Correlation between chemical composition and 90Sr concentrations in groundwater of the Chornobyl NPP industrial site.

The volumetric activity of the divalent 90Sr ion in groundwater at the Chornobyl NPP industrial site ranges from 1 to 2 to 400-3800 Bq/l. The increase in groundwater radionuclides concentrations is associated with the reduced sorption properties of local sediments, which affect the migration capacity of radionuclides in the environment. The decrease of the 90Sr sorption properties of sediments is caused by changes in the chemical composition of groundwater. A new statistical method has been performed. Method based on the Monte Carlo method in order to evaluate the correlations between the 90Sr volumetric activity and the groundwater chemical composition components. Simulation results using this method suggest a correlation between the volumetric activity of 90Sr, the concentrations cations, the pH, and the oxidation index (organic contents). A direct correlation was established between the volumetric activity of 90Sr, Ca2+ concentrations and the pH of groundwater in the range from 7 to 12.4. It was revealed that the concentrations of Na+ and K+ do not affect the conditions of 90Sr migration with groundwater. There is an inverse correlation between the concentration of 90Sr and the oxidation index, which is an indirect indicator of the organic substances content in water. Thus, the presence of organic substances in the groundwater effectively promotes sorption of 90Sr. The proposed method of geochemical statistics enables a quantitative assessment of groundwater monitoring results.

Mitochondrial uncoupling reveals a novel therapeutic opportunity for p53-defective cancers.

There are considerable challenges in directly targeting the mutant p53 protein, given the large heterogeneity of p53 mutations in the clinic. An alternative approach is to exploit the altered fitness of cells imposed by loss-of-wild-type p53. Here we identify niclosamide through a HTS screen for compounds selectively killing p53-deficient cells. Niclosamide impairs the growth of p53-deficient cells and of p53 mutant patient-derived ovarian xenografts. Metabolome profiling reveals that niclosamide induces mitochondrial uncoupling, which renders mutant p53 cells susceptible to mitochondrial-dependent apoptosis through preferential accumulation of arachidonic acid (AA), and represents a first-in-class inhibitor of p53 mutant tumors. Wild-type p53 evades the cytotoxicity by promoting the transcriptional induction of two key lipid oxygenation genes, ALOX5 and ALOX12B, which catalyzes the dioxygenation and breakdown of AA. Therefore, we propose a new paradigm for targeting cancers defective in the p53 pathway, by exploiting their vulnerability to niclosamide-induced mitochondrial uncoupling.

Bifidobacteria and its rice fermented products on diet induced obese mice: analysis of physical status, serum profile and gene expressions.

Obesity is highly correlated with the dysbiosis of intestinal microbiota, and bifidobacteria are one of the soft targets of this metabolic syndrome. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of Bifidobacterium sp. MKK4 and rice-based fermented foods on physical, haematological, gut microbiota and lypogenic-lypolytic marker genes in diet-induced obese mice. Adult male mice (21±0.7 g) were randomly divided into four groups (n=10) according to the type of diet: normal diet (ND), high fat diet (HFD), HFD supplemented with Bifidobacterium sp. MKK4 and HFD supplemented with MKK4 associated rice-fermented food. 8 weeks of bacterial therapy in the obese mice resulted in significant reduction of body and organ weights, improved serum levels of glucose, triglyceride and cholesterol, the histological structure of the liver (steatosis), and re-establishment of gut Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium and Bacteroides species. The bacterial therapy led to up-regulation of lipolytic transcription factors, such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-α, PPAR-δ, and their regulated gene products in fatty acid metabolism and glucose uptake, such as acyl-CoA oxidase, carnitine palmitoyl-transferase-1, uncoupling protein-3 and glucose transporter-4. Concomitantly, both adipocytogenesis and fatty acid synthesis were arrested as reflected by the down-regulation of sterol regulatory element binding protein-1c, acetyl-CoA carboxylase, fatty acid synthase and tumour necrosis factor alpha genes. The effectiveness of the fermented product was more profound than the single bacterium. These data provide experimental support with regard to the use of Bifidobacterium sp. MKK4 as a natural therapeutic agent to control obesity.

Implications of charge ordering in high Tc cuprate superconductors in far-infrared spectroscopy.

We addressed the issue of the absence of far-infrared signatures pertaining to charge ordering in the published far-infrared reflectivity data of La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals while other experimental probes reveal that charge ordering is a hallmark of superconducting cuprates. Through direct comparison of the far-infrared data reported by various groups side by side and also with the Raman scattering data, we found that the inconsistencies stem from the failure in capturing delicate spectral features embedded in the close-to-perfect ab-plane far-infrared reflectivity of La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals by misidentifying the reflectivity as the Drude-like metallic reflectivity. The analysis of the close-to-true reflectivity data reveals that only a small fraction (<3%) of the total doping-induced charge carriers (electrons) are itinerant on the electron lattice made up with the rest of the electrons (>97%) at all doping levels up to 16%. We conclude that the far-infrared reflectivity study is far from being ready to construct a coherent picture of the ubiquitous charge ordering phenomenon and its relationship with the high Tc superconductivity.

Pediatric suppurative parotitis in Cambodia between 2007 and 2011.

The causes of suppurative parotitis in Cambodian children are not known. We describe 39 cases at the Angkor Hospital for Children, Siem Reap, between January 2007 and July 2011 (0.07/1000 hospital attendances). The median age was 5.7 years with no neonates affected. Burkholderia pseudomallei was cultured in 29 (74%) cases. No deaths occurred; 1 child developed facial nerve palsy.

Superconductivity at 52.5 k in the lanthanum-barium-copper-oxide system.

A superconducting transition with an onset temperature of 52.5 K has been observed under hydrostatic pressure in compounds with nominal compositions given by (La(0.9)Ba(0.1))(2) CuO4-Y. Possible causes for the high-temperature superconductivity are discussed.