A large amount of plastic waste is generated yearly worldwide, and landfills are commonly used for the disposal of plastic waste. However, burying in landfill does not get rid of the plastic waste ...but leave the problem to the future. Previous works have showed that microplastics are presented in the landfill refuse and leachate, which might be potential sources of microplastics. In this work, characteristics of microplastic pollution in an informal landfill in South China were studied. Landfill refuse, underlying soil, leachate, and groundwater samples were collected from different sites within and around the landfill. Results show that microplastics in the landfill refuse and underlying soil varied from 590 to 103,080 items/kg and from 570 to 14,200 items/kg, respectively. Most of the microplastics are fibrous, small sized, and transparent. Polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are major polymer types. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectra of the microplastic samples indicate varying degree of weathering. Microplastic abundances in the landfill leachate and groundwater ranged from 3 to 25 items/L and from 11 to 17 items/L, respectively. Microplastics detected in the landfill leachate and groundwater are even smaller compared with those in the refuse and underlying soil and their polymer types are more diverse. This work demonstrated that microplastics presented in an informal landfill without sufficient protection can leak out to the surrounding environment. The microplastic pollution originated from informal landfills should receive more attentions.
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•Characteristics of microplastic pollution were studied in an informal landfill.•Microplastics were detected in landfill refuse, leachate, underlying soil, and groundwater.•Microplastic characteristics suggest their formation are related to the weathering in landfill.•Informal landfills are important sources of microplastic pollution to the environment.
With the continuous development of the coal industry, coal mine safety and environmental protection have gradually become the focus of important attention. The design and optimization of mine ...ventilation systems is a key factor in ensuring air quality and safety in the working area. In order to improve the application level of automation and intelligent equipment of mine ventilation system, under the existing conditions of mine, the design significance and goal of mine intelligent ventilation system are taken as the starting point, and the design and application effects are analyzed. By optimizing the layout of ventilation routes, increasing the number of sensors, building an intelligent ventilation system, optimizing the ventilation scheme in the main production scenarios such as coal face, driving face and opening up main roadway in the daily production process of the mine, realizing rapid wind regulation and wind counteraction when disasters occur, and using air flow short circuit to form protective measures, effectively avoiding the expansion of disasters and accidents. At the same time, remote automatic control of ventilation facilities and equipment is carried out to effectively improve the optimal utilization of air supply, avoid the phenomenon of insufficient air supply and waste of air volume, and improve the intelligent level of mine ventilation system.
Objectives and design
Chlorogenic acid, which belongs to the polyphenols, is an anti-oxidant and anti-obesity agent. In this study, we investigated the role of chlorogenic acid in inflammation.
...Materials and methods
Anti-inflammatory effects of chlorogenic acid were examined in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated murine RAW 264.7 macrophages and BV2 microglial cells. We observed the level of various inflammation markers such as nitric oxide (NO), inducible NO synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 1 (CXCL1) under LPS treatment with or without chlorogenic acid. To clarify the specific effect of chlorogenic acid, we evaluated the adhesion activity of macrophages and ninjurin1 (Ninj1) expression level in macrophages. Finally, we confirmed the activation of the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway, which is one of the most important transcription factors in the inflammatory process.
Results
Chlorogenic acid significantly inhibited not only NO production but also the expression of COX-2 and iNOS, without any cytotoxicity. Chlorogenic acid also attenuated pro-inflammatory cytokines (including IL-1β and TNF-α) and other inflammation-related markers such as IL-6 in a dose-dependent manner. Additionally, endotoxin-induced adhesion of macrophages and the expression level of ninjurin1 (Ninj1) were decreased by chlorogenic acid. Finally, chlorogenic acid inhibited the nuclear translocation of NF-κB.
Conclusions
Chlorogenic acid may be beneficial for the prevention and treatment of anti-inflammatory diseases.
Eupatorin has been reported with in vitro cytotoxic effect on several human cancer cells. However, reports on the mode of action and detail mechanism of eupatorin in vitro in breast cancer disease ...are limited. Hence, eupatorin's effect on the human breast carcinoma cell line MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 was investigated. MTT assay showed that eupatorin had cytotoxic effects on MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells but was non-toxic to the normal cells of MCF-10a in a time-dose dependent manner. At 24 h, the eupatorin showed mild cytotoxicity on both MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells with IC
values higher than 20 μg/mL. After 48 h, eupatorin at 5 μg/mL inhibited the proliferation of MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells by 50% while the IC
of MCF-10a was significantly (p < 0.05) high with 30 μg/mL. The concentration of eupatorin at 5 μg/mL induced apoptosis mainly through intrinsic pathway by facilitating higher fold of caspase 9 compared to caspase 8 at 48 h. The cell cycle profile also showed that eupatorin (5 μg/mL) exerted anti-proliferation activity with the cell cycle arrest of MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells at sub Gθ/G1 in a time-dependent manner. In addition, wound healing assay showed an incomplete wound closure of scratched MDA-MB-231 cells, and more than 60% of the MDA-MB-231 cells were prevented to migrate and invade the membrane in the Boyden chamber after 24 h. Eupatorin also inhibited angiogenic sprouting of new blood vessels in ex vivo mouse aorta ring assay. In gene expression assay, eupatorin up-regulated pro-apoptotic genes such as Bak1, HIF1A, Bax, Bad, cytochrome c and SMAC/Diablo and blocked the Phospho-Akt pathway. In conclusion, eupatorin is a potent candidate to induce apoptosis and concurrently inhibit the invasion, migration and angiogenesis of MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells through inhibition of Phospho-Akt pathway and cell cycle blockade.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) can eradicate not only cancer cells but also stimulate an antitumor immune response. Herein, we describe two efficient synthetic methodologies for the preparation of ...Chlorin e6 (Ce6) from
and address the phototoxic effect of Ce6 in vitro along with antitumor activity in vivo. Melanoma B16F10 cells were seeded and phototoxicity was monitored by the MTT assay. The C57BL/6 mice were subcutaneously inoculated on the left and right flank with B16F10 cells. The mice were intravenously injected with Ce6 of 2.5 mg/kg and then exposed to red light (660 nm) on the left flank tumors 3 h after the injection. The immune response was studied by analyzing Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), and Interleukin-2 (IL-2) of the right flank tumors through qPCR. Our results revealed that the tumor was suppressed not only in the left flank but also in the right flank, where no PDT was given. The upregulated gene and protein expression of IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-2 revealed antitumor immunity due to Ce6-PDT. The findings of this study suggest an efficient methodology of Ce6 preparation and the efficacy of Ce6-PDT as a promising antitumor immune response.
Genotoxicity refers to the ability of harmful substances to damage genetic information in cells. Being exposed to chemical and biological agents can result in genomic instabilities and/or epigenetic ...alterations, which translate into a variety of diseases, cancer included. This concise review discusses, from both a genetic and epigenetic point of view, the current detection methods of different agents' genotoxicity, along with their basic and clinical relation to human cancer, chemotherapy, germ cells and stem cells.
We investigate tidal effects produced in the spacetime of Schwarzschild black hole in holographic massive gravity, which has two additional mass parameters due to massive gravitons. As a result, we ...have obtained that massive gravitons affect the angular component of the tidal force, while the radial component has the same form with the one in massless gravity. On the other hand, by solving the geodesic deviation equations, we have found that radial components of two nearby geodesics keep tightening while falling into the black hole and after passing the event horizons get abruptly infinitely stretched due to massive gravitons. However, angular components of two nearby geodesics get stretched firstly, reach a peak and then get compressed while falling into the black hole. Moreover, we have also shown that the angular components are more easily deformed near the departure position as the mass of a black hole is smaller for a fixed graviton mass.
Green tea is one of the most popular beverages worldwide. Its major components include (-)-epicatechin ((-)-EC), (-)-epicatechin-3-gallate (ECG) (-)-epigallocatechin (EGC) and ...(-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). It has demonstrated strong antioxidative, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous properties and attracted a great deal of interest over last several years. However, there is some discrepancy between the results from human pidemiological studies and cultured cell and animal models. Two reasons for its limited in vivo activities have been considered: metabolism and bioavailability. Recent studies have demonstrated that green tea catechins undergo methylation, glucuronidation and sulfation in in vitro systems and in animals and in humans. It has been also found that efflux transporters Pgp, MRP1 and MRP2 play roles in the absorption and excretion of green tea catechins. Several processes including intestinal metabolism, microbial metabolism, hepatic metabolism and chemical degradation have been found to be involved in the fate of green tea, and to be responsible for its low availability in animals, and most likely also in humans. Pharmacokinetics, absorption, distribution, drug metabolism and excretion properties of green tea provide a better understanding for its in vivo activities. In this article, drug metabolism and microbial metabolism of green tea catechins in in vitro systems and in animals and in humans will be reviewed. It also covers the factors affecting their biotransformation and bioavailability: drug-drug inhibitory and inductive interactions of phase I and phase II enzymes, inhibition of non-drug-metabolizing enzymes, transporters, chemical instability, epimerization and interindividual variability.
The transport of molecules and ions through biological nanopores is governed by interaction networks among restricted ions, transported molecules, and residue moieties at pore inner walls. However, ...identification of such weak ion fluctuations from only few tens of ions inside nanopore is hard to achieve owing to electrochemical measurement limitations. Here, we developed an advanced frequency method to achieve qualitative and spectral analysis of ion interaction networks inside a nanopore. The peak frequency fm reveals the dissociation rate between nanopore and ions; the peak amplitude am depicts the amount of combined ions with the nanopore after interaction equilibrium. A mathematical model for single‐molecule frequency fingerprint achieved the prediction of interaction characteristics of mutant nanopores. This single‐molecule frequency fingerprint is important for classification, characterization, and prediction of synergetic interaction networks inside nanoconfinement.
An advanced frequency spectral method was developed for the qualitative and spectral analysis of the ion interaction networks inside a nanopore. This method decodes the frequency fingerprint from the highly noisy ionic current trace, which achieves classification, characterization, and prediction of the ion interaction networks inside a nanopore.
We hypothesized that photodynamic therapy (PDT) with Chlorin e6 (Ce6) enhances antitumor abscopal effects via inhibition of the programmed cell death-1/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) immune ...checkpoint. By using syngeneic melanoma and pancreatic tumor mouse models, we studied the Ce6-PDT-induced immune responses in local and distant tumor microenvironments. In addition, the Ce6-PDT's target in the PD-1/PD-L1 interaction was analyzed in MC38-hPD-L1 colon cancer and PD-1 expressing Jurkat T cell coculture. The tumors in the irradiated and non-irradiated sites in the abscopal effective (Abs
) group of both mouse models were regressed, proving the abscopal effect. The immunogenic effect in the Abs
group was associated with an expansion of T cell and other immune cells infiltration without changes in the CD39
population in either the right or left tumors compared to control group. Furthermore, the abscopal ineffective (Abs
) group demonstrated lesser increase of T cells, decreased immune cell infiltration, and increased CD39-expressing Treg cells without suppression of tumor growth. In the coculture with PD-1-expressing Jurkat T cell, Ce6-PDT efficiently suppressed the PD-1/PD-L1 interactions by increasing the proliferation and cytotoxic activity of CD8
T cells while decreasing CD39-expressing Treg cells in a dose-dependent manner. Likewise, the inhibition of PD-1/PD-L1 interactions was also correlated with the increased production of IL-2 and Granzyme B. Our findings imply that Ce6-PDT is a promising immunotherapy with the potential to improve the abscopal effect.
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