Remote light-controlled intracellular target recognition by photochromic fluorescent glycoprobes

Development of powerful fluorescence imaging probes and techniques sets the basis for the spatiotemporal tracking of cells at different physiological and pathological stages. While current imaging approaches rely on passive probe-analyte interactions, here we develop photochromic fluorescent glycoprobes capable of remote light-controlled intracellular target recognition. Conjugation between a fluorophore and spiropyran produces the photochromic probe, which is subsequently equipped with a glycoligand "antenna" to actively localize a target cell expressing a selective receptor. We demonstrate that the amphiphilic glycoprobes that form micelles in water can selectively enter the target cell to operate photochromic cycling as controlled by alternate UV/Vis irradiations. We further show that remote light conversion of the photochromic probe from one isomeric state to the other activates its reactivity toward a target intracellular analyte, producing locked fluorescence that is no longer photoisomerizable. We envision that this research may spur the use of photochromism for the development of bioimaging probes

Vulnerable Labour Condition of Single Mother’s Children in Bangladesh and Comprising a Special Law to Sustain Their Rights

Bangladesh has numerous socio economic disputes and obstruction as it is one of the developing countries in the world. Protection of child right is extremely insightful question as well as a big challenge for the country. In this paper I have intended to accomplish a profound study based on vulnerability of labour condition of single mother’s children in Bangladesh. Single mothers are becoming deserted with children as a result most of the  divorced, separated or widow single mothers are experiencing severe financial destitution as well as a large amount of children are becoming shelterless and experiencing the rigid reality of extreme poverty. Consequently the children are being occupied in different types of forced works to earn basic needs. Since secured life of single mothers by law can provide a better life to the children therefore in this work I will also focus on comprising a special law in support of the single mothers of Bangladesh to protect children from forced and hazardous labour. Keywords: Child labour, single mother, special law, poverty, hazardous work DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/84-11 Publication date: April 30th 201

Traumatic Children, Violent Single Mother Headed Family and Legal Aid

Instigation of trauma or distress begins from a quantity of grievance which could be physical or physiological. These two are intensely interrelated with each other. Since mental health controls over the body similarly abusing physically may cause cerebral illness today or later. There are many contention in the society which are apparently taken lightly though these weights heavy for the victims or sufferers. Single mothers are dreadfully defiled by the society as a result their children are also suffering tremendously in silent comportment. This paper has been articulated particularly for traumatized children of single mother headed family who are repeatedly being offended due to direct or indirect abuse by their family members or by the society. In addition, since scarcity of single mother is the key reason of abusive structure and environment of the family thus the aim of this paper is to illustrate protection of these peer of the children by ensuring a special law for single mothers in Bangladesh. Keywords: Single mother, trauma, violence, legislation, legal aid. DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/84-08 Publication date: April 30th 201

Boron neutron capture therapy induces cell cycle arrest and cell apoptosis of glioma stem/progenitor cells in vitro

BACKGROUND: Glioma stem cells in the quiescent state are resistant to clinical radiation therapy. An almost inevitable glioma recurrence is due to the persistence of these cells. The high linear energy transfer associated with boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) could kill quiescent and proliferative cells. METHODS: The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of BNCT on glioma stem/progenitor cells in vitro. The damage induced by BNCT was assessed using cell cycle progression, apoptotic cell ratio and apoptosis-associated proteins expression. RESULTS: The surviving fraction and cell viability of glioma stem/progenitor cells were decreased compared with differentiated glioma cells using the same boronophenylalanine pretreatment and the same dose of neutron flux. BNCT induced cell cycle arrest in the G2/M phase and cell apoptosis via the mitochondrial pathway, with changes in the expression of associated proteins. CONCLUSIONS: Glioma stem/progenitor cells, which are resistant to current clinical radiotherapy, could be effectively killed by BNCT in vitro via cell cycle arrest and apoptosis using a prolonged neutron irradiation, although radiosensitivity of glioma stem/progenitor cells was decreased compared with differentiated glioma cells when using the same dose of thermal neutron exposure and boronophenylalanine pretreatment. Thus, BNCT could offer an appreciable therapeutic advantage to prevent tumor recurrence, and may become a promising treatment in recurrent glioma

Effects of selenium adaptation on intestinal morphology, antioxidant-relate genes expression and intestinal microflora of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella)

In the study, the effects of selenium on intestinal tissue morphology, antioxidant-related genes, and intestinal flora of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) were studied. For this purpose, 180 healthy grass carps (20.0±2.0 g) were randomly divided into three groups with three replicates each: the corresponding amount of anhydrous sodium selenite was added to make experimental water solutions of different concentrations, including 0 μg/L Se4+ (control group), 200 μg/L Se4+ group and 300 μg/L Se4+ group. The experiment was carried out for 42 days. The obtained results showed that: at the end of the experiment, the 200 μg/L Se4+ adaptation can have beneficial effects on the intestinal villi height and goblet cells. The CuZnSOD and CAT genes mRNA levels of grass carp intestine were strongly upregulated in the 200ug/L Se4+ group. 200ug/L selenium could increase the expression level of the Hsp70 gene in the intestinal tract of grass carp after 42 days of adaptation. At the genus level, the most abundant sequence in the gut of Se-treated grass carp was Pseudomonas, while Aeromon, Flavobacterium, and Defluviimonas were more abundant in the control group. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that 200ug/L Se4+ selenium adaptation can positively affect gut morphology and antioxidant responses and can alter the gut microbiota structure of grass carp. The results will provide a theoretical basis for further research on the effect of selenium on aquatic animals

Elevated expression of Dickkopf-1 increases the sensitivity of human glioma cell line SHG44 to BCNU

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Studies have shown that Dickkopf-1 (DKK-1) is involved in tumorigenesis. Recently, we found that 9 out of 12 human glioma cell lines had high level of DKK-1 protein while the other 3 had very low or non-detectable level of DKK-1. The aim of this study is to further examine the function of DKK-1 in glioma cells.</p> <p>Materials and methods</p> <p>The glioma cell line SHG₄₄was obtained from a patient with grade II-III astrocytoma. SHG₄₄cells were transfected with a human DKK-1 gene. Transfection of the empty vector pcDNA3.1 was used as negative control. Sensitivity to BCNU was measured by Annexin-V staining. Expression of bax, bcl-2 and caspase-3 of three groups was determined by immunohistochemistry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The tranfection was confirmed by PCR, RT-PCR and Western blot. More apoptotic cell death was observed in the DKK-1 transfected cells, comparing to the non-transfected cells, or cells with empty vector. The expression of bax and caspase-3 of the SHG₄₄-DDK-1 increased, whereas the expression of bcl-2 decreased</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results indicated that DKK-1 has a pro-apoptotic function of in glioma.</p

Learning Two-Stream CNN for Multi-Modal Age-related Macular Degeneration Categorization

This paper tackles automated categorization of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), a common macular disease among people over 50. Previous research efforts mainly focus on AMD categorization with a single-modal input, let it be a color fundus image or an OCT image. By contrast, we consider AMD categorization given a multi-modal input, a direction that is clinically meaningful yet mostly unexplored. Contrary to the prior art that takes a traditional approach of feature extraction plus classifier training that cannot be jointly optimized, we opt for end-to-end multi-modal Convolutional Neural Networks (MM-CNN). Our MM-CNN is instantiated by a two-stream CNN, with spatially-invariant fusion to combine information from the fundus and OCT streams. In order to visually interpret the contribution of the individual modalities to the final prediction, we extend the class activation mapping (CAM) technique to the multi-modal scenario. For effective training of MM-CNN, we develop two data augmentation methods. One is GAN-based fundus / OCT image synthesis, with our novel use of CAMs as conditional input of a high-resolution image-to-image translation GAN. The other method is Loose Pairing, which pairs a fundus image and an OCT image on the basis of their classes instead of eye identities. Experiments on a clinical dataset consisting of 1,099 color fundus images and 1,290 OCT images acquired from 1,099 distinct eyes verify the effectiveness of the proposed solution for multi-modal AMD categorization

Machine learning of plasma metabolome identifies biomarker panels for metabolic syndrome: Findings from the China Suboptimal Health Cohort

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) has been proposed as a clinically identifiable high-risk state for the prediction and prevention of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes mellitus. As a promising “omics” technology, metabolomics provides an innovative strategy to gain a deeper understanding of the pathophysiology of MetS. The study aimed to systematically investigate the metabolic alterations in MetS and identify biomarker panels for the identification of MetS using machine learning methods. Methods: Nuclear magnetic resonance-based untargeted metabolomics analysis was performed on 1011 plasma samples (205 MetS patients and 806 healthy controls). Univariate and multivariate analyses were applied to identify metabolic biomarkers for MetS. Metabolic pathway enrichment analysis was performed to reveal the disturbed metabolic pathways related to MetS. Four machine learning algorithms, including support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), k-nearest neighbor (KNN), and logistic regression were used to build diagnostic models for MetS. Results: Thirteen significantly differential metabolites were identified and pathway enrichment revealed that arginine, proline, and glutathione metabolism are disturbed metabolic pathways related to MetS. The protein-metabolite-disease interaction network identified 38 proteins and 23 diseases are associated with 10 MetS-related metabolites. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the SVM, RF, KNN, and logistic regression models based on metabolic biomarkers were 0.887, 0.993, 0.914, and 0.755, respectively. Conclusions: The plasma metabolome provides a promising resource of biomarkers for the predictive diagnosis and targeted prevention of MetS. Alterations in amino acid metabolism play significant roles in the pathophysiology of MetS. The biomarker panels and metabolic pathways could be used as preventive targets in dealing with cardiometabolic diseases related to MetS

Members of miR-169 family are induced by high salinity and transiently inhibit the NF-YA transcription factor

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenously expressed small RNAs with a length of about 21 nt. MiRNAs silence their target genes at the post-transcriptional level. In plants, miRNAs play various developmental and physiological roles by cleavaging mRNAs predominantly. Drought and high salinity are the most severe environmental abiotic stresses and cause crop losses all over the world.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, we identified miR-169g and miR-169n (o) as high salinity-responsive miRNAs in rice. MiR-169n and miR169o were in a miRNA cluster with a distance of 3707 base pairs (bp). The high degree of conservation and close phylogenic distance of pre-miR-169n and pre-miR-169o indicated that they were derived from a very recent tandem duplication evolutionary event. The existence of a cis-acting abscisic acid responsive element (ABRE) in the upstream region of miR-169n (o) suggested that miR-169n (o) may be regulated by ABA. In our previous study, we found that miR-169g was induced by the osmotic stress caused by drought via a dehydration-responsive element (DRE). Thus, our data showed that there were both overlapping and distinct responses of the miR-169 family to drought and salt stresses. We also showed that these miR-169 members selectively cleaved one of the NF-YA genes, Os03g29760, which is a CCAAT-box binding transcription factor and participates in transcriptional regulation of large number genes. Finally, we found one or more ath-miR-169 member that was also induced by high salinity.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We identified members of the miR-169 family as salt-induced miRNAs and analyzed their evolution, gene organization, expression, transcriptional regulation motif and target gene. Our data also indicated that the salt-induction of some miR-169 members was a general property in plants.</p