired bird's growth performance, intestine development, and bone quality. The 0.075% LPL supplement in NE improved BW, BW gain, and FI in the finisher and overall period compared with no LPL supplement in NE (P < 0.05). In RE, the 0.025% LPL supplement significantly improved growth performance compared to the other treatments in RE (P < 0.05). The interactions on processing parameters were detected with LPL supplement in NE diets; 0.025, 0.05, and 0.075% LPL supplements significantly increased pectoral major percentages compared to the one without LPL supplement in NE (P < 0.05). The 0.075% LPL supplement increased dressing percentage (cold carcass weight/live BW) compared with the others (P < 0.05). The intestine morphology results showed LPL had positive effects on intestine development mainly during the early age (day 7) and claudin-3 expression at both day 7 and 21. Furthermore, LPL supplement significantly increased the total Ca and P deposition and positively affected the bone structure development. In summary, dietary LPL supplementation promoted growth performance, carcass yield, intestinal development, intestinal health, and bone quality.
The serious degradation of regional air quality is a critical social issue in East Asia despite continuous efforts to reduce the emission of pollutants and their precursors. To better understand ...high-pollution events in this region, the synoptic weather patterns associated with springtime non-dust high PM10 (High PM10) events and Asian Dust events in Seoul, South Korea, are examined for the 2001–2018 period. It is shown that the two high-pollution events accompany different atmospheric circulations. While High PM10 events are associated with weak surface cyclonic circulations over the Southeast China, Asian Dust events are characterized by strong cyclones over Northeast China. Composite weather maps show that mid-tropospheric circulation anomalies are exactly the opposite between the two events with anticyclonic anomalies over the Korean Peninsula for High PM10 events but cyclonic anomalies for Asian Dust events. The cluster analyses further reveal that High PM10 events are not determined by a single dominant weather pattern. They are associated with surface cyclonic circulations from southeastern China to the Sea of Okhotsk, anticyclonic circulations around the Korean Peninsula or their mixtures. This result is in contrast with the Asian Dust events which are primarily driven by vertically well-organized continental cyclones.
•Both High PM10 and Asian Dust events exhibit a distinct seasonality over the last 18 years.•Synoptic weather patterns of High PM10 and Asian Dust events, observed in Seoul, South Korea, are quite different.•High PM10 events are related to pollutant transport from external sources and accumulation of local pollutants.•All of Asian Dust events are characterized by well-developed synoptic-scale cyclones.
There is no current standard rescue treatment for dual drug-resistant strains of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). This aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of rifabutin-based triple ...therapy for patients infected with dual drug-resistant strains to clarithromycin and levofloxacin.
After 2 or 3 H. pylori treatment failures, patients underwent upper endoscopy with tissue biopsies. Phenotypic and genotypic resistances were determined using agar dilution test and polymerase chain reaction with direct sequencing, respectively. Patients infected with dual drug-resistant (clarithromycin and levofloxacin) strains and receiving rifabutin-based triple therapy (rifabutin 150 mg bid, amoxicillin 1 g bid and esomeprazole 40 mg bid for 10 days) were enrolled. Eradication status was determined by 13C-urea breath test 4 weeks after treatment completion.
A total of 39 patients infected with dual drug-resistant strains were enrolled in this study, with a mean age of 55.9 years. The eradication rate was 79.5% (31/39) (95% confidence intervals: 54.96% ~ 111.40%). Adverse event was reported in 23.1% (9/39) of patients but they were mild and tolerable. In univariate analysis, no factor was identified as an independent predictor of eradication failure.
Our current study demonstrated that rifabutin-based triple therapy was well tolerated and yielded an acceptable eradication rate for patients infected with dual drug-resistant strains of H. pylori.
The preventive and therapeutic potency against oxidative stress and diabetic complications of
Nelumbo nucifera were evaluated via the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), Trolox equivalent ...antioxidant capacity (TEAC), and total reactive oxygen species (ROS) assays, as well as the rat lens aldose reductase (RLAR) and advanced glycation endproducts (AGE) assays. The leaf extract of
N. nucifera exerted potent antioxidant effects as well as marked inhibitory effects for RLAR and AGE formation, corresponding to high values for total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC). Among several solvent fractions, the EtOAc and
n-BuOH fractions, having prominent TPC and TFC values, showed significant antioxidant effects in the DPPH and TEAC assays. Moreover, the EtOAc fraction exhibited superior inhibitory effects in the total ROS, RLAR, and AGE assays, with IC
50 values of 9.4, 2.4, and 28.2
μg/ml, respectively. Also, the HPLC profiles of the active EtOAc fraction indicated that quercetin 3-O-β-
d-glucopyranoside (Qc-3-Glc) and Qc 3-O-β-
d-glucuronopyranoside (Qc-3-Gln) were two of its major components, as well as Qc 3-O-β-
d-galactopyranoside (Qc-3-Gal) as a minor compound. Therefore, the results suggest that two key antioxidant flavonoids, Qc-3-Glc and Qc-3-Gln, may play important roles in the antioxidant and RLAR inhibitory effects of
N. nucifera leaves. Also, the leaves, and the flavonoids contained within them, would clearly have potential uses in the development of therapeutic or preventive agents for diabetic complications and oxidative stress-related diseases.
We evaluated the long-term effect of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for primary small hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) ineligible for local therapy or surgery.
Forty-two HCC patients with ...tumors ≤ 100 cc and ineligible for local ablation therapy or surgical resection were treated with SBRT: 30-39 Gy with a prescription isodose range of 70-85% (median 80%) was delivered daily in three fractions. Median tumor volume was 15.4 cc (3.0-81.8) and median follow-up duration 28.7 months (8.4-49.1).
Complete response (CR) for the in-field lesion was initially achieved in 59.6% and partial response (PR) in 26.2% of patients. Hepatic out-of-field progression occurred in 18 patients (42.9%) and distant metastasis developed in 12 (28.6%) patients. Overall in-field CR and overall CR were achieved in 59.6% and 33.3%, respectively. Overall 1-year and 3-year survival rates were 92.9% and 58.6%, respectively. In-field progression-free survival at 1 and 3 years was 72.0% and 67.5%, respectively. Patients with smaller tumor had better in-field progression-free survival and overall survival rates (<32 cc vs. ≥32 cc, P < 0.05). No major toxicity was encountered but one patient died with extrahepatic metastasis and radiation-induced hepatic failure.
SBRT is a promising noninvasive-treatment for small HCC that is ineligible for local treatment or surgical resection.
Abstract Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a key climate change gas and nitrifying microbes living in terrestrial ecosystems contribute significantly to its formation. Many soils are acidic and global change ...will cause acidification of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, but the effect of decreasing pH on N2O formation by nitrifiers is poorly understood. Here, we used isotope-ratio mass spectrometry to investigate the effect of acidification on production of N2O by pure cultures of two ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA; Nitrosocosmicus oleophilus and Nitrosotenuis chungbukensis) and an ammonia-oxidizing bacterium (AOB; Nitrosomonas europaea). For all three strains acidification led to increased emission of N2O. However, changes of 15N site preference (SP) values within the N2O molecule (as indicators of pathways for N2O formation), caused by decreasing pH, were highly different between the tested AOA and AOB. While acidification decreased the SP value in the AOB strain, SP values increased to a maximum value of 29‰ in N. oleophilus. In addition, 15N-nitrite tracer experiments showed that acidification boosted nitrite transformation into N2O in all strains, but the incorporation rate was different for each ammonia oxidizer. Unexpectedly, for N. oleophilus more than 50% of the N2O produced at pH 5.5 had both nitrogen atoms from nitrite and we demonstrated that under these conditions expression of a putative cytochrome P450 NO reductase is strongly upregulated. Collectively, our results indicate that N. oleophilus might be able to enzymatically denitrify nitrite to N2O at low pH.
Radiotherapy is a mainstay of cancer treatment, used in either a curative or palliative manner to treat approximately 50% of cancer patients. Normal tissue toxicity limits the doses used in standard ...radiation therapy protocols and impedes improvements in radiotherapy efficacy. Damage to surrounding normal tissues can produce reactions ranging from bothersome symptoms that negatively affect quality of life to severe life-threatening complications. Improved ways of predicting, prior to treatment, the risk for development of normal tissue toxicity may allow for more personalized treatment and reduce the incidence and severity of late effects. There is increasing recognition that the cause of normal tissue toxicity is multifactorial and includes genetic factors in addition to radiation dose and volume of exposure, underlying co-morbidities, age, concomitant chemotherapy or hormonal therapy and use of other medications. An understanding of the specific genetic risk factors for normal tissue response to radiation has the potential to enhance our ability to predict adverse outcomes at the treatment planning stage. Therefore, the field of radiogenomics has focused upon the identification of genetic variants associated with normal tissue toxicity resulting from radiotherapy. Innovative analytic methods are being applied to the discovery of risk variants and development of integrative predictive models that build on traditional normal tissue complication probability models by incorporating genetic information. Results from initial studies provide promising evidence that genetic-based risk models could play an important role in the implementation of precision medicine for radiation oncology through enhancing the ability to predict normal tissue reactions and thereby improve cancer treatment.
Here we report the development of a proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) based on the combination of the unique features of the sirtuin rearranging ligands (SirReals) as highly potent and ...isotype-selective Sirt2 inhibitors with thalidomide, a bona fide cereblon ligand. For the first time, we report the formation of a PROTAC by Cu(I)-catalyzed cycloaddition of a thalidomide-derived azide to an alkynylated inhibitor. This thalidomide-derived azide as well as the highly versatile linking strategy can be readily adapted to alkynylated ligands of other targets. In HeLa cells, our SirReal-based PROTAC induced isotype-selective Sirt2 degradation that results in the hyperacetylation of the microtubule network coupled with enhanced process elongation. Thus, our SirReal-based PROTAC is the first example of a probe that is able to chemically induce the degradation of an epigenetic eraser protein.
Emergence agitation is common after nasal surgery under general anesthesia and may lead to serious consequences for the patient, including an increased risk of injury, pain, hemorrhage, and ...self-extubation. Despite decades of research, studies on the incidence, risk factors, and prevention of emergence agitation in adult patients are ongoing, and opinions differ on the different effects of inhalation and intravenous anesthesia.
To investigate the effect of anesthetic method on the occurrence of emergence agitation after nasal surgery.
This prospective, randomized, single-blind, clinical trial included 80 patients undergoing open rhinoplasty, septoplasty, turbinoplasty, endoscopic sinus surgery, and functional endoscopic sinus surgery under general anesthesia who were randomized to receive total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) with remifentanil hydrochloride and propofol (n = 40) or volatile induction and maintenance of anesthesia (VIMA) with sevoflurane and nitrous oxide (n = 40) in Asan Medical Center, a tertiary referral center in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Data were collected from August 24 through October 14, 2016, and analyzed from October 26, 2016, through September 14, 2017.
The occurrence of emergence agitation defined by the following 2 individual criteria: a Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale score of at least 1 and a Riker Sedation-Agitation Scale score of at least 5 immediately after extubation.
Among the 80 patients included in the analysis (68.8% men n = 55; mean SD age, 41.6 17.9 years), emergence agitation measured by the Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale occurred in 8 of 40 patients (20.0%) in the VIMA group and 1 of 40 (2.5%) in the TIVA group. The risk difference was 17.5 (95% CI, 3.6-31.4). Emergence agitation measured by the Riker Sedation-Agitation Scale score occurred in 10 of 40 patients (25.0%) in the VIMA group and 1 of 40 (2.5%) in the TIVA group. The risk difference was 22.5 (95% CI, 7.3-37.7).
The occurrence of emergence agitation after nasal surgery under general anesthesia can be significantly reduced by using TIVA rather than VIMA.
CRIS identifier: KCT0002145.