Urban runoff contributes significant amounts of heavy metals into receiving waters in which turtles make up a large portion of the biodiversity. Turtles accumulate heavy metals in their body and shell bone, yet little is known about how it affects their health. Studies in vertebrates have shown bioaccumulation of lead to have several deleterious effects such as immunosuppression, impairment of skeletal calcification and competition with calcium ion uptake. This study surveys the bioaccumulation of lead in emydid turtles of an urban lake and investigates the differences based on species, sex, size and its possible relationship to shell disease. Shell disease was quantified and small sections of shell were collected from each specimen and analyzed for lead content using Graphite Furnace Atomic Adsorption Spectrometry. Significant differences of lead accumulation were found between species, yet not with sex or body size. Linear regression comparison of lead concentration and shell disease showed no positive correlation.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2009.12.027 | DOI Listing |
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces
January 2025
College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, P. R. China.
Enzymatic cascade reactions are widely utilized in food security, environmental monitoring, and disease diagnostics, whereas their practical application was hindered due to their limited catalytic efficiency and intrinsic fragility to environmental influences. Herein, a compartmentalized dual-enzyme cascade nanoreactor was constructed in metal-organic frameworks (ZIF-8) by a shell-by-shell growth method. ZIF-8 provided a good microenvironment to maintain the activity of enzymes and protected them against harsh conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
School of Basic Medicine, Qingdao Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
Tofacitinib (Tof), a commercially available pan-Janus kinases inhibitor, is approved for the treatment of moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. However, its clinical application is limited due to dose-dependent systemic side effects. The present study aims to develop an efficient oral colon-targeted drug delivery systems using prebiotic pectin (Pcn) and chitosan (Csn) polysaccharides as a shell, with Tof loaded into a Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) core, and improving it with chondroitin sulfate (Chs), thus constructing Tof@BSA-Chs-CP nanoparticles (NPs).
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January 2025
Open Innovation Laboratory for Food and Medicinal Resource Engineering (FoodMed-OIL), National Institute of Advanced Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan.
Obesity, a major risk factor for various metabolic diseases, often results in dysfunctional white adipose tissue and altered adipogenesis leading to ectopic fat accumulation, inflammation, and insulin resistance. On the other hand, cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) nut worldwide consumption and production is increasing steadily, which augments the mass of byproducts to be discarded.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS Comput Biol
January 2025
IRSD-Institut de Recherche en Santé Digestive, Université de Toulouse, INSERM, INRAE, ENVT, UPS, Toulouse, France.
Understanding the interplay between biology and mechanics in tissue architecture is challenging, particularly in terms of 3D tissue organization. Addressing this challenge requires a biological model enabling observations at multiple levels from cell to tissue, as well as theoretical and computational approaches enabling the generation of a synthetic model that is relevant to the biological model and allowing for investigation of the mechanical stresses experienced by the tissue. Using a monolayer human colon epithelium organoid as a biological model, freely available tools (Fiji, Cellpose, Napari, Morphonet, or Tyssue library), and the commercially available Abaqus FEM solver, we combined vertex and FEM approaches to generate a comprehensive viscoelastic finite element model of the human colon organoid and demonstrated its flexibility.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall
January 2025
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Drug Research for Emerging Virus Prevention and Treatment, NMPA Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Drug Metabolism, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510515, China.
Diabetic ulcers (DUs) are characterized by a microenvironment with high oxidative stress, high blood glucose levels, and recalcitrant bacterial infections. This microenvironment is accompanied by long-term suppression of endogenous antioxidant systems, which makes their clinical management extremely challenging. To address this issue, a hybridized novel gold-palladium (AuPd) nanoshell of the injectable/injectable hydrogel system UiO/AuPd/BNN6/PEG@Gel (UAPsBP@Gel) is developed.
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