Genistein is a phytoestrogen with diverse biological activities. It is a potent antioxidant and antibrowning agent in in vivo and in vitro. Genistein acts as a preventative and therapeutic effects for cancers, postmenopausal syndrome, osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases in animals and humans. Gensitein possesses cancer related enzyme-inhibitory effect and substantially inhibits skin carcinogenesis and cutaneous aging induced by ultraviolet (UV) light in mice and photodamage in humans. Two-stage skin carcinogenesis showed genistein exhibited a moderate inhibition of ornithine decarboxylase activity through blockage of DNA adducts formation. The anticancer, anti-inflammatory, cardio-protective and enzyme-inhibitory effects of genistein might be related to their antioxidant activities. Genistein also altered the Maillard reaction pathway by trapping the advanced glycation end products (AGEs) both in biological and protein-lactose suspensions. As a result, soy isoflavone can be used to enrich or fortify different types of food products. 相似文献
Extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC‐SOD) is an enzyme that catalyses the dismutation of superoxide anions. It has multiple functions, such as reactive oxygen species scavenging, anti‐angiogenic, anti‐inflammatory, antichemotatic and antitumor activities. Recently, we demonstrated that EC‐SOD inhibits ovalbumin‐induced allergic airway inflammation in mice. However, the anti‐allergic effect of EC‐SOD on skin tissue and the role of EC‐SOD in mast cells, which are important for allergic responses, have not been well studied. In this study, we investigated whether EC‐SOD can alleviate atopic dermatitis in mice and inhibit mast cell activation. Treatment with human recombinant EC‐SOD ameliorated house dust mite‐induced atopic dermatitis in mice. Furthermore, the levels of pro‐allergic cytokine gene expression and histamine release increased in EC‐SOD KO mast cells and decreased in EC‐SOD overexpressing mast cells, suggesting that EC‐SOD inhibits mast cell activation. Consistently, a passive cutaneous anaphylaxis experiment showed more blood leakage from EC‐SOD KO mouse ear skin, implying that the lack of EC‐SOD increases allergic responses. These results suggest that EC‐SOD inhibits mast cell activation and atopic dermatitis and that the loss of EC‐SOD causes more severe allergic responses, implying that EC‐SOD might be a good drug candidate for treatment of allergic disorders, such as atopic dermatitis. 相似文献
Pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) have been considered as a potential candidate for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis, however, the mechanism of its action is still elusive. We have previously reported that 50 Hz 0.6 mT PEMFs stimulate osteoblastic differentiation and mineralization in a primary cilium- dependent manner, but did not know the reason. In the current study, we found that the PEMFs promoted osteogenic differentiation and maturation of rat calvarial osteoblasts (ROBs) by activating bone morphogenetic protein BMP-Smad1/5/8 signaling on the condition that primary cilia were normal. Further studies revealed that BMPRII, the primary binding receptor of BMP ligand, was readily and strongly upregulated by PEMF treatment and localized at the bases of primary cilia. Abrogation of primary cilia with small interfering RNA sequence targeting IFT88 abolished the PEMF-induced upregulation of BMPRII and its ciliary localization. Knockdown of BMPRII expression level with RNA interference had no effects on primary cilia but significantly decreased the promoting effect of PEMFs on osteoblastic differentiation and maturation. These results indicated that PEMFs stimulate osteogenic differentiation and maturation of osteoblast by primary cilium-mediated upregulation of BMPRII expression and subsequently activation of BMP-Smad1/5/8 signaling, and that BMPRII is the key component linking primary cilium and BMP-Smad1/5/8 pathway. This study has thus revealed the molecular mechanism for the osteogenic effect of PEMFs. 相似文献
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a multi-system disease featured by movement disorder. Studies on ALS using static neuroimaging indexes demonstrated inconsistent results. However, recent work indicated that the intrinsic brain activity was time-varying, and the abnormal temporal dynamics of brain activity in ALS remains unknown. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data were first obtained from 54 patients with ALS and 54 healthy controls (HCs). Then the dynamic regional homogeneity (d-ReHo) was calculated and compared between the two groups. Correlation analyses between altered d-ReHo and clinical scores were further performed. Compared with HCs, ALS patients showed higher d-ReHo in the left lingual gyrus while lower d-ReHo in the left rectus gyrus and left parahippocampal gyrus. Moreover, the d-ReHo in the left lingual gyrus exhibited correlation with disease progression rate in ALS at a trend level. Our findings suggested that altered dynamics in intrinsic brain activity might be a potential biomarker for diagnosing of ALS.
Multiple-allele single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are potentially useful for forensic DNA analysis as they can provide more discrimination power than normal binary SNPs. In addition, the presence in a profile of more than two alleles per marker provides a clearer indication of mixed DNA than assessments of imbalanced signals in the peak pairs of binary SNPs. Using the 1000 Genomes Phase III human variant data release of 2014 as the starting point, this study collated 961 tetra-allelic SNPs that pass minimum sequence quality thresholds and where four separate nucleotide substitution alleles were detected. Although most of these loci had three of the four alleles in combined frequencies of 2% or less, 160 had high heterozygosities with 50 exceeding those of ‘ideal’ 0.5:0.5 binary SNPs. From this set of most polymorphic tetra-allelic SNPs, we identified markers most informative for forensic purposes and explored these loci in detail. Subsets of the most polymorphic tetra-allelic SNPs will make useful additions to current panels of forensic identification SNPs and ancestry-informative SNPs. The 24 most discriminatory tetra-allelic SNPs were estimated to detect more than two alleles in at least one marker per profile in 99.9% of mixtures of African contributors. In European contributor mixtures 99.4% of profiles would show multiple allele patterns, but this drops to 92.6% of East Asian contributor mixtures due to reduced levels of polymorphism for the 24 SNPs in this population group. 相似文献
It has been almost a decade since the first next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies emerged and quickly changed the way genetic research is conducted. Today, full genomes are mapped and published almost weekly and with ever increasing speed and decreasing costs. NGS methods and platforms have matured during the last 10 years, and the quality of the sequences has reached a level where NGS is used in clinical diagnostics of humans. Forensic genetic laboratories have also explored NGS technologies and especially in the last year, there has been a small explosion in the number of scientific articles and presentations at conferences with forensic aspects of NGS. These contributions have demonstrated that NGS offers new possibilities for forensic genetic case work. More information may be obtained from unique samples in a single experiment by analyzing combinations of markers (STRs, SNPs, insertion/deletions, mRNA) that cannot be analyzed simultaneously with the standard PCR-CE methods used today. The true variation in core forensic STR loci has been uncovered, and previously unknown STR alleles have been discovered. The detailed sequence information may aid mixture interpretation and will increase the statistical weight of the evidence. In this review, we will give an introduction to NGS and single-molecule sequencing, and we will discuss the possible applications of NGS in forensic genetics. 相似文献