Herbs and spices are some of the most vulnerable products in terms of fraud and adulteration in the food sector. Although standard analytical methods are accurate for quality control of specific lead or marker compounds, they cannot accurately assess the entire species composition of many marketed products. Complementary analytical approaches are thus often used for comprehensive screening of herbs and spices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) are essential in vertebrate adaptive immunity, and they are highly diverse and duplicated in many lineages. While it is widely established that pathogen-mediated selection maintains MHC diversity through balancing selection, the role of mate choice in shaping MHC diversity is debated. Here, we investigate female mating preferences for MHC class II (MHCII) in the bluethroat (Luscinia svecica), a passerine bird with high levels of extra-pair paternity and extremely duplicated MHCII.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAyurveda is one of the oldest systems of medicine in the world, but the growing commercial interest in Ayurveda based products has increased the incentive for adulteration and substitution within this herbal market. Fraudulent practices such as the use of undeclared fillers and use of other species of inferior quality is driven both by the increased as well as insufficient supply capacity of especially wild plant species. Developing novel strategies to exhaustively assess and monitor both the quality of raw materials and final marketed herbal products is a challenge in herbal pharmacovigilance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenotyping of classical major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes is challenging when they are hypervariable and occur in multiple copies. In this study, we used several different approaches to genotype the moderately variable MHC class I exon 3 (MHCIe3) and the highly polymorphic MHC class II exon 2 (MHCIIβe2) in the bluethroat (). Two family groups (eight individuals) were sequenced in replicates at both markers using Ion Torrent technology with both a single- and a dual-indexed primer structure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrevious studies based on single mitochondrial markers have shown that the common raven (Corvus corax) consists of two highly diverged lineages that are hypothesised to have undergone speciation reversal upon secondary contact. Furthermore, common ravens are paraphyletic with respect to the Chihuahuan raven (C. cryptoleucus) based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNatural killer T (NKT) cells are activated by lipid antigens presented by CD1d molecules and represent a major lymphocyte subset of the liver. NODc3c4 mice spontaneously develop biliary inflammation in extra- and intrahepatic bile ducts. We demonstrated by flow cytometry that invariant NKT (iNKT) cells were more abundant in the thymus, spleen, and liver of NODc3c4 mice compared to NOD mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Gut microbiota could influence gut, as well as hepatic and biliary immune responses. We therefore thoroughly characterised the gut microbiota in primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) compared with healthy controls (HC) and patients with ulcerative colitis without liver disease.
Design: We prospectively collected 543 stool samples.
Multiple immune-related genes are encoded in the HLA complex on chromosome 6p21. The 8.1 ancestral haplotype (AH8.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: Allelic variants of fucosyltransferases 2 and 3 (FUT2/3) influence serum levels of CA19-9, a screening parameter commonly used for detection of biliary malignancy in PSC. We aimed at improving diagnostic accuracy of CA19-9 by determining the impact of FUT2/3 genotypes.
Methods: CA19-9 levels were measured in 433 PSC patients, 41 of whom had biliary malignancy.
Background: Post-operative liver regeneration may contribute to tumor recurrence. There is a theoretical need for an adjuvant therapy that can suppress tumor growth without adversely affecting post-operative liver regeneration.
Objective: To evaluate the effect of RAF inhibitor Sorafenib on cell viability and proliferation of hepatoma cells and hepatocytes in vitro and in an in vivo rat model.