All-trans retinoic acid protects against the development of HIV-associated nephropathy (HIVAN) in HIV-1 transgenic mice (Tg26). In vitro, all-trans retinoic acid inhibits HIV-induced podocyte proliferation and restores podocyte differentiation markers by activating its receptor-α (RARα). Here, we report that Am580, a water-soluble RARα-specific agonist, attenuated proteinuria, glomerosclerosis, and podocyte proliferation, and restored podocyte differentiation markers in kidneys of Tg26 mice. Furthermore, RARα−/− Tg26 mice developed more severe kidney and podocyte injury than did RARα+/− Tg26 mice. Am580 failed to ameliorate kidney injury in RARα−/− Tg26 mice, confirming our hypothesis that Am580 acts through RARα. Although the expression of RARα-target genes was suppressed in the kidneys of Tg26 mice and of patients with HIVAN, the expression of RARα in the kidney was not different between patients with HIVAN and minimal change disease. However, the tissue levels of retinoic acid were reduced in the kidney cortex and isolated glomeruli of Tg26 mice. Consistent with this, the expression of two key enzymes in the retinoic acid synthetic pathway, retinol dehydrogenase type 1 and 9, and the overall enzymatic activity for retinoic acid synthesis were significantly reduced in the glomeruli of Tg26 mice. Thus, a defect in the endogenous synthesis of retinoic acid contributes to loss of the protection by retinoic acid in HIVAN. Hence, RARα agonists may be potential agents for the treatment of HIVAN.

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The effect of non-orthogonality of an entangled non-orthogonal state based quantum channel is investigated in detail in the context of the teleportation of a qubit. Specifically, average fidelity, minimum fidelity and minimum assured fidelity (MASFI) are obtained for teleportation of a single qubit state using all the Bell type entangled non-orthogonal states known as quasi Bell states. Using Horodecki criterion, it is shown that the teleportation scheme obtained by replacing the quantum channel (Bell state) of the usual teleportation scheme by a quasi Bell state is optimal. Further, the performance of various quasi Bell states as teleportation channel is compared in an ideal situation (i.e., in the absence of noise) and under different noise models (e.g., amplitude and phase damping channels). It is observed that the best choice of the quasi Bell state depends on the amount non-orthogonality, both in noisy and noiseless case. A specific quasi Bell state, which was found to be maximally entangled in the ideal conditions, is shown to be less efficient as a teleportation channel compared to other quasi Bell states in particular cases when subjected to noisy channels. It has also been observed that usually the value of average fidelity falls with an increase in the number of qubits exposed to noisy channels (viz., Alice's, Bob's and to be teleported qubits), but the converse may be observed in some particular cases.

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In this paper, we propose a new scheme for faithful bidirectional quantum teleportation (BQT) of special type of two-qubit entangled states by using single G state as a quantum channel. In 2016, by using five-qubit and six-qubit entangled states as the quantum channels, two different BQT schemes were proposed by Sang ((2016) Int. J. Theor. Phys. 55, 1333) and Hassanpour et al ((2016) Quantum Inf. Process. 15, 905) respectively. In first scheme, Alice teleports a special type of two-qubit entangled state to Bob and at the same time Bob teleports a single qubit state to Alice. In later scheme, Alice and Bob teleport special type of two-qubit entangled state to each other simultaneously. In contrast to these schemes, in our proposed scheme Alice and Bob can teleport special type of two-qubit entangled states to each other simultaneously while the quantum channel is a four-qubit entangled state. Our proposed BQT scheme requires minimum consumption of quantum and classical resources and it has maximum intrinsic efficiency as compared with previous BQT schemes. We also generalize our scheme for bidirectional quantum teleportation of N-qubit entangled states.