Dietary Combination of Fish Oil and Hemoglobin Hydrolysates Alters Serum and Liver Lipid Contents in Rat

Fish oil has been shown to have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects, and to reduce serum triacylglycerol (TAG) levels by stimulating lipid oxidation and inhibiting lipogenesis in the liver. A small number of studies have demonstrated the synergistic effect of fish oil and other bioactive components. This study examined the effect of fish oil in combination with porcine hemoglobin (Hb) hydrolysates on serum and liver lipid contents in rats. Male Wistar rats were divided into four groups;one group was fed a casein and soybean oil-based semi-purified basal diet and other three groups were fed the basal diet supplemented with 2% fish oil, 0.175% Hb hydrolysates, and 2% fish oil plus 0.175% Hb hydrolysates, respectively, for 4 weeks. The fish oil diet decreased serum and liver TAG contents but did not change serum and liver cholesterol levels. The dietary combination of fish oil and Hb hydrolysates decreased serum and liver TAG and cholesterol contents owing to the additive effect of both compounds, and this diet reduced the serum non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol content as a result of a synergistic effect. This hypolipidemic effect was in part caused by enhanced excretion of fecal fatty acids, neutral steroids, and acidic steroids. The results of this study suggest that the combined intake of fish oil and Hb hydrolysates may play beneficial roles in the prevention of cardiovascular disease as compared with fish oil alone.

Do Quantity and Quality of Irradiance Influence Migration Behavior Motile Cells of the Green Alga, <i>Ulva fasciata</i>?

Motile cells of the green alga, Ulva fasciata respond to the quantity and quality of irradiance simultaneously. The specific responses of motile cell types (gametes and spores) by irradiance influence migration behavior in coastal water environment. Gametes maximally aggregated at the highest white light intensity (250 μmol&middotm-2·s-1), while spores maximally aggregated in the dark (0 μmol m-2·s-1) of this study. Gametes maximally aggregated in green irradiance over blue, red and dark while spore maximally aggregated in the dark. The results of quantity are spectral responses are likely to be underline the ecological success and physiological strategies in varied irradiance environments includes: 1) gametes respond to specific quantities and spectral irradiance;2) spores respond negatively to quantity and quality of irradiance to enhance the probability of finding substratum;and 3) populations of adults that come from these motile cells behaviors. The specific quantities and spectral qualities of irradiance responses show specific ecological migration that can be attributed to photosynthesis under limiting irradiance in coastal waters for the motile cells of U. fasciata.

Odorants could elicit repair processes in melanized neuronal and skin cells

The expression of ectopic olfactory receptors （ORs） in melanized cells, such as the human brain nigrostri- atal dopaminergic neurons and skin melanocytes, is here pointed out. ORs are recognized to regulate skin melanogenesis, whereas OR expression in the dopaminergic neurons, characterized by accumulation of pigment neuromelanin, is downregulated in Parkinson＇s disease. Furthermore, the correlation between the pigmentation process and the dopamine pathway through ct-synuclein expression is also highlighted. Purposely, these ORs are suggested as therapeutic target for neurodegenerative diseases related to the pig- mentation disorders. Based on this evidence, a possible way of turning odorants into drugs, acting on three specific olfactory receptors, OR51E2, OR2AT4 and VN1R1, is thus introduced. Various odorous molecules are shown to interact with these ORs and their therapeutic potential against melanogenic and neurodegen- erative dysfunctions, including melanoma and Parkinson＇s disease, is suggested. Finally, a direct functional link between olfactory and endocrine systems in human brain through VNIR1 is proposed, helping to counteract female susceptibility to Parkinson＇s disease in quiescent life.

Apoptosis-inducing activity of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in cultured PC12 cells

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are known to exert estrogen-like effects that are similar to those made by naturally produced hormones or by inhibition of the receptors in the cell receiving the hormones. Recently, several reports have indicated that EDCs can affect the developing central nervous system. In our current study, we report that some EDCs induce apoptosis in cultured PC12 cells and can be classified into three groups. Bisphenol A (BPA), p-nonylphenol (NP) and tributyltin chloride (TBT) were found to induce endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-associated apoptosis and activate the unfolded protein response (UPR) system, whereas benomyl (beno) induced non-ER stress-associated apoptosis. The half-maximal apoptosis-inducing concentrations (IC50) of these EDCs were 160 μM for BPA, 25.6 μM for NP, 640 nM for TBT and 48 μM for beno. Although these concentrations are higher than those found in the environment, some EDCs may have apoptotic effects on various cells in the body, including neurons, through their accumulation in the body over time or condensation through the food chain. On the other hand, benzopyrene, fenvalerate, styrene monomer and bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate did not induce apoptosis in PC12 cells. We analyzed also whether apoptosis-inducing EDCs had an estrogen-like effect on cultured PC12 cells transfected with a luciferase reporter plasmid, the activity of which is dependent on estrogen receptor α. We found that BPA had an estrogen-like effect (EC50 = 5.9 μM) but that NP, TBT and beno did not in transfected PC12 cells. These results suggest that BPA may predomi-nantly exert estrogenic effects, but others may pre-dominantly have apoptosis-inducing effects on cells in the body exposed to a polluted environment.

Antioxidant Activity of Cosmetic Formulations Based on Novel Extracts from Seeds of Brazilian <i>Araucaria angustifolia</i>(Bertoll) Kuntze

The process of oxidation, due to free radicals, is the cause of major concern for human health. In particular damages related to the skin have great relevance;therefore, many antioxidants based products are developed and marketed with the intention to counteract the action of free radicals. The seed of Araucaria angustifolia is a rich source of antioxidants due to the presence of bioflavonoids to counteract free radicals damages. In this study, two extracts, one from the seed external teguments (shell) and the other from the inner seed pulp (endosperm and embryo) were obtained in order to evaluate possible applications to the dermo-cosmetic field. In parallel the following different methods were employed to characterize both the extracts and to determine their antioxidant capacity: HPTLC, ABTS and DPPH, ORAC and PLC. The qualitative analysis showed that both extracts have the antioxidant activity, but the quantitative evaluation revealed a more promising bioactivity from the shell than from the pulp. Therefore, it was evaluated the potential skin application of different cosmetic formulations, based on the presence of seed shell extract (W/O emulsion, O/W emulsion and gel). The best result was achieved with the W/O emulsion.

Different behavioral profles between invasive and native nudibranchs:means for invasion success?

Behavior is predicted to be a primary determinant of the success of the invasion process during the early phases of colonization.Comparing invaders with sympatric native species may provide a good approach to unravel behavioral traits involved in an invasion process.In this study,we carried out an experimental simulation of the introduction and the acclimatization phase into a new environment and assessed the expression of activity,alertness,and habituation in an invasive Mediterranean population of the South African nudibranch Godiva quadricolor comparing its profles with those of the sympatric Mediterranean native nudibranchs Cratena peregrina and Caloria quatrefagesi.Individuals of these 3 species were subjected to 3 behavioral tests:spontaneous activity,carried out in the introduction phase(immediately after sampling)and after a week of acclimatization;alert test,in which a potential threat was simulated by means of a tactile stimulus,and habituation test,in which the same alert test stimulus was repeated 5 times at 30-min intervals.The invasive G.quadricolor showed higher levels of exploration activity,thigmotaxis,alertness,and sensitization than the native species.These behavioral traits may represent pivotal drivers of the ongoing invasion process.

Bedrock geology interacts with altitude in affecting leaf growth and foliar nutrient status of mountain vascular plants

Aims Altitude is often used as a proxy for ascertaining how warming affects plant growth and leaf level properties.However,we have a poor understanding of how the effects of altitude-related warming varies across geology.therefore,this study examined the independ-ent and interactive effects of altitude and geology and species on plant growth and foliar nutrient status.Methods We determined leaf growth rates and concentrations of major nutrients(nitrogen,N and phosphorus,P)in leaves of five spe-cies across two altitudinal gradients(1200-2200 m)in the Dolomites(south-eastern Alps,Italy).the two transects were located on carbonate bedrock and silicate bedrock,respec-tively.We also determined concentrations of inorganic and organic N and P forms in soils,andδ15N signature in leaves and soils.Important Findings Foliar N concentrations were unrelated to bedrock geology.the negative foliarδ^(15)N signature suggested that organic N was the primary source of N supply across the gradients.Foliar P concentrations were strongly affected by bedrock geology and their altitudinal patterns depended on the concentrations of organic and inorganic P forms in the soil.Phosphates and organic P appeared to be the main sources of P supply.Leaf growth rates increased with higher altitude on silicate bedrock and decreased with higher altitude on carbonate bedrock and presented a significant positive correlation with foliar N:P.In conclusion,bedrock geology inter-acted with altitude in controlling the foliar nutrient status mainly owing to availability of soil P and its effect on foliar nutrient stoichiometry.

Biochemical Characterization of Soluble Acid and Alkaline Invertases from Shoots of Etiolated Pea Seedlings

Soluble invertase was purified from pea （Pisum sativum L.） by sequential procedures entailing ammonium sulfate precipitation, DEAE-Sepharose column, Con-A- and Green 19-Sepharose affinity columns, hydroxyapatite column, ultra-filtration, and Sephacryl 300 gel filtration. The purified soluble acid （SAC） and alkaline （SALK） invertases had a pH optimum of 5.3 and 7.3, respectively. The temperature optimum of two invertases was 37 ℃. The effects of various concentrations of Tris-HCI, HgCI2, and CuSO4 on the activities of the two purified enzymes were examined. Tris-HCI and HgCI2 did not affect SAC activity, whereas 10 mM Tris-HCI and 0.05 mM HgCI2 inhibited SALK activity by about 50%. SAC and SALK were inhibited by 4.8 mM and 0.6 mM CuSO4 by 50%, respectively. The enzymes display typical hyperbolic saturation kinetics for sucrose hydrolysis. The Kms of SAC and SALK were determined to be 1.8 and 38.6 mM, respectively. The molecular masses of SAC shown by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting were 22 kDa and 45 kDa. The molecular mass of SALK was 30 kDa. Iso-electric points of the SAC and SALK were estimated to be about pH 7.0 and pH 5.7, respectively.

SSDNA cutter v0.0 a new <i>in silico</i>RFLP tool in C

Summary: SSDNA Cutter v0.0 is a new in silico RFLP tool written in C. It has a significant utility in studying population diversity as it has the capability of restriction digestion of a group of linear DNA se-quences and then segregate the restriction patterns into separate groups as per similarity in the restriction maps. The software has an inbuilt database for 20 restriction enzymes and it is flexible so that the user can add up to 100 more restriction enzymes to the list. The interface is easy, simple and interactive which enables the user to obtain restriction pattern groups which are quite similar to Operational Taxonomic Units obtained from phylogenetic trees. Availability: The software and the source code is currently available from the authors on request without any cost. We intend to release it in a public domain soon. SSDNA Cutter v0.0 is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Circulating microRNAs and liquid biopsy:murine xenograft models for technical validation of clinical protocols

In oncology,liquid biopsy is applied to detect with high efficiency clinically relevant analytes,such as tumor cells,cell-free nucleic acids,and exosomes in peripheral blood and other body fluids of cancer patients.Liquid biopsy is considered one of the most advanced non-invasive diagnostic systems useful,in the next future,for enabling personalized treatments in precision medicine.Medical actions include,but are not limited to,early diagnosis,staging,prognosis,anticipation(lead time)and prediction of therapy responses,as well as follow up.Experimental system for validation of the proposed liquid biopsy approaches is highly needed.In this review article we will discuss the establishment of xenotransplanted mouse model systems for the validation of liquid biopsy protocols aimed to identify changes in the miRNA plasma content.Human colon cancer HT-29 and LoVo cells have been xenotransplanted and miR-221-3p and miR-222-3p have been comparatively analyzed in cultured HT-29 and LoVo cells,xenotransplants and plasma samples.

Phytochemicals as therapeutics against COVID-19: An in-silico study

Since December 2019,the worldwide spread of COVID-19 has brought the majority of the world to a standstill,affecting daily lives as well as economy.Under these conditions,it is imperative to develop a cure as soon as possible.On account of some of the adverse side effects of the existing conventional drugs,researchers all around the world are screening natural antiviral phytochemicals as potential therapeutic agents against COVID-19.This paper aims to review interactions of some specific phytochemicals with the receptor binding domain(RBD)of the Spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 and suggest their possible therapeutic applications.Literature search was done based on the wide array of in-silico studies conducted using broad spectrum phytochemicals against SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses.26 such phytochemicals specifically targeting the S protein and its interactions with host receptors were shortlisted initially.To validate the previously published results,molecular docking was performed using the AutoDock Vina application and 6 high potential phytochemicals were identified for therapeutic use based on their binding energies.Besides this,availability of these compounds,their mode of action,toxicity data and cost-effectiveness were also taken into consideration.This review specifically identifies 6 phytochemicals that can be used as potential treatments for COVID-19 based on their availability,toxicology results and low costs of production.However,all these compounds need to be further validated by wet lab experiments and should be approved for clinical use only after appropriate trials.

Personality traits covary with individual differences in inhibitory abilities in 2 species of fish

In a number of animal species,individuals differ in their ability to solve cognitive tasks.However,the mechanisms underlying this variability remain unclear.It has been proposed that individual differences in cognition may be related to individual differences in behavior(i.e.,personality);a hypothesis that has received mixed support.In this study,we investigated whether personality correlates with the cognitive ability that allows inhibiting behavior in 2 teleost fish species,the zebrafish Danio rerio and the guppy Poecilia reticulata.In both species,individuals that were bolder in a standard personality assay,the open-field test,showed greater inhibitory abilities in the tube task,which required them to inhibit foraging behavior toward live prey sealed into a transparent tube.This finding reveals a relationship between boldness and inhibitory abilities in fish and lends support to the hypothesis of a link between personality and cognition.Moreover,this study suggests that species separated by a relatively large phylogenetic distance may show the same link between personality and cognition,when tested on the same tasks.

Male and female guppies differ in problem-solving abilities

In a number of species,males and females have different ecological roles and therefore might be required to solve different problems.Studies on humans have suggested that the 2 sexes often show different efficiencies in problem solving tasks;similarly,evidence of sex differences has been found in 2 other mammalian species.Here,we assessed whether a teleost fish species,the guppy.Poecilia reticulata,displays sex differences in the ability to solve problems.In Experiment 1,guppies had to learn to dislodge a disc that occluded a feeder from which they had been previously accustomed to feed.In Experiment 2,guppies had to solve a version of the detour task that required them to learn to enter a transparent cylinder from the open sides to reach a food reward previously freely available.We found evidence of sex differences in both problem-solvingi tasks.In Experiment 1,females clearly outperformed males,and in Experiment 2,guppies showed a reversed but smaller sex difference.This study indicates that sex differences may play an important role in fish's problem-solving similar to what has previously been observed in some mammalian species.

Characterization of Adapter Protein NRBP as a Negative Regulator of T Cell Activation

Adapter proteins can regulate the gene transcriptions in disparate signaling pathway by interacting with multiple signaling molecules, including T cell activation signaling. Nuclear receptor binding protein （NRBP）, a novel adapter protein, represents a small family of evolutionarily conserved proteins with homologs in Caenorhabditis elegans （C. elegans）, Drosophila melanogaster （i）. melanogaster）, mouse and human. Here, we demonstrated that overexpression of NRBP in Jurkat TAg cells specifically impairs T cell receptor （TCR） or phorbol myristate acetate （PMA） /ionomycin-mediated signaling leading to nuclear factor of activated T cells （NFAT） promoter activation. Furthermore, the N-terminal of NRBP is necessary for its regulation of NFAT activation. Finally, we showed that NRBP has minimal effect on both TCR- and PMA-induced CD69 up-regulation in Jurkat TAg cells, which suggests that NRBP may function downstream of protein kinase C （PKC） /Ras pathway.

Vegetation cover induces developmental plasticity of lateralization in tadpoles

Lateralization of cognitive functions influences a large number of fitness-related behaviors and shows,in most species,substantial variation in strength and direction.Laboratory works and field data have suggested that this variation is often due to adaptive phenotypic plasticity.Strong lateralization should be favored in some ecological conditions,for example,under high risk of predation.For anuran tadpoles,the presence of cover affects predation risk,with tadpoles being more exposed to predators in environments with reduced cover.We tested the hypothesis that the amount of cover experienced early in life affects lateralization in the edible frog,Pelophylax escu-lentus,tadpoles.We exposed embryos and larvae to high or low vegetation cover environments.For half of the subjects,the treatment was constant whereas the remaining subjects were switched to the opposite treatment after hatching.In agreement with the theoretical expectation,tadpoles exposed to low vegetation cover for the entire development were more lateralized and showed a stronger alignment in directionality of lateralization compared with tadpoles exposed to high vege-tation cover.This indicates a possible role of natural variation in vegetation abundance and deve卜opmental plasticity as determinants of between-population and between-individual differences in lateralization.We also found that shifting from high to low vegetation cover treatments and vice versa disrupted lateralization alignment,suggesting that developmental trajectories for this trait are determined at the embryonic stage and need environmental stability to be fully expressed.

Peptide nucleic acid-based targeting of microRNAs:possible therapeutic applications for glioblastoma

A large and incremental number of non-coding RNAs, including microRNAs (miRNAs) have been recently demonstrated to play a very important role in human pathologies, including cancer. Therefore, microRNAs have been proposed as therapeutic targets and molecules exhibiting anti-miRNA activity or mimicking functional miRNAs have been developed. Among biomolecules proposed in anti-miRNA therapy, peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are appealing, in consideration of their stability and efficacy in recognizing RNA targets. PNAs against tumor associated miRNAs have proven to be efficient in inducing anti-tumor effects both in vitro and in vivo. For instance, PNAs targeting miR-155-5p are able to induce apoptosis in glioma cell lines and to enhance the sensitivity to temozolomide (TMZ) in TMZ resistant glioma cells. In vivo, PNAs anti-miR-21 were found to exhibit anti-tumor effects associated with improved survival when administered to animals with intracranial gliomas.