Purpose Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths, in which the 5-year survival rate is less than 5%. Current standard of care therapies offer little selectivity and high toxicity. Novel, tumor-selective approaches are desperately needed. Although prior work suggested that β-lapachone (β-lap) could be used for the treatment of pancreatic cancers, the lack of knowledge of the compound’s mechanism of action prevented optimal use of this agent. Experimental Design We examined the role of NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase-1 (NQO1) in β-lap–mediated antitumor activity, using a series of MIA PaCa-2 pancreatic cancer clones varying in NQO1 levels by stable shRNA knockdown. The antitumor efficacy of β-lap was determined using an optimal hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextran (HPβ-CD) vehicle formulation in metastatic pancreatic cancer models. Results β-lap–mediated cell death required ~90 enzymatic units of NQO1. Essential downstream mediators of lethality were as follows: (i) reactive oxygen species (ROS); (ii) single-strand DNA breaks induced by ROS; (iii) poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase-1 (PARP1) hyperactivation; (iv) dramatic NAD+/ATP depletion; and (v) programmed necrosis. We showed that 1 regimen of β-lap therapy (5 treatments every other day) efficaciously regressed and reduced human pancreatic tumor burden and dramatically extended the survival of athymic mice, using metastatic pancreatic cancer models. Conclusions Because NQO1 enzyme activities are easily measured and commonly overexpressed (i.e., >70%) in pancreatic cancers 5- to 10-fold above normal tissue, strategies using β-lap to efficaciously treat pancreatic cancers are indicated. On the basis of optimal drug formulation and efficacious antitumor efficacy, such a therapy should be extremely safe and not accompanied with normal tissue toxicity or hemolytic anemia.

Background Adaptation to chronic ethanol treatment of rats results in a changed functional state of the liver and greatly inhibits its regenerative ability, which may contribute to the progression of alcoholic liver disease. Methods In this study we investigated the effect of chronic ethanol intake on hepatic miRNA expression in male Sprague-Dawley rats during the initial 24 hrs of liver regeneration following 70% partial hepatectomy (PHx) using microRNA (miRNA) microarrays. miRNA expression during adaptation to ethanol was investigated using RT-qPCR. Nuclear Factor kappa B (NFκB) binding at target miRNA promoters was investigated with chromatin immunoprecipitation. Results Unsupervised clustering of miRNA expression profiles suggested that miRNA expression was more affected by chronic ethanol feeding than by the acute challenge of liver regeneration after PHx. Several miRNAs that were significantly altered by chronic ethanol feeding, including miRs-34a, -103, -107, and -122 have been reported to play a role in regulating hepatic metabolism and the onset of these miRNA changes occurred gradually during the time course of ethanol feeding. Chronic ethanol feeding also altered the dynamic miRNA profile during liver regeneration. Promoter analysis predicted a role for Nuclear Factor kappa B (NFκB) in the immediate early miRNA response to PHx. NFκB binding at target miRNA promoters in the chronic ethanol-fed group was significantly altered and these changes directly correlated with the observed expression dynamics of the target miRNA. Conclusions Chronic ethanol consumption alters the hepatic miRNA expression profile such that the response of the metabolism-associated miRNAs occurs during long-term adaptation to ethanol rather than as an acute transient response to ethanol metabolism. Additionally, the dynamic miRNA program during liver regeneration in response to PHx is altered in the chronically ethanol-fed liver and these differences reflect, in part, differences in miRNA expression between the ethanol-adapted and control livers at the baseline state prior to PHx.

A population segregating for the naked neck (Na) gene was used to evaluate its effect on fast growing broilers at heat stress. An experimental stock comparable to those of modern broilers was established by backcrossing to colour synthetic male and female lines. Matings between heterozygous (Na/na) males and females produced normally feathered (na/na), heterozygous (Na/na) and homozygous (Na/Na) chicks for the present study. Day old to seven week old coloured broilers of three genotypes viz. normally feathered (na/na), heterozygous naked neck (Na/na) and homozygous naked neck (Na/Na) were compared for heat dissipation, growth performance, body conformation traits, blood biochemical parameters and carcass traits in tropical climate. In hot climate, naked neck broilers had significantly less body temperature and better heat dissipation capabilities as compared to normal broilers. The naked neck broilers had significantly higher body weight and better feed conversion ratio than na/na broilers. The Na/Na or Na/na broilers exhibited higher giblet yield, blood loss and lower feather mass compared to na/na broilers. The results indicated that the reduction in feather coverage in Na/Na and Na/na broilers facilitates better heat dissipation with lower body temperature, more body weight gain, better FCR and carcass traits compared to normal broilers.

In this study, we report the presence of a microbial community of bioremediation potential in terms of relative abundance and taxonomic biodiversity in sediment samples of river Ganga and Yamuna, India at nine different sites. Metagenomic libraries were constructed using TruSeq Nano DNA Library Prep Kit and sequenced on NextSeq 500 by Illumina Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology. Bioremediation bacteria belong to 45 genera with 92 species and fungi belong to 13 genera with 24 species have been classified using Kaiju taxonomical classification. The study revealed that Proteobacteria was the most dominant bacterial flora, followed by Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Deinococcus-Thermus. PCA analysis revealed that bioremediation bacteria viz. Streptomyces bikiniensis, Rhodococcus qingshengii, Bacillus aerophilus, Pseudomonas veronii, etc., were more dominant in highly polluted river stretch as compared to less polluted river stretch. Similarly, the relative abundance of bioremediation fungi viz. Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Rhizopus oryzae, etc., were significantly correlated with the polluted Kanpur stretch of river Ganga. Several protein domains, which play a pivotal role in bioremediation in the polluted environments, including urea ABC transporter, UrtA, UrtD, UrtE, zinc/cadmium/mercury/lead-transporting ATPase, etc., were identified using protein domain analysis. The protein domains involved in pesticide biodegradation viz. P450, short-chain dehydrogenases/reductases (SDR), etc., were also discovered in river sediment metagenomics data. This is the first report on the richness of bioremediation microbial communities in the Ganga and Yamuna riverine ecosystems, highlighting their importance in aquatic pollution management.

The study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of naked neck gene on mortality, cell mediated and humoral immune response in white plumage broiler population. The mortality of homozygous naked neck (Na/Na) broilers (11.71%) was comparatively lower than that of heterozygous naked neck (Na/na) (12.28%) and normally feathered (na/na) (13.59%) broilers. The humoral immune response was measured against (1% v/v) sheep red blood cells (SRBC) for total haemagglutinin (HA) antibody, 2-mercaptoethanol resistance (MER) or (IgG) antibody and 2-mercaptoethanol sensitive (MES) or (IgM) antibody titre on 7 days post-immunization. The titre was expressed as log2 of the highest dilution which shows complete haemagglutination. Total HA titers of Na/Na and Na/na (11.05±0.53 and 11.09±0.38) were comparatively higher than that of na/na (10.26±0.42). The MES antibody titre of Na/Na (8.50±0.53) and Na/na (7.63±0.45) broilers were significantly higher as compared to na/na (6.11±0.32) broilers. The MER titre of na/na genetic group (4.15±0.42) was significantly higher than Na/Na (2.55±0.37) and comparatively higher than Na/na (3.45±0.38) broilers. In vivo cell response to phytohaemagglutinin-P (PHA-P), measured as Foot Index (FI) in mm expressed significantly higher response in Na/na (0.473±0.05) and Na/Na (0.413±0.04) broilers as compared to na/na (0.304±0.03) broilers. The result of present study suggested that white plumage naked neck broilers had better immune response as compared to normally feathered broilers.