mass spec

Heparan sulfate (HS) glycosaminoglycans are widely expressed on the mammalian cell surfaces and extracellular matrices and play important roles in a variety of cell functions. Studies on the structure-activity relationships of HS have long been hampered by the challenges in obtaining chemically defined HS structures with unique sulfation patterns. Here, we report a new approach to HS glycomimetics based on iterative assembly of clickable disaccharide building blocks that mimic the disaccharide repeating units of native HS...

Metabolic homeostasis balances the production and consumption of energetic molecules to maintain active, healthy cells. Cellular stress, which disrupts metabolism and leads to the loss of cellular homeostasis, is important in age-related diseases. We focus here on the role of organelle dysfunction in age-related diseases, including the roles of energy deficiencies, mitochondrial dysfunction, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, changes in metabolic flux in aging (e.g., Ca2+ and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), and alterations in the endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria contact sites that regulate the trafficking of metabolites...

SCOPE: Polymethoxylated flavones (PMFs) are a group of natural compounds known to display a wide array of beneficial effects to promote physiological fitness. Recent studies revealed circadian clocks as an important cellular mechanism mediating preventive efficacy of the major PMF Nobiletin against metabolic disorders. Sudachitin is a PMF enriched in Citrus sudachi, and its functions and mechanism of action are poorly understood. METHODS AND RESULTS: Using circadian reporter cells, we showed that Sudachitin modulated circadian amplitude and period of Bmal1 promoter-driven reporter rhythms, and real-time qPCR analysis showed that Sudachitin altered expression of core clock genes, notably Bmal1, at both transcript and protein levels...

Dielectric spectroscopy (DS) is extremely powerful to study molecular dynamics, be-cause of the very broad frequency range. Often multiple processes superimpose resulting in spec-tra that expand over several orders of magnitude, with some of the contributions partially hidden. For illustration, we selected two examples, (i) normal mode of high molar mass polymers partial-ly hidden by conductivity and polarization and (ii) contour length fluctuations partially hidden by reptation using the well-studied polyisoprene melts as example...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fourth most common cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide and 80%-90% of HCC develops in patients that have underlying cirrhosis. Better methods of surveillance are needed to increase early detection of HCC and the proportion of patients that can be offered curative therapies. Recent work in novel mass spec-based methods for glycomic and glycopeptide analysis for discovery and confirmation of markers for early detection of HCC versus cirrhosis is reviewed in this chapter...

UNLABELLED: Bacterial RNP bodies (BR-bodies) are non membrane-bound structures that facilitate mRNA decay by concentrating mRNA substrates with RNase E and the associated RNA degradosome machinery. However, the full complement of proteins enriched in BR-bodies has not been defined. Here we define the protein substrates of BR-bodies through enrichment of the bodies followed by liquid chromatography-mass spec (LC-MS) proteomic analysis. We found 111 BR-body enriched proteins, including many RNA binding proteins, many of which are also recruited directly to in vitro reconstituted RNase E droplets, suggesting BR-bodies are more complex than previously assumed...

A numerical simulation method is used to optimize the removal of sand from a helicopter engine particle separator. First, the classic configuration of a particle separator based on the literature is simulated using two boundary conditions. The results show that the boundary conditions for the total pressure inlet and mass flow outlet are much more closely aligned with the experimental environment. By modifying the material at the front of the shroud, the separation efficiencies of coarse Arizona road dust (AC-Coarse) and MIL-E-5007C (C-Spec) can be improved to 93...

Chest X-ray (CXR) imaging is a low-cost, easy-to-use imaging alternative that can be used to diagnose/screen pulmonary abnormalities due to infectious diseaseX: Covid-19, Pneumonia and Tuberculosis (TB). Not limited to binary decisions (with respect to healthy cases) that are reported in the state-of-the-art literature, we also consider non-healthy CXR screening using a lightweight deep neural network (DNN) with a reduced number of epochs and parameters. On three diverse publicly accessible and fully categorized datasets, for non-healthy versus healthy CXR screening, the proposed DNN produced the following accuracies: 99...

The intraflagellar transport (IFT) complex transports components between the cytoplasm and the ciliary tip. Two studies now report on the atomic structure of IFT-B, the core of IFT, using cutting-edge technology, such as cross-linking mass spectrometry (MS), cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) and Alphafold2-enabled AI-based folding prediction. The 3D structure of IFT-B reveals how the 15 component proteins are arranged to stabilize this gigantic complex and suggests a dynamic interplay between the proteins.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of compound Gaoziban tablet (, CGZBT) on depression, and to investigate the underlying mechanism. METHODS: The components of CGZBT were analysed by high-performance liquid chromatography. Then, we assessed the effects of varying doses of CGZBT on an established chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) model in rats. Whether animals were depressed was evaluated by sucrose preference test, open field test and forced swimming test...

Background: Ectopic thyroid gland is an uncommon disorder in which thyroid tissue is located along the line of migration, dual ectopic thyroid is a rare entity where parts of the gland are located in two different locations. Case: A 14-year-old girl presented with dysphagia and odynophagia of six years duration with worsening of two weeks. Physical exam showed tongue base mass. Imaging revealed two enhancing masses at the tongue base and inferior to the hyoid bone...

Background: Headache is one of the most common complaints that lead the patient to seek medical advice however only a few patients with recurrent headaches have a secondary cause like intracranial mass. The appropriate utilization of neuroimaging is important to rule-out secondary cause of headache in resource-limited regions. The objective of this study is to describe the patterns of MRI findings in the evaluation of patients with chronic headache and to determine the clinical variables helpful in identifying patients with intracranial lesions...

The Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), established in 2001, was the first autonomous institution of Makerere University set up as an example of what self-governing institutes can do in transforming the academic environment to become a rapidly progressive University addressing the needs of society This paper describes the success factors and lessons learned in development of sustainable centers of excellence to prepare academic institutions to respond appropriately to current and future challenges to global health...

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and exosomes, both released from the primary tumor into peripheral blood, are a promising source of cancer biomarkers. They are detectable in the blood and carry a large diversity of biological molecules, which can be used for the diagnosis and monitoring of minimally invasive cancers. However, due to their intrinsic differences in counts, size, and molecular contents, studies have focused on only one type of vesicle. Herein, we have developed an integrated system to sequentially isolate CTCs and exosomes from a single patient blood sample for further profiling and analysis...

Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) can thermochemically transform sewage sludge into a biocrude with high energy content, high chemical complexity, and high O and N content. The development of an efficient upgrading process for such complex feedstocks necessitates detailed knowledge of the molecular composition and the specific heteroatom-containing compounds to understand and optimize the hydrotreating reactions. In this study, we present the upgrading of sewage sludge-derived HTL biocrude via a two-stage hydrotreatment process and perform advanced chemical characterization of the feedstock, intermediate, and final upgraded products with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS)...

Intestinal bacteria can metabolize polyphenols into highly bioavailable derivatives, which provide potential health-promoting effects to the host. However, the metabolic pathways and related products in this process are still largely unclear. Polyphenols are generally characterized by the presence of many phenolic structural units, which makes it possible to explore correlations among compounds based on similar molecular networks. In this study, we developed a standard-oriented/database-assisted molecular networking (SODA-MN) method for iterative compound annotation analysis to explore the metabolic profiles of polyphenol-rich black raspberry extract metabolized by representative gut bacteria...

BACKGROUND: An impeccable female meiotic prophase is critical for producing a high-quality oocyte and, ultimately, a healthy newborn. SYCP3 is a key component of the synaptonemal complex regulating meiotic homologous recombination. However, what regulates SYCP3 stability is unknown. METHODS: Fertility assays, follicle counting, meiotic prophase stage (leptotene, zygotene, pachytene and diplotene) analysis and live imaging were employed to examine how FBXW24 knockout (KO) affect female fertility, follicle reserve, oocyte quality, meiotic prophase progression of female germ cells, and meiosis of oocytes...

Surfactant-polyelectrolyte complexes (SPECs) based on lecithin and sodium caseinate were produced and the effects of such binding on the physical, chemical and emulsifying properties were evaluated and compared with the two ingredients in isolation. Negative, neutral, and positive charged SPECs were obtained. Zeta potential values and size distributions of the SPECs were dependent on the mass ratio between compounds. Electrostatic association decreased the polydispersity index in comparison with pure compounds solutions...

BACKGROUND: The AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a central regulator of energy homeostasis, with deregulation leading to cancer and other diseases. However, how this pathway is dysregulated in cancer has not been well clarified. METHODS: Using a tandem affinity purification/mass-spec technique and biochemical analyses, we identified tumor protein D52 (TPD52) as an AMPKα-interacting molecule. To explore the biological effects of TPD52 in cancers, we conducted biochemical and metabolic assays in vitro and in vivo with cancer cells and TPD52 transgenic mice...

Soil nitrogen (N) transformations constrain terrestrial net primary productivity and are driven by the activity of soil microorganisms. Free-living N fixation (FLNF) is an important soil N transformation and key N input to terrestrial systems, but the forms of N contributed to soil by FLNF are poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, a focus on microorganisms and microbial scale processes is needed that links N-fixing bacteria and their contributed N sources to FLNF process rates. However, studying the activity of soil microorganisms in situ poses inherent challenges, including differences in sampling scale between microorganism and process rates, which can be addressed with culture-based studies and an emphasis on microbial-scale measurements...