No abstract

Epilepsies are common disorders of the central nervous system (CNS), affecting up to 2% of the global population. Pharmaco-resistance is a major clinical challenge affecting about 30% of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients. Water homeostasis has been shown crucial for regulation of neuronal excitability. The control of water movement is achieved through a family of small integral membrane channel proteins called aquaporins (AQPs). Despite the fact that changes in water homeostasis occur in sclerotic hippocampi of people with TLE, the expression of AQPs in the epileptic brain is not fully characterised. This study uses microarray and ELISA methods to analyse the mRNA and protein expression of the human cerebral AQPs in sclerotic hippocampi (TLE-HS) and adjacent neocortex tissue (TLE-NC) of TLE patients. The expression of AQP1 and AQP4 transcripts was significantly increased, while that of the AQP9 transcript was significantly reduced in TLE-HS compared to TLE-NC. AQP4 protein expression was also increased while expression of AQP1 protein remained unchanged, and AQP9 was undetected. Microarray data analysis identified 3333 differentially regulated genes and suggested the involvement of the MAPK signalling pathway in TLE pathogenesis. Proteome array data validated the translational profile for 26 genes and within the MAPK pathway (e.g. p38, JNK) that were identified as differentially expressed from microarray analysis. ELISA data showed that p38 and JNK inhibitors decrease AQP4 protein levels in cultured human primary cortical astrocytes. Elucidating the mechanism of selective regulation of different AQPs and associated regulatory proteins may provide a new therapeutic approach to epilepsy treatment.

The amount and characterization of phytosterol and other minor components present in three Indian minor seed oils, mahua (Madhuca latifolia), sal (Shorea robusta) and mango kernel (Mangifera indica), have been done. Theses oils have shown commercial importance as cocoa-butter substitutes because of their high symmetrical triglycerides content. The conventional thin layer chromatography (TLC), gas chromatography (GC) & gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) techniques were used to characterize the components and the high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) technique was used to quantify the each group of components. The experimental data showed that the all the three oils are rich in sterol content and among all the sterols, b -sitosterol occupies the highest amount. Sal oil contains appreciable amount of cardenolides, gitoxigenin. Tocopherol is present only in mahua oil and oleyl alcohol is present in mango kernel oil. Hydrocarbon, squalene, is present in all the three oils. The characterization of these minor components will help to detect the presence of the particular oil in specific formulations and to assess its stability as well as nutritional quality of the specific oil.

No abstract

Lifetimes of fine structure levels of the v=0 level of the metastable c 3Πu state of H2 are calculated by considering both the forbidden predissociation and the forbidden radiative transition to the same dissociative b 3Σu+ state as the competing decay processes. The decay rate Wp due to forbidden predissociation is calculated for the rotational level N=1 of ortho-H2 and N=2 of para-H2. The weak spin–orbit and spin–spin interactions are the perturbative interactions to mix the metastable c 3Πu state with the repulsive b 3Σu+ state. For the fine structure levels J=N, the forbidden predissociative decay rate Wp calculated is approximately 14 times larger than the previously calculated radiative decay rate Wr. The resulting lifetimes for these J=N levels (which are 0.12 msec for N=1 and 0.11 msec for N=2) are shorter than the detection limit of Johnson’s time of flight experiment. For the fine structure levels J=N±1, Wp is approximately 1/3 of Wr (except for case J=N−1=0, where Wp=0) and the resulting lifetimes vary from 1.3 to 1.4 msec. The lifetimes of non-metastable levels which predissociate via the strong Λ-doubling (or orbit–rotation) interaction are also calculated. They are 1.36×10−9 sec for N=1 of para-H2 and 4.52×10−10 sec for N=2 of ortho-H2.