Identification of liver cancer-specific aptamers using whole live cells

Liver cancer is the third most deadly cancers in the world. Unfortunately, there is no effective treatment. One of the major problems is that most cancers are diagnosed in the later stage, when surgical resection is not feasible. Thus, accurate early diagnosis would significantly improve the clinical outcome of liver cancer. Currently, there are no effective molecular probes to recognize biomarkers that are specific for liver cancer. The objective of our current study is to identify liver cancer cell-specific molecular probes that could be used for liver cancer recognition and diagnosis. We applied a newly developed cell-SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment) method for the generation of molecular probes for specific recognition of liver cancer cells. The cell-SELEX uses whole live cells as targets to select aptamers (designed DNA/RNA) for cell recognition. In generating aptamers for liver cancer recognition, two liver cell lines were used: a liver cancer cell line BNL 1ME A.7R.1 (MEAR) and a noncancer cell line, BNL CL.2 (BNL). Both cell lines were originally derived from Balb/cJ mice. Through multiple rounds of selection using BNL as a control, we have identified a panel of aptamers that specifically recognize the cancer cell line MEAR with Kd in the nanomolar range. We have also demonstrated that some of the selective aptamers could specifically bind liver cancer cells in a mouse model. There are two major new results (compared with our reported cell-SELEX methodology) in addition to the generation of aptamers specifically for liver cancer. The first one is that our current study demonstrates that cell-based aptamer selection can select specific aptamers for multiple cell lines, even for two cell lines with minor differences (MEAR cell is derived from BNL by chemical inducement); and the second result is that cell-SELEX can be used for adhesive cells and thus open the door for solid tumor selection and investigation. The newly generated cancer-specific aptamers hold great promise as molecular probes for cancer early diagnosis and basic mechanism studies.     

Non-steady-state aerosol filtration in nanostructured fibrous media

The filtration of aerosol particles using composites of nano- and microsized fibrous structures is a promising method for the effective separation of nanoparticles from gases. A multi-scale physical system describing the flow pattern and particle deposition at a non-steady-state condition requires an advanced method of modelling. The combination of lattice Boltzmann and Brownian dynamics was used for analysis of the particle deposition pattern in a fibrous system. The dendritic structures of deposits for neutral and charged fibres and particles are present. The efficiency of deposition, deposit morphology, porosity and fractal dimension were calculated for a selected operational condition of the process.     

Magnetic characterization of nanocrystalline iron samples with different size distributions

Nanocrystalline iron was obtained by fusing magnetite and promoters. The oxidized form was reduced with hydrogen and passivated (sample P0). The average nanocrystallite size in sample P0 was d(P0) =16 nm and the width of size distribution was σ(P0) = 18 nm. Samples of nanocrystalline iron with narrower diameter ranges and larger and smaller average crystallite sizes were also synthesized. They were: sample P1 (d(P1) = 28 nm, σ(P1) = 5 nm), sample P2 (d(P2) = 22 nm, σ(P1) = 5 nm), sample P3 (d(P3) = 12 nm, σ(P1) = 9 nm). These four samples were studied at room temperature by dc magnetization measurements and ferromagnetic resonance at microwave frequency. Correlations between samples sizes distributions (average size and width of the sizes) and magnetic parameters (effective magnetization, anisotropy field, anisotropy constant, FMR linewidth) were investigated. It was found that the anisotropy field and effective magnetization determined from FMR spectra scale linearly with nanoparticle sizes, while the effective magnetic anisotropy constant determined from the hysteresis loops decreases with nanoparticle size increase.     

Temperature Coefficients of the Refractive Index for Complex Hydrocarbon Mixtures

Temperature coefficients of the refractive index ( \(\mathrm{d}n/\mathrm{d}T\) ) in the \(25\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}\) to \(35\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}\) temperature interval for hydrocarbon mixtures containing as many as 14 compounds were investigated in this work. The measured \(-\mathrm{d}n/\mathrm{d}T\) of the mixtures were compared with calculations based on the values for each compound and their concentrations. Differences of about 1 % between measured and calculated values were observed for all mixtures. The additivity of \(-\mathrm{d}n/\mathrm{d}T\) for these hydrocarbons enables preparation of surrogate fuels that are formulated to have properties like those of specific diesel fuels.     

The restricted influence of sparseness of coding on the capacity of familiarity discrimination networks

Much evidence indicates that the perirhinal cortex is involved in the familiarity discrimination aspect of recognition memory. It has been previously shown under selective conditions that neural networks performing familiarity discrimination can achieve very high storage capacity, being able to deal with many times more stimuli than associative memory networks can in associative recall. The capacity of associative memories for recall has been shown to be highly dependent on the sparseness of coding. However, previous work on the networks of Bogacz et al, Norman and O'Reilly and Sohal and Hasselmo that model familiarity discrimination in the perirhinal cortex has not investigated the effects of the sparseness of encoding on capacity. This paper explores how sparseness of coding influences the capacity of each of these published models and establishes that sparse coding influences the capacity of the different models in different ways. The capacity of the Bogacz et al model can be made independent of the sparseness of coding. Capacity increases as coding becomes sparser for a simplified version of the neocortical part of the Norman and O'Reilly model, whereas capacity decreases as coding becomes sparser for a simplified version of the Sohal and Hasselmo model. Thus in general, and in contrast to associative memory networks, sparse encoding results in little or no advantage for the capacity of familiarity discrimination networks. Hence it may be less important for coding to be sparse in the perirhinal cortex than it is in the hippocampus. Additionally, it is established that the capacities of the networks are strongly dependent on the precise form of the learning rules (synaptic plasticity) used in the network. This finding indicates that the precise characteristics of synaptic plastic changes in the real brain are likely to have major influences on storage capacity.     

A central fission pathway in alkylphenol ethoxylate biodegradation

A representative alkylphenol Triton X-100 (having 9.5 oxyethylene subunits) was treated over 40 days under the conditions of the continuous flow activated sludge simulation test in a plant with aeration and denitrification chambers. Treated sewage was separated by sequential extraction with ethyl acetate and chloroform. The extracts were analysed by high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionisation-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS). Single ion chromatograms of the chloroform extracts showed the presence of neutral, mono- and di-carboxylated poly(ethylene glycols). This is evidence of the central fission of alkylphenol ethoxylates (APE). Simultaneously, the APE having omega-carboxylated oxyethylene chains were identified. This is the evidence that apart from central fission, the omega-oxidation oxyethylene chain pathway also occurs.     

Morphology and magnetic characterisation of aluminium substituted yttrium-iron garnet nanoparticles prepared using sol gel technique

Aluminum substituted yttrium iron garnet nano particles with compositional variation of Y(3.0-x) A1(x)Fe5O12, where x = 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 were prepared using sol gel technique. The X-ray diffraction results showed that the best garnet phase appeared when the sintering temperature was 800 degrees C. Nano-crystalline particles with high purity and sizes ranging from 20 to 100 nm were obtained. It was found that the aluminum substitution had resulted in a sharp fall of the d-spacing when x = 2, which we speculated is due to the preference of the aluminum atoms to the smaller tetrahedron and octahedron sites instead of the much larger dodecahedron site. High resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) and electron diffraction (ED) patterns showed single crystal nanoparticles were obtained from this method. The magnetic measurement gave moderate values of initial permeability; the highest value of 5.3 was shown by sample Y3Fe5O12 at more than 100 MHz which was attributed to the morphology of the microstructure which appeared to be homogeneous. This had resulted in an easy movement of domain walls. The substitution of aluminum for yttrium is speculated to cause a cubic to rhombodedral structural change and had weakened the super-exchange interactions thus a fall of real permeability was observed. This might have created a strain in the sub-lattices and had subsequently caused a shift of resonance frequencies to more than 1.8 GHz when x > 0.5.     

Comparison of the effects of microwave cooking and conventional cooking methods on the composition of fatty acids and fat quality indicators in herring

The aim of this study was to examine the changes which occur under the influence of different heating methods in the compositions of fatty acids and selected fat quality indicators in fillets of herring. The results that are compared herein were obtained via conventional culinary techniques and using microwave radiation. Culinary processes like boiling, grilling and frying, whether done conventionally or with a microwave oven, did not lead to a reduction in the n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) fraction of the total fatty acids, indicating that these fatty acids have a high durability and a low susceptibility to thermal oxidative processes. The culinary processes used in this study also had an insignificant influence on the fat quality indicators--the peroxide and anisidine value. The fat quality indicators in herring, both after conventional and microwave heating, differ little, and indicate a low content of primary and secondary products of oxidation.