Search

Cancer is a very heterogeneous disease, and uncontrolled cell division is the main characteristic of cancer. Cancerous cells need a high nutrition intake to enable aberrant growth and survival. To do so, cancer cells modify metabolic pathways to produce energy and anabolic precursors and preserve redox balance. Due to the importance of metabolic pathways in tumor growth and malignant transformation, metabolic pathways have also been given promising perspectives for cancer treatment, providing more effective treatment strategies, and target-specific with minimum side effects. Metabolism-based therapeutic nanomaterials for targeted cancer treatment are a promising option. Numerous types of nanoparticles (NPs) are employed in the research and analysis of various cancer therapies. The current review focuses on cutting-edge strategies and current cancer therapy methods based on nanomaterials that target various cancer metabolisms. Additionally, it highlighted the primacy of NPs-based cancer therapies over traditional ones, the challenges, and the future potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early-senescence mutants are genetic materials important for the researches on the molecular mechanism of cell apop-tosis in plants. An early-senescence mutant named esl8 (early senescence leaf 8) has been screened from the mutagenesis library of rice variety Kefujing 7. Compared with the wild-type control, the leaves of the esl8 mutant displays a severe of early-senescence phenotype at heading stage in rice, and its agronomic traits, including plant height, tiller number, grain length, grains per panicle, and seed setting rate, were obviously impaired except for the 1000-grain weight. In leaves of the esl8 mutant, the chlorophyll content was abnormally decreased, and the programmed cell death accompanied by excessive accumulation of the reactive oxygen species and the malondialdehyde were detected by histochemical staining. Genetic analysis indicated that the early-senescence phenotype of the esl8 mutant was controlled by a recessive nuclear gene. Based on the strategy of map-based cloning, the esl8 gene was finely mapped into a 359-kb region flanking by two molecular markers (FM12-14 and FM12-15) on chromosome 12. The prediction and verification of candidate genes by PCR sequencing confirmed that esl8 was a new variational allele of the OsSL/ELLl gene. The sequence of mutation esl8 occurred in the conserved region of the corresponding wild-type gene. Our results provide a theoretical basis for further study on the biofunction and molecular mechanism of the protein encoding by ESL8 in early-senescence process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the present study is to develop a method for rapid determination of the content of stevioside (ST) and rebaudioside A (RA) in Stevia Rebaudiana leaves. One hundred and five samples of stevia from different areas containing ST of 0.27%-1.40% and RA of 0.61%-3.98% were used. The 105 groups' NIRS diagram was processed by different methods including subtracting a straight line (SLS), multiplicative scatter correction (MSC), first derivative (FD), second derivative (SD) and so on, and then all data were analyzed by partial least square (PLS). The study showed that SLS can be used to extracted spectra information thoroughly to analyze the contents of ST, the correlation coefficients of calibration (Re), the root-mean-square errors of calibration (RMSEC) and prediction (RMSEP), and the residual predictive deviation (RPD) were 0.986, 0.341, 1.00 and 2.8, respectively. The correlation coefficients of RA was 0.967, RMSEC was 1.50, RMSEP was 1.98 and RPD was 4.17. The results indicated that near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) technique offers effective quantitative capability for ST and RA in Stevia Rebaudiana leaves. Then the model of stevia dried leaves was used to compare with the stevia powder near infrared model whose correlation coefficients of ST was 0.986, RMSEC was 0.32, RMSEP was 0.601 and RPD was 2.86 and the correlation coefficients of RA was 0.968, RMSEC was 1.50, RMSEP was 1.48 and RPD was 4.2. The result showed that there was no significant difference between the model of dried leaves and that of the powders. However, the dried leaves NIR model reduces the unnecessary the steps of drying and grinding in the actual detection process, saving the time and reducing the workload.

Objective: To study the clinical efficacy of adjuvant therapy with glucocorticoids in children with lobar pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae., Methods: One hundred and eight children with lobar pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae were randomly divided into routine treatment and hormone treatment groups. Both groups were treated with azithromycin and other symptomatic therapies. In addition to the basic treatment, the hormone treatment group was given dexamethasone 0.25-0.3 mg/(kg·d) by intravenous drip until the body temperature was normal. Then given oral prednisone tablets 0.5-1 mg/(kg·d) (gradually reduced) for a total treatment course of 7-10 days. Before and after treatment pulmonary functions were examined, and serum C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were measured., Results: The duration of fever, cough relief time and pulmonary shadow absorption time on chest X-ray were significantly shorter in the hormone treatment group than in the routine treatment group (P<0.05). After treatment, the two groups showed improvements in serum CRP, ESR, IL-2, and IL-6 (P<0.05), but the hormone treatment group showed significantly more improvement (P<0.05). Varying degrees of mixed ventilation dysfunction were seen in the two groups before treatment, and hormone therapy significantly improved pulmonary function, especially promoting the recovery of small airway function., Conclusions: Adjuvant therapy with glucocorticoids can effectively alleviate clinical symptoms, promote the absorption of pulmonary inflammation, and improve pulmonary function in children with lobar pneumonia caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

In the present study, a new approach to fast determining the content of urea, biuret and moisture in compound fertilizer composed of urea, ammonium dihydrogenphosphate and potassium chloride was proposed by using near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. After preprocessing the original spectrum, partial least squares (PLS) models of urea, biuret and moisture were built with the R2 values of 0.9861, 0.9770 and 0.9713 respectively, the root mean square errors of cross validation were 2.59, 0.38, 0.132 respectively. And the prediction correlation factors were 0.9733, 0.9215 and 0.9679 respectively. The authors detected six kinds of compound fertilizer in market for the model verification, the correlation factors were 0.9237, 0.9786 and 0.9874 respectively. The data implied that the new method can be used for situ quality control in the production process of compound fertilizer.

Chitinases (EC 3.2.1.14) are found in a broad range of organisms, including bacteria, fungi and higher plants, and play different roles depending on their origin. A chitinase from Bacillus cereus NCTU2 (ChiNCTU2) capable of hydrolyzing chitin as a carbon and nitrogen nutrient has been identified as a member of the family 18 glycoside hydrolases. ChiNCTU2 of molecular weight 36 kDa has been crystallized using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method. According to the diffraction of chitinase crystals at 1.10 A resolution, the crystal belongs to space group P2(1), with unit-cell parameters a = 50.79, b = 48.79, c = 66.87 A, beta = 99.31 degrees . Preliminary analysis indicates there is one chitinase molecule in the asymmetric unit, with a solvent content of 43.4%.