1.Interaction between muscle and bone, and improving the effects of electrical muscle stimulation on amyotrophy and bone loss in a denervation rat model via sciatic neurectomy.
Feng BO1, Wu W1, Wang H1, Wang J2, Huang D3, Cheng L4. Biomed Rep. 2016 May;4(5):589-594. Epub 2016 Mar 22.
The side-to-side difference in bone mineral content and soft tissue composition of extremities and their associations have been observed in patients with stroke and the results are inconsistent. The aim of the present study was to investigate the interaction between bone mineral content (BMC), lean mass (LM) and fat mass (FM) in the paretic extremities in patients following stroke and to determine the effectiveness of electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) following sciatic neurectomy (SN) in rats. BMC, LM and FM were measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry in 61 hemiplegic patients following stroke. In the rat model study, groups of 10 Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into EMS and non-EMS subgroups. Myostatin expression and tetracycline interlabel width were measured. There were significant decreases in BMC, LM and FM in paretic limbs compared to non-paretic limbs. Compared to non-EMS, downregulated myostatin mRNA, and upregulated mechano growth factor (MGF) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) mRNA expression levels were observed in the EMS subgroup (P<0.
2.Prevalence and antibiotic resistance of Salmonella Enteritidis and Salmonella Typhimurium in raw chicken meat at retail markets in Malaysia.
Thung TY1, Mahyudin NA2, Basri DF3, Wan Mohamed Radzi CW4, Nakaguchi Y5, Nishibuchi M5, Radu S. Poult Sci. 2016 Apr 26. pii: pew144. [Epub ahead of print]
Salmonellosis is one of the major food-borne diseases in many countries. This study was carried out to determine the occurrence of Salmonella spp., Salmonella Enteritidis, and Salmonella Typhimurium in raw chicken meat from wet markets and hypermarkets in Selangor, as well as to determine the antibiotic susceptibility profile of S. Enteritidis and S. Typhimurium. The most probable number (MPN) in combination with multiplex polymerase chain reaction (mPCR) method was used to quantify the Salmonella spp., S. Enteritidis, and S. Typhimurium in the samples. The occurrence of Salmonella spp., S. Enteritidis, and S. Typhimurium in 120 chicken meat samples were 20.80%, 6.70%, and 2.50%, respectively with estimated quantity varying from <3 to 15 MPN/g. The antibiogram testing revealed differential multi-drug resistance among S. Enteritidis and S. Typhimurium isolates. All the isolates were resistance to erythromycin, penicillin, and vancomycin whereas sensitivity was recorded for Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid, Gentamicin, Tetracycline, and Trimethoprim.
3.Physiology, Biochemistry, and Applications of F420- and Fo-Dependent Redox Reactions.
Greening C1, Ahmed FH2, Mohamed AE2, Lee BM2, Pandey G3, Warden AC3, Scott C3, Oakeshott JG3, Taylor MC3, Jackson CJ4. Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 2016 Apr 27;80(2):451-93. doi: 10.1128/MMBR.00070-15. Print 2016 Jun.
5-Deazaflavin cofactors enhance the metabolic flexibility of microorganisms by catalyzing a wide range of challenging enzymatic redox reactions. While structurally similar to riboflavin, 5-deazaflavins have distinctive and biologically useful electrochemical and photochemical properties as a result of the substitution of N-5 of the isoalloxazine ring for a carbon. 8-Hydroxy-5-deazaflavin (Fo) appears to be used for a single function: as a light-harvesting chromophore for DNA photolyases across the three domains of life. In contrast, its oligoglutamyl derivative F420 is a taxonomically restricted but functionally versatile cofactor that facilitates many low-potential two-electron redox reactions. It serves as an essential catabolic cofactor in methanogenic, sulfate-reducing, and likely methanotrophic archaea. It also transforms a wide range of exogenous substrates and endogenous metabolites in aerobic actinobacteria, for example mycobacteria and streptomycetes.
4.Gold nanocluster sensitized TiO2 nanotube arrays for visible-light driven photoelectrocatalytic removal of antibiotic tetracycline.
Liu Y1, Yao Q2, Wu X2, Chen T2, Ma Y2, Ong CN1, Xie J2. Nanoscale. 2016 Apr 28. [Epub ahead of print]
It is of technical interest to develop low-cost, high-quality and scalable photosensitizers that could efficiently harvest visible light. Here we design an efficient photoelectrocatalyst by integrating a recently developed gold nanocluster (AuNC, as a photosensitizer) into two types of highly ordered TiO2 nanotube arrays (TNAs, as substrates to host the photosensitizers). The TNA electrodes used in this study are a short TNA (∼0.5 µm in length, synthesized by the anodic oxidation in an aqueous hydrofluoric (HF) acid solution) and a long TNA (∼4.5 µm in length, synthesized by the anodic oxidation in a fluorinated ethylene glycol (EG) solution). A number of characterization techniques (e.g., FESEM, XRD and XPS) were applied to study the as-synthesized nanocomposites. In particular, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and photochemical measurements suggest that the AuNC-coated TNA electrodes have successfully extended visible light absorption and improved their photochemical performance.