Extensive regional variation in the phenology of insects and their response to temperature across North America.

Climate change models often assume similar responses to temperatures across the range of a species, but local adaptation or phenotypic plasticity can lead plants and animals to respond differently to temperature in different parts of their range. To date, there have been few tests of this assumption at the scale of continents, so it is unclear if this is a large-scale problem. Here, we examined the assumption that insect taxa show similar responses to temperature at 96 sites in grassy habitats across North America. We sampled insects with Malaise traps during 2019-2021 (N = 1041 samples) and examined the biomass of insects in relation to temperature and time of season. Our samples mostly contained Diptera (33%), Lepidoptera (19%), Hymenoptera (18%), and Coleoptera (10%). We found strong regional differences in the phenology of insects and their response to temperature, even within the same taxonomic group, habitat type, and time of season. For example, the biomass of nematoceran flies increased across the season in the central part of the continent, but it only showed a small increase in the Northeast and a seasonal decline in the Southeast and West. At a smaller scale, insect biomass at different traps operating on the same days was correlated up to ~75 km apart. Large-scale geographic and phenological variation in insect biomass and abundance has not been studied well, and it is a major source of controversy in previous analyses of insect declines that have aggregated studies from different locations and time periods. Our study illustrates that large-scale predictions about changes in insect populations, and their causes, will need to incorporate regional and taxonomic differences in the response to temperature.

Celosiadines A and B, unusual guanidine alkaloids from Iresine diffusa.

Two unusual di-isopentenyl guanidine alkaloids, named celosiadines A (1) and B (2), were isolated from Iresine diffusa aerial parts. The structures of the compounds were elucidated from extensive spectroscopic analyses including HRMS, NMR and ECD. Celosiadines A and B showed favorable binding affinity to the androgen receptor (AR) in silico and were cytotoxic towards AR-sensitive (LNCaP) but not AR-insensitive (PC3) human prostate cancer cells in vitro.

The Dangerous Mix of Adolescents and Dietary Supplements for Weight Loss and Muscle Building: Legal Strategies for State Action.

Adolescents use dietary supplements marketed for weight loss or muscle building, but these are not recommended by physicians. These products are often ineffective, adulterated, mislabeled, or have unclear dosing recommendations, and consumers have suffered injury and death as a consequence. When Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, it stripped the Food and Drug Administration of its premarket authority, rendering regulatory controls too weak to adequately protect consumers. State government intervention is thus warranted. This article reviews studies reporting on Americans' use of dietary supplements marketed for weight loss or muscle building, notes the particular dangers these products pose to the youth, and suggests that states can build on their historical enactment of regulatory controls for products with potential health consequences to protect the public and especially young people from unsafe and mislabeled dietary supplements.

Effects of fruit ellagitannin extracts, ellagic acid, and their colonic metabolite, urolithin A, on Wnt signaling.

Recent data suggest that ellagitannins (ETs), a class of hydrolyzable tannins found in some fruits and nuts, may have beneficial effects against colon cancer. In the stomach and gut, ETs hydrolyze to release ellagic acid (EA) and are converted by gut microbiota to urolithin A (UA; 3,8-dihydroxy-6H-dibenzopyran-6-one) type metabolites, which may persist in the colon through enterohepatic circulation. However, little is known about the mechanisms of action of either the native compounds or their metabolites on colon carcinogenesis. Components of Wnt signaling pathways are known to play a pivotal role in human colon carcinogenesis, and inappropriate activation of the signaling cascade is observed in 90% of colorectal cancers. This study investigated the effects of UA, EA, and ET-rich fruit extracts on Wnt signaling in a human 293T cell line using a luciferase reporter of canonical Wnt pathway-mediated transcriptional activation. The ET extracts were obtained from strawberry (Fragaria annassa), Jamun berry (Eugenia jambolana), and pomegranate (Punica granatum) fruit and were all standardized to phenolic content (as gallic acid equivalents, GAEs, by the Folin-Ciocalteu method) and to EA content (by high-performance liquid chromatography methods): strawberry = 20.5% GAE, 5.0% EA; Jamun berry = 20.5% GAE, 4.2% EA; pomegranate = 55% GAE, 3.5% EA. The ET extracts (IC(50) = 28.0-30.0 microg/mL), EA (IC(50) = 19.0 microg/mL; 63 microM), and UA (IC(50) = 9.0 microg/mL; 39 microM) inhibited Wnt signaling, suggesting that ET-rich foods have potential against colon carcinogenesis and that urolithins are relevant bioactive constituents in the colon.

Eugenia jambolana Lam. berry extract inhibits growth and induces apoptosis of human breast cancer but not non-tumorigenic breast cells.

The ripe purple berries of the native Indian plant Eugenia jambolana Lam., known as Jamun, are popularly consumed and available in the United States in Florida and Hawaii. Despite the growing body of data on the chemopreventive potential of edible berry extracts, there is paucity of such data for Jamun fruit. Therefore our laboratory initiated the current study with the following objectives: (1) to prepare a standardized Jamun fruit extract (JFE) for biological studies and (2) to investigate the antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic effects of JFE in estrogen dependent/aromatase positive (MCF-7aro), and estrogen independent (MDA-MB-231) breast cancer cells, and in a normal/nontumorigenic (MCF-10A) breast cell line. JFE was standardized to anthocyanin content using the pH differential method, and individual anthocyanins were identified by high performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet (HPLC-UV) and tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) methods. JFE contained 3.5% anthocyanins (as cyanidin-3-glucoside equivalents) which occur as diglucosides of five anthocyanidins/aglycons: delphinidin, cyanidin, petunidin, peonidin and malvidin. In the proliferation assay, JFE was most effective against MCF-7aro (IC(50) = 27 microg/mL), followed by MDA-MB-231 (IC(50) = 40 microg/mL) breast cancer cells. Importantly, JFE exhibited only mild antiproliferative effects against the normal MCF-10A (IC(50) > 100 microg/mL) breast cells. Similarly, JFE (at 200 microg/mL) exhibited pro-apoptotic effects against the MCF-7aro (p