Inhibition Kinetics of 16 Organophosphorus Pesticides or Their Active Metabolites on Erythrocyte Acetylcholinesterase From Humans and Rats.

Inhibition kinetics assays were conducted with 16 commercial organophosphate (OP) pesticides or their metabolites on acetylcholinesterase (AChE) in erythrocyte "ghost" preparations from 18 individual humans (both sexes; adults, juveniles, and cord blood samples; mixed races/ethnicities) and pooled samples from adult rats (both sexes). A well-established spectrophotometric assay using acetylthiocholine as substrate and a chromogen was employed. The kinetic parameters bimolecular rate constant (ki), dissociation constant (KI), and phosphorylation constant (kp) were calculated for each compound.

Exposure to p,p'-DDE Alters Macrophage Reactivity and Increases Macrophage Numbers in Adipose Stromal Vascular Fraction.

Exposure to p,p'-DDE (DDE), the main bioaccumulative metabolite of the organochlorine insecticide p,p'-DDT, is associated with a higher prevalence of obesity, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and immunomodulation. The present study was carried out to determine whether DDE perturbs adipose tissue homeostasis through modulation of macrophage function. Treatment with DDE or a cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor prior to lipopolysaccharide exposure significantly decreased production of prostaglandins (PG) from J774a.

The effect of in vitro dieldrin exposure on the rat paraoxonase 1 (pon1) promoter.

The legacy organochlorine insecticide, dieldrin, is still found in soil and accumulation in individuals is possible. Paraoxonase 1 hydrolyzes the oxon metabolites of organophosphorus insecticides, as well as other substrates. Putative binding sites for pregnane X receptor (PXR) exist in the paraoxonase promoter, and studies have indicated that dieldrin can activate PXR-regulated gene expression.

A novel interface for interactive exploration of DTI fibers.

Visual exploration is essential to the visualization and analysis of densely sampled 3D DTI fibers in biological specimens, due to the high geometric, spatial, and anatomical complexity of fiber tracts. Previous methods for DTI fiber visualization use zooming, color-mapping, selection, and abstraction to deliver the characteristics of the fibers. However, these schemes mainly focus on the optimization of visualization in the 3D space where cluttering and occlusion make grasping even a few thousand fibers difficult.

Volume illustration of muscle from diffusion tensor images.

Medical illustration has demonstrated its effectiveness to depict salient anatomical features while hiding the irrelevant details. Current solutions are ineffective for visualizing fibrous structures such as muscle, because typical datasets (CT or MRI) do not contain directional details. In this paper, we introduce a new muscle illustration approach that leverages diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data and example-based texture synthesis techniques.