Understanding the Impact of Obesity on Ageing in the Radiance of DNA Metabolism

Ageing is a multi-factorial phenomenon which is considered as a major risk factor for the development of neurodegeneration, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, dementia, cancer, and other chronic diseases. Phenotypically, ageing is related with a combination of molecular, cellular, and physiological levels like genomic and epi-genomic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulation of cellular and subcellular function and mitochondrial dysfunction. Though, no single molecular mechanism accounts for the functional decline of different organ systems in older humans but accumulation of DNA damage or mutations is a dominant theory which contributes largely to the development of ageing and age-related diseases. However, mechanistic, and hierarchical order of these features of ageing has not been clarified yet. Scientific community now focus on the effect of obesity on accelerated ageing process. Obesity is a complex chronic disease that affects multiple organs and tissues. It can not only lead to various health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease but also can decrease life expectancy which shows similar phenotype of ageing. Higher loads of DNA damage were also observed in the genome of obese people. Thus, inability of DNA damage repair may contribute to both ageing and obesity apart from cancer predisposition. The present review emphasizes on the involvement of molecular phenomenon of DNA metabolism in development of obesity and how it accelerates ageing in mammals.

Antibacterial activity of polyphenolic fraction of Kombucha against Vibrio cholerae: targeting cell membrane

The present study was undertaken to determine the mechanism of antibacterial activity of a polyphenolic fraction, composed of mainly catechin and isorhamnetin, previously isolated from Kombucha, a 14-day fermented beverage of sugared black tea, against the enteropathogen Vibrio cholerae N16961. Bacterial growth was found to be seriously impaired by the polyphenolic fraction in a dose-dependent manner. Scanning Electron Microscopy demonstrated morphological alterations in bacterial cells when exposed to the polyphenolic fraction in a concentration-dependent manner. Permeabilization assays confirmed that the fraction disrupted bacterial membrane integrity in both time- and dose-dependent manners, which were proportional to the production of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). Furthermore, each of the polyphenols catechin and isorhamnetin showed the ability to permeate bacterial cell membranes by generating oxidative stress, thereby suggesting their role in the antibacterial potential of Kombucha. Thus, the basic mechanism of antibacterial activity of the Kombucha polyphenolic fraction against V. cholerae involved bacterial membrane permeabilization and morphological changes, which might be due to the generation of intracellular ROS. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the investigation of antibacterial mechanism of Kombucha, which is mostly attributed to its polyphenolic content.

SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY

The emergence of multidrug-resistant Vibrio cholerae strains has hindered an efficient anti-Vibrio therapy. This study has demonstrated the membrane damage-mediated antibacterial mechanism of Kombucha, a popular fermented beverage of sugared tea, which is mostly attributed to its polyphenolic content. This study also implies the exploitation of Kombucha as a potential new source of bioactive polyphenols against V. cholerae.

A gas-jet transport and catcher technique for on-line production of radioactive ion beams using an electron cyclotron resonance ion-source

Radioactive ion beams (RIB) have been produced on-line, using a gas-jet recoil transport coupled Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion-source at the VECC-RIB facility. Radioactive atoms∕molecules carried through the gas-jet were stopped in a catcher placed inside the ECR plasma chamber. A skimmer has been used to remove bulk of the carrier gas at the ECR entrance. The diffusion of atoms∕molecules through the catcher has been verified off-line using stable isotopes and on-line through transmission of radioactive reaction products. Beams of (14)O (71 s), (42)K (12.4 h), (43)K (22.2 h), and (41)Ar (1.8 h) have been produced by bombarding nitrogen and argon gas targets with proton and alpha particle beams from the K130 cyclotron at VECC. Typical measured intensity of RIB at the separator focal plane is found to be a few times 10(3) particles per second (pps). About 3.2 × 10(3) pps of 1.4 MeV (14)O RIB has been measured after acceleration through a radiofrequency quadrupole linac. The details of the gas-jet coupled ECR ion-source and RIB production experiments are presented along with the plans for the future.

Coulomb explosion sputtering of selectively oxidized Si

We have studied the sputtering of a unique system comprising of coexisting silicon and silicon oxide surfaces due to the impact of multiply charged Ar(q+) ions. Such surfaces are produced by oblique angle oxygen ion bombardment on Si(100), which results in one side oxidized ripple formation due to preferential oxygen implantation. It is observed by atomic force microscopy and conducting atomic force microscopy studies that the higher the potential energy of the Ar(q+) ion, the higher the sputtering yield of the nonconducting (oxide) side of the ripple as compared to the semiconducting side while ensuring an identical irradiation and measurement condition. It also shows experimentally the potential of highly charged ions in the gentle cleaning or tailoring of nanostructures. The results are explained in terms of the Coulomb explosion model, where potential sputtering depends on the conductivity of the ion impact sites.

Design and development of a radio frequency quadrupole linac postaccelerator for the Variable Energy Cyclotron Center rare ion beam project

A four-rod type heavy-ion radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) linac has been designed, constructed, and tested for the rare ion beam (RIB) facility project at VECC. Designed for cw operation, this RFQ is the first postaccelerator in the RIB beam line. It will accelerate A/q < or = 14 heavy ions coming from the ion source to the energy of around 100 keV/u for subsequent acceleration in a number of Interdigital H-Linac. Operating at a resonance frequency of 37.83 MHz, maximum intervane voltage of around 54 kV will be needed to achieve the final energy over a vane length of 3.12 m for a power loss of 35 kW. In the first beam tests, transmission efficiency of about 90% was measured at the QQ focus after the RFQ for O(5+) beam. In this article the design of the RFQ including the effect of vane modulation on the rf characteristics and results of beam tests will be presented.

Ion beam induced formation and interrogation of Au nanoclusters

Low-energy ion bombardment of a Au thin film by 0.5 keV Ar+ forms self-organized nanoclusters that display quantum size effects. The reduction of Au coverage with sputtering time is quantified with x-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and a decrease of both the rms roughness and correlation length is measured by STM. Neutralization of scattered 3 keV Na+ and K+ alkali-metal ions is used to probe the electronic states of the sputter-induced nanoclusters. The neutral fractions gradually increase as the cluster dimensions decrease, indicating that the electronic structure is similar to that of clusters grown by deposition.

Li ion scattering from Au nanoclusters on TiO2(110)

The neutralization of low energy 7Li+ scattered from Au nanoclusters deposited on TiO2(110) was measured with time-of-flight spectroscopy as a function of cluster size, emission angle, and ion energy. The neutralization shows maxima for cluster diameters approximately 3 nm, and again for thick Au films. The data are compared to previous experiments with Na projectiles. Possible explanations of the observed effects are discussed.

Induction of apoptosis by Phenothiazine derivatives in V79 cells

Phenothiazine derivatives chlorpromazine (cpz) and trifluoperazine (tfp) were found to induce apoptosis, abnormal cell cycle and expression of p53 in Chinese hamster lung fibroblast V79 cells. Both the drugs can induce apoptosis when cells are treated with drug at a concentration of 10 microg/ml within 4 h, as detected by propidium iodide staining and DNA fragmentation analysis. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that the apoptotic response is mediated by a loss of G(1) population of cells. In Western blot analysis, p21 is induced and p53 is accompanied by additional bands. Also indirect immunolabeling of single cells revealed that p21 is accumulated from cytoplasm into nucleus after the drug treatment and the intensities of p53 increased. Our findings demonstrate for the first time that phenothiazine derivatives, in addition to their cytotoxic effects, could induce apoptosis, an observation that has important clinical implications.

Werner syndrome protein interacts with human flap endonuclease 1 and stimulates its cleavage activity

Werner syndrome (WS) is a human premature aging disorder characterized by chromosomal instability. The cellular defects of WS presumably reflect compromised or aberrant function of a DNA metabolic pathway that under normal circumstances confers stability to the genome. We report a novel interaction of the WRN gene product with the human 5' flap endonuclease/5'-3' exonuclease (FEN-1), a DNA structure-specific nuclease implicated in DNA replication, recombination and repair. WS protein (WRN) dramatically stimulates the rate of FEN-1 cleavage of a 5' flap DNA substrate. The WRN-FEN-1 functional interaction is independent of WRN catalytic function and mediated by a 144 amino acid domain of WRN that shares homology with RecQ DNA helicases. A physical interaction between WRN and FEN-1 is demonstrated by their co-immunoprecipitation from HeLa cell lysate and affinity pull-down experiments using a recombinant C-terminal fragment of WRN. The underlying defect of WS is discussed in light of the evidence for the interaction between WRN and FEN-1.

p53 Modulates the exonuclease activity of Werner syndrome protein

Werner syndrome (WS) is characterized by the early onset of symptoms of premature aging, cancer, and genomic instability. The molecular basis of the defects is not understood but presumably relates to the DNA helicase and exonuclease activities of the protein encoded by the WRN gene that is mutated in the disease. The attenuation of p53-mediated apoptosis in WS cells and reported physical interaction between WRN and the tumor suppressor p53 suggest that p53 and WRN functionally interact in a pathway necessary for the normal cellular response. In this study, we have demonstrated that p53 inhibits the exonuclease activity of the purified full-length recombinant WRN protein. p53 did not have an effect on a truncated amino-terminal WRN fragment that retains exonuclease activity but lacks the physical interaction domain for p53 located in the carboxyl terminus. Two naturally occurring p53 mutants found in human cancer displayed a reduced ability to inhibit WRN exonuclease activity. In cells arrested in S phase with hydroxyurea, WRN exits the nucleolus and colocalizes with p53 in the nucleoplasm. The regulation of WRN function by p53 is likely to play an important role in the maintenance of genomic integrity and prevention of cancer and other clinical symptoms associated with WS.

Sequential assembly of the nucleotide excision repair factors in vivo

Here, we describe the assembly of the nucleotide excision repair (NER) complex in normal and repair-deficient (xeroderma pigmentosum) human cells, employing a novel technique of local UV irradiation combined with fluorescent antibody labeling. The damage recognition complex XPC-hHR23B appears to be essential for the recruitment of all subsequent NER factors in the preincision complex, including transcription repair factor TFIIH. XPA associates relatively late, is required for anchoring of ERCC1-XPF, and may be essential for activation of the endonuclease activity of XPG. These findings identify XPC as the earliest known NER factor in the reaction mechanism, give insight into the order of subsequent NER components, provide evidence for a dual role of XPA, and support a concept of sequential assembly of repair proteins at the site of the damage rather than a preassembled repairosome.

A functional interaction of Ku with Werner exonuclease facilitates digestion of damaged DNA

Werner syndrome (WS) is a premature aging disorder where the affected individuals appear much older than their chronological age. The single gene that is defective in WS encodes a protein (WRN) that has ATPase, helicase and 3'-->5' exonuclease activities. Our laboratory has recently uncovered a physical and functional interaction between WRN and the Ku heterodimer complex that functions in double-strand break repair and V(D)J recombination. Importantly, Ku specifically stimulates the exonuclease activity of WRN. We now report that Ku enables the Werner exonuclease to digest through regions of DNA containing 8-oxoadenine and 8-oxoguanine modifications, lesions that have previously been shown to block the exonuclease activity of WRN alone. These results indicate that Ku significantly alters the exonuclease function of WRN and suggest that the two proteins function concomitantly in a DNA damage processing pathway. In support of this notion we also observed co-localization of WRN and Ku, particularly after DNA damaging treatments.

Analysis of repair and PCNA complex formation induced by ionizing radiation in human fibroblast cell lines

Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), an auxiliary factor for DNA polymerase delta and epsilon, is involved in both DNA replication and repair. Previous studies in vitro have demonstrated the requirement of PCNA in the resynthesis step of nucleotide excision repair (NER) and base excision repair (BER). Using a native chromatin template isolated under near physiological conditions, we have analysed the involvement of PCNA in the BER pathway in different NER defective human cell lines. The repair sites and PCNA were visualized by indirect immunolabelling followed by fluorescence microscopy. The results indicate that exposure to X-rays triggers the induction of PCNA in all the three human fibroblast cell lines studied, namely normal, xeroderma pigmentosum group A (XP-A) and Cockayne syndrome group B (CS-B). In all the cell lines, induction of PCNA and repair patches occurred in a dose- and time-dependent fashion. Induction of repair patches in NER-deficient XP-A cells suggests that the X-ray-induced lesions are largely repaired via the BER pathway involving PCNA as one of the key components of this pathway. X-ray-induced repair synthesis was greatly inhibited by treatment of cells with DNA polymerase inhibitors aphidicolin and cytosine arabinoside. Interestingly, inhibition of repair resynthesis did not affect the intensity of PCNA staining in X-irradiated cells indicating that the PCNA may be required for the BER pathway at a step preceding the resynthesis step.

Fragile X syndrome in Calcutta, India

Fragile-X-linked mental retardation usually results from amplification of the CGG repeat in the 5' untranslated region of the FMR1 gene. To assess the extent of variation of the CGG repeat in the population from the eastern region of India we studied 98 mentally retarded individuals living in and around Calcutta and identified 21 distinct alleles ranging in size from 8 to 44 CGG repeats. A repeat size of 28 was the most frequent; this value is different from the most frequent repeat size found in other studies, indicating a racial or ethnic variation. Patients with the clinical features of the syndrome have been found to carry expanded CGG repeats. Thus, it can be inferred that the expansion of CGG repeats may be a frequent cause of the syndrome in our population.

Real-time projection MR angiography: feasibility study

Intraarterial injections of small doses of gadopentetate dimeglumine were combined with a fast spoiled-gradient-echo magnetic resonance (MR) sequence to obtain real-time projection angiographic images of the rabbit aorta and canine coronary arteries. Arterial filling and washout, as well as venous and perfusion phases, were clearly displayed, demonstrating that arterial fluoroscopy in which an MR technique is used is feasible.

Werner syndrome protein: biochemical properties and functional interactions

Werner syndrome is a premature aging syndrome displaying numerous signs and symptoms found in normal aging. The disease is associated with a mutation in the WRN gene. We have purified the Werner protein (WRN) and studied its biochemical activities and its protein interactions. WRN is a helicase and an exonuclease and also has an associated ATPase activity. WRN interacts physically and functionally with replication protein A (RPA), which stimulates its helicase activity. We have studied the WRN exonuclease activity and found that it can be blocked by certain DNA lesions and not by others. Thus, while WRN does not bind to DNA damage, it may have properties that allow it to sense the presence of damage in DNA. More recently we have found other protein interactions that involve physical and functional interactions with WRN, which could suggest a role for WRN in DNA repair.

Characteristics of UV-induced repair patches relative to the nuclear skeleton in human fibroblasts

We have tried to characterize the nucleotide excision repair (NER) events associated with the nuclear skeleton in both repair-proficient and repair-deficient human cell lines following UV irradiation. The repair patches were labelled with biotin-16-dUTP and the repair sites were visualized by fluorescence microscopy using fluorescence-conjugated antibodies to biotin. The intensities of repair labelling measured for the three human cell lines of normal, xeroderma pigmentosum group C (XP-C) and Cockayne syndrome group B (CS-B) are in good agreement with their known repair capabilities. Digestion of nuclei with DNase I markedly solubilized the repair patches in normal (3-fold reduction after 1 h post-UV incubation) and transcription-coupled repair (TCR)-defective Cockayne syndrome cells (6-fold reduction after 1 h post-UV incubation). The intensity of repair labelling remained the same in TCR-proficient XP-C cells after DNase I digestion, indicating that the repair events mediated by the TCR pathway are tightly associated with the nuclear skeleton. Treatment with ammonium sulphate after DNase I digestion further reduced the intensity of repair patches in both normal and Cockayne syndrome cells, but not in XP-C cells. The tight association of repair patches generated by the TCR pathway with the nucleoskeleton in XP-C cells reinforces the concept of functional compartmentalization of the nucleus, where NER is highly heterogeneous.

Recent epidemiological status of malaria in Calcutta Municipal Corporation area, West Bengal

In Calcutta, Plasmodium falciparum cases and death due to malaria show remarkably increasing trend since 1990. The incidence of P. falciparum malaria has increased more than eleven folds in 1996 in comparison to 1990, with 0, 0, 0, 3, 7, 52 and 17 deaths in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 respectively. Situation is more serious than what it is projected in official records as annual blood examination rate (ABER) in Calcutta Municipal area is poor, varying from 1.5 to 3.9 in 1993 and 1996 respectively. This is further evident from the fact that in a study area in 19 months (January 1995 to July 1996) the slide positivity rate (SPR) was 47.94% on an average 28.72% suffer from P. falciparum infection (as low as 0.5% in June 1996 and as high as 71.5% in November 1996). For the first time resistance of P. falciparum to chloroquine has been noted at RII and RIII level. The response of the same parasite strain to sulfa-pyrimethamine combination drug is very much promising. Fresh infection is occurring in all the months of the year and the favourable period is from July to November 1995 that is corroborating with Container index and Breteau index related to the vector mosquito Anopheles. Susceptibility status of An. stephensi indicates that the mosquito species has acquired resistance to DDT, BHC, propoxure and malathion but is still susceptible to fenthion and deltamethrin.

Cytotoxic and genetic effects of X-irradiation of human cells in the presence of chlorpromazine

Human epidermoid carcinoma cells (Hep-2) were X-irradiated in the presence of 5-10 micrograms/ml of chlorpromazine (CPZ). Survival of the cells decreased with increasing CPZ concentration. Lymphocytes from three normal volunteers exposed to X-irradiation in the presence of CPZ showed an increased frequency of dicentric and ring formation.

Status of Plasmodium falciparum resistance to chloroquine in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra states of India

An extended study from 1978-88 revealed that in the western states of India i.e., Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra; P. falciparum resistance to chloroquine has a scattered pattern in its distribution. However in Gujarat, R-III level of resistance is established in southern districts showing four fold increase from 1.79% in 1985 to 8.2% in 1988. In this area use of some alternate drug is indicated.

Micro in vitro assessment of Plasmodium falciparum sensitivity to chloroquine and mefloquine in Gujarat

Micro in vitro tests conducted in 1987 in Surat district of Gujarat on sensitivity status of P. falciparum to chloroquine and mefloquine revealed that the parasite has developed resistance to chloroquine upto 32 pmol. The ED 99 in Hazira, Gothan and Umra areas of the district was found to be 17.3, 18.5 and 8.7 pmol/well for chloroquine and for mefloquine it was 14.5, 4.8 and 6.8 pmol/well respectively. Monitoring of P. falciparum resistance is indicated under National Malaria Eradication Programme.