Epithelial-mesenchymal transition or EMT is an extremely dynamic process involved in conversion of epithelial cells into mesenchymal cells, stimulated by an ensemble of signaling pathways, leading to ...change in cellular morphology, suppression of epithelial characters and acquisition of properties such as enhanced cell motility and invasiveness, reduced cell death by apoptosis, resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs etc. Significantly, EMT has been found to play a crucial role during embryonic development, tissue fibrosis and would healing, as well as during cancer metastasis. Over the years, work from various laboratories have identified a rather large number of transcription factors (TFs) including the master regulators of EMT, with the ability to regulate the EMT process directly. In this review, we put together these EMT TFs and discussed their role in the process. We have also tried to focus on their mechanism of action, their interdependency, and the large regulatory network they form. Subsequently, it has become clear that the composition and structure of the transcriptional regulatory network behind EMT probably varies based upon various physiological and pathological contexts, or even in a cell/tissue type-dependent manner.
Lagerstroemia speciosa (L.) Pers., (Lythraceae) also called Banaba is a native plant of southeast Asia and is widely used in traditional medicinal system. Herbal tea from banaba leaves are used to ...reduce weight and diabetes. We investigated the cytotoxic potentials of ethanolic banaba leaves extract (EBLE) against human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cell line. Lagerstroemia speciosa leaves were extracted and obtained from M/s. Quimico Herbal Extract Manufacturer, Bengaluru, India, and it contains 20% corosolic acid. Cells were treated with 50, 100, and 150 µg/ml of EBLE for 24 h, and cytotoxicity was evaluated by MTT assay. Apoptosis-related morphology was investigated by DAPI nuclear staining. Protein and gene expressions of p-Akt, FOXO1, p53, MDM2, p21, p27, CDK4, cyclin D1, and E1 were evaluated through Western blotting and qPCR. EBLE treatments caused significant, concentration-dependent cytotoxicity. DAPI staining and flow cytometry studies showed chromatin condensation, increased apoptotic cell population and cell cycle arrest at subG0/G1 phase upon EBLE treatments respectively. Furthermore, EBLE treatments significantly increased the expressions of p53, p21, p27, FOXO1, while p-Akt, MDM2, CDK4, cyclin D1, and E1 expressions were downregulated. These findings suggested that EBLE induces G1-phase of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in HepG2 cells. EBLE may serve as a therapeutic agent against hepatocellular carcinoma.
Phosphorylation of cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C) accelerates cardiac contractility. However, the mechanisms by which cMyBP-C phosphorylation increases contractile kinetics have not been ...fully elucidated. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that phosphorylation of cMyBP-C releases myosin heads from the inhibited super-relaxed state (SRX), thereby determining the fraction of myosin available for contraction. Mice with various alanine (A) or aspartic acid (D) substitutions of the three main phosphorylatable serines of cMyBP-C (serines 273, 282, and 302) were used to address the association between cMyBP-C phosphorylation and SRX. Single-nucleotide turnover in skinned ventricular preparations demonstrated that phosphomimetic cMyBP-C destabilized SRX, whereas phosphoablated cMyBP-C had a stabilizing effect on SRX. Strikingly, phosphorylation at serine 282 site was found to play a critical role in regulating the SRX. Treatment of WT preparations with protein kinase A (PKA) reduced the SRX, whereas, in nonphosphorylatable cMyBP-C preparations, PKA had no detectable effect. Mice with stable SRX exhibited reduced force production. Phosphomimetic cMyBP-C with reduced SRX exhibited increased rates of tension redevelopment and reduced binding to myosin. We also used recombinant myosin subfragment-2 to disrupt the endogenous interaction between cMyBP-C and myosin and observed a significant reduction in the population of SRX myosin. This peptide also increased force generation and rate of tension redevelopment in skinned fibers. Taken together, this study demonstrates that the phosphorylation-dependent interaction between cMyBP-C and myosin is a determinant of the fraction of myosin available for contraction. Furthermore, the binding between cMyBP-C and myosin may be targeted to improve contractile function.
Hepatocellular carcinoma is the second leading cause of cancer‐related mortality worldwide. Lagerstroemia speciosa Pers. (Lythraceae) commonly known as Banaba has been used in different forms in ...traditional medicinal systems for treating various diseases which include diabetes and obesity. In this study, we investigated the cytotoxic potential of ethanolic Banaba leaf extract (EBLE) in HepG2 cells. The phytochemical analysis of EBLE was performed by HPTLC. HepG2 cells were treated with EBLE at 25, 50, 100, and 150 μg/mL concentrations, and cytotoxicity was evaluated by MTT assay. Oxidative stress was assessed by the evaluation of lipid peroxidation, superoxide dismutase, and reduced glutathione. Apoptosis‐related morphology was investigated by acridine orange and ethidium bromide (AO/EB) dual staining. Mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) was evaluated by JC‐1 staining. Apoptosis‐related marker genes were evaluated by qPCR. HPTLC analysis confirmed the presence of corosolic acid (12.87 μg/mg), berberine (3.19 μg/mg), and gallic acid (2.94 μg/mg) in EBLE. EBLE treatments caused significant and concentration‐dependent cytotoxicity and oxidative stress in HepG2 cells. Dual staining with AO/EB confirmed membrane distortion and nuclear chromatin condensation upon EBLE treatments. JC‐I staining revealed the loss of ΔΨm. Furthermore, at a molecular level, EBLE treatments interfere with Bax/Bcl‐2 homeostasis and induced the pro‐apoptotic marker genes such as cytochrome c, Apaf‐1, and caspases 9 and 3. EBLE treatments caused cytotoxicity in HepG2 cells, and this could be due to the induction of oxidative stress and apoptosis via the intrinsic or mitochondrial pathway.
•Maximum liquid yield observed in non-catalytic cracking of PMD at 550 °C.•Synergistic effect observed during degradation of PMD.•Details of compositional analysis of liquid and gaseous pyrolysis ...products.•Effect of 10 %Ni/Al2O3 and AlNaO6Si2 on the distribution of product yield.•Discussion on the variation of hydrocarbons composition during catalytic cracking.
The rapid increase in marine waste has resulted in the accumulation of plastic marine debris (PMD), which is of concern to the scientific community due to the need for its safe disposal worldwide. PMD primarily consists of non-degradable polymeric waste, namely thermoplastics, which contain a substantial amount of energy as they are made from petroleum-based sources. Proper disposal and energy reclamation of this waste have become pressing topics. This study aimed to investigate PMD through thermogravimetric analysis followed by pyrolysis in the temperature range of 450–600 °C. Additionally, two catalysts, 10% nickel impregnated activated alumina (10% Ni/Al2O3) and sodium aluminosilicate (AlNaO6Si2), were incorporated (non-contacting method) to evaluate their effect on product yield and quality. During the non-catalytic process, the highest yield (∼78%) was achieved at a temperature of 550 °C while the presence of a catalyst had a minimal effect on oil density (0.74–0.76), and the percentage yield decreased to ∼ 58 and ∼ 62% using AlNaO6Si2 and 10% Ni/Al2O3 at 550 °C. The catalyst had a significant effect on the fraction of oxygenated compounds in the oil, reducing it by ∼ 18% from the non-catalytic process. AlNaO6Si2 resulted in a higher fraction of gasoline-range compounds, while 10% Ni/Al2O3 showed a higher similarity towards diesel fractions. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis identified the presence of alkanes, alkenes, aromatics, alcohols, and other compounds in the oil product, with variations observed depending on the catalyst used. The results showed that among all hydrocarbons, propane had the maximum fraction, followed by ethane, methane, and butane in the gaseous compounds. Based on the degradation mechanism, yield distribution, and component evolution, the dissociation mechanism for both processes was explained.
The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of lean practices on performance measures in the automotive industry and identify the lean criteria that can have significant impact on automotive ...supply chain. The identified lean practices can serve as a template to enhance the performance of a supply chain. The present study offers a multi-criteria decision-making approach to identify the effective performance practices in automotive lean supply chain. The decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) was applied on a matrix of observed values and the actual effect of proposed practices was observed. Further it was confirmed with the help of fuzzy-Vlsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR; that means multicriteria optimization and compromise solution, with pronunciation). The criteria which had the most impact are proposed for achieving the future goals of leanness. It was found that among the lean criteria considered, quality management, information management and customer management practices influence the key performance measures more than others. Although DEMATEL and fuzzy-VIKOR were applied for situation leading to setting up of priorities of factors that considered affecting automotive manufacturer, the proposed methodology can be applied in diverse industrial settings. The present study may help decision-makers to device the appropriate strategy in identifying major practices that influence the lean supply chain.
Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and their networks play a central role in all biological processes. Akin to the complete sequencing of genomes and their comparative analysis, complete ...descriptions of interactomes and their comparative analysis is fundamental to a deeper understanding of biological processes. A first step in such an analysis is to align two or more PPI networks. Here, we introduce an algorithm, IsoRank, for global alignment of multiple PPI networks. The guiding intuition here is that a protein in one PPI network is a good match for a protein in another network if their respective sequences and neighborhood topologies are a good match. We encode this intuition as an eigenvalue problem in a manner analogous to Google's PageRank method. Using IsoRank, we compute a global alignment of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Mus musculus, and Homo sapiens PPI networks. We demonstrate that incorporating PPI data in ortholog prediction results in improvements over existing sequence-only approaches and over predictions from local alignments of the yeast and fly networks. Previous methods have been effective at identifying conserved, localized network patterns across pairs of networks. This work takes the further step of performing a global alignment of multiple PPI networks. It simultaneously uses sequence similarity and network data and, unlike previous approaches, explicitly models the tradeoff inherent in combining them. We expect IsoRank--with its simultaneous handling of node similarity and network similarity--to be applicable across many scientific domains.
The present study was carried out to assess the possibility of using the HCNG in the commercially available CNG vehicles, as the available literature indicated the benefits of adding hydrogen to CNG ...in small percentages by volume, leading to improved combustion characteristics of CNG and yielding sizeable benefits, regarding improved engine performance and reduced engine emissions in automotive applications. In the present study, a commercially available CNG manifold carburation kit, commonly known as “sequential injection” in the market, is evaluated for its operation characteristics, on a Spark Ignited (SI), MPFI automotive engine, of a mass-produced passenger vehicle, converted for gas operation, using, gasoline, CNG, HCNG 10% and HCNG 18% as fuels. In the study, the following performance parameters, torque, power, thermal efficiency, brake specific energy consumption (BSEC), lambda, engine oil temperature, exhaust gas species were measured. After exhaustive engine testing, a comparison of engine performance emission characteristics for gasoline, CNG and HCNG 10% and HCNG 18% is presented. The engine performance using the optimized MAP tables demonstrated torque and power improvements for HCNG 10% and HCNG 18% in comparison to CNG. The torque benefits up-to 6% and power benefits up-to 4% were observed. The fuel energy consumption was measured to be reduced, and improvement in fuel conversion efficiency was also observed. Hydrogen substitution in CNG helped in reducing CO, HC, CO2 emissions for HCNG in comparison to CNG. Increase in NOx emission was observed for HCNG in comparison with CNG. Superior engine emission characteristics in comparison to gasoline and CNG is also demonstrated. The commercially available sequential gas manifold carburation was found to be suitable for HCNG 10% and HCNG 18%.
•Substitution of hydrogen to CNG in small percentages helps to improve combustion.•Assess the possibility of using the HCNG in the commercially available CNG vehicles.•Assessment of sequential manifold carburation system on a multi-cylinder SI Engine using CNG, HCNG 10% & HCNG18%.
PurposeThis paper presents the concerns in agri-food supply chain. Further the research investigates the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in agri-food supply chain and ...determines the impact of supply chain management (SCM) practices on firm performance.Design/methodology/approachThe theoretical framework was proposed for the study on the basis of existing literature. Data for the study was collected with the help of structured questionnaire from 121 executives and officers of the public food distribution agency. Partial least square (PLS)–structured equation modeling was employed to test the framework and hypotheses.FindingsThe results indicate that ICT and SCM practices (logistics integration and supplier relationships) have a significant relationship. Furthermore, SCM practices (information sharing, supplier relationship and logistics integration) have a significant and positive impact on performance of the organization.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research could be carried out to test the moderation effect of SCM practices between ICT and organizational performance (OP). Extending the research study to the companies operating in other sectors can enhance the external validity of the study and improve the accuracy of parameters examined.Practical implicationsThis study can be of interest to the agri-food industry as well as other industry practitioners interested in improving the performance of the organization from the view of supply chain.Originality/valueThe outcomes of this study have important implications that translate into a series of recommendations for the management of public food distribution as well as other agri-food-based supply chains.
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