While there are various kinds of drugs for type 2 diabetes mellitus at present, in this review article, we focus on metformin which is an insulin sensitizer and is often used as a first-choice drug worldwide. Metformin mainly activates adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in the liver which leads to suppression of fatty acid synthesis and gluconeogenesis. Metformin activates AMPK in skeletal muscle as well, which increases translocation of glucose transporter 4 to the cell membrane and thereby increases glucose uptake. Further, metformin suppresses glucagon signaling in the liver by suppressing adenylate cyclase which leads to suppression of gluconeogenesis. In addition, metformin reduces autophagy failure observed in pancreatic β-cells under diabetic conditions. Furthermore, it is known that metformin alters the gut microbiome and facilitates the transport of glucose from the circulation into excrement. It is also known that metformin reduces food intake and lowers body weight by increasing circulating levels of the peptide hormone growth/differentiation factor 15 (GDF15). Furthermore, much attention has been drawn to the fact that the frequency of various cancers is lower in subjects taking metformin. Metformin suppresses the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) by activating AMPK in pre-neoplastic cells, which leads to suppression of cell growth and an increase in apoptosis in pre-neoplastic cells. It has been shown recently that metformin consumption potentially influences the mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19). Taken together, metformin is an old drug, but multifaceted mechanisms of action of metformin have been unraveled one after another in its long history. 相似文献
Radiophotoluminescence phenomena have been widely investigated on various types of materials for dosimetry applications. We report that an aluminoborosilicate glass containing 0.005 mol% copper exhibits intense photoluminescence in the visible region induced by X-ray and γ-ray irradiation. The luminescence is assigned to the 3d94s1 → 3d10 transition of Cu+. The proportionality of the intensity of the induced photoluminescence to the irradiation dose was confirmed up to 0.5 kGy using 60Co γ-ray irradiation. Based on the spectroscopic results, a potential mechanism was proposed for the enhancement of the photoluminescence. The exposure to the ionizing radiation generates electron-hole pairs in the glass, and the electrons are subsequently captured by the Cu2+ ions, which are converted to Cu+ and emit the luminescence. For the glass containing 0.01 mol% copper, the pronounced enhancement of the photoluminescence was not observed because the reverse reaction, ie, the capture of the holes by the Cu+ ions, becomes prominent. The photoluminescence induced by the irradiation was stably observed for the glasses kept at room temperature and even for the glasses heat-treated at 150°C. However, the induced photoluminescence could be eliminated by the heat treatment at a temperature at 500°C, and the glass returned to the initial pre-irradiation state. The Cu-doped aluminoborosilicate glass is a potential candidate for use in dosimetry applications. 相似文献
Summary
The potato phosphorylase-catalyzed polymerization of α-D-glucose-1-phosphate (G-1-P) onto poly[styrene-block-(4-vinylbenzyl maltohexaoside)] (1) was performed at the molar ratios of [G-l-P]0 and [maltohexaose]0 of 35, 80, and 250. The product was found to be soluble in dimethyl sulfoxide, which was a good solvent for amylose, and
showed the complex-formation with iodine, indicating that the product was assignable to poly[styrene-block-(styrene-graft-amylose)] (2). The quantitative analysis of the liberated phosphoric acid gave the average degree of polymerization o f the glucose unit
(n) as 27, 5 1, and 180 for 2-I, 2-II, and 2-III, respectively.
Received: 29 November 2002/Accepted: 22 December 2002
Correspondence to Toyoji Kakuchi 相似文献
Recent advances in gene technology have helped to identify novel proteins and allowed study of their distribution and functions in the mammalian brain. One class of these proteins is that of transporters, which exist in plasma and organellar membranes of neurons and other cells to move substances selectively across membranes. These transporters can be categorized further into subclasses by their structural property, substrate selectivity, and site of action. Some of them have been identified in the hypothalamus, which is the only brain site where a neural signal is converted to a humoral one, namely, a hormone for a target organ. This unique neural mechanism has long attracted attention as the neuroendocrine system, part of which has been extensively studied as the hypothalamic-neurohypophysial system involved in secretion of vasopressin and oxytocin. However, transporters in this system have been less well studied. A morphological examination of novel transporters would give us cues to a better understanding of the neuronal organization and function of the system. In this review, we first summarize recent findings on expression of transporter gene and immunoreactivity in the hypothalamus. In the second part, we explain our observations on two vesicular glutamate (inorganic phosphate) transporters (BNPI and DNPI) in the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei and neurohypophysis. Further study of these and other transporters will provide a basis on which to reevaluate the organization and function of the hypothalamic-neurohypophysial system. 相似文献
A new method is proposed to produce gold nanoparticles (GNP) by in situ reduction of a gold salt dissolved in water. The reducing
agent used is Tiron instead of the citrate anion most often mentioned in literature. The influence of various parameters has
been investigated, such as the content of Tiron with respect to that of the precursor of gold HAuCl4, or the initial pH of the solution after mixing of reactants. It is shown that Tiron also exerts a positive influence as
a dispersant, which impedes agglomeration of gold nanoparticles. The typical average size of GNP synthesized in the present
work is close to 7 nm. 相似文献
The catalytic decomposition of acrylonitrile (AN) over Cu-ZSM-5 prepared with various Cu loadings was investigated. AN conversion, during which the nitrogen atoms in AN were mainly converted to N2, increased as Cu loading increased. N2 selectivities as high as 90–95% were attained. X-ray diffraction measurements (XRD) and temperature-programmed reduction by H2 (H2-TPR) showed the existence of bulk CuO in Cu-ZSM-5 with a Cu loading of 6.4 wt% and the existence of highly dispersed CuO in Cu-ZSM-5 with a Cu loading of 3.3 wt%. Electron spin resonance measurements revealed that Cu-ZSM-5 contains three forms of isolated Cu2+ ions (square-planar, square-pyramidal, and distorted square-pyramidal). The H2-TPR results suggested that in Cu-ZSM-5 with a Cu loading of 2.9 wt% and below, Cu+ existed even after oxidizing pretreatment. The activity of AN decomposition over Cu/SiO2 suggested that CuO could form N2, but, independent of the CuO dispersion, nitrogen oxides (NOx) were formed above 350 °C. Cu+ and the square-pyramidal and distorted square-pyramidal forms of Cu2+ showed low activity for AN decomposition. Temperature-programmed desorption of NH3 suggested that N2 formation from NH3 proceeded on Cu2+, resulting in the formation of Cu+. The Cu+ ions were oxidized to Cu2+ at around 300 °C. Thus, high N2 selectivity over Cu-ZSM-5 with a wide range of temperature was probably attained by the reaction over the square-planar Cu2+, which can be reversibly reduced and oxidized. 相似文献
This paper describes an automated design technique to reduce power by making use of two supply voltages. The technique consists of structure synthesis, placement, and routing. The structure synthesizer clusters the gates off the critical paths so as to supply the reduced voltage to save power. The placement and routing tool assigns either the reduced voltage or the unreduced one to each row so as to minimize the area overhead. The reduced supply, voltage is also exploited in a clock tree to reduce power. Combining these techniques together, we applied it to a media processor chip. The combined technique reduced the power by 47% in random-logic modules and by 73% in the clock tree, while keeping the performance 相似文献