A series of thirteen triarylpyrazole analogs were investigated as inhibitors of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and nitric oxide (NO) production in RAW 264.7 macrophages. The ...target compounds 1a–m have first been assessed for cytotoxicity against RAW 264.7 macrophages to determine their non-cytotoxic concentration(s) for anti-inflammatory testing to make sure that the inhibition of PGE2 and NO production would not be caused by cytotoxicity. It was found that compounds 1f and 1m were the most potent PGE2 inhibitors with IC50 values of 7.1 and 1.1 μM, respectively. In addition, these compounds also showed inhibitory effects of 11.6% and 37.19% on LPS-induced NO production, respectively. The western blots analysis of COX-2 and iNOS showed that the PGE2 and NO inhibitory effect of compound 1m are attributed to inhibition of COX-2 and iNOS protein expression through inactivation of p38.
A novel chemosensor was designed and synthesized for various analytes: Fe3+, Fe2+, Al3+ and pyrophosphate. The sensor showed a selective color change from yellow to orange toward both Fe3+ and Fe2+ ...in a near-perfect aqueous solution, which could be reusable simply through treatment with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. The detection limits (0.27 μM and 0.32 μM) for Fe3+ and Fe2+ were much lower than the environmental protection agency guideline (5.37 μM) in drinking water. The sensor could be used to quantify Fe3+ in real water samples. Moreover, this sensor acted as a ‘turn-on’ and ‘turn-off’ type fluorescent sensor toward Al3+ and pyrophosphate. The sensing mechanism of the sensor for Al3+ could be explained by chelation-enhanced fluorescence effect, which was supported by theoretical calculations. Through a metal-complex displacement method, the sensor-Al3+ complex selectively responded to pyrophosphate over various anions especially including phosphate-based anions. Interestingly, the sensor could be used to sequentially detect both Al3+ and pyrophosphate in the living cells.
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•New sensor 1 was developed for colorimetric detection of Fe2+ and Fe3+ and fluorescent detection of Al3+ and PPi.•Sensor 1 could selectively sense Fe2+/3+ by color change from yellow to orange.•Sensor 1 could be used to quantify Fe3+ in real water samples.•1 showed the sequential fluorescent imaging toward Al3+ and PPi in living cells.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a serious threat to public health; anticancer-repositioning treatment strategy has been formulated to treat the disease. However, evidence ...supporting the efficacy and safety of repositioned anticancer treatment in treating COVID-19-infected non-cancer patients (CINPs) is limited. Therefore, this study analyzed published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the impact of anticancer drugs compared to current standards of care (SOCs) on CINP treatment.
The PubMed and Embase databases were searched to identify eligible RCTs. Outcome measures included mortality, the use of mechanical ventilation (MV), and serious adverse events (SAEs).
25 RCTs were reviewed in our study. Compared to SOCs, repositioned anticancer therapy for treating CINPs was associated with mortality reduction (odds ratio (OR) = 0.78, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.65 - 0.94, p = 0.01). Using the repositioned anticancer treatment exhibited statistically significant reduction, in both the number of CINPs using MV (OR = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.51 - 0.88, p = 0.004) and experiencing SAEs (OR = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.69 - 0.91, p = 0.0009).
Conclusively, repositioned anticancer treatment was shown significant differences from SOCs in treating CINPs, which appears to be more associated with mortality, MV use, and SAE development reduction in CINPs.
Abstract
Background
The reproduction number is one of the most crucial parameters in determining disease dynamics, providing a summary measure of the transmission potential. However, estimating this ...value is particularly challenging owing to the characteristics of epidemic data, including non-reproducibility and incompleteness.
Methods
In this study, we propose mathematical models with different population structures; each of these models can produce data on the number of cases of the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 epidemic in South Korea. These structured models incorporating the heterogeneity of age and region are used to estimate the reproduction numbers at various terminal times. Subsequently, the age- and region-specific reproduction numbers are also computed to analyze the differences illustrated in the incidence data.
Results
Incorporation of the age-structure or region-structure allows for robust estimation of parameters, while the basic SIR model provides estimated values beyond the reasonable range with severe fluctuation. The estimated duration of infectious period using age-structured model is around 3.8 and the reproduction number was estimated to be 1.6. The estimated duration of infectious period using region-structured model is around 2.1 and the reproduction number was estimated to be 1.4. The estimated age- and region-specific reproduction numbers are consistent with cumulative incidence for corresponding groups.
Conclusions
Numerical results reveal that the introduction of heterogeneity into the population to represent the general characteristics of dynamics is essential for the robust estimation of parameters.
Colistin and tigecycline are the only therapeutic options for extensively drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (XDR-AB), but there is little comparative study. This retrospective observation study ...evaluated two-colistin and tigecycline-antibiotics profiles like treatment success rate, negative conversion rate, the length of hospital stay, intensive care unit (ICU) stay and antibiotics use, mortality rate during hospital stay and adverse event rate, based on the medical record of XDR-AB positive patients who were treated at least 5 d with those intravenous antibiotics. Treatment success rate of colistin (n=39) and tigecycline (n=16) were not different: 48.7% and 43.8%, respectively (p=0.737), though negative conversion rate was significantly higher in the colistin group: 46.2% against 12.5% (p=0.049). There was no statistically significant difference in mortality rate between two groups during hospital stay (43.6% vs. 56.3%, p=0.393). There were no significant differences in the following parameters: the median length of hospital stay (46.0 d vs. 72.5 d), the median length of intensive care units stay (26.0 d vs. 27.0 d), the median length of antibiotics use (15.0 d vs. 13.0 d). The colistin group showed serum creatinine elevation (defined as elevation more than 2.0 mg/dL and 50% increase from the baseline) as 43.6% when compared with 12.5% of the tigecycline group (p=0.028). As a therapeutic option of XDR-AB, colistin showed significantly better negative conversion rate than tigecycline with more frequent nephrotoxic prevalence, and treatment success rate and mortality rate were not different from both antibiotics groups.
This study aimed to identify the development of hepatitis B or C infection in diabetes patients compared to those without and to elucidate factors associated with the prevalence of hepatitis B or C ...infection in diabetes. We conducted a cross-sectional study using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2013-2018. As evaluation factors, we included variables such as age, race, illicit drug use, and poverty. The diabetic group had a significantly higher prevalence of hepatitis B or C infection than the non-diabetic group (odds ratio (OR) = 1.73; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.36-2.21,
< 0.01). In multivariate Cox regression, non-poverty and non-illicit drug use were lower risk factors contributing to hepatitis development in diabetes (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.50; 95% CI, 0.32-0.79,
< 0.01, and HR = 0.05; 95% CI, 0.03-0.08,
< 0.01, respectively). Logistic regression also showed that these factors were significant contributors to hepatitis development in the diabetic group (
< 0.01). In patients with diabetes, the development of hepatitis was higher than that in those without, and hepatitis development was influenced by poverty and illicit drug use. This may provide supporting evidence of response strategies for diabetes to care for hepatitis development in advance.
•Regulation of food dyes are different from country to country.•The determination of food dyes were validated by HPLC and LC-MS/MS.•The measurement uncertainty was evaluated by a precision study for ...food dyes.•The stability of food dyes affected by pH and organic acid was evaluated.•These methods are suitable for the determination of maximum food dyes levels.
We developed and validated a method for the simultaneous quantitative analysis of food dyes in two food matrices, i.e., chewing gum and soft drinks. Furthermore, we evaluated the stability of food dyes in these matrices with respect to the pH and acid content. The optimized and validated method is based on high-performance liquid chromatography–photodiode array (HPLC-PDA) and liquid chromatography–tandem spectroscopy; the proposed method could identify and quantify 12 dyes in the two matrices. The recoveries of the food dyes identified by HPLC-PDA analysis ranged from 98.61% to 118.42%, with relative standard deviations of 0.06–4.90%. In addition, the expanded uncertainties of the measurements ranged from 0.57 to 3.12%. Finally, the food dyes were found to be stable in the matrices over 30 days. Thus, we believe that the proposed analytical method is suitable for the identification and quantification of food dyes in chewing gum and soft drink samples.
Background:Although the prevalence of both atrial fibrillation (AF) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) has been increasing in East Asia, the association between them is uncertain.Methods and Results:A ...total of 24,741 middle-aged Korean men without baseline AF were enrolled in a health screening program from January 2003 to December 2008. Among them, 21,981 subjects were evaluated to determine the risk of AF based on baseline MetS status through December 2016. At every visit, the subjects were evaluated for AF using ECG. MetS was defined using the criteria of the International Diabetes Federation and was present in 2,529 subjects (11.5%). Mean (±standard deviation) age was 45.9±5.3 years. During a mean follow-up of 8.7 years, 168 subjects (0.8%) were diagnosed with AF. The age-adjusted and multivariate-adjusted hazard ratios (HR) for MetS with AF were 1.62 (P=0.02) and 1.57 (P=0.03), respectively. Among the components of MetS, central obesity (age-adjusted HR 1.62, P<0.01) and raised blood pressure (age-adjusted HR 1.43, P=0.02) were associated with an increased risk of AF.Conclusions:MetS is associated with an increased risk of AF in middle-aged East Asian men. Of the components of MetS, central obesity is the most potent risk factor for the development of AF in this population.
Recent studies have reported that small double-strand RNAs (dsRNAs) can activate endogenous genes via an RNA-based promoter targeting mechanism termed RNA activation (RNAa). In the present study, we ...showed that dsVDUP1-834, a novel small activating RNA (saRNA) targeting promoter of vitamin D3 up-regulated protein 1 (VDUP1) gene, up-regulated expression of VDUP1 at both mRNA and protein levels in A549 lung cancer cells. We also demonstrated that dsVDUP1-834 inhibited cell proliferation in A549 lung cancer cells. Further studies showed that dsVDUP1-834 induced cell-cycle arrest by increasing p27 and p53 and decreasing cyclin A and cyclin B1. In addition, knockdown of VDUP1 abrogated dsVDUP1-834-induced up-regulation of VDUP1 gene expression and related effects. The activation of VDUP1 by dsVDUP1-834 was accompanied by an increase in dimethylation of histone 3 at lysine 4 (H3K4me2) and acetylation of histone 3 (H3ac) and a decrease in dimethylation of histone 3 at lysine 9 (H3K9me2) at the target site of VDUP1 promoter. Moreover, the enrichment of Ago2 was detected at the dsVDUP1-834 target site, and Ago2 knockdown significantly suppressed dsVDUP1-834-mediated inhibition of cell proliferation and modulation of cell-cycle regulators. Taken together, the results presented in this report demonstrate that dsVDUP1-834 induces VDUP1 gene expression by epigenetic changes, resulting in cell growth inhibition and cell-cycle arrest. Our results suggest that targeted induction of VDUP1 by dsVDUP1-834 might be a promising therapeutic strategy for the treatment of lung cancer.
Cucurbita moschata
is widely planted in most parts of the world, and is rich in carotenoids, vitamins, dietary fiber, minerals, and phenolic compounds. It also has important medicinal value. Some ...related research has proven that
Cucurbita moschata
has the potential ability to induce anti-obesity, anti-diabetic, antibacterial, and anticancer effects. At the same time, it has attracted more attention in the medical field. These nutrients and bioactive compounds in
Cucurbita moschata
have important effects on human health. In order to make better use of this crop, it still needs further study. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to summarize the physicochemical properties and nutritional components of
Cucurbita moschata
, and to provide a reference for further research on the benefits of on human health.
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