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Cardiac arrhythmia is an irregular heart rhythm that can lead to serious heart conditions and various organ disorders, and may cause sudden cardiac death. Catalpol belongs to the iridoid glycoside family and is highly abundant in Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch. The study included five groups such as group I (normal control), group II (treatment control), group III (low-dose treatment), group IV (medium-dose treatment) and group V (high-dose treatment). We investigated the therapeutic effects of catalpol on cardiac arrhythmia in human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Cell viability, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels, lipid peroxidation, antioxidant activity, and caspase-3 and caspase-9 activities and protein levels were measured in normal control, treatment control, and treated (1, 10, and 100 µM) iPSC groups. Compared with the treatment control group, catalpol supplementation (1, 10, and 100 µM) increased iPSC cell viability by 7.5, 27.3, and 65.8%, respectively; reduced the LDH levels by 10.4, 31.3, and 75.2%, respectively; and reduced the lipid peroxidation levels by 7.7, 33.0, and 62.6%, respectively. The antioxidant levels were significantly higher in the treatment control group than in the normal control group. Catalpol (100 µM) reduced the caspase-3 and caspase-9 activities by more than 30% and increased expression of the corresponding proteins by more than 50%. These findings suggest that the naturally occurring iridoid glycoside catalpol is effective against aconitine-induced cardiac arrhythmia in iPSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical financial data are frequently used in technical analysis to identify patterns that can be exploited to achieve trading profits. Although technical analysis using a variety of technical indicators has proven to be useful for the prediction of price trends, it is difficult to use them to formulate trading rules that could be used in an automatic trading system due to the vague nature of the rules. Moreover, it is challenging to determine a specified combination of technical indicators that can be used to detect good trading points and trading rules since different stock may be affected by different set of factors. In this paper, we propose a novel trading point forecasting framework that incorporates a bicluster mining technique to discover significant trading patterns, a method to establish the fuzzy rule base, and a fuzzy inference system optimized for trading point prediction. The proposed method (called BM-FM) was tested on several historical stock datasets and the average performance was compared with the conventional buy-and-hold strategy and five previously reported intelligent trading systems. Experimental results demonstrated the superior performance of the proposed trading system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common type of liver disease in developed countries. Oxidative stress plays a critical role in the progression of NAFLD. Modern pharmacological study and clinical trials have demonstrated the remarkable antioxidant activity of Gynostemma pentaphyllum (GP) in chronic liver disease. One aim of this study was to explore the potential protective effects and mechanisms of action of GP extract on NAFLD. The in vivo results showed that GP extract could alleviate fatty degeneration and haptic fibrosis in NAFLD mice. For exploring the hepatoprotective mechanisms of GP, we used network pharmacology to predict the potential active components of GP and their intracellular targets in NAFLD. Based on the network pharmacology results, we further utilized biomedical assays to validate this in silico prediction. The results showed that Gypenoside XL could upregulate the protein level of PPARα in NAFLD; the transcription level of several PPARα downstream target genes such as acyl-CoA oxidase (ACO) and carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1 (CPT-1) also increased after Gypenoside XL treatment. The overexpression of ACO and CPT-1 may involve the hepatoprotective effects of GP and Gypenoside XL on NAFLD by regulating mitochondrial fatty acid β-oxidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Previous studies showed that genetic variants of the angiotensinogen (AGT) gene conferred higher risk for acquired atrial fibrillation (AF). The present study investigated whether AGT variants correlate with the clinical outcome in patients with acquired AF after catheter ablation (CA).Methods: A total of 150 acquired symptomatic drug-refractory AF patients (mean age 63.7±11.0 years, 24.6% non-paroxysmal AF) with acquired AF underwent a single CA procedure in our department and were included in this retrospective analysis. Eight tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (tSNPs) in the AGT gene were genotyped. Standard electrocardiographs (ECGs) and 24-hour Holter recordings were performed during a median follow-up period of 57.5 months to detect AF recurrence.Results: Sixty-one patients (40.7%) suffered AF recurrences after a single CA procedure during follow up. Of the eight tSNPs, the frequency of the M allele of M235T was significantly higher in the recurrence group (28%) compared to the non-recurrence group (18%) (p=0.042). The recurrence rates of patients with the TT, MT, and MM genotypes were 34.4%, 50%, and 55.6%, respectively (ptrend=0.049). After adjusting for age, sex, body mass index, hypertension, left atrial volume index (LAVI) and other covariates, M235T increased the risk of AF recurrence in additive and dominant models with odds ratios of 2.023 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.034-3.926, p=0.033) and 2.601 (95% CI: 1.102-6.056, p=0.025), respectively. However, in multiple correction analyses, the p values of multiple comparisons were not statistically significant (pcorrect>0.05).Conclusions: The M allele of M235T might be associated with an increased risk of AF recurrence after CA. Genotyping may thus be helpful on identifying patients with higher risks of AF recurrence after CA and developing optimal follow-up strategies. These strategies may differ and should be individualized according to patients' genotype. Future studies are warranted to validate the potential effect of AGT M235T on AF recurrence post CA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complete series of Cp2M2(μ-C6F6) (M = Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni) structures have been examined theoretically for comparison with their unsubstituted Cp2M2(μ-C6H6) analogues. The singlet triple decker sandwich titanium complex Cp2Ti2(η6,η6-C6F6) with a closed shell electronic structure and a non-planar C6F6 ring is preferred energetically by a wide margin (＞20 kcal mol−1) over other isomers and spin states. This is in contrast to the hydrogen analogue for which related triplet spin state structures are clearly preferred. A similar low-energy triple-decker sandwich Cp2V2(η6,η6-C6F6) structure is found for vanadium but with a quintet spin state. The later transition metals from Cr to Ni energetically prefer the so-called “rice-ball”cis-Cp2M2(μ-C6F6) structures with varying hapticities of metal-ring bonding, a range of formal orders of metal–metal bonding, and varying spin states depending on the metal atom. Thus the lowest energy Cp2Cr2(μ-C6F6) structures are triplet and quintet structures with pentahapto–trihapto η5,η3-μ-C6F6 rings and formal Cr=Cr double bonds. This contrasts with the structure of Cp2Cr2(μ-C6H6) having a bis(tetrahapto) η4,η4-C6H6 ring and a formal Cr–Cr quadruple bond. The lowest energy Cp2Mn2(μ-C6F6) structures are trans and cis quintet spin state structures. This contrasts with Cp2Mn2(μ-C6H6) for which a closed-shell singlet triple decker sandwich structure is preferred. The lowest energy Cp2Fe2(μ-C6F6) structure is a triplet cis structure with a tetrahapto–dihapto η4,η2-μ-C6F6 ring and a formal Fe–Fe single bond. The lowest energy Cp2Co2(μ-C6F6) structures are singlet spin state structures with formal M–M single bonds and either bridging bis(trihapto) η3,η3-C6F6 or tetrahapto–dihapto η4,η2-C6F6 rings. For Cp2Ni2(μ-C6F6) low energy singlet cis and trans structures are both found. The singlet cis-Cp2Ni2(μ-C6F6) structure has a Ni–Ni single bond of length ∼2.5 Å and a bridging bis(dihapto) η2,η2-C6F6 ligand with an uncomplexed C=C double bond. The singlet trans-Cp2Ni2(μ-C6F6) structure has a bis(trihapto) η3,η3-C6F6 ligand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]