Aflatoxin B exposure disrupts the intestinal immune function via a soluble epoxide hydrolase-mediated manner.

Aflatoxin B (AFB) contamination in food and feed leads to severe global health problems. Acting as the frontier immunological barrier, the intestinal mucosa is constantly challenged by exposure to foodborne toxins such as AFB via contaminated diets, but the detailed toxic mechanism and endogenous regulators of AFB toxicity are still unclear. Here, we showed that AFB disrupted intestinal immune function by suppressing macrophages, especially M2 macrophages, and antimicrobial peptide-secreting Paneth cells.

Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase Hepatic Deficiency Ameliorates Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease.

Background & Aims: Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is a significant cause of liver-related morbidity and mortality worldwide and with limited therapies. Soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH; Ephx2) is a largely cytosolic enzyme that is highly expressed in the liver and is implicated in hepatic function, but its role in ALD is mostly unexplored.

Methods: To decipher the role of hepatic sEH in ALD, we generated mice with liver-specific sEH disruption (Alb-Cre; Ephx2).

Linguistic Adaptation, Reliability, Validation, and Responsivity of the Chinese Version of Reflux Symptom Index.

Objectives: Currently, there is no cost-effective tool available to diagnose laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) in the developing country of China. The aim of this study was to achieve a linguistic adaptation of the Chinese version of the Reflux Symptom Index (RSI-CH).

Study Design: A nonrandomized, controlled, prospective trial.

Evidence for postinitiation regulation of mRNA biogenesis in tuberculosis.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection alters macrophage gene expression and macrophage response to IFN-γ, a critical host defense cytokine. However, regulation of these changes is poorly understood. We report discordance of changes in nascent transcript and total nuclear RNA abundance for the transcription factors STAT1 and IRF1, together with lack of effect on their RNA half-lives, in human THP-1 cells infected with M.

Targeting NOX enzymes in pulmonary fibrosis.

Oxidative stress has been associated with a number of human fibrotic diseases, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Oxidative stress is most often defined as an imbalance between the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in excess of the capacity of cells/tissues to detoxify or scavenge them. Additionally, the regulated production of ROS participates in cellular signaling.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis sigma factor E regulon modulates the host inflammatory response.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis survives in macrophages and usually subverts the bactericidal mechanisms of these phagocytes. The understanding of this host-pathogen interaction is relevant for the development of new treatments for tuberculosis. The adaptation of M.

Noise filtering and nonparametric analysis of microarray data underscores discriminating markers of oral, prostate, lung, ovarian and breast cancer.

Background: A major goal of cancer research is to identify discrete biomarkers that specifically characterize a given malignancy. These markers are useful in diagnosis, may identify potential targets for drug development, and can aid in evaluating treatment efficacy and predicting patient outcome. Microarray technology has enabled marker discovery from human cells by permitting measurement of steady-state mRNA levels derived from thousands of genes.

ERP correlates of form and rhyme letter tasks in impaired reading children: a critical evaluation.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were obtained from 15 electrode sites in six average and six impaired reading children, 12 years of age, during visual letter discrimination tasks. Subjects responded to target letters with an enclosed area in the form task and to letters that rhymed with "e" in the rhyme task. Response accuracy was similar between the groups.