Comparison of antioxidant activities of different parts from snow chrysanthemum (Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt.) and identification of their natural antioxidants using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection and mass spectrometry and 2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-sulfonic acid)diammonium salt-based assay

Snow chrysanthemum (Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt.), a world-widely well-known flower tea material, has attracted more and more attention because of its beneficial health effects such as antioxidant activity and special flavor. In this study, a high performance liquid chromatography coupled with diode array detection and mass spectrometry (HPLC-DAD-MS) and 2,2'-azinobis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-sulfonic acid)diammonium salt (ABTS) based assay was employed for comparison and identification of antioxidants in different samples of snow chrysanthemum. The results showed that snow chrysanthemum flowers possessed the highest while stems presented the lowest antioxidant capacities. Fourteen detected peaks with antioxidant activity were temporarily identified as 3,4',5,6,7-pentahydroxyflavanone-O-hexoside, chlorogenic acid, 2R-3',4',8-trihydroxyflavanone-7-O-glucoside, flavanomarein, flavanocorepsin, flavanokanin, quercetagitin-7-O-glucoside, 3',5,5',7-tetrahydroxyflavanone-O-hexoside, marein, maritimein, 1,3-dicaffeoylquinic acid, coreopsin, okanin and acetyl-marein by comparing their UV spectra, retention times and MS data with standards or literature data. Antioxidants existed in snow chrysanthemum are quite different from those reported in Chrysanthemum morifolium, a well-known traditional beverage in China, which indicated that snow chrysanthemum may be a promising herbal tea material with obvious antioxidant activity.

Miniaturized optogenetic neural implants: a review

Optogenetics is an exciting new technology that allows targetable fast control and readout of specific neural populations in complex brain circuits. With the rapid development of light-sensitive microbial opsins, substantial gains in understanding the causal relationships between neural activity and behavior in both healthy and diseased brains have been achieved during the last decade. However, the intricate and complex interactions between different neural populations in mammalian brains require novel, implantable, neural interfaces that are capable of manipulating and probing targeted neurons at multiple sites and with high spatiotemporal resolution. Advanced microtechnology has offered the highest potential to meet these demands of optogenetic applications. In this paper, we review a variety of miniaturized optogenetic neural implants developed in recent years, based on different light sources, including lasers, laser diodes, and light-emitting diodes. We then summarize the specifications of these microimplants and their related microfabrication approaches and discuss the major challenges of current techniques and the vision for the future of the field.

The juxtamembrane sequence of the Hepatitis C virus polymerase can affect RNA synthesis and inhibition by allosteric polymerase inhibitors

The Hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), nonstructural protein 5B (NS5B), is anchored in the membrane through a C-terminal helix. A sequence of ca. 12 residues that connects the catalytically competent portion of the RdRp and the C-terminal helix, the juxtamembrane sequence (JMS), has a poorly defined role in RdRp function in a large part since it is translated from a cis-acting RNA element (CRE) that is essential for HCV replication. Using a HCV replicon that transposed a second copy of CRE to the 3' UTR of the HCV replicon, we demonstrate that amino acid substitutions in the JMS were detrimental for HCV replicon replication. Substitutions in the JMS also resulted in a defect in de novo-initiated RNAs synthesis in vitro and in a cell-based reporter assay. A nonnucleoside inhibitor of the NS5B that binds to the catalytic pocket was less potent in inhibiting NS5B in the presence of JMS mutations. The JMS mutants exhibit reduced stability in thermodenaturation assays, suggesting that the JMS helps confer a more stable conformation to NS5B that could impact RNA synthesis.

A simple HPLC method with fluorescence detection for simultaneous determination of 10-methoxycamptothecin and its metabolite 10-hydroxycamptothecin in rat liver tissue

A simple HPLC method to determine the amount of 10-methoxycamptothecin (MCPT) and its major metabolite 10-hydroxycamptothecin (HCPT) in rat liver tissue was developed in the present study. Camptothecin (CPT) was used as internal standard (IS). A piecewise linear function was used over lower and higher concentrations, respectively. The calibration curves were linear (r (2) >0.99) over concentrations from 2.5 to 20 ng/mL and 20 to 320 ng/mL for both MCPT and HCPT. The method had an accuracy of 92.74% to 112.76%, and the intra- and inter-day precision (RSD%) were 11.85% or less for MCPT and HCPT. The stability data showed no significant degradation occurred under the experimental conditions. This method was successfully applied to the tissue distribution study of MCPT and its metabolite HCPT in liver tissue samples after intravenous administration.

P5-08-03: How Reader's Training, Software, and Image Formats Impact Percent Dense Area Measures

BACKGROUND: Mammographic percent dense area, the percent ratio of dense to total breast area in a mammogram, is one of the strongest measures of a woman's risk of breast cancer. However, systematic differences have been observed between readers and mammography technologies (film and digital) that could cause clinically inconsistent associations with risk. The purpose of this study was to evaluate inter- and intra-reproducibility of percent dense area between readers and between film and digital technologies.

METHODS: One hundred digitized film mammograms were randomly selected with 25 films in each of quartile of percent density and read by two readers at two different sites (Mayo Clinic and UCSF). The readers had extensive experience and were also jointly trained at university of Toronto using Cumulus software. After training, all films were read twice with at least one year between duplicate readings. The Mayo clinic reading used Cumulus while UCSF used custom semiautomatic software to estimate total and dense tissue area. In addition, digitized films and unprocessed full field digital mammograms of the same women were assessed by one reader. The time between the film and digital acquisitions ranged from nine to twenty-four months. Interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated for each comparison.

RESULTS: The intra- and inter-observer ICCs, consistency for film images, were 0.96 (UCSF) and 0.97 (Mayo), and 0.96 (UCSF vs. Mayo). We found ICC between film and digital mammograms for percent dense area was 0.88. The digital mammogram had 9% significantly higher total breast area and 5% significantly lower percent density area compared to film.

CONCLUSIONS: Similarly trained readers had a high reproducibility regardless of the software used. Our results suggest centralized reader training should enable pooling of film breast density results from different clinics. However, pooling film and digital results would need careful calibration due to lower measured percent dense areas than on film.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2011;71(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-08-03.

P5-08-02: Mammographic Breast Texture Predicts Benign Biopsy Results and Composition

Purpose: Investigate the relationship between pathology diagnosis, biopsy composition, and breast texture measured in digital mammogram in women who have had previous benign findings in their breast. The long-term goal of this project is to determine whether or not global breast texture is associated with tissue composition and biopsy results. Such a finding would be of interest because it would provide evidence that mammography images contain information related to breast biology beyond average density.

Materials and Methods: A total of 124 women who had previously received benign biopsies underwent an additional dual-energy/low dose full-field digital mammography (DXA) scan of the unaffected breast. Three measures of breast density (percent dense area (PD), percent fibroglandular volume (%FGV), absolute fibroglandular volume (FGV) from mammogram, 15 biopsy types including apocrine metaplasia and non-secretory pituitary adenoma, and four tissue compositions (collagen percent area, fat percent area, ductal percent area, epithelial percent area) were estimated from biopsies for each participant. In addition 45 breast texture features were measured on each screening image taken during the dual-energy mammography using custom software. Tissue composition at the biopsy location was estimated based on the average percent area of stained collagen, fat, ductal, and epithelial from up to 3 slides taken from the biopsy. Pathology results from the three slides were taken to indicate the tissue type.

Results: Neither mammographic percent density, %FGV, nor FGV showed significant association with either biopsy type or tissue composition. However, some of breast texture features were significantly associated with tissue type and tissue composition. The strongest associations were found between collagen percent area and the neighborhood gray tone difference matrix texture strength (R=0.26, P=0.005) and ductal percent area and the gray level contrast matrix homogeneity (GLCM HOM) (R=-0.30, P=0.001). When classified according to biopsy type, the univariate association between ductal percent area and GLCM HOM for apocrine metaplasia increased. (R=-0.55, P=0.007)

Conclusion: 10 breast texture features of the unaffected breast were significantly associated with local tissue composition and biopsy type. Further study will be required to determine whether this association is related to masking effects related to breast complexity or changes in breast biology driving changes in breast morphology.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE The use of texture measures as biomarkers of variations in breast biology is potentially clinically significant. This work indicates that texture measures are associated with some biological outcomes. It is possible that this work could be used to improve diagnostic utility of computer-aided diagnosis by weighting the probability of various benign outcomes according to the measured breast texture.

Citation Information: Cancer Res 2011;71(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-08-02.

A whole-genome association study for pig reproductive traits

A whole-genome association study was performed for reproductive traits in commercial sows using the PorcineSNP60 BeadChip and Bayesian statistical methods. The traits included total number born (TNB), number born alive (NBA), number of stillborn (SB), number of mummified foetuses at birth (MUM) and gestation length (GL) in each of the first three parities. We report the associations of informative QTL and the genes within the QTL for each reproductive trait in different parities. These results provide evidence of gene effects having temporal impacts on reproductive traits in different parities. Many QTL identified in this study are new for pig reproductive traits. Around 48% of total genes located in the identified QTL regions were predicted to be involved in placental functions. The genomic regions containing genes important for foetal developmental (e.g. MEF2C) and uterine functions (e.g. PLSCR4) were associated with TNB and NBA in the first two parities. Similarly, QTL in other foetal developmental (e.g. HNRNPD and AHR) and placental (e.g. RELL1 and CD96) genes were associated with SB and MUM in different parities. The QTL with genes related to utero-placental blood flow (e.g. VEGFA) and hematopoiesis (e.g. MAFB) were associated with GL differences among sows in this population. Pathway analyses using genes within QTL identified some modest underlying biological pathways, which are interesting candidates (e.g. the nucleotide metabolism pathway for SB) for pig reproductive traits in different parities. Further validation studies on large populations are warranted to improve our understanding of the complex genetic architecture for pig reproductive traits.

Characteristics of PAHs adsorption on inorganic particles and activated sludge in domestic wastewater treatment

The occurrence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a domestic wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) was investigated in a 1 year period. In order to understand how PAHs were removed at different stages of the treatment process, adsorption experiments were conducted using quartz sand, kaolinite, and natural clay as inorganic adsorbents and activated sludge as organic adsorbent for adsorbing naphthalene, phenanthrene, and pyrene. As a result, the adsorption of PAHs by the inorganic adsorbents well followed the Langmuir isotherm while that by the activated sludge well followed the Freundlich isotherm. By bridging equilibrium partitioning coefficient with the parameters of adsorption isotherm, a set of mathematical models were developed. Under an assumption that in the primary settler PAHs removal was by adsorption onto inorganic particles and in the biological treatment unit it was by adsorption onto activated sludge, the model calculation results fairly reflected the practical condition in the WWTP.

The pig genome project has plenty to squeal about

Significant progress on pig genetics and genomics research has been witnessed in recent years due to the integration of advanced molecular biology techniques, bioinformatics and computational biology, and the collaborative efforts of researchers in the swine genomics community. Progress on expanding the linkage map has slowed down, but the efforts have created a higher-resolution physical map integrating the clone map and BAC end sequence. The number of QTL mapped is still growing and most of the updated QTL mapping results are available through PigQTLdb. Additionally, expression studies using high-throughput microarrays and other gene expression techniques have made significant advancements. The number of identified non-coding RNAs is rapidly increasing and their exact regulatory functions are being explored. A publishable draft (build 10) of the swine genome sequence was available for the pig genomics community by the end of December 2010. Build 9 of the porcine genome is currently available with Ensembl annotation; manual annotation is ongoing. These drafts provide useful tools for such endeavors as comparative genomics and SNP scans for fine QTL mapping. A recent community-wide effort to create a 60K porcine SNP chip has greatly facilitated whole-genome association analyses, haplotype block construction and linkage disequilibrium mapping, which can contribute to whole-genome selection. The future 'systems biology' that integrates and optimizes the information from all research levels can enhance the pig community's understanding of the full complexity of the porcine genome. These recent technological advances and where they may lead are reviewed.

Whole-genome association analyses for lifetime reproductive traits in the pig

Profits for commercial pork producers vary in part because of sow productivity or sow productive life (SPL) and replacement costs. During the last decade, culling rates of sows have increased to more than 50% in the United States. Both SPL and culling rates are influenced by genetic and nongenetic factors. A whole-genome association study was conducted for pig lifetime reproductive traits, including lifetime total number born (LTNB), lifetime number born alive (LNBA), removal parity, and the ratio between lifetime nonproductive days and herd life. The proportion of phenotypic variance explained by markers was 0.15 for LTNB and LNBA, 0.12 for removal parity, and 0.06 for the ratio between lifetime nonproductive days and herd life. Several informative QTL regions (e.g., 14 QTL regions for LTNB) and genes within the regions (e.g., SLC22A18 on SSC2 for LTNB) were associated with lifetime reproductive traits in this study. Genes associated with LTNB and LNBA were similar, reflecting the high genetic correlation (0.99 ± 0.003) between these traits. Functional annotation revealed that many genes at the associated regions are expressed in reproductive tissues. For instance, the SLC22A18 gene on SSC2 associated with LTNB has been shown to be expressed in the placenta of mice. Many of the QTL regions showing associations coincided with previously identified QTL for fat deposition. This reinforces the role of fat regulation for lifetime reproductive traits. Overall, this whole-genome association study provides a list of genomic locations and markers associated with pig lifetime reproductive traits that could be considered for SPL in future studies.

Investigation of effects of the <i>MKK3</i> and <i>MKK6</i> genes on meat production traits in the pig (Brief Report)

Abstract. Skeletal muscle development is a complexity process involved in spatial and temporal expressions of numerous muscle differentiation-specific genes, which are controlled by a series of basic helix-loop-helix myogenic regulatory factors (MRFs) (HOUBA and TE PAS 2004). The recent studies have demonstrated that the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway is probably one of the major intracellular signaling pathways affecting myogenesis (KEREN et al. 2006, LIUÍS et al. 2006). The p38 MAPKs regulate the transcriptional activities of MRFs and function in the remodeling of chromatin at specific muscle-regulatory regions (LI et al. 2000, ZARUBIN et al. 2005). The genes involved in the p38 MAPK pathway have been poorly studied in pigs. The primary work on SNP discovery and association analyses of two important MAPK kinases encoding genes MKK3 (MAP2K3) and MKK6 (MAP2K6) was presented in the study, so as to identify the potential genetic markers useful for marker assisted selection (MAS) improving lean meat production.

Does standardized BMD still remove differences between Hologic and GE-Lunar state-of-the-art DXA systems?

The standardized bone mineral density (sBMD) values, derived using universal standardized equations, were shown to be equivalent within 1.0% for hip but significantly different for spine for state-of-art fan-beam dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) Hologic and GE-Lunar systems. Spine L1-L4 and L2-L4 sBMD mean differences between the two systems were 0.042 g/cm(2) (4.1%) and 0.035 g/cm(2) (3.2%), respectively.

INTRODUCTION

The objective of this study is to validate the 1994 pencil-beam DXA "universal standardization equations" for state-of-the-art fan-beam DXA systems.

METHODS

The spine and bilateral femurs of 87 postmenopausal women were scanned on both Hologic Delphi and GE-Lunar Prodigy DXA systems at three different clinical centers. The scans were analyzed using Hologic Apex and GE-Lunar EnCore software. The BMD results were converted to sBMD using the equations previously developed. Linear regression analysis was used to describe the relationship of the two systems' BMD results. Bland-Altman analysis was used to assess the differences in measures.

RESULTS

The Apex and Prodigy sBMD values were highly correlated (r ranged from 0.92 to 0.98). Spine L1-L4 and L2-L4 sBMD values had significant intercepts and slopes for Bland-Altman regression, with mean differences of 0.042 g/cm(2) (4.1%) and 0.035 g/cm(2) (3.2%), respectively. The total hip and neck sBMD showed no significant intercept and slope, except left total sBMD had a significant difference between the two systems of 0.009 g/cm(2) (1.0%).

CONCLUSIONS

The sBMD values were shown to be equivalent within 1.0% for hip but were significantly different for spine on the two systems. Biases may persist in pooled sBMD data from different manufacturers, and further study is necessary to determine the cause.