Low apolipoprotein A1 and high apolipoprotein B levels indicate specific lipid changes in treatment naïve early psoriatic arthritis.

Objectives: To investigate serum lipid profile in early, treatment-naïve psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and to determine whether changes in classical lipids or apolipoproteins are specific to PsA.

Methods: Total cholesterol, non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDL-c), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), HDL-c, triglycerides, apolipoprotein B (ApoB) and apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA1) were compared in newly diagnosed untreated PsA patients (n=75) to sex- and age-matched controls (healthy control (HC)) (n=61) and early untreated rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients (n=50).

Results: Among classical lipid measurements, HDL-c levels were lower in PsA than in HC and RA (df 2, χ10, p=0.

Molecular Genetic Factors of Risk Stratification of Lymph Node Metastasis in Endometrial Carcinoma.

Background: According to epidemiological studies, endometrial carcinoma is one of the most frequently diagnosed malignancies of the female reproductive system, with an increasing incidence. Currently, the risk stratification of this neoplasm takes into account the stage, degree of tumor differentiation, histological type and depth of myometrial invasion. Since the publication of the last International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) staging system for endometrial cancer in 2009, numerous reports have appeared on the molecular characteristics of different types of endometrial carcinoma.

Unraveling Oxygen Vacancies Effect on Chemical Composition, Electronic Structure and Optical Properties of Eu Doped SnO.

The influence of Eu doping (0.5, 1 and 2 mol.%) and annealing in an oxygen-deficient atmosphere on the structure and optical properties of SnO nanoparticles were investigated in relation to electronic structure.

Merocyanines: Electronic Structure and Spectroscopy in Solutions, Solid State, and Gas Phase.

Merocyanines, owing to their readily tunable electronic structure, are arguably the most versatile functional dyes, with ample opportunities for tailored design via variations of both the donor/acceptor (D/A) end groups and π-conjugated polymethine chain. A plethora of spectral properties, such as strong solvatochromism, high polarizability and hyperpolarizabilities, and sensitizing capacity, motivates extensive studies for their applications in light-converting materials for optoelectronics, nonlinear optics, optical storage, fluorescent probes, etc. Evidently, an understanding of the intrinsic structure-property relationships is a prerequisite for the successful design of functional dyes.

Enhanced thermal stability enables human mismatch-specific thymine-DNA glycosylase to catalyse futile DNA repair.

Human thymine-DNA glycosylase (TDG) excises T mispaired with G in a CpG context to initiate the base excision repair (BER) pathway. TDG is also involved in epigenetic regulation of gene expression by participating in active DNA demethylation. Here we demonstrate that under extended incubation time the full-length TDG (TDGFL), but neither its isolated catalytic domain (TDGcat) nor methyl-CpG binding domain-containing protein 4 (MBD4) DNA glycosylase, exhibits significant excision activity towards T and C in regular non-damaged DNA duplex in TpG/CpA and CpG/CpG contexts.

An Insight into the Mechanism of DNA Cleavage by DNA Endonuclease from the Hyperthermophilic Archaeon .

Hyperthermophilic archaea such as survive under very aggressive environmental conditions by occupying niches inaccessible to representatives of other domains of life. The ability to survive such severe living conditions must be ensured by extraordinarily efficient mechanisms of DNA processing, including repair. Therefore, in this study, we compared kinetics of conformational changes of DNA Endonuclease Q from during its interaction with various DNA substrates containing an analog of an apurinic/apyrimidinic site (F-site), hypoxanthine, uracil, 5,6-dihydrouracil, the α-anomer of adenosine, or 1,-ethenoadenosine.

Indopolycarbocyanine dyes as perspective analytical reagents for spectrophotometric determination of nitrite by radical nitration.

A spectrophotometric method for the quantitative determination of nitrite was developed, based on the radical nitration of indopolycarbocyanine dyes in the presence of 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-oxyl (TEMPO). The rate of the reaction of the studied dyes with nitrite increases with the lengthening of the polymethine chain and the presence of hydrophilic sulfo groups in the side chain of the dye. TEMPO acts as a co-reagent, significantly accelerating the reaction rate and increasing the sensitivity of nitrite determination.

Cerastecins inhibit membrane lipooligosaccharide transport in drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii.

Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infections have limited treatment options. Synthesis, transport and placement of lipopolysaccharide or lipooligosaccharide (LOS) in the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria are important for bacterial virulence and survival. Here we describe the cerastecins, inhibitors of the A.

Luminescence Properties of ZrO: Ti Ceramics Irradiated with Electrons and High-Energy Xe Ions.

Samples of ZrO ceramics with different concentrations of impurity titanium ions were synthesized by mixing zirconium and titanium oxide powders in different mass ratios. The X-ray diffraction analysis was used to determine the phase composition, lattice parameters, and crystallite size of the ceramics with varying dopant concentrations. Upon irradiation of the samples with 220 MeV Xe ions to a fluence of 10 ions/cm, a decrease in the intensity of the pulsed cathodoluminescence band at 2.

Design and Photonics of Merocyanine Dyes.

Merocyanines, thanks to their easily adjustable electronic structure, appear to be the most versatile and promising functional dyes. Their D-π-A framework offers ample opportunities for custom design through variations in both donor/acceptor end-groups and the π-conjugated polymethine chain, and leads to a broad range of practical properties, including noticeable solvatochromism, high polarizability/hyperpolarizabilities, and the ability to sensitize various physicochemical processes. Accordingly, merocyanines are applied and extensively studied in various fields, such as light-converting materials for optoelectronics, nonlinear optics, optical storage, solar cells, fluorescent probes, and antitumor agents in photodynamic therapy.

Identification, structural, and biophysical characterization of a positive modulator of human Kv3.1 channels.

Voltage-gated potassium channels (Kv) are tetrameric membrane proteins that provide a highly selective pathway for potassium ions (K) to diffuse across a hydrophobic cell membrane. These unique voltage-gated cation channels detect changes in membrane potential and, upon activation, help to return the depolarized cell to a resting state during the repolarization stage of each action potential. The Kv3 family of potassium channels is characterized by a high activation potential and rapid kinetics, which play a crucial role for the fast-spiking neuronal phenotype.

Coordination between human DNA polymerase β and apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 in the course of DNA repair.

Coordination of enzymatic activities in the course of base excision repair (BER) is essential to ensure complete repair of damaged bases. Two major mechanisms underlying the coordination of BER are known today: the "passing the baton" model and a model of preassembled stable multiprotein repair complexes called "repairosomes." In this work, we aimed to elucidate the coordination between human apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) endonuclease APE1 and DNA polymerase Polβ in BER through studying an impact of APE1 on Polβ-catalyzed nucleotide incorporation into different model substrates that mimic different single-strand break (SSB) intermediates arising along the BER pathway.

Comorbidities in Early Psoriatic Arthritis: Data From the Metabolic Disturbances in Psoriatic Arthritis Cohort Study.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of comorbidities and cardiovascular (CV) risk factors (RFs) in treatment-naive patients with early psoriatic arthritis (ePsA) and to identify factors that contribute to metabolic burden in ePsA.

Methods: This was an observational longitudinal multicenter cohort study. Clinical and demographic characteristics, CV RFs, and comorbidities were compared in patients newly diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and sex- and age-matched controls.

Treatment of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes with Dichromic Acid: Oxidation and Appearance of Intercalation.

This work is dedicated to the study of the treatment of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with dichromic acid. The dichromic acid was formed by dissolving different concentrations of CrO in water. The effect of the concentration of dichromic acid on the change in texture characteristics, elemental composition, defectiveness, graphitization degree, and surface chemistry of MWCNTs was investigated using various analytical techniques, such as transmission electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

Influence of plasmons on the luminescence properties of solvatochromic merocyanine dyes with different solvatochromism.

The effect of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of a system consisting of a highly dipolar merocyanine dye and a silver nanoparticle (NP) was studied experimentally and theoretically. A theoretical model for estimating the fluorescence quantum yield () using quantum chemical calculations of intramolecular and intermolecular electronic transition rate constants was developed. Calculations show that the main deactivation channels of the lowest excited singlet state of the studied merocyanines are internal conversion ((S → S)) and fluorescence ((S → S)).

Individual Contributions of Amido Acid Residues Tyr122, Ile168, and Asp173 to the Activity and Substrate Specificity of Human DNA Dioxygenase ABH2.

Human Fe(II)/α-ketoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase ABH2 plays a crucial role in the direct reversal repair of nonbulky alkyl lesions in DNA nucleobases, e.g., N-methyladenine (mA), N-methylcytosine (mC), and some etheno derivatives.

Novel Red Phosphor of Gd, Sm co-Activated AgGdSmEu☐WO Scheelites for LED Lighting.

Gd and Sm co-activation, the effect of cation substitutions and the creation of cation vacancies in the scheelite-type framework are investigated as factors influencing luminescence properties. AgGdSmEu☐WO ( = 0.50, 0.

Approaches to the design of efficient and stable catalysts for biofuel reforming into syngas: doping the mesoporous MgAlO support with transition metal cations.

The mesoporous MgAlO support is promising for the design of efficient and stable to coking catalysts for natural gas and biofuel reforming into syngas. This work aims at doping this support with transition metal cations (Fe, Cr, Ti) to prevent the incorporation of Ni and rare-earth cations (Pr, Ce, Zr), loaded by impregnation, into its lattice along with providing additional sites for CO activation required to prevent coking. Doped MgAlMeO (Me = Fe, Ti, Cr) mesoporous supports prepared by the one-pot evaporation-induced self-assembly method with Pluronic P123 triblock copolymers were single-phase spinels.

The Impact of Human DNA Glycosylases on the Activity of DNA Polymerase β toward Various Base Excision Repair Intermediates.

Base excision repair (BER) is one of the important systems for the maintenance of genome stability via repair of DNA lesions. BER is a multistep process involving a number of enzymes, including damage-specific DNA glycosylases, apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) endonuclease 1, DNA polymerase β, and DNA ligase. Coordination of BER is implemented by multiple protein-protein interactions between BER participants.

Abasic site-peptide cross-links are blocking lesions repaired by AP endonucleases.

Apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites are abundant DNA lesions arising from spontaneous hydrolysis of the N-glycosidic bond and as base excision repair (BER) intermediates. AP sites and their derivatives readily trap DNA-bound proteins, resulting in DNA-protein cross-links. Those are subject to proteolysis but the fate of the resulting AP-peptide cross-links (APPXLs) is unclear.

Extent of axial damage in psoriatic arthritis and spondyloarthritis: comparative data from the BEPAS and (Be-)GIANT multicentre cohorts.

Background: To examine radiographic axial damage of the sacroiliac joints and spine in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and spondyloarthritis (SpA) in private and academic Belgian practices.

Methods: Patients with PsA with clinical diagnosis of PsA and fulfilling the Classification Criteria for Psoriatic Arthritis from the prospective Belgian Epidemiological Psoriatic Arthritis Study and patients with SpA fulfilling the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society classification criteria for SpA originate from the Ghent and BelGian Inflammatory Arthritis and spoNdylitis cohorTs were included in this study. Baseline pelvic and spinal radiographs were analysed by two calibrated readers.