No abstract

PPARγ has emerged as a master regulator of macrophage polarization and is the molecular target of the thiazolidinedione drugs. Here we show that apigenin binds and activates PPARγ by acting as a modulator. Activation of PPARγ by apigenin blocks p65 translocation into nuclei through inhibition of p65/PPARγ complex translocation into nuclei, thereby decreasing NF-κB activation and favoringM2 macrophage polarization. In HFD and ob/ob mice, apigenin significantly reverses M1 macrophage into M2 and reduces the infiltration of inflammatory cells in liver and adipose tissues, as well as decreases the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, thereby alleviating inflammation. Strikingly, apigenin reduces liver and muscular steatosis, decreases the levels of ALT, AST, TC and TG, improving glucose resistance obviously. Unlike rosiglitazone, apigenin does not cause significant weight gain, osteoporosis et al. Our findings identify apigenin as a modulator of PPARγ and a potential lead compound for treatment of metabolic disorders.

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Phytophthora infestans is the basic ingredient for an outbreak of potato late blight, introduced unintentionally into Europe in the 1840s by a steamship carrying fresh seed potatoes from the Americas. Hailed as a population savior, the potato grew into a main staple food in Europe in the following centuries. However, overdependence on potatoes as a subsistence crop created a highly fragile environment in which P. infestans eventually proliferated together with an artificial monoculture regime. In this essay, we follow P. infestans through the history of transatlantic connections. We disentangle three phases of transatlantic exchange through which the Solanum tuberosumwith the fungus-like water mold in its wake-originally departed from the Andes to Europe and most recently announced its comeback. First, we zoom in on an intensified phase of transatlantic exchange that led up to the European potato famine of the 1840s. The import and development of a potato monoculture was intended to sustain a numerous and rapidly growing rural population, albeit with disastrous consequences, as we illustrate with the case of Flanders, where the potato disease made its first entrance in 1845. Second, we contrast the rapid spread of P. infestans across the potato-producing European countryside with its centuries-long containment in the Andes. Third, we unravel the continuing and precarious transatlantic connection between Andean peasants and globalized markets through potato biotechnology. In each phase, multispecies-human and nonhuman-global encounters are identified as driving forces. This allows us to construct an alternative history of the potato and its crucial role in the making of the modern world.

This work reports a multimodal system for label-free tissue diagnosis combining fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIm), ultrasound backscatter microscopy (UBM), and photoacoustic imaging (PAI). This system provides complementary biochemical, structural and functional features allowing for enhanced in vivo detection of oral carcinoma. Results from a hamster oral carcinoma model (normal, precancer and carcinoma) are presented demonstrating the ability of FLIm to delineate biochemical composition at the tissue surface, UBM and related radiofrequency parameters to identify disruptions in the tissue microarchitecture and PAI to map optical absorption associated with specific tissue morphology and physiology. ©2013 Optical Society of America

Automatic species identification has many advantages over traditional species identification. Currently, most plant automatic identification methods focus on the features of leaf shape, venation and texture, which are promising for the identification of some plant species. However, leaf tooth, a feature commonly used in traditional species identification, is ignored. In this paper, a novel automatic species identification method using sparse representation of leaf tooth features is proposed. In this method, image corners are detected first, and the abnormal image corner is removed by the PauTa criteria. Next, the top and bottom leaf tooth edges are discriminated to effectively correspond to the extracted image corners; then, four leaf tooth features (Leaf-num, Leaf-rate, Leaf-sharpness and Leaf-obliqueness) are extracted and concatenated into a feature vector. Finally, a sparse representation-based classifier is used to identify a plant species sample. Tests on a real-world leaf image dataset show that our proposed method is feasible for species identification.

Open-door laminoplasty significantly affected postoperative cervical sagittal balance, with the cervical vertebra appearing to tilt forward. As the severity of surgical invasion to the posterior muscular-ligament complex increased, the loss of cervical sagittal balance also increased.

Near-infrared diffuse optical tomography (DOT) has demonstrated a great potential as an adjunct modality for differentiation of malignant and benign breast lesions and for monitoring treatment response in patients with locally advanced breast cancers. The path toward commercialization of DOT techniques depends upon the improvement of robustness and user-friendliness of this technique in hardware and software. In this study, we introduce our recently developed ultrasound-guided DOT system, which has been improved in system compactness, robustness, and user-friendliness by custom-designed electronics, automated data preprocessing, and implementation of a new two-step reconstruction algorithm. The system performance has been tested with several sets of solid and blood phantoms and the results show accuracy in reconstructed absorption coefficients as well as blood oxygen saturation. A clinical example of a breast cancer patient, who was undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy, is given to demonstrate the system performance.