Prion diseases are neurodegenerative disorders in humans and animals for which no therapies are currently available. Here, we report that
Valeton (Zingiberaceae) (
) extract was partly effective in ...decreasing prion aggregation and propagation in both in vitro and in vivo models.
extract inhibited self-aggregation of recombinant prion protein (PrP) in a test tube assay and decreased the accumulation of scrapie PrP (PrP
) in ScN2a cells, a cultured neuroblastoma cell line with chronic prion infection, in a concentration-dependent manner.
extract also modified the course of the disease in mice inoculated with mouse-adapted scrapie prions, completely preventing the onset of prion disease in three of eight mice. Biochemical and neuropathological analyses revealed a statistically significant reduction in PrP
accumulation, spongiosis, astrogliosis, and microglia activation in the brains of mice that avoided disease onset. Furthermore, PrP
accumulation in the spleen of mice was also reduced.
extract precluded prion infection in cultured cells as demonstrated by the modified standard scrapie cell assay. This study suggests that
extract could contribute to investigating the modulation of prion propagation.
Skeletal muscle atrophy is associated with many diseases including cancer, inflammatory diseases, neuromuscular diseases, and acute critical illness. Justicia procumbens L. has been used as a herbal ...remedy, but the pharmacological effect of J. procumbens on muscle atrophy has not yet been reported. Herein, we investigate the anti-atrophic effect of the n-butanol fraction of J. procumbens (JPBuFr) on dexamethasone (DEX)-induced muscle atrophy in C2C12 myotubes. The myotubes diameter, MHC positive area, ROS production, and mitochondria contents were observed under a fluorescence microscope, and various proteins related to degradation or synthesis were analyzed by western blots. JPBuFr significantly attenuated a reduction of myotube diameter, mitochondrial content, ATP level, myosin heavy chain, and myogenin expression induced by DEX. Furthermore, co-treatment of DEX and JPBuFr not only increased phosphorylation of Akt, mTOR, and p70S6K proteins but also decreased reactive oxygen species production and expression of protein degradation factors (MuRF1, Atrogin-1, FoxO3a) compared to DEX treatment. These results suggest that JPBuFr may provide potential protective effects against muscle atrophy, giving it potential for the development of anti-atrophic health functional foods.
•Inhibitory activities of JPBuFr against DEX-induced muscle atrophy in C2C12 myotubes were investigated.•JPBuFr reduces MuRF1, Atrogin-1, and FoxO3a expression in the DEX-induced muscle atrophy.•JPBuFr promoted muscle protein synthesis via up-regulating the Akt/mTOR/p70S6K pathway in the DEX-induced muscle atrophy.•JPBuFr effectively decreased ROS production as well as increased mitochondrial content and ATP levels in the DEX-induced muscle atrophy.
Justicia procumbens L.; Muscle atrophy; C2C12; Dexamethasone; Protein degradation.
Miq. (Zingiberaceae) extract exerts protective activity against
-butyl hydroperoxide-induced toxicity in HepG2 cells, and the antioxidant response element (ARE) luciferase activity increased 6-fold ...at 30 μg/mL in HepG2 cells transiently transfected with ARE-luciferase. To identify active molecules, activity-guided isolation of the crude extract led to four sesquiterpenes (
,
,
,
) and two diarylheptanoids (
and
) from an
-hexane extract and six sesquiterpenes (
-
) from an ethyl acetate extract. Chemical structures were elucidated by one-dimensional, two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (1D-, 2D-NMR), and mass (MS) spectral data. Among the isolated compounds, eudesma-3,11-dien-2-one (
) promoted the nuclear accumulation of nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (Nrf2) and increased the promoter property of the ARE. Diarylheptanoids, yakuchinone A (
), and 5'-hydroxyl-yakuchinone A (
) showed radical scavenging activity in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS) assays. Furthermore, optimization of extraction solvents (ratios of water and ethanol) was performed by comparison of contents of active compounds, ARE-inducing activity, radical scavenging activity, and HepG2 cell protective activity. As a result, 75% ethanol was the best solvent for the extraction of
fruit. This study demonstrated that
exerted antioxidant effects via the Nrf2/HO-1 (heme oxygenase-1) pathway and radical scavenging along with active markers eudesma-3,11-dien-2-one (
) and yakuchinone A (
).
Heating‐assisted deposition is an industry‐friendly scalable deposition method. This manufacturing method is employed together with slot die coating to fabricate perovskite solar cells via a ...roll‐to‐roll process. The feasibility of the method is demonstrated after initial testing on a rigid substrate using a benchtop slot die coater in air. The fabricated solar cells exhibit power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) up to 14.7%. A nonelectroactive polymer additive is used with the perovskite formulation and found to improve its humidity tolerance significantly. These deposition parameters are also used in the roll‐to‐roll setup. The perovskite layer and other solution‐processed layers are slot die‐coated, and the fabricated device shows PCEs up to 11.7%, which is the highest efficiency obtained from a fully roll‐to‐roll processed perovskite solar cell to date.
Roll‐to‐roll processed perovskite solar cells are fabricated using slot‐die coating by the hot deposition method. The hot deposition approach is scalable and can be performed in an uncontrolled ambient environment without additional processes. A polymer additive, polyethylene oxide, is introduced to improve the processability and proves useful for improving tolerance to humidity, resulting in improved reliability for industrial manufacturing.
Solution‐processed organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have continued to show their potential as a low‐cost power generation technology; however, there has been a significant gap between device efficiencies ...fabricated with lab‐scale techniques—i.e., spin coating—and scalable deposition methods. Herein, temperature‐controlled slot die deposition is developed for the photoactive layer of OPVs. The influence of solution and substrate temperatures on photoactive films and their effects on power conversion efficiency (PCE) in slot die coated OPVs using a 3D printer‐based slot die coater are studied on the basis of device performance, molecular structure, film morphology, and carrier transport behavior. These studies clearly demonstrate that both substrate and solution temperatures during slot die coating can influence device performance, and the combination of hot substrate (120 °C) and hot solution (90 °C) conditions result in mechanically robust films with PCE values up to 10.0% using this scalable deposition method in air. The efficiency is close to that of state‐of‐the‐art devices fabricated by spin coating. The deposition condition is translated to roll‐to‐roll processing without further modification and results in flexible OPVs with PCE values above 7%. The results underscore the promising potential of temperature‐controlled slot die coating for roll‐to‐roll manufacturing of high performance OPVs.
High performance fullerene‐free organic photovoltaic devices are fabricated via temperature controlled slot die coating. The additive‐free approach results in not only high performance with a 10% power conversion efficiency (PCE) but also exceptional stability under continuous illumination. The scalable method is then used in a roll‐to‐roll process to achieve over 7% PCE on a flexible substrate.
The rapid development of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells has resulted in laboratory-scale devices having power conversion efficiencies that are competitive with commercialised ...technologies. However, hybrid perovskite solar cells are yet to make an impact beyond the research community, with translation to large-area devices fabricated by industry-relevant manufacturing methods remaining a critical challenge. Here we report the first demonstration of hybrid perovskite solar cell modules, comprising serially-interconnected cells, produced entirely using industrial roll-to-roll printing tools under ambient room conditions. As part of this development, costly vacuum-deposited metal electrodes are replaced with printed carbon electrodes. A high-throughput experiment involving the analysis of batches of 1600 cells produced using 20 parameter combinations enabled rapid optimisation over a large parameter space. The optimised roll-to-roll fabricated hybrid perovskite solar cells show power conversion efficiencies of up to 15.5% for individual small-area cells and 11.0% for serially-interconnected cells in large-area modules. Based on the devices produced in this work, a cost of ~0.7 USD W
is predicted for a production rate of 1,000,000 m² per year in Australia, with potential for further significant cost reductions.
A comprehensive linear gradient solvent system for centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) was developed for the bioassay-guided isolation of natural compounds. The gradient solvent system ...consisted of three different ternary biphasic solvents types:
-hexane-acetonitrile-water (10:2:8,
/
), ethyl acetate-acetonitrile-water (10:2:8,
/
), and water-saturated
-butanol-acetonitrile-water (10:2:8,
/
). The lower phase of the
-hexane-acetonitrile-water (10:2:8,
/
) was used as the stationary phase, while its upper phase, as well as ethyl acetate-acetonitrile-water (10:2:8), and water-saturated
-butanol-acetonitrile-water (10:2:8,
/
) were pumped to generate a linear gradient elution, increasing the mobile phase polarity. We used the gradient CPC to identify antioxidant response elements (AREs), inducing compounds from
, using an ARE-luciferase assay in HepG2 cells, which led to the purification of the active molecules 3-methoxyquercetin and brevilin A. The developed CPC solvent systems allow the separation and isolation of compounds with a wide polarity range, allowing active molecule identification in the complex crude extract of natural products.
In this study, a centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC) separation was applied to identify antioxidant-responsive element (ARE) induction molecules from the crude extract of
roots. CPC was ...operated with a two-phase solvent system composed of
-hexane-methanol-water (10:8.5:1.5,
/
/
) in dual mode (descending to ascending), which provided a high recovery rate (>95.5%) with high resolution. Then, ARE induction activity of obtained CPC fractions was examined in ARE-transfected HepG2 cells according to the weight ratios of the obtained fractions. The fraction exhibiting ARE-inducing activity was further purified by preparative HPLC that led to isolation of two eudesmane type sesquiterpenes as active compounds. The chemical structures were elucidated as linderolide U (
) and a new sesquiterpene named as linderolide V (
) by spectroscopic data. Further bioactivity test demonstrated that compounds
and
enhanced ARE activity by 22.4-fold and 7.6-fold, respectively, at 100 μM concentration while 5 μM of sulforaphane induced ARE activity 24.8-fold compared to the control.
Meiotic recombination is one of the important phenomena contributing to gamete genome diversity. However, except for human and a few model organisms, it is not well studied in livestock, including ...cattle.
To investigate their distributions in the cattle sperm genome, we sequenced 143 single sperms from two Holstein bulls. We mapped meiotic recombination events at high resolution based on phased heterozygous single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). In the absence of evolutionary selection pressure in fertilization and survival, recombination events in sperm are enriched near distal chromosomal ends, revealing that such a pattern is intrinsic to the molecular mechanism of meiosis. Furthermore, we further validated these findings in single sperms with results derived from sequencing its family trio of diploid genomes and our previous studies of recombination in cattle.
To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale single sperm whole-genome sequencing effort in livestock, which provided useful information for future studies of recombination, genome instability, and male infertility.
PDF
