Apotransferrin Protects Cortical Neurons from Hemoglobin Toxicity

The protective effect of iron chelators in experimental models of intracerebral hemorrhage suggests that nonheme iron may contribute to injury to perihematomal cells. Therapy with high affinity iron chelators is limited by their toxicity, which may be due in part to sequestration of metals in an inaccessible complex. Transferrin is unique in chelating iron with very high affinity while delivering it to cells as needed via receptor-mediated endocytosis. However, its efficacy against iron-mediated neuronal injury has never been described, and was therefore evaluated in this study using an established cell culture model of hemoglobin neurotoxicity. At concentrations similar to that of CSF transferrin (50-100 micrograms/ml), both iron-saturated holotransferrin and apotransferrin were nontoxic per se. Overnight exposure to 3 μM purified human hemoglobin in serum-free culture medium resulted in death, as measured by lactate dehydrogenase release assay, of about three-quarters of neurons. Significant increases in culture iron, malondialdehyde, protein carbonyls, ferritin and heme oxygenase-1 were also observed. Holotransferrin had no effect on these parameters, but all were attenuated by 50-100 micrograms/ml apotransferrin. The effect of apotransferrin was very similar to that of deferoxamine at a concentration that provided equivalent iron binding capacity, and was not antagonized by concomitant treatment with holotransferrin. Transferrin receptor-1 expression was localized to neurons and was not altered by hemoglobin or transferrin treatment. These results suggest that apotransferrin may mitigate the neurotoxicity of hemoglobin after intracerebral hemorrhage. Increasing its concentration in perihematomal tissue may be beneficial

Rice Xa21 primed genes and pathways that are critical for combating bacterial blight infection

Rice bacterial blight (BB) is a devastating rice disease. The Xa21 gene confers a broad and persistent resistance against BB. We introduced Xa21 into Oryza sativa L ssp indica (rice 9311), through multi-generation backcrossing, and generated a nearly isogenic, blight-resistant 9311/Xa21 rice. Using next-generation sequencing, we profiled the transcriptomes of both varieties before and within four days after infection of bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. The identified differentially expressed (DE) genes and signaling pathways revealed insights into the functions of Xa21. Surprisingly, before infection 1,889 genes on 135 of the 316 signaling pathways were DE between the 9311/Xa21 and 9311 plants. These Xa21-mediated basal pathways included mainly those related to the basic material and energy metabolisms and many related to phytohormones such as cytokinin, suggesting that Xa21 triggered redistribution of energy, phytohormones and resources among essential cellular activities before invasion. Counter-intuitively, after infection, the DE genes between the two plants were only one third of that before the infection; other than a few stress-related pathways, the affected pathways after infection constituted a small subset of the Xa21-mediated basal pathways. These results suggested that Xa21 primed critically important genes and signaling pathways, enhancing its resistance against bacterial infection

The Chinese version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™) 3.0 Asthma Module: reliability and validity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) has been recognized as an important health outcome measurement for pediatric patients. One of the most promising instruments in measuring pediatric HRQOL emerged in recent years is the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™). The PedsQL™ 3.0 Asthma Module, one of the PedsQL™disease-specific scales, was designed to measure HRQOL dimensions specifically tailored for pediatric asthma. The present study is aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Asthma Module.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The PedsQL™ 3.0 Asthma Module was translated into Chinese following the PedsQL™ Measurement Model Translation Methodology. The Chinese version scale was administered to 204 children with asthma and 337 parents of children with asthma from four Triple A hospitals. The psychometric properties were then evaluated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The percentage of missing value for each item of the scale ranged from 0.00% to 8.31%. All child self-report subscales and parent proxy-report subscales approached or exceeded the minimum reliability standard of 0.70 for alpha coefficient, except 3 subscales of Young Child (aged 5-7) self-report (alphas ranging from 0.59 to 0.68). Test-retest reliability was satisfactory with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) which exceeded the recommended standard of 0.80 in all subscales. Correlation coefficients between items and their hypothesized subscales were higher than those with other subscales. The PedsQL™ 3.0 Asthma Module distinguished between outpatients and inpatients. Patients with mild asthma reported higher scores than those with moderate/severe asthma in majority of subscales. The intercorrelations among the PedsQL™ 3.0 Asthma Module subscales and the PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales were in medium to large effect size. The child self-report scores were consistent with the parent proxy-report scores.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The Chinese version of the PedsQL™ 3.0 Asthma Module has acceptable psychometric properties, except the internal consistency reliability for Young Child (aged 5-7) self-report. Further studies should be focused on testing responsiveness of the Chinese version scale in longitudinal studies, evaluating the reliability and validity of the scale for the patients with severe asthma or teens independently, and assessing HRQOL of children with asthma in other areas.</p

On hydrodynamic characteristics of gap resonance between two fixed bodies in close proximity

The resonant water motion inside a narrow gap between two identical fixed boxes that are in side-by-side configuration is investigated using a two-dimensional (2D) numerical wave tank based on OpenFOAM®, an open source CFD package. Gap resonance is excited by regular waves with various wave heights, ranging from linear waves to strong nonlinear waves. This paper mainly focuses on the harmonic analyses of the free-surface elevation in the narrow gap and wave loads (including the horizontal wave forces, the vertical wave forces and the moments) on the bodies. It is found that the influences of the incident wave height on the higher-order harmonic components of different physical quantities are quite different. The effects of the incident wave height on the reflection, transmission and energy loss coefficients are also discussed. Finally, aiming at the quantitative estimation of the response time and the damping time of gap resonance, two different methods are proposed and verified for the first time on gap resonance.</p

On hydrodynamic characteristics of gap resonance between two fixed bodies in close proximity

The resonant water motion inside a narrow gap between two identical fixed boxes that are in side-by-side configuration is investigated using a two-dimensional (2D) numerical wave tank based on OpenFOAM®, an open source CFD package. Gap resonance is excited by regular waves with various wave heights, ranging from linear waves to strong nonlinear waves. This paper mainly focuses on the harmonic analyses of the free-surface elevation in the narrow gap and wave loads (including the horizontal wave forces, the vertical wave forces and the moments) on the bodies. It is found that the influences of the incident wave height on the higher-order harmonic components of different physical quantities are quite different. The effects of the incident wave height on the reflection, transmission and energy loss coefficients are also discussed. Finally, aiming at the quantitative estimation of the response time and the damping time of gap resonance, two different methods are proposed and verified for the first time on gap resonance.</p