Rapid Screening of New Psychoactive Substances Using pDART-QqQ-MS.

Drug abuse is a severe social problem worldwide. Particularly, the issue of new psychoactive substances (NPSs) have increasingly emerged. NPSs are structural or functional analogs of traditional illicit drugs, such as cocaine, cannabis, and amphetamine; these molecules provide the same or more severe neurological effects.

Proteomic Profiling of Chemotherapy Responses in FOLFOX-Resistant Colorectal Cancer Cells.

Chemoresistance mechanisms of colorectal cancer remain largely elusive. We aim to compare the difference of chemotherapy responses between FOLFOX-resistant and wild-type colorectal cancer cells by proteomic profiling to suggest novel treatment targets. FOLFOX-resistant colorectal cancer cells DLD1-R and HCT116-R were developed by chronic exposure to progressive FOLFOX doses.

An automated workflow on data processing (AutoDP) for semiquantitative analysis of urine organic acids with GC-MS to facilitate diagnosis of inborn errors of metabolism.

Determination of urine organic acids (UOAs) is essential to understand the disease progress of inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) and often relies on GC-MS analysis. However, the efficiency of analytical reports is sometimes restricted by data processing due to labor-intensive work if no proper tool is employed. Herein, we present a simple and rapid workflow with an R-based script for automated data processing (AutoDP) of GC-MS raw files to quantitatively analyze essential UOAs.

Development of the dried blood spot preparation protocol for comprehensive evaluation of the hematocrit effect.

The application of dried blood spots (DBS) has gradually increased in different fields because of its several advantages. The hematocrit (Hct) effect is one major analytical challenge that may affect the quantification accuracy of DBS samples and should be investigated when developing a novel DBS method. However, previous studies usually overlooked the Hct-related distribution bias when evaluating the Hct effect.

Defective determination of synthetic cathinones in blood for forensic investigation.

Antemortem specimens are sometimes the sole sources available for forensic investigation, and samples collected in nonideal ways are inevitably employed to achieve toxicological analysis. It is essential to assess the effects of blood collection tubes on the recoveries of emerging synthetic cathinones (SC) to estimate actual drug concentrations, and no such systematic investigations have been previously carried out. Seventy-one SC with various LogP values were employed to examine commonly used blood collection tubes, including plasma tubes, serum tubes and gel-containing tubes in recoveries which determined by a reliable LC-MS/MS method.

Single-Step Fabrication of Longtail Glasswing Butterfly-Inspired Omnidirectional Antireflective Structures.

Most bio-inspired antireflective nanostructures are extremely vulnerable and suffer from complicated lithography-based fabrication procedures. To address the issues, we report a scalable and simple non-lithography-based approach to engineer robust antireflective structures, inspired by the longtail glasswing butterfly, in a single step. The resulting two-dimensional randomly arranged 80/130/180 nm silica colloids, partially embedded in a polymeric matrix, generate a gradual refractive index transition at the air/substrate interface to suppress light reflection.

Development of an analytical method to detect simultaneously 219 new psychoactive substances and 65 other substances in urine specimens using LC-QqQ MS/MS with CriticalPairFinder and TransitionFinder.

Emerging new psychoactive substances (NPS) poses a great risk to public health. Analyzing these large numbers of NPS and other associated substances often relies on liquid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-QqQ-MS) with multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. However, the differentiation of critical pairs, coeluted isobaric and/or isomeric species, is one of the challenges for this analytical platform.

Overview of the molecular mechanisms of migration and invasion in glioblastoma multiforme.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the most devastating cancers, with an approximate median survival of only 16 months. Although some new insights into the fantastic heterogeneity of this kind of brain tumor have been revealed in recent studies, all subclasses of GBM still demonstrate highly aggressive invasion properties to the surrounding parenchyma. This behavior has become the main obstruction to current curative therapies as invasive GBM cells migrate away from these foci after surgical therapies.

Characteristics of analytically confirmed illicit substance-using patients in the Emergency Department.

Background/purpose: Although illicit substance use-induced toxicity or complication is a frequent cause of visit to the emergency department (ED), there are limited data on cases confirmed by liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis. This study aimed to describe clinical presentations of patients who visited the ED because of acute illicit substance-related complications.

Methods: We performed a retrospective study between May 2017 and August 2018 on patients presenting to the ED with positive urine illicit substance analysis by LC-MS/MS.

Release of Doxorubicin by a Folate-Grafted, Chitosan-Coated Magnetic Nanoparticle.

In clinical tumor therapy, chemotherapeutic routes have caused severe side effects; current delivery methods are unsatisfactory. Successful design of a remotely folate (FA)-grafted chitosan (CS)-coated magnetic nanoparticle (MNP) with low toxicity, has been achieved. A chemotherapeutic drug such as doxorubicin (DOX), is loaded in the MNP-based matrix (FA-grafted CS-DOX--MNP), which is coated by an activated target tumor molecule of FA-grafted CS biopolymer with the inclusion of tripolyphosphate (TPP) as a linker.

1,3-Bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea-loaded bovine serum albumin nanoparticles with dual magnetic resonance-fluorescence imaging for tracking of chemotherapeutic agents.

To date, knowing how to identify the location of chemotherapeutic agents in the human body after injection is still a challenge. Therefore, it is urgent to develop a drug delivery system with molecular imaging tracking ability to accurately understand the distribution, location, and concentration of a drug in living organisms. In this study, we developed bovine serum albumin (BSA)-based nanoparticles (NPs) with dual magnetic resonance (MR) and fluorescence imaging modalities (fluorescein isothiocyanate [FITC]-BSA-Gd/1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea [BCNU] NPs) to deliver BCNU for inhibition of brain tumor cells (MBR 261-2).

Pharmacodynamic and therapeutic investigation of focused ultrasound-induced blood-brain barrier opening for enhanced temozolomide delivery in glioma treatment.

Focused ultrasound (FUS) exposure with the presence of microbubbles has been shown to transiently open the blood-brain barrier (BBB), and thus has potential to enhance the delivery of various kinds of therapeutic agents into brain tumors. The purpose of this study was to assess the preclinical therapeutic efficacy of FUS-BBB opening for enhanced temozolomide (TMZ) delivery in glioma treatment. FUS exposure with microbubbles was delivered to open the BBB of nude mice that were either normal or implanted with U87 human glioma cells.

Staphylococcal enterotoxin C2 promotes osteogenesis and suppresses osteoclastogenesis of human mesenchymal stem cells.

As a super-antigen, staphylococcal enterotoxin C2 (SEC2) stimulates the release of massive inflammatory cytokines such as interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), interleukin-1 (IL-1) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) which are documented to implicate osteoblast differentiation. In the present study, SEC2 was found to significantly improve the osteoblast differentiation by up-regulating BMP2 and Runx2/Cbfa1 expression. Interferon (IFN)-inducible gene IFI16, a co-activator of Runx2/Cbfa1, was also activated by SEC2 in the osteoblast differentiation.

Self-protecting core-shell magnetic nanoparticles for targeted, traceable, long half-life delivery of BCNU to gliomas.

The successful delivery of anti-cancer drugs relies on the simultaneous capability to actively target a specific location, a sufficient lifetime in the active form in the circulation, and traceability and quantification of drug distribution via in vivo medical imaging. Herein, a highly magnetic nanocarrier (HMNC) composed of an Fe(3)O(4) core and an aqueous-stable, self-doped poly[N-(1-one-butyric acid)]aniline (SPAnH) shell was chemically synthesized. This nanocarrier exhibited a high capacity for 1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea (BCNU) drug loading.

p53 activation mediates polyglutamine-expanded ataxin-3 upregulation of Bax expression in cerebellar and pontine nuclei neurons.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by polyglutamine-expanded ataxin-3. SCA3 neurodegeneration is found in the pontine nuclei and cerebellum. Polyglutamine-expanded ataxin-3-Q79 caused apoptotic death of cerebellar and pontine nuclei neurons by upregulating mRNA expression of pro-apoptotic Bax and activating mitochondria-mediated apoptotic cascade.