Oxidative stress and cell cycle arrest induced by short-term exposure to dustfall PM 2.5 in A549 cells

Abstract

It was reported that in vitro short-term exposure to PM_2.5 caused different lung diseases through inflammatory response, immune toxicity, oxidative stress, and genetic mutations. However, the complex molecular biological mechanism for its toxicity had not been fully elucidated. Therefore, the present study investigated the cytotoxicity, oxidative damage, mitochondria damage, apoptosis, and cell cycle arrest of NX and QH PM_2.5 in A549 cells. Further, cell cycle arrest-related gene levels in PM_2.5-induced A549 cells were also detected. Our results suggested that PM_2.5 reduced the cell viability in A549 cells. Simultaneously, excessive ROS decreased MMP levels and damaged mitochondrial membrane integrity and induced mitochondrial oxidative damage through the oxygen-dependent killer route, resulting in mitochondrial damage and cell apoptosis. Besides, the results also showed that PM_2.5 induced A549 cell cycle alteration in G2/M phase after co-culture for 24 h. G2/M phase arrest was induced by upregulation of p53 and p21 and downregulation of CDK1 mRNA expression. In addition, lncRNA Sox2ot might play an important role as the specific oncogenes and it participated in G2/M phase arrest by regulating the expression of EZH₂.

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Diurnal and seasonal variations of greenhouse gas emissions from a naturally ventilated dairy barn in a cold region

Publication date: January 2018
Source:Atmospheric Environment, Volume 172
Author(s): Dandan Huang, Huiqing Guo
Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions were quantified for a naturally ventilated free-stall dairy barn in the Canadian Prairies climate through continuous measurements for a year from February 2015 to January 2016, with ventilation rate estimated by a CO2 mass balance method. The results were categorized into seasonal emission profiles with monthly data measured on a typical day, and diurnal profiles in cold (January), warm (July), and mild seasons (October) of all three gases. Seasonal CO2, CH4, and N2O concentrations greatly fluctuated within ranges of 593–2433 ppm, 15–152 ppm, and 0.32–0.40 ppm, respectively, with obviously higher concentrations in the cold season. Emission factors of the three gases were summarized: seasonal N2O emission varied between 0.5 and 10 μg s⁻¹ AU⁻¹ with lower emission in the cold season, while seasonal CO2 and CH4 emissions were within narrow ranges of 112–119 mg s⁻¹ AU⁻¹ and 2.5–3.5 mg s⁻¹ AU⁻¹. The result suggested a lower enteric CH4 emission for dairy cows than that estimated by Environment Canada (2014). Significant diurnal effects (P < 0.05) were observed for CH4 emissions in all seasons with higher emissions in the afternoons and evenings. The total greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, which was calculated by summing the three GHG in CO2 equivalent, was mainly contributed by CO2 and CH4 emissions and showed no significant seasonal variations (P > 0.05), but obvious diurnal variations in all seasons. In comparison with previous studies, it was found that the dairy barn in a cold region climate with smaller vent openings had relatively higher indoor CO2 and CH4 concentrations, but comparable CO2 and CH4 emissions to most previous studies. Besides, ventilation rate, temperature, and relative humidity all significantly affected the three gas concentrations with the outdoor temperature being the most relevant factor (P < 0.01); however, they showed less or no statistical relations to emissions.



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Repairing Bronchoesophageal Tube Fistula Using A Contralateral Latissimus Dorsi Musculocutaneous Flap

Summary:A postoperative aerodigestive fistula is one of the rare but critical complications after esophagectomy, and management is challenging. The essential keys to successful treatment of these fistula are thorough debridement and complete closure followed by separation of the respiratory and digestive tract. We present a case of a recurrent bronchoesophageal fistula between the left main bronchus and neo esophagus, which was successfully treated through a contralateral approach. The fistula was debrided and closed primarily through a right thoracotomy, and the interposition of a pedicled latissimus dorsi musculocutaneous flap from the right side was carried out. The patient was able to resume oral feeding at 16th postoperative day.

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Title Page/Sections Editors

Publication date: November 2017
Source:Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms, Volume 1860, Issue 11





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Comparison of the effect of endodontic-periodontal combined lesion on the outcome of endodontic microsurgery with that of isolated endodontic lesion: survival analysis using propensity score analysis

Abstract

Objectives

The purpose of this retrospective clinical study was to evaluate the effect of lesion types related to endodontic microsurgery on the clinical outcome.

Materials and methods

Patients who underwent endodontic microsurgery between March 2001 and March 2014 with a postoperative follow-up period of at least 1 year were included in the study. Survival analyses were conducted to compare the clinical outcomes between isolated endodontic lesion group (endo group) and endodontic-periodontal combined lesion group (endo-perio group) and to evaluate other clinical variables. To reduce the effect of selection bias in this study, the estimated propensity scores were used to match the cases of the endo group with those of the endo-perio group.

Results

Among the 414 eligible cases, the 83 cases in the endo-perio group were matched to 166 out of the 331 cases in the endo group based on propensity score matching (PSM). The cumulated success rates of the endo and endo-perio groups were 87.3 and 72.3%, respectively. The median success period of the endo-perio group was 12 years (95% CI: 5.507, 18.498). Lesion type was found to be significant according to both Log-rank test (P = 0.002) and Cox proportional hazard regression analysis (P = 0.001). Among the other clinical variables, sex (female or male), age, and tooth type (anterior, premolar, or molar) were determined to be significant in Cox regression analysis (P < 0.05).

Conclusion

Endodontic-periodontal combined lesions had a negative effect on the clinical outcome based on an analysis that utilized PSM, a useful statistical matching method for observational studies.

Clinical relevance

Lesion type is a significant predictor of the outcome of endodontic microsurgery.

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High concentrations of perfluorooctane sulfonate in mucus of tiger puffer fish Takifugu rubripes : a laboratory exposure study

Abstract

Distribution of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) was investigated in tissues (plasma, blood clot, mucus, skin, liver, muscle, and gonad) of tiger puffer fish Takifugu rubripes. A single dose of PFOS was intraperitoneally injected at 0.1 mg/kg body weight with samples taken over a 14-day period. The highest concentration of PFOS was found in the plasma, 861 ng/mL at 14 days, followed by the mucus, liver, blood clot, gonads, muscles, and skin of fish. A gradual upward trend in PFOS concentration was observed in the mucus and liver whereas there was no change in the plasma, blood clot, gonad, muscle, and skin after the initial increase in PFOS concentrations following injection. No significant trend for estimated total PFOS content in whole body was observed during the experimental period. Relatively high concentrations of PFOS (690 ng/g ww after 14 days) were detected in body surface mucus that continuously oozes from the skin. These results may suggest that mucus is one of the elimination pathways of PFOS in tiger puffer fish.

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Resistance of black soldier fly (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) larvae to combined heavy metals and potential application in municipal sewage sludge treatment

Abstract

Treating municipal sewage sludge (MSS) sustainably and economically in China remains a challenge because of risks associated with the heavy metals it contains. In this study, black solider fly larvae (BSFL) were used for MSS treatment. The resistance of larvae to combined heavy metals and their potential use in conversion of MSS were investigated. The results indicated that seven MSS samples contained large amounts of heavy metals, with the lead and nickel contents of several samples exceeding Chinese national discharge standards. BSFL were highly tolerant to an artificial diet spiked with combined heavy metals. Principal component analysis revealed that high concentrations of lead, nickel, boron, and mercury potentially interfered with larval weight gain, while zinc, copper, chromium, cadmium, and mercury slightly reduced larval survival. The addition of chicken manure and wheat bran as co-substrates improved the conversion process, which was influenced by the nature and amount of added co-substrate and especially the quantity of nitrogen added. With the amended substrate, the BSFL accumulated heavy metals into their bodies but not into extracted larval oil. The heavy metal content of the treatment residue was lower than that considered safe for organic-inorganic compound fertilizers standards in China and the harvested larvae could be used as a source of oil for industrial application.

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Proton Pump Inhibitors and Capecitabine Efficacy—Reply

In Reply We thank these authors for their interest in our article. It is true that this definition of 20% or more concurrent overlap might have led to an apparent decrease in capecitabine-proton pump inhibitor (PPI) effect, but we were more willing to accept finding a PPI effect and underestimating the interaction than to miss the interaction entirely, for 2 reasons. First, we do not believe that taking a PPI for 3 days (<20%) out of 14 days of capecitabine administration would have clinically meaningful effects. Furthermore, for brevity in the original article, we did not specify that almost all patients identified as having less than 20% concurrent PPI and capecitabine exposure had in fact never taken a PPI. Second, we have successfully used this definition of concurrent use for other PPI-focused oncology studies—for continuity, we continued this definition in this study. We found similar concerning results with patients receiving concurrent PPIs and adjuvant capecitabine in patients with colon cancer, for whom 5-year recurrence-free survival was 74% vs 83% in those not receiving a PPI (P = .03).

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Proton Pump Inhibitors and Capecitabine Efficacy

To the Editor With interest, we read the report by Chu and colleagues investigating the association of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) with capecitabine efficacy in patients with advanced gastroesophageal cancer. This retrospective analysis revealed a significant difference in treatment efficacy in patients treated with capecitabine and oxaliplatin with and without concomitant PPI use, probably due to an increased intragastric pH and subsequent impaired capecitabine absorption.

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Fiber Intake and Colorectal Cancer Survival

This cohort study evaluates the effect of fiber intake after diagnosis on survival of patients with colorectal cancer.

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Trends in Cancer Incidence Following the Affordable Care Act

This observational study uses incidence rates before and after adoption of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to assess whether adoption of the ACA increased screening for breast, colorectal, and cervical cancer.

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Alterations in Main Driver Genes in Patients With Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma

This study examines the protein expression and DNA alteration for the KRAS, CDKN2A, SMAD4, and TP53 main driver genes to determine their association with patient outcomes after pancreatic cancer surgical resection.

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Proton Pump Inhibitors and Capecitabine Efficacy

To the Editor Based on a secondary analysis of the TRIO-013/LOGiC trial, Chu and colleagues recently reported an association between concomitant use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and capecitabine efficacy in patients with advanced gastroesophageal cancer. In patients with gastroesophageal cancer receiving capecitabine and oxaliplatin, PPI users had significantly poorer median progression-free survival, 4.2 vs 5.7 months (hazard ratio, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.29-1.81; P < .001); median overall survival, 9.2 vs 11.3 months (hazard ratio, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.06-1.62; P = .04), and disease control rate (71.2% vs 82.5%; P = .02) vs PPI nonusers. The PPI users were defined as patients whose PPI prescription overlapped with capecitabine plus oxaliplatin treatment duration by at least 20% of the time. However, the authors did not provide any information about the definition of the PPI nonusers, which warrants further consideration. The PPI nonusers may be defined either as patients whose PPI prescription overlapped with capecitabine plus oxaliplatin treatment duration by less than 20% of the time or as patients who did not take PPI at baseline and during the trial, like the previous analyses. If the first definition was used, a proportion of patients who took PPI at baseline and during the trial with a duration less than 20% of study time would be identified as the PPI nonusers, which is irrational and inappropriate. As such, the effect of concomitant use of PPIs on the anticancer efficacy of capecitabine may have been underestimated.

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Proton Pump Inhibitors and Capecitabine Efficacy

To the Editor We read with great interest the article by Chu et al that describes the association of proton pump inhibitors and capecitabine efficacy in advanced gastroesophageal cancer. We agree with the authors that there are limitations to the study. Furthermore, together in viewing the previous publication regarding the same population, we believe that the study raised an issue regarding the difference in response to treatment with anti–human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) drugs among cancer patients of different ethnic groups.

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Error in Title of Letter to the Editor

In the Letter to the Editor titled "Delayed Adjacent Chemotherapy and Survival After Lung Cancer Surgery" and its Letter in Reply published online September 21, 2017, there was an error in the title. The title should read "Delayed Adjuvant Chemotherapy and Survival After Lung Cancer Surgery." These articles were corrected online.

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RAISE Act or Reduce Act?

None of us is immune to the impact of federal policy changes, either personally or professionally, consciously or subconsciously. August 2, 2017, began like any other day until I learned about the proposed RAISE Act, a bill that, if passed, would change the US immigration process from its current state to a merit-based system. In the new proposal, points are awarded for age, education, extraordinary achievement, English language proficiency, entrepreneurial initiatives, and having a high-paying job offer. A maximum of 90 points can be awarded, linking points and merit to legal immigration to the United States.

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Altered resting-state functional connectivity in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder: A magnetoencephalography study

Publication date: Available online 28 October 2017
Source:International Journal of Psychophysiology
Author(s): Min Jung Koh, Jaeho Seol, Jee In Kang, Bong-Soo Kim, Kee Namkoong, Jin Woo Chang, Se Joo Kim
Aberrant cortical–striatal–thalamic–cortical circuits have been implicated in the pathophysiology of obsessive−compulsive disorder (OCD). However, the neurobiological basis of OCD remains unclear. We compared patterns of functional connectivity in patients with OCD and in healthy controls using resting-state magnetoencephalography (MEG). Participants comprised 24 patients with OCD (21 men, 3 women) and 22 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (19 men, 3 women). Resting-state measurements were obtained over a 6-min period using a 152-channel whole-head MEG system. We examined group differences in oscillatory activity and distribution of functional cortical hubs based on the nodal centrality of phase-locking value (PLV) maps. Differences in resting-state functional connectivity were examined through PLV analysis in selected regions of interest based on these two findings. Patients with OCD demonstrated significantly lower delta band activity in the cortical regions of the limbic lobe, insula, orbitofrontal, and temporal regions, and theta band activity in the parietal lobe regions than healthy controls. Patients with OCD exhibited fewer functional hubs in the insula and orbitofrontal cortex and additional hubs in the cingulate and temporo-parietal regions. The OCD group exhibited significantly lower phase synchronization among the insula, orbitofrontal cortex, and cortical regions of the limbic lobe in all band frequencies, except in the delta band. Altered functional networks in the resting state may be associated with the pathophysiology of OCD. These MEG findings indicate that OCD is associated with decreased functional connectivity in terms of phase synchrony, particularly in the insula, orbitofrontal cortex, and cortical regions of the limbic lobe.



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Extraversion and cardiovascular responses to recurrent social stress: Effect of stress intensity

Publication date: Available online 28 October 2017
Source:International Journal of Psychophysiology
Author(s): Wei Lü, Wanying Xing, Brian M. Hughes, Zhenhong Wang
The present study sought to establish whether the effects of extraversion on cardiovascular responses to recurrent social stress are contingent on stress intensity. A 2×5×1 mixed-factorial experiment was conducted, with social stress intensity as a between-subject variable, study phase as a within-subject variable, extraversion as a continuous independent variable, and cardiovascular parameter (HR, SBP, DBP, or RSA) as a dependent variable. Extraversion (NEO-FFI), subjective stress, and physiological stress were measured in 166 undergraduate students randomly assigned to undergo moderate (n=82) or high-intensity (n=84) social stress (a public speaking task with different levels of social evaluation). All participants underwent continuous physiological monitoring while facing two consecutive stress exposures distributed across five laboratory phases: baseline, stress exposure 1, post-stress 1, stress exposure 2, post-stress 2. Results indicated that under moderate-intensity social stress, participants higher on extraversion exhibited lesser HR reactivity to stress than participants lower on extraversion, while under high-intensity social stress, they exhibited greater HR, SBP, DBP and RSA reactivity. Under both moderate- and high-intensity social stress, participants higher on extraversion exhibited pronounced SBP and DBP response adaptation to repeated stress, and showed either better degree of HR recovery or greater amount of SBP and DBP recovery after stress. These findings suggest that individuals higher on extraversion exhibit physiological flexibility to cope with social challenges and benefit from adaptive cardiovascular responses.



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The application of reward learning in the real world: Changes in the reward positivity amplitude reflect learning in a medical education context

Publication date: Available online 27 October 2017
Source:International Journal of Psychophysiology
Author(s): Chad C. Williams, Kent G. Hecker, Michael K. Paget, Sylvain P. Coderre, Kelly W. Burak, Bruce Wright, Olave E. Krigolson
Evidence ranging from behavioural adaptations to neurocognitive theories has made significant advances into our understanding of feedback-based learning. For instance, over the past twenty years research using electroencephalography has demonstrated that the amplitude of a component of the human event-related brain potential – the reward positivity – appears to change with learning in a manner predicted by reinforcement learning theory (Holroyd and Coles, 2002; Sutton and Barto, 1998). However, while the reward positivity (also known as the feedback related negativity) is well studied, whether the component reflects an underlying learning process or whether it is simply sensitive to feedback evaluation is still unclear. Here, we sought to provide support that the reward positivity is reflective of an underlying learning process and further we hoped to demonstrate this in a real-world medical education context. In the present study, students with no medical training viewed a series of patient cards that contained ten physiological readings relevant for diagnosing liver and biliary disease types, selected the most appropriate diagnostic classification, and received feedback as to whether their decisions were correct or incorrect. Our behavioural results revealed that our participants were able to learn to diagnose liver and biliary disease types. Importantly, we found that the amplitude of the reward positivity diminished in a concomitant manner with the aforementioned behavioural improvements. In sum, our data support theoretical predictions (e.g., Holroyd and Coles, 2002), suggest that the reward positivity is an index of a neural learning system, and further validate that this same system is involved in learning across a wide range of contexts.



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Electrophysiological correlates of near outcome and outcome sequence processing in problem gamblers and controls

Publication date: Available online 27 October 2017
Source:International Journal of Psychophysiology
Author(s): Natalie Ulrich, Johannes Hewig
The magnification of skill component in gambling as well as the gambler's and hot hand fallacies are gambling-related cognitive distortions. The magnification of skill component refers to the belief that one's ability can be used to win in gambling and that there is a reliable way to do so. The gambler's fallacy refers to the belief that a given outcome is unlikely to follow a preceding run of the same outcome (e.g. a coin coming up heads following a run of heads), while the hot hand fallacy refers to the belief that a streak of wins is going to continue. The biopsychological basis of these cognitive distortions can be analyzed by examining the processing of near outcomes and outcome sequences in gambling. Near outcomes refer to close wins and losses that would have almost resulted in the other outcome. The current study aims to investigate the electrophysiological basis of said cognitive distortions as well as its modulation by gambling problems. In the current study a group of problem gamblers and matched controls gambled on a wheel of fortune and a coin toss paradigm. The processing of near outcomes and outcome sequences was analyzed using event-related potentials (FRN, P300). Near outcomes evoked smaller P300 amplitudes in both groups. Furthermore, previous wins were associated with increased P300 amplitudes. Outcome closeness and previous outcome sequences did not modulate the FRN amplitude. The processing of near outcomes and outcome sequences was not modulated by gambling problems. General differences between problem gamblers and controls were found, with problem gamblers showing reduced peak-to-peak FRN amplitudes. This might point towards a generally more favorable evaluation of gambling outcomes in problem gamblers while the electrophysiological correlates of the analyzed cognitive distortions do not differ from those of healthy controls.



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