Glutathione (GSH) has long been recognised for its antioxidant and detoxifying effects on the liver. The hepatoprotective effect of GSH involves the activation of antioxidative systems such as NRF2; ...however, details of the mechanisms remain limited. A comparative analysis of the biological events regulated by GSH under physiological and oxidative stress conditions has also not been reported. In this study, DNA microarray analysis was performed with four experiment arms including Control, GSH, hydrogen peroxide (HP), and GSH + HP treatment groups. The GSH-treated group exhibited a significant upregulation of genes clustered in cell proliferation, growth, and differentiation, particularly those related to MAPK, when compared with the Control group. Additionally, liver functions such as alcohol and cholesterol metabolic processes were significantly upregulated. On the other hand, in the HP-induced oxidative stress condition, GSH (GSH + HP group) demonstrated a significant activation of cell proliferation, cell cycle, and various signalling pathways (including TGFβ, MAPK, PI3K/AKT, and HIF-1) in comparison to the HP group. Furthermore, several disease-related pathways, such as chemical carcinogenesis-reactive oxygen species and fibrosis, were significantly downregulated in the GSH + HP group compared to the HP group. Collectively, our study provides a comprehensive analysis of the effects of GSH under both physiological and oxidative stress conditions. Our study provides essential insights to direct the utilisation of GSH as a supplement in the management of conditions associated with oxidative stress.
Background: Recently, the carotid artery has been used as an alternative approach for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). The aim of this study was to prove the safety and feasibility of ...transcarotid (TC) vs. transfemoral (TF) TAVI. Methods and Results: This retrospective study enrolled 726 consecutive patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. All patients underwent TC-TAVI or TF-TAVI at Hôpital Haut-Lévèque, Bordeaux Heart University Hospital between September 2012 and October 2017. The TC-TAVI (n=83) and TF-TAVI (n=643) groups were compared statistically. The EuroSCORE II was significantly higher (8.2±6.7 vs. 6.4±5.5; P=0.007) and rates of current smoking, dyslipidemia and peripheral arterial disease were higher in the TC-TAVI than TF-TAVI group. All TC-TAVIs and 9.3% of TF-TAVIs were performed under general anesthesia. Radiation time was significantly shorter in the TC-TAVI than TF-TAVI group (14.5±6.0 vs. 23.0±10.8 min; P<0.001). Postimplant balloon valvuloplasty was performed more frequently in the TF-TAVI than TC-TAVI group (7.2% vs. 19.4%; P=0.006). Postoperative echocardiographic data were similar between the 2 groups, and there were no significant differences in 30-day mortality (8.4% vs. 5.0%; P=0.189) or stroke rate (1.2% vs. 2.6%; P=0.428) between the TF-TAVI and TC-TAVI groups. Conclusions: The feasibility and 30-day safety of TC-TAVI and TF-TAVI are similar. When TF-TAVI is not suitable anatomically for a particular patient, TC-TAVI is a preferable alternative.
Objective
Spinal cord ischemia (SCI) is a devastating complication of thoracic aortic aneurysm repair in the era of thoracic endovascular aneurysm repair (TEVAR). This review aims to clarify the ...causes of SCI during TEVAR and to propose ways that it may be prevented.
Methods and results
We performed an extensive literature search of SCI during TEVAR. Based on the existing literature, we examined the anatomy of the anterior spinal cord artery, which supplies blood to the anterior aspect of the spinal cord, and discuss reported effective ways to prevent SCI during TEVAR, including augmentation of arterial blood pressure and drainage of cerebrospinal fluid.
Conclusion
After reviewing the mechanism of SCI during TEVAR, we evaluated promising preventative measures.
A typical honeybee colony contains more than 15,000 individuals, each with its own task related to supporting the hive and maintaining the colony. In previous studies on honeybees, observing ...individual animals’ behaviors has been a difficult and time-consuming task to understand the relationship between in-hive communication and environmental changes outside the hive, therefore it is necessary in any attempt to develop applying a remote sensing technology. To allow researchers to pass much of this tracking work on to computers, we have developed the lifelog monitoring system for honeybees, which uses RFID and Raspberry Pi camera recordings. Our preliminary experiments consisted of several tests aimed at identifying the optimal conditions for this system. First, two commercial RFID readers with antennas were compared in terms of their sensitivity to signals from RFID tags placed at various distances. We found that the UP16-1000-J2 reader was much more sensitive and had a longer effective range compared to the UP4-200-J2. The most sensitive region in the RFID antenna on the UP16-1000-J2 reader was 30 mm long and 5 mm wide at its center. Based on this preliminary information, we designed and built a passage from the interior of the observation hive to the outside so that all RFID-tagged bees could be detected individually by the RFID reader as they walked through the passage. Moreover, to detect the direction of either departure or arrival of each bee, we placed two RFID antennas under the passage between the observation hive and the outside, one near each end of the passage. All departure and arrival times of RFID-tagged bees were detected with their ID numbers. Using recorded data from these two RFID readers, we could measure how much time each tagged bee spent outside the hive. In addition to RFID recording on the passage, we also tracked all in-hive movements of numbered RFID-tagged honeybees. In-hive movements were simultaneously, comprehensively and automatically recorded via six Raspberry Pi camera modules arranged on the two sides of the observation hive. The cameras were set to record from 6:30 to 19:30 every day for one month, once or twice each year from 2015 to 2018. The in-hive behaviors of these bees were analyzed according to a simultaneous tracking algorithm that we developed for this purpose. Data from the monitoring system revealed that time spent outside the hive increased markedly after following the waggle dance. In addition to its findings on bee behavior, this study also confirms the effectiveness of our recording system combining RFID and Raspberry Pi cameras for honeybee lifelog monitoring.
Background: The relationships of the clinical and biological attributes of epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) with aortic valve calcification (AVC) have not been characterized. We evaluated the ...relationships of the clinical and histological features of EAT with AVC assessed using computed tomography (CT).Methods and Results: We enrolled 43 patients undergoing cardiac CT examination prior to elective cardiac surgery in whom AVC was identified on CT. EAT volume and density, coronary calcium score (CCS), AVC score (AVCS), and coronary atherosclerosis on CT angiography were evaluated in each patient. During cardiac surgery, 2 EAT samples were obtained for immunohistochemistry. The number of CD68- and CD11c-positive macrophages and osteocalcin-positive cells was counted in 6 random high-power fields of EAT sections. EAT density, but not EAT volume normalized to body surface area, was positively correlated with the number of macrophages and osteocalcin-positive cells in EAT. There was a positive correlation between ln(AVCS), but not ln(CCS+1), and the number of macrophages and osteocalcin-positive cells in EAT. Multivariate analysis revealed significant positive correlations for ln(AVCS) with EAT density (β=0.42; P=0.0072) and the number of CD68-positive macrophages (β=0.57; P=0.0022), CD11c-positive macrophages (β=0.62; P=0.0003), and osteocalcin-positive cells (β=0.52; P=0.0021) in EAT.Conclusions: Inflammation and osteogenesis in EAT, reflected by high CT density, are associated with the severity of AVC representing aortic valve degeneration.
OBJECTIVES
Spinal cord injury (SCI) after the frozen elephant trunk (FET) technique is more frequent than after endovascular aneurysm repair. This study aimed to identify risk factors of SCI after ...the FET technique.
METHODS
We performed the FET technique for extended thoracic aortic disease in 224 patients (mean age, 72.1 ± 10.9 years) from September 1997 to December 2011. The patients included those with acute type A aortic dissection (n = 103), acute type B aortic dissection (n = 30), chronic type B aortic dissection (n = 11) and thoracic atherosclerotic aneurysm (n = 80). Cerebrospinal fluid drainage (CSFD) was preoperatively performed for 18 elective cases with a high risk of spinal cord ischaemia from January 2003.
RESULTS
Postoperative SCI was present in 8 (3.5%), including complete paraplegia in 3, patients and transient or permanent paraparesis in 5 patients. CSFD was not a significant independent risk factor (P = 0.93) for SCI. Univariate logistic regression analysis identified pathology (P = 0.001), diabetes (P = 0.001), previous aortic operation (P = 0.003), atherosclerotic aorta (P = 0.003), distal position of the stent graft below the ninth thoracic vertebral level (Th9; P = 0.001) and low blood pressure after the operation (P = 0.009) as significant independent risk factors for SCI. Stepwise logistic regression analysis identified the distal position of the stent graft below Th9 (P = 0.003; odds ratio OR, 15.167; 95% confidence interval 95% CI, 2.568–89.578), mean pressure <70 mmHg (P = 0.008; OR, 11.470; 95% CI, 1.920–68.546) and diabetes (P = 0.009; OR, 9.621; 95% CI, 1.779–52.032) as significant independent risk factors for SCI.
CONCLUSIONS
There were multiple factors predicting the risk of SCI after the FET technique. Paraplegia may be prevented by avoiding deep insertion of the stent graft and by keeping blood pressure elevated after the operation.
The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of
ethanol extract (BTEE) on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammation in RAW264 cells. BTEE significantly attenuated LPS-induced nitric oxide ...production and inflammatory cytokines release, including
,
, and
. On the other hand, several anti-inflammatory mediators, such as
and
, were increased in BTEE-treated cells. Further, we performed an untargeted whole-genome microarray analysis to explore the anti-inflammatory molecular mechanism of BTEE. Enrichment analysis showed BTEE significantly downregulated 'response to stimulus', 'locomotion', and 'immune system response' and upregulated 'cell cycle' gene ontologies in both 6- and 17-h post-LPS stimulation conditions. Pathway analysis revealed BTEE could downregulate the expressions of chemokines of the CC and CXC subfamily, and cytokines of the TNF family, TGFβ family, IL1-like, and class I helical. PPI analysis showed AXL receptor tyrosine kinase (
), a receptor tyrosine kinase from the TAM family, and its upstream transcription factors were downregulated in both conditions. Node neighborhood analysis showed several
coexpressed genes were also downregulated. Further, kinase enrichment and chemical perturbation analyses supported
inhibition in BTEE-treated conditions. Altogether, these findings suggest anti-inflammatory effects of BTEE that are mediated via the suppression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and predict its potential as an
inhibitor.
Single-cell sequencing of circulating tumor cells can precisely represent tumor heterogeneity and provide useful information for cancer treatment and research. After spiking TGW neuroblastoma cells ...into blood derived from healthy volunteer, the cells were isolated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. DNA and mRNA were amplified by four different whole-genome amplifications (WGA) and three whole-transcriptome amplifications (WTA) methods, followed by single-cell DNA and RNA sequencing. Multiple displacement amplification (MDA)-based WGA methods showed higher amplification efficiency than other methods with a comparable depth of coverage as the bulk sample. The uniformity of coverage greatly differed among samples (12.5-89.2%), with some samples evaluated by the MDA-based WGA method using phi29 DNA polymerase and random primers showing a high (> 80%) uniformity of coverage. The MDA-based WTA method less effectively amplified mRNA and showed non-specific gene expression patterns. The PCR-based WTA using template switching with locked nucleic acid technology accurately amplified mRNA from a single cell. Taken together, our results present a more reliable and adaptable approach for CTC profiling at the single-cell level. Such molecular information on CTCs derived from clinical patients will promote cancer treatment and research.
•Shared devices may become contaminated with nosocomial pathogens in hospitals.•Five (10%) of the 50 mobile phones investigated here were contaminated with MRSA.•222-nm UV disinfection is safe and ...effectively reduced MRSA CFUs in vitro.•222-nm UV disinfection reduced aerobic bacterial contamination of mobile phones.
Mobile phones may be contaminated with nosocomial pathogens such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The aim of this study was to investigate the MRSA contamination rate on doctors’ hospital-use-only mobile phones and the efficacy of 222-nm ultraviolet light (UV) disinfection.
We investigated the MRSA contamination rate of doctors’ hospital-use-only mobile phones, as well as the reduction in MRSA counts on plastic plates and aerobic bacteria (AB) on mobile phones before and after exposure to 222-nm UV irradiation.
Five (10%) of the 50 mobile phones investigated were contaminated with MRSA. Exposure to 0.1 mJ/cm2 222-nm UVC irradiation for 1.5 and 2.5 min (9 and 15 mJ/cm2) achieved mean log10 MRSA colony-forming units reductions of 2.91 and 3.95, respectively. Exposure to 9 mJ/cm2 222-nm UVC irradiation (0.1 mW/cm2 for 1.5 minutes) significantly reduced AB contamination on mobile phones (P < .001).
The use of 222-nm UV disinfection resulted in effective in vitro reduction of MRSA and significantly reduced AB contamination of mobile phone surfaces.
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