AGAT

Oral L-arginine supplements are popular mainly for their nitric oxide mediated vasodilation, but their physiological impact is not fully known. L-arginine is a substrate of several enzymes including arginase, nitric oxide synthase, arginine decarboxylase, and arginine: glycine amidinotransferase (AGAT). We have published a study on the physiological impact of oral L- and D-arginine at 500 mg/kg/day for 4 wks in male Sprague-Dawley rats. We investigated the effects of oral L-arginine and D-arginine at a higher dose of 1000 mg/kg/d for a longer treatment duration of 16 wks in 9-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats...

Additive manufacturing and nanotechnology have been used as fundamental tools for the production of nanostructured parts with magnetic properties, expanding the range of applications in additive processes through tank photopolymerization. Magnetic cobalt ferrite (CoFe2 O4 ) and barium ferrite (BaFe12 O19 ) nanoparticles (NPs) with an average size distribution value (DTEM ) of 12 ± 2.95 nm and 37 ± 12.78 nm, respectively, were generated by the hydroxide precipitation method. The dispersion of the NPs in commercial resins (Anycubic Green and IRIX White resin) was achieved through mechanochemical reactions carried out in an agate mortar for 20 min at room temperature, with limited exposure to light...

Human limbal epithelial stem cells (hLESCs) continuously replenish lost or damaged human corneal epithelial cells. The percentage of stem/progenitor cells in autologous ex vivo expanded tissue is essential for the long-term success of transplantation in patients with limbal epithelial stem cell deficiency. However, the molecular processes governing the stemness and differentiation state of hLESCs remain uncertain. Therefore, we sought to explore the impact of canonical Wnt/β-catenin signaling activation on hLESCs by treating ex vivo expanded hLESC cultures with GSK-3 inhibitor LY2090314...

CONTEXT: Serum thyroglobulin (Tg) is a highly sensitive and specific tumor marker, employed in post-operative management of patients with differentiated thyroid carcinomas. Tumor shrinkage of radioiodine-refractory thyroid cancer (RAIR-DTC) treated with multitarget kinase inhibitors as lenvatinib, expressed according to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST), is also associated with a drastic reduction of Tg levels. However, interference caused by circulating thyroglobulin autoantibodies (TgAb) represents the main limitation in the clinical use of Tg...

Transparent polymers and plastics are used to create molded parts and films for many applications. The colors of these products are of great importance for the suppliers, manufacturers, and end-users. However, for simplicity of the processing, the plastics are produced in the form of small pellets or granules. The predictive measurement of the color of such materials is a challenging process and needs consideration of a complex set of factors. A combination of color measurement systems in transmittance and reflectance modes need to be used for such materials, along with the techniques for minimizing the artifacts based on surface texture and particle sizes...

OBJECTIVE: Prior research has revealed potential effects of sports expertise and physical exercise on cognition, though there is limited research examining their effects on the "hot," emotional-processing aspects of executive functioning (e.g., valence and reward processing important for decision-making). The present study aimed to address this gap by examining event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during a reward-processing task in athletes versus non-athletes, while also investigating if sport expertise and exercise influence this electrophysiological response...

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Tibetan Patent Medicines (TPMs) have unique advantages in the treatment of ischemic stroke (IS) with the features of multi-component, multi-channel, and multi-target. In China, five TPMs mainly consisting of precious medicinal materials such as gold, pearls, and agate are widely utilized to treat IS and have achieved good results according to the current clinical practice. AIM OF THE STUDY: To systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of the five TPMs orally in treating IS and provide a reference for future clinical application and research...

The placenta requires high levels of ATP to maintain a metabolically active state throughout gestation. The creatine (Cr)-creatine kinase (CK)-phosphocreatine (PCr) system is known to buffer ATP levels; however, the role(s) Cr-CK-PCr system plays in uterine and placental metabolism throughout gestation is poorly understood. In this study, Suffolk ewes were ovariohysterectomized on Days 30, 50, 70, 90, 110 and 125 of gestation (n = 3-5 ewes/per day, except n = 2 on Day 50) and uterine and placental tissues subjected to analyses to measure metabolites, mRNAs, and proteins related to the Cr-CK-PCr system...

Currently, the differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) management is shifted toward a tailored approach based on the estimated risks of recurrence and disease-specific mortality. While the current recommendations on the management of metastatic and progressive DTC are clear and unambiguous, the management of slowly progressive or indeterminate disease varies according to different centers and different physicians. In this context, active surveillance (AS) becomes the main tool for clinicians, allowing them to plan a personalized therapeutic strategy, based on the risk of an unfavorable prognosis, and to avoid unnecessary treatment...

The direct synthesis of dimethyl ether (DME) via CO2 hydrogenation in a single step was studied using an improved class of bifunctional catalysts in a fixed bed reactor ( T R : 210-270 °C; 40 bar; gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) 19,800 NL kgcat -1 h-1 ; ratio CO2 /H2 /N2 3:9:2). The competitive bifunctional catalysts tested in here consist of a surface-basic copper/zinc oxide/zirconia (CZZ) methanol-producing part and a variable surface-acidic methanol dehydration part and were tested in overall 45 combinations...

Sustainable practices that reduce food loss are essential for enhancing global food security. We report a 'wrap and plant' seed treatment platform to protect crops from soil-borne pathogens. Developed from the abundantly available wastes of banana harvest and recycled old, corrugated cardboard boxes via chemical-free pulping, these paper-like biodegradable seed wraps exhibit tunable integrity and bioavailability of loaded moieties. These wraps were used for nematode control on yam (Dioscorea cayenensis-rotundata) seed pieces in Benin, a major producer of this staple crop in the sub-Saharan African 'yam belt'...

OBJECTIVE: To report the experience of a single center for the selection of radioiodine-refractory (RAIR) thyroid cancer patients (RAIR-TC) who needed tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKIs) treatment. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We evaluated all features of 279 RAIR-TC patients both at the time of diagnosis and at the RAIR diagnosis. RESULTS: Ninety-nine patients received indication to TKIs (Group A), while 180 remained under active surveillance (Group B)...

Metabolic causes such as altered bioenergetics and amino acid metabolism may play a major role in Long COVID. Renal-metabolic regulation is an integral part of these pathways but has not been systematically or routinely investigated in Long COVID. Here we discuss the biochemistry of renal tubular injury as it may contribute to Long COVID symptoms. We propose three potential mechanisms that could be involved in Long COVID namely creatine phosphate metabolism, un-reclaimed glomerular filtrate and COVID specific proximal tubule cells (PTC) injury-a tryptophan paradigm...

BACKGROUND: The massive vaccination campaign against COVID-19 has granted a high level of protection against the severe forms of the disease at the price of some mild adverse events. OBJECTIVE: To underline that COVID-19 vaccination can induce a transient enlargement of lymph-node metastases in differentiated thyroid cancer patients. CASE PRESENTATION: We describe the clinical, laboratory, and imaging features of a 60-year-old woman affected by paratracheal lymph-node relapse of Hurtle Cell Carcinoma who came to our attention after full COVID-19 vaccination because of neck swelling and pain...

The relevance of thyroid autoimmunity to the prognosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma is still unsettled. We decided to investigate the impact of thyroid autoimmunity on the prognosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma and the handling of TgAbs. We evaluated the clinical course of a large group of patients according to the presence (PTC-LT) or absence (PTC) of lymphocytic thyroiditis at histology. We studied 194 consecutive patients with a diagnosis of PTC and treated them with total thyroidectomy plus ¹³¹I ablation between 2007 and 2009...

Identifying protein-protein interaction (PPI) site is an important step in understanding biological activity, apprehending pathological mechanism and designing novel drugs. Developing reliable computational methods for predicting PPI site as screening tools contributes to reduce lots of time and expensive costs for conventional experiments, but how to improve the accuracy is still challenging. We propose a PPI site predictor, called Augmented Graph Attention Network Protein-Protein Interacting Site (AGAT-PPIS), based on AGAT with initial residual and identity mapping, in which eight AGAT layers are connected to mine node embedding representation deeply...

We aimed to investigate whether a novel technique of human amniotic membrane (HAM) preparation that mimics the crypts in the limbus enhances the number of progenitor cells cultured ex vivo. The HAMs were sutured on polyester membrane (1) standardly, to obtain a flat HAM surface, or (2) loosely, achieving the radial folding to mimic crypts in the limbus. Immunohistochemistry was used to demonstrate a higher number of cells positive for progenitor markers p63α (37.56 ± 3.34% vs. 62.53 ± 3.32%, p = 0...

PURPOSE: Advanced thyroid cancer patients treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) can develop several adverse events (AEs), including adrenal insufficiency (AI). METHODS: We studied 55 patients treated with TKI for radioiodine-refractory or medullary thyroid cancer. The adrenal function was evaluated during follow-up by performing serum basal ACTH, and basal and ACTH-stimulated cortisol. RESULTS: Twenty-nine/55 (52.7%) patients developed subclinical AI during TKI treatment as demonstrated by a blunted cortisol response to ACTH stimulation...

The quantitative evaluation of the drug mixing condition was conducted for application in the forensic discrimination of drug powders using micro Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Bromhexine hydrochloride (BHCl) and p -hydroxybenzoic acid (PHBA) were used as the simulated drug and additive, respectively. Equal masses of two chemicals were (1) simply mixed, (2) homogenized using agate mortar, or (3) dissolved in methanol and dried, and then (4) homogenized using agate mortar. The mixed powders dispersed on BaF2 plates were subjected to mapping analysis of micro FT-IR spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation (SR) or globar light in transmission mode with aperture sizes of 2...

The isolation of high-quality plant genomic DNA is a major prerequisite in many plant biomolecular analyses involving nucleic acid amplification. Conventional plant cell lysis and DNA extraction methods involve lengthy sample preparation procedures that often require large amounts of sample and chemicals, high temperatures and multiple liquid transfer steps which can introduce challenges for high throughput applications. In this study, a simple, rapid, miniaturized ionic liquid (IL)-based extraction method was developed for the isolation of genomic DNA from milligram fragments of Arabidopsis thaliana plant tissue...