Publications by authors named "Zu-Quan Zou"

Background: Existing evidence about associations between change in body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) change and high blood pressure are relatively limited.

Aims: We aimed to investigate the associations of general overweight (based on BMI) and abdominal obesity (based on WHtR) change with high blood pressure in Chinese children.

Subjects And Methods: A school-based cohort study in Ningbo region (China) was conducted among children with baseline evaluations in October 2016 with follow-up two years later.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Endogenous n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) can counteract these effects; they reduce insulin resistance despite weight gain on HF diets by modulating key cellular pathways, including Akt and GSK-3β.
  • * The findings highlight n-3 PUFAs' potential as a preventive or supportive treatment for inflammatory diseases linked to the NLRP3 inflammasome.
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Epidemiologic and preclinical studieshave shown that marine n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFAs) elicit promising chemoprevention against breast cancer. Docosahexaenoic acid monoglyceride (MAG-DHA), a docosahexaenoic acid sn-1-monoacylglycerol does not required pancreatic lipase to be absorbed, eliciting a better bioavailability when compared with other formulations such as DHA-free fatty acid, DHA-triglycerol, or DHA-ethyl ester. However, the anticancer actions and underlying mechanisms of MAG-DHA on breast cancer remain to be assessed.

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Melanoma is a malignant tumor that arises from epidermal melanocytes with high morbidity and mortality, and currently, there are no effective conventional genotoxic treatments or systematic treatment. Increasing evidence shows that n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) exhibit anti-melanoma activity, but their anti-melanoma mechanism remains elusive. Here, C57BL/6 mice were injected with B16F10 melanoma cells via a tail vein to establish a lung metastasis model.

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Sulforaphane (SFN) is a dietary component with multiple bioactivities; however, its role in obesity-related metabolic derangement remains unclear. Here, the effect of SFN on the glucose intolerance of obese mice and the underlying mechanism were determined. C57B/6J male mice were randomly divided into two groups, having free access to water and a normal-fat diet (ND, n = 6) or a high-fat diet (HFD, n = 33) for 8 weeks; thereafter twelve mice having the greatest weight gain among the HFD-fed mice were considered as obese mice.

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Ambient air particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters ≤2.5 μm (PM) can cause pulmonary injury. Oxidative stress is thought to be an important mechanism of PM-mediated toxicity.

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Malignant melanoma is the most lethal form of skin cancer. Although preclinical studies have shown that n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are beneficial for prevention of melanoma, the molecular mechanisms underlying the protective effects of n‑3 PUFAs on melanoma remain largely unknown. In the present study, endogenously increased levels of n-3 PUFAs in the tumor tissues of omega‑3 fatty acid desaturase (fat‑1) transgenic mice was associated with a reduction in the growth rate of melanoma xenografts.

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α-eleostearic acid (α-ESA) has been shown to possess antitumor activity in cancer cells. However, the underlying mechanism(s) remain largely unknown. The present study was designed to investigate the antitumor effect of α-ESA in breast cancer cells showing different expression levels of the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).

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Lung cancer is a malignant disease with poor outcome, which has led to a search for new therapeutics. The PI3K/Akt/mTOR and Ras/raf/Erk pathways are key regulators of tumor growth and survival. In the present study, their roles were evaluated by MTT assay, flow cytometry and Western blotting in lung cancer cells.

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Myricetin, a naturally occurring flavonol, has been shown to inhibit the proliferation of human hepatoma HepG2 cells and to induce G2/M phase arrest. However, the underlying mechanisms of Myricetin activity have yet to be revealed. The aim of the present study was to clarify the molecular mechanisms of cell cycle arrest induced by myricetin in HepG2 cells.

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PI-103, the first synthetic multitargeted compound which simultaneously inhibits PI3Kalpha and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) shows high antitumor activity in glioma xenografts. In the present study, clear antitumor activity was observed with PI-103 treatment in two gefitinib-resistant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines, A549 and H460, by simultaneously inhibiting p70s6k phosporylation and Akt phosphorylation in response to mTOR inhibition. In addition, H460 cells with activating mutations of PIK3CA were more sensitive to PI-103 than A549 cells with wild-type PIK3CA.

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Surface-enhanced Raman spectra of natural tissue and cancerous tissue of lung from 300 to 1700 cm(-1) were measured. In the cancerous tissue of lung, the orderly conformations of amides III and amides I of the main chains in protein such as alpha-helix, beta-corner and no rules curly were damaged seriously; conversely, the extendable vibration of skeleton C-N and skeleton C-C increased. Side chains change became complicated.

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Fetal bovine serum was treated by ozone for 1 hour and 3 hours before getting its surface-enhanced Raman spectra from 200 to 1 800 cm(-1). Treated with ozone for 1 hour, it shows a significant decrease in band intensity. Treated with ozone for 3 hours, the band intensity has a further decrease but not so obviously, which means that oxidation of ozone is short lived.

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