Assessment of hemodynamics in precancerous lesion of hepatocellular carcinoma:Evaluation with MR perfusion

AIM: To investigate the hemodynamic changes in a precancerous lesion model of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: Hemodynamic changes in 18 Wistar rats were studied with non-invasive magnetic resonance (MR) perfusion. The changes induced by diethylnitrosamine (DEN) developed into liver nodular lesions due to hepatic cirrhosis during the progression of carcinogenesis. The MR perfusion data [positive enhancement integral (PEI)] were compared between the nodular lesions corresponding well with MR images and pathology and their surrounding hepatic parenchyma. RESULTS: A total of 46 nodules were located by MR imaging and autopsy, including 22 dysplastic nodules (DN), 9 regenerative nodules (RN), 10 early HCCs and 5 overt HCCs. Among the 22 DNs, 6 were low-grade DN (lGDN) and 16 were high-grade DN (HGDN). The average PEI of RN, DN, early and overt HCC was 205.67 ± 31.17, 161.94 ± 20.74, 226.09 ± 34.83, 491.86 ± 44.61 respectively, and their liver parenchyma nearby was 204.84 ± 70.19. Comparison of the blood perfusion index between each RN and its surrounding hepatic parenchyma showed no statistically significant difference (P = 0.06). There were significant differences in DN (P = 0.02). During the late hepatic arterial phase, the perfusion curve in DN declined. DN had an iso-signal intensity at the early hepatic arterial phase and a low signal intensity at the portal venous phase. Of the 10early HCCs, 4 demonstrated less blood perfusion and 6 displayed minimally increased blood flow compared to the surrounding parenchyma. Five HCCs showed significantly increased blood supply compared to the surrounding parenchyma (P = 0.02). CONCLUSION: Non-invasive MR perfusion can detect changes in blood supply of precancerous lesions.

Characteristic plume morphologies of atmospheric Ar and He plasma jets excited by a pulsed microwave hairpin resonator

Different discharge morphologies in atmospheric Ar and He plasmas are excited by using a pulsed microwave hairpin resonator.Ar plasmas form an arched plasma plume at the opened end of the hairpin,whereas He plumes generate only a contracted plasmas in between both tips of metal electrodes.Despite this different point,their discharge processes have three similar characteristics:(i)the ionization occurs at the main electrode firstly and then develops to the slave electrode,(ii)during the shrinking stage the middle domain of the discharge channels disappears at last,and(iii)even at zero power input(in between pulses)a weak light region always exists in the discharge channels.Both experimental results and electromagnetic simulations suggest that the discharge is resonantly excited by the local enhanced electric fields.In addition,Ar ionization and excitation energies are lower than those of He,the effect of Ar gas flow is far greater than that of He gas,and the contribution of accelerated electrons only locates at the domain with the strongest electric fields.These reasons could be used to interpret the different characteristic plume morphologies of the proposed atmospheric Ar and He plasmas.

The asymmetric membrane structure of erythrocytes from Crucian carp studied by atomic force microscopy

Cell membranes play a key role in cellular activities.Fish erythrocytes,prototype of the nucleated erythrocytes of lower vertebrates,are predominantly oval,biconvex discs with elliptical nucleus and much larger in size than human erythrocytes.In attempts to disclose the correlation of membrane structure between fish and human erythrocytes,we used in situ atomic force microscope(AFM)combined with single-molecule force spectroscopy to study the membrane structure of Crucian carp erythrocytes under quasi-native conditions.Our results revealed the asymmetric distribution of proteins in Crucian carp erythrocyte membrane:the outer leaflet of membrane is rather smooth without any proteins,whereas the inner leaflet of membrane is very rough with dense proteins.The asymmetry of fish erythrocyte membrane structure fits well with the semi-mosaic model of human erythrocyte membrane structure.This similarity of membrane structure between human and fish erythrocytes extends the semimosaic model of erythrocytes membrane structure to a wider range of species.

Revisit of advection-dispersion equation model with velocity-dependent dispersion in capturing tracer dynamics in single empty fractures

An accurate quantification of the contaminant transport through fractured media is critical for dealing with water-quality related scientific and engineering issues, where the dispersion coefficient is an important and elusive parameter for the solute transport modeling. Many previous studies show that the dispersion coefficient(D) in the standard advection-dispersion equation(ADE) model can be approximated by D=avλ(where a is the dispersivity), a formula to be revisited systematically in this study by laboratory experiments and model analysis. First, a series of tracer transport experiments in single empty fractures are conducted in cases of different hydraulic gradients. Second, the tracer breakthrough curves are determined by simulations based on the ADE model, to obtain the dispersion coefficients corresponding to various fracture roughnesses and flow velocities. A varying trend of λ is analyzed under different flow conditions. Results show that although the standard ADE model cannot be used to characterize the late-time tailing of the tracer BTCs, likely due to the solute retention, this simple model can simulate most of the solute mass dynamics moving through fractures and may therefore provide information for estimating the dispersion in parsimonious models appropriate for the non-Fickian transport. The following three conclusions are drawn:(1) the peak of the breakthrough curves comes earlier with increasing the roughness, according to the ADE simulation,(2) the value of λ generally decreases as the relative roughness of the fracture increases,(3) the value of λ is approximately equal to 2.0 when the dispersion is dominated by the molecular diffusion in the smooth fracture.