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The repertoire of small-molecular-weight substances present in cells, tissue and body fluids are known as the metabolites. The global analysis of metabolites, such as by high-resolution ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and mass spectrometry, is integral to the rapidly expanding field of metabolomics, which is making progress in various diseases. In the area of cancer and metabolic phenotype, the integrated analysis of metabolites may provide a powerful platform for detecting changes related to cancer diagnosis and discovering novel biomarkers. In this review, metabolomics including the technologies in metabolomics research and extracting information from metabolomics datasets are described. Then we discuss the challenges and opportunities in metabolomics for finding metabolic processes in cancer and discovering novel cancer biomarkers. Finally, we assess the clinical applicability of metabolomics.

Nanomaterials have unique physicochemical properties compared with those bulk materials of the same composition. Possible undesirable results of these capabilities are harmful interactions with biological systems and the environment, with the potential to generate toxicity. A number of studies on the effects of Nanomaterials in vitro and in vivo systems have been published. However, while the number of nanomaterials types and applications continues to increase, studies to characterize their effects after exposure and to address their potential toxicity are few in comparison, there is still a need for further studies that conclusively establish their safety/toxicity. The establishment of principles and test procedures to ensure safe manufacture and use of nanomaterials in the marketplace is urgently required and achievable. The major goal of this review is to summarize 1) analytical techniques applied for characterization of nanomaterials, 2) current analytical methods to assess nanomaterials toxicity in vitro and in vivo; 3) research progress of polymeric nanomaterials toxicity; 4) outlook.

As titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO(2) NPs) are widely used commercially, their potential toxicity on human health has attracted particular attention. In the present study, the oral toxicological effects of TiO(2) NPs (dosed at 0.16, 0.4 and 1 g kg( - 1), respectively) were investigated using conventional approaches and metabonomic analysis in Wistar rats. Serum chemistry, hematology and histopathology examinations were performed. The urine and serum were investigated by (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) using principal components and partial least squares discriminant analysis. The metabolic signature of urinalysis in TiO(2) NP-treated rats showed increases in the levels of taurine, citrate, hippurate, histidine, trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), citrulline, alpha-ketoglutarate, phenylacetylglycine (PAG) and acetate; moreover, decreases in the levels of lactate, betaine, methionine, threonine, pyruvate, 3-D-hydroxybutyrate (3-D-HB), choline and leucine were observed. The metabonomics analysis of serum showed increases in TMAO, choline, creatine, phosphocholine and 3-D-HB as well as decreases in glutamine, pyruvate, glutamate, acetoacetate, glutathione and methionine after TiO(2) NP treatment. Aspartate aminotransferase (AST), creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were elevated and mitochondrial swelling in heart tissue was observed in TiO(2) NP-treated rats. These findings indicate that disturbances in energy and amino acid metabolism and the gut microflora environment may be attributable to the slight injury to the liver and heart caused by TiO(2) NPs. Moreover, the NMR-based metabolomic approach is a reliable and sensitive method to study the biochemical effects of nanomaterials.

The Aconitum has been widely used as an important component in traditional Chinese medicine. However, it can cause neurotoxicity, and the mechanism has not been fully elucidated. The present study aimed to investigate the potential dopaminergic neurotoxicity of Aconitum and its mechanism. We found that Aconitum significantly evoked dopamine release from cultured PC12 cells and from the nucleus accubens of mice. These results show that Aconitum can promptly trigger dopamine release both in vitro and in vivo. Aconitum exposure induced reactive oxygen species formation with the decrease of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase. Moreover, PC12 cells proliferation was inhibited and apoptotic death was detected after Aconitum treatment, but this effect could be attenuated by antioxidants. These findings suggest that Aconitum can damage PC12 cells through oxidative stress mechanism. In conclusion, our results indicate that Aconitum can evoke dopamine release from dopaminergic neurons; excessive extracellular of dopamine can then create stresses on cellular antioxidant systems and induce neuron apoptosis.

As the diversity and complexity of targets, which is the key to gain images feature of the well descriptive and identifiability in image identification and target tracking problems. In this paper, adopting Hu moment invariants, Zernike moment invariants and Affine moment invariants respectively extract the moment eigenvalues in different deformation pattern of aircraft images, analyzing and comparing with stability and anti-noise, the experiment proved that the affine moment invariants has optimality. In order to reduce the calculation burden and improve velocity, a feature extraction method of affine moment invariants is put forward based on target edge. By constructing the framework of particle filter for tracking, which can realized with moving targets tracking based on the affine moment invariants features. Simulation experiments indicate that it can realize steady targets tracking and has a well tracking accuracy in targets existing rotation, zoom or scale visual angle change.

The paper is the study of 2D Gabor wavelet and its application in grey image target recognition and tracking. The new optimization algorithms and technologies in the system realization are studied and discussed in theory and practice. Optimization of Gabor wavelet's parameters of translation, orientation, and scale is used to make it approximates a local image contour region. The method of Sobel edge detection is used to get the initial position and orientation value of optimization in order to improve the convergence speed. In the wavelet characteristic space, we adopt PSO (particle swarm optimization) algorithm to identify points on the security border of the system, it can ensure reliable convergence of the target, which can improve convergence speed; the time of feature extraction is shorter. By test in low contrast image, the feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm are demonstrated by VC++ simulation platform in experiments. Adopting improve Gabor wavelet method in target tracking and making up its frame of tracking, which realize moving target tracking used algorithm, and realize steady target tracking in circumrotate affine distortion.

To determine total tannins and gallic acid of the root of Euphorbia hyloomla.With the gallic acid as reference, tannins and gallic acid of the root of Euphorbia hylonoma were determined by ultraviolet spectrophtometer and high performance liquid chromatography, respectively.The content of tannins of the root of Euphorbia hylonoma were determined by different extract methods, including extracted by water, 70% alcohol, acetone on supersound, the determination data were 4.375%, 7.240%, 3.958%, respectively. When used recirculation method by water, 70% alcohol, acetone, the determination data were the determination data are 3.773%, 2.503%, 1.59%, respectively. The content of gallic acid of the root was 0.047%.Content of total tannins by alcohol super sound is the highest comparing with other extract methods, this method can used in extract of total Tannins of the root of Euphorbia hylonoma.

A new kind of asymmetrical ether diamine, 3,4′-bis(4-aminophenoxy)benzophenone (BABP), was synthesized from the nucleophilic substitution reaction of 4-chloronitrobenzene and 3,4′-dihydroxybenzophenone in the presence of potassium carbonate, followed by catalytic reduction with SnCl2·6H2O and concentrated hydrochloric acid. The prepared diamine was employed in the preparation of a novel polyimide containing asymmetrical diaryl ether segments via the polycondensation of it with BTDA by a two-step method. The resulting polyimide exhibits excellent solubility, film-forming capability and high thermal resistance.

Background The biomarker identification of human esophageal cancer is critical for its early diagnosis and therapeutic approaches that will significantly improve patient survival. Specially, those that involves in progression of disease would be helpful to mechanism research. Methods In the present study, we investigated the distinguishing metabolites in human esophageal cancer tissues (n = 89) and normal esophageal mucosae (n = 26) using a 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) based assay, which is a highly sensitive and non-destructive method for biomarker identification in biological systems. Principal component analysis (PCA), partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and orthogonal partial least-squares-discriminant anlaysis (OPLS-DA) were applied to analyse 1H-NMR profiling data to identify potential biomarkers. Results The constructed OPLS-DA model achieved an excellent separation of the esophageal cancer tissues and normal mucosae. Excellent separation was obtained between the different stages of esophageal cancer tissues (stage II = 28; stage III = 45 and stage IV = 16) and normal mucosae. A total of 45 metabolites were identified, and 12 of them were closely correlated with the stage of esophageal cancer. The downregulation of glucose, AMP and NAD, upregulation of formate indicated the large energy requirement due to accelerated cell proliferation in esophageal cancer. The increases in acetate, short-chain fatty acid and GABA in esophageal cancer tissue revealed the activation of fatty acids metabolism, which could satisfy the need for cellular membrane formation. Other modified metabolites were involved in choline metabolic pathway, including creatinine, creatine, DMG, DMA and TMA. These 12 metabolites, which are involved in energy, fatty acids and choline metabolism, may be associated with the progression of human esophageal cancer. Conclusion Our findings firstly identify the distinguishing metabolites in different stages of esophageal cancer tissues, indicating the attribution of metabolites disturbance to the progression of esophageal cancer. The potential biomarkers provide a promising molecular diagnostic approach for clinical diagnosis of human esophageal cancer and a new direction for the mechanism study.