Anesthesia and surgery are associated with perioperative neurocognitive disorders (PND). Dexmedetomidine is known to improve PND in rats; however, little is known about the mechanisms. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to resection of the hepatic apex under propofol anesthesia to clinically mimic human abdominal surgery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLipopolysaccharide (LPS) from gram-negative bacteria was found to be involved in the decrease in laying performance in goose flocks with high stocking density during summer months. LPS injection delayed the increase in the laying rate and altered hierarchical follicle morphology. While there is evidence that LPS exerts suppressive effects on goose reproduction, the time course effects of LPS on the hypothalamus-pituitary-ovary (HPG) axis remain elusive.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The long non-coding RNA plays an important role in inflammation and autoimmune diseases. The aim of this study is to screen and identify abnormally expressed lncRNAs in peripheral blood neutrophils of SLE patients as novel biomarkers and to explore the relationship between lncRNAs levels and clinical features, disease activity and organ damage.
Methods: RNA-seq technology was used to screen differentially expressed lncRNAs in neutrophils from SLE patients and healthy donors.
Osteolysis around the prosthesis and subsequent aseptic loosening are the main causes of prosthesis failure. Inflammation due to wear particles and osteoclast activation are the key factors in osteolysis and are also potential targets for the treatment of osteolysis. However, it is not clear whether puerarin can inhibit chronic inflammation and alleviate osteolysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSystemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complex autoimmune disease characterized by augmented type I interferon signaling. High-throughput technologies have identified plenty of SLE susceptibility single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) yet the exact roles of most of them are still unknown. Functional studies are principally focused on SNPs in the coding regions, with limited attention paid to the SNPs in non-coding regions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo determine inhibition constant (K(i)) of tight-binding inhibitor, the putative method estimated an apparent K(i) from the response of initial rates to total concentrations of the inhibitor considering its depletion during binding for conversion into the true K(i), but was impractical with glutathione S-transferase of sophisticated kinetics. A fluorometric titration assay of dissociation constant (K(d)) was thus proposed. Schistosoma japonicum glutathione S-transferase (SjGST) action on a nonfluorescent divalent pro-inhibitor and glutathione yielded a divalent product in active site to act as a tight-binding inhibitor, whose binding quenched fluorescence of SjGST at 340 nm under the excitation at 280 nm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHomogenous selective assay of albumin (ALB) in clinical sera was tested with 1-anilinonaphthalene-8-sulphonate (ANS) as Förster-resonance-energy-transfer (FRET) acceptor of tryptophan residues and biosensor of ALB. Between the excitation at 280 and 350 nm, the ratio of the fluorescence at 470 nm of free ANS in ethanol was about 1.9 while that of the complexes of ALB and ANS was about 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA fluorometric titration approach was proposed for the calibration of the quantity of monoclonal antibody (mcAb) via the quench of fluorescence of tryptophan residues. It applied to purified mcAbs recognizing tryptophan-deficient epitopes, haptens nonfluorescent at 340 nm under the excitation at 280 nm, or fluorescent haptens bearing excitation valleys nearby 280 nm and excitation peaks nearby 340 nm to serve as Förster-resonance-energy-transfer (FRET) acceptors of tryptophan. Titration probes were epitopes/haptens themselves or conjugates of nonfluorescent haptens or tryptophan-deficient epitopes with FRET acceptors of tryptophan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo characterize streptavidin immobilization on magnetic submicron particles (MSPs), residual streptavidin after magnetic removal of immobilized streptavidin was quantified with N-biotinyl-N'-(1-naphthyl)-ethylenediamine (BNEDA) based on Förster resonance energy transfer. Residual BNEDA after magnetic removal of bound BNEDA was measured by its own fluorescence. Streptavidin was immobilized at about 12 mg per gram of MSPs and easily retained over 50% of its original activity.
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