Citrus junos Tanaka Peel Extract Ameliorates HDM-Induced Lung Inflammation and Immune Responses In Vivo.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, lung disorders have become a major health concern for humans. Allergic asthma is the most prevalent form of asthma, and its treatments target the inflammation process. Despite significant developments in the diagnosis and management of allergic asthma, side effects are a major concern. Additionally, its extreme heterogeneity impedes the efficacy of the majority of treatments. Thus, newer, safer therapeutic substances, such as natural products, are desired. Citrus junos Tanaka has traditionally been utilized as an anti-inflammatory, sedative, antipyretic, and antitoxic substance. In this study, the protective effects of Citrus junos Tanaka peel extract (B215) against lung inflammation were examined, and efforts were made to understand the underlying protective mechanism using an HDM-induced lung inflammation murine model. The administration of B215 reduced immune cell infiltration in the lungs, plasma IgE levels, airway resistance, mucus hypersecretions, and cytokine production. These favorable effects alleviated HDM-induced lung inflammation by modulating the NF-κB signaling pathway. Hence, B215 might be a promising functional food to treat lung inflammation without adverse effects.

Estimation of multiexponential fluorescence decay parameters using compressive sensing.

Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) is a microscopic imaging technique to present an image of fluorophore lifetimes. It circumvents the problems of typical imaging methods such as intensity attenuation from depth since a lifetime is independent of the excitation intensity or fluorophore concentration. The lifetime is estimated from the time sequence of photon counts observed with signal-dependent noise, which has a Poisson distribution. Conventional methods usually estimate single or biexponential decay parameters. However, a lifetime component has a distribution or width, because the lifetime depends on macromolecular conformation or inhomogeneity. We present a novel algorithm based on a sparse representation which can estimate the distribution of lifetime. We verify the enhanced performance through simulations and experiments.

Revolutionizing the FRET-based light emission in core-shell nanostructures via comprehensive activity of surface plasmons.

We demonstrate the surface-plasmon-induced enhancement of Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET)using a model multilayer core-shell nanostructure consisting of an Au core and surrounding FRET pairs, i.e., CdSe quantum dot donors and S101 dye acceptors. The multilayer configuration was demonstrated to exhibit synergistic effects of surface plasmon energy transfer from the metal to the CdSe and plasmon-enhanced FRET from the quantum dots to the dye. With precise control over the distance between the components in the nanostructure, significant improvement in the emission of CdSe was achieved by combined resonance energy transfer and near-field enhancement by the metal, as well as subsequent improvement in the emission of dye induced by the enhanced emission of CdSe. Consequently, the Förster radius was increased to 7.92 nm and the FRET efficiency was improved to 86.57% in the tailored plasmonic FRET nanostructure compared to the conventional FRET system (22.46%) without plasmonic metals.

Characterization of early-stage amyloid aggregates by incorporating extrinsic fluorescence and atomic force microscopy.

Amyloid-ß (Aß) oligomers are nanosized bio-assemblies that cause Alzheimer's disease. Characterizing early-stage Aß aggregates becomes an important issue because it is a prerequisite in exploring small molecule inhibitors that bind to Aß oligomers. Of special interest are efficient screening systems that characterize the Aß oligomer size with respect to the aging time. In this work, highly sensitive fluorescence techniques and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were employed to investigate the size determination of Aß and screening of small molecule inhibitors. A solvatochromic dye, 1-anilinonaphthalene-8-sulfonic acid (ANS), was used as an extrinsic fluorophore to monitor the growth mechanism of the Aß aggregates. Then, the time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy method was employed to estimate the hydrodynamic size of Aß oligomers. Finally, AFM was used to characterize the Aß oligomer size in the absence and presence of potential inhibitors. We present that the combination of such three experimental techniques is an excellent way to detect the early stage of Aß aggregation and to screen small molecule inhibitors.

Volume increment effect on the photoisomerization of hemicyanine dyes in oligo(ethylene glycol)s.

We studied the excited-state dynamics of three hemicyanine dyes that undergo internal twisting from the localized excited state to the twisted intramolecular charge-transfer state. The dyes differ in the length of the alkyl chain in the aniline moiety and, thus, the volume of the motional moiety increases without having much of an effect on the excited-state potential surface. By employing oligo(ethylene glycol)s as a new homologous series of solvents that covers a high viscosity region, we showed that the excited-state lifetime of the hemicyanines gradually increases at any given viscosity when the size of the substituent increases. We describe our results for the solution-phase photoisomerization processes in terms of the breakdown of Stokes' law, multidimensionality, and the Hubbard relation.