Physiological and biochemical markers in the process of resistance and/or tolerance of heavy metals in the abandoned mining area of Sidi Kamber,Skikda, Algeria

This paper reports the biomonitoring of metallic pollution in the mine of Sidi Kamber Skikda town, to determine the resistance and/or tolerance to Zn, Pb, Cd and Cu in metalliferous plants. During the period of March–May, 2015, soil and plants samples were collected from three different stations in the study area. The total heavy metal fraction was determined by ICP/MS, whereas biochemical markers were determined by spectrophotometric techniques. The results obtained showed high levels of heavy metals in soil and plants compared to international standards. The translocation factor revealed that the studied plants can transfer and/or accumulate metals in their roots or their aerial parts as a function of characteristics of each metal, soil contents and physiological role in the plant. The contents of chlorophyll, proline, total sugars and total proteins are directly influenced by changes in bioavailable contents of heavy metals. It has been found that the plants studied and biomarkers are better suited for phytoremediation and biomonitoring of heavy metals pollution.     

Urinary aflatoxin M1 in Port-au-Prince and a rural community in north-east Haiti

Aflatoxins (AFs) are hepatocarcinogenic mycotoxins that can contaminate grains and oil seeds in tropical and sub-tropical areas and have been detected in maize and peanut products of Haiti. The first objective was to assess human exposure to AFs among Haitians at an urban hospital (GHESKIO) and a rural health centre (HCBH). The second objective was to test the association between AF exposure and reported dietary intake of potentially contaminated foods, such as maize, peanut products and milk. Measurement of urinary AFM1 by HPLC revealed that among 367 participants 14% and 22% at GHESKIO and HCBH, respectively, had detectable AFM1. The maximum and median AFM1 concentrations for all detected samples were 700 pg AFM1 ml^–1 and 11.7 pg ml^–1, respectively. Detection of AFM1 was significantly associated with peanut consumption (p < 0.05). Controlling for diet and age group in a logit model, patients who reported peanut consumption the day of the survey and patients from HCBH had greater log odds of excreting detectable AFM1 (p < 0.001 and 0.002, respectively); females had lower log odds (p = 0.020). Recalled frequency of consuming non-dairy animal-sourced foods, an indicator of diet quality, approached significance (p = 0.056) as an inverse predictor of urinary AFM1 detection. The findings augur the need for interventions that will improve food safety in Haiti and limit exposure to AFs, particularly among rural communities.     

Crossing Paths in Human Renal Cell Carcinoma (hRCC)

Historically, cell-signaling pathways have been studied as the compilation of isolated elements into a unique cascade that transmits extracellular stimuli to the tumor cell nucleus. Today, growing evidence supports the fact that intracellular drivers of tumor progression do not flow in a single linear pathway, but disseminate into multiple intracellular pathways. An improved understanding of the complexity of cancer depends on the elucidation of the underlying regulatory networks at the cellular and intercellular levels and in their temporal dimension. The high complexity of the intracellular cascades causes the complete inhibition of the growth of one tumor cell to be very unlikely, except in cases in which the so-called “oncogene addiction” is known to be a clear trigger for tumor catastrophe, such as in the case of gastrointestinal stromal tumors or chronic myeloid leukemia. In other words, the separation and isolation of the driver from the passengers is required to improve accuracy in cancer treatment. This review will summarize the signaling pathway crossroads that govern renal cell carcinoma proliferation and the emerging understanding of how these pathways facilitate tumor escape. We outline the available evidence supporting the putative links between different signaling pathways and how they may influence tumor proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, angiogenesis, metabolism and invasiveness. The conclusion is that tumor cells may generate their own crossroads/crosstalk among signaling pathways, thereby reducing their dependence on stimulation of their physiologic pathways.     

Blood parameters of young calves at abattoirs are related to distance transported and farm of origin

Nonreplacement dairy calves, or bobby calves, are fasted and transported to abattoirs from as young as 5 d of age in Australia. The aims of this cross-sectional observational study were (1) to assess the welfare status, as measured by blood parameters, of bobby calves in the commercial supply chain after transport and lairage, and (2) to assess whether distance and duration of transport are risk factors for poor bobby calf welfare, as measured by blood parameters. We hypothesized that bobby calves transported greater distances would be more likely to show evidence of compromised welfare, as measured by blood indicators of hydration, energy status, and muscle fatigue or damage. We also hypothesized that there would be a large amount of variability in indicators of energy status between calves from different farms. We analyzed blood samples collected at slaughter over a spring and an autumn calving period from 4,484 Australian bobby calves aged approximately 5 to 14 d old from 3 different states, after transport, fasting, and lairage. Packed cell volume (PCV), plasma glucose, and serum urea, total protein, β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), and creatine kinase (CK) were measured. Radio frequency identification ear tag data were used to estimate the distance that the calves were transported and to identify the farm of origin. Data were analyzed using linear mixed models, except for BHB, which was analyzed using a Goodman-Kruskal gamma test due to left censoring of the data. Twelve percent of calves showed evidence of anemia (PCV less than 0.23 L/L), and 11% had urea concentrations consistent with dehydration (urea more than 7.7 mmol/L). Thirty-six percent of calves had CK activity above normal resting values, and 1% of calves had CK >2,000 U/L, indicating muscle fatigue or damage. Distance transported had significant effects on all blood variables except urea and BHB. With increasing distance transported, calves were more likely to show evidence of a negative energy balance (low plasma glucose) or dehydration (high PCV or total protein). The estimated effect of distance overall was small, but for calves transported more than 500 km, plasma glucose concentration declined more per kilometer. The calves' farm of origin accounted for a reasonable amount of the random variation between calves for plasma glucose (20%). Our results suggest that longer transport distances may increase the risk of poor calf welfare (dehydration, negative energy balance) after transport, and on-farm calf management (e.g., nutrition, timing of feeding before transport) may affect transported calves' energy status; improving this area could result in better energy availability during fasting.     

Nanomaterials for Antiangiogenic Therapies for Cancer: A Promising Tool for Personalized Medicine

Angiogenesis is one of the hallmarks of cancer. Several studies have shown that vascular endothelium growth factor (VEGF) plays a leading role in angiogenesis progression. Antiangiogenic medication has gained substantial recognition and is commonly administered in many forms of human cancer, leading to a rising interest in cancer therapy. However, this treatment method can lead to a deteriorating outcome of resistance, invasion, distant metastasis, and overall survival relative to its cytotoxicity. Furthermore, there are significant obstacles in tracking the efficacy of antiangiogenic treatments by incorporating positive biomarkers into clinical settings. These shortcomings underline the essential need to identify additional angiogenic inhibitors that target numerous angiogenic factors or to develop a new method for drug delivery of current inhibitors. The great benefits of nanoparticles are their potential, based on their specific properties, to be effective mechanisms that concentrate on the biological system and control various important functions. Among various therapeutic approaches, nanotechnology has emerged as a new strategy for treating different cancer types. This article attempts to demonstrate the huge potential for targeted nanoparticles and their molecular imaging applications. Notably, several nanoparticles have been developed and engineered to demonstrate antiangiogenic features. This nanomedicine could effectively treat a number of cancers using antiangiogenic therapies as an alternative approach. We also discuss the latest antiangiogenic and nanotherapeutic strategies and highlight tumor vessels and their microenvironments.     

Interactions of different polyphenols with bovine serum albumin using fluorescence quenching and molecular docking

Polyphenols are responsible for the major organoleptic characteristics of plant-derived foods and beverages. Here, we investigated the binding of several polyphenols to bovine serum albumin (BSA) at pH 7.5 and 25 °C: catechins [(−)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate, (−)-epigallocatechin, (−)-epicatechin-3-gallate], flavones (kaempferol, kaempferol-3-glucoside, quercetin, naringenin) and hydroxycinnamic acids (rosmarinic acid, caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid). Fluorescence emission spectrometry and molecular docking were applied to compare experimentally determined binding parameters with molecular modelling. Among these polyphenols, (−)-epicatechin-3-gallate showed the highest Stern–Volmer modified quenching constant, followed by (−)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate. Similarly, (−)-epicatechin-3-gallate had the highest effect on the Circular Dichroic spectrum of BSA, while the changes induced by other polyphenols were negligible. Molecular docking predicted high binding energies for (−)-epicatechin-3-gallate and (−)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate for the binding site on BSA near Trp213. Our data reveal that the polyphenol structures significantly affect the binding process: the binding affinity generally decreases with glycosylation and reduced numbers of hydroxyl groups on the second aromatic ring.     

Mass spectrometry of peptides and proteins from human blood

It is difficult to convey the accelerating rate and growing importance of mass spectrometry applications to human blood proteins and peptides. Mass spectrometry can rapidly detect and identify the ionizable peptides from the proteins in a simple mixture and reveal many of their post‐translational modifications. However, blood is a complex mixture that may contain many proteins first expressed in cells and tissues. The complete analysis of blood proteins is a daunting task that will rely on a wide range of disciplines from physics, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, electromagnetic instrumentation, mathematics and computation. Therefore the comprehensive discovery and analysis of blood proteins will rank among the great technical challenges and require the cumulative sum of many of mankind's scientific achievements together. A variety of methods have been used to fractionate, analyze and identify proteins from blood, each yielding a small piece of the whole and throwing the great size of the task into sharp relief. The approaches attempted to date clearly indicate that enumerating the proteins and peptides of blood can be accomplished. There is no doubt that the mass spectrometry of blood will be crucial to the discovery and analysis of proteins, enzyme activities, and post‐translational processes that underlay the mechanisms of disease. At present both discovery and quantification of proteins from blood are commonly reaching sensitivities of ～1 ng/mL. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., Mass Spec Rev 30:685–732, 2011