Efficacy of Annona glabra extract against acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease in white-leg shrimp (Penaeus vannamei).

This study aims to investigate the use of pond apple (Annona glabra) compounds as a novel strategy to prevent and treat acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND) as well as to better understand the mechanism of health improvement in shrimp. The A. glabra leaf extracts were extracted using various solvents and examined for in vitro and in vivo activity against Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains. In comparison with ethanol and water extracts, methanol extract showed the strongest bactericidal effect (MBC/MIC ratio of 2.50 ± 1.00), with minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 0.023 ± 0.012 mg ml-1 and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of 0.065 ± 0.062 mg ml-1. White leg shrimp (P. vannamei, body weight 10.37 ± 0.27 g) fed A. glabra methanol extracts-containing diets (AMEDs) at 1 %, 1.5 %, and 2.0 % demonstrated no deleterious effects on survival and were significantly increased in length and weight after 30 days of feeding. The level of total haemocyte, hyaline haemocyte on day 15 and granulocyte on day 30 remarkably increased (p < 0.05) in shrimps fed AMEDs groups compared to those in the control group. The finding demonstrates that granulocyte was induced time dependently. In particular, the survival rate of V. parahaemolyticus challenged shrimps under medication with AMEDs at 1.5 % and 2.0 % was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than that of the control group. The decrease in bacterial load of Vibrio spp. and V. parahaemolyticus was obviously recorded in hepatopancreas shrimp given AMEDs 1.5 % and 2.0 % and may be linked to herb characteristics such as antibacterial activity, enhancing innate immunity, and its potential to maintain the integrity of hepatopancreatic tissue. Our findings suggest that A. glabra extract might be used as a health enhancer in commercial farmed shrimp.

Applications of Mesoporous Silica-Encapsulated Gold Nanorods Loaded Doxorubicin in Chemo-photothermal Therapy.

We investigate the chemo-photothermal effects of gold nanorods (GNRs) coated using mesoporous silica (mSiO2) loading doxorubicin (DOX). When the mesoporous silica layer is embedded by doxorubicin drugs, a significant change in absorption spectra enables to quantify the drug loading. We carried out photothermal experiments on saline and livers of mice having GNRs@mSiO2 and GNRs@mSiO2-DOX. We also injected the gold nanostructures into many tumor-implanted mice and used laser illumination on some of them. By measuring the weight and size of tumors, the distinct efficiency of photothermal therapy and chemotherapy on treatment is determined. We experimentally confirm the accumulation of gold nanostructures in the liver.

Light distribution and thermal effects in the rat brain under optogenetic stimulation.

Optical brain stimulation gained a lot of attention in neuroscience due to its superior cell-type specificity. In the design of illumination strategies, predicting the light propagation in a specific tissue is essential and requires knowledge of the optical properties of that tissue. We present the estimated absorption and reduced scattering in rodent brain tissue using non-destructive contact spatially resolved spectroscopy (cSRS). The obtained absorption and scattering in the cortex, hippocampus and striatum are similar, but lower than in the thalamus, leading to a less deep but broader light penetration profile in the thalamus. Next, the light distribution was investigated for different stimulation protocols relevant for fiber-optic based optogenetic experiments, using Monte Carlo simulation. A protocol specific analysis is proposed to evaluate the potential of thermally induced side effects.

Estimation of bulk optical properties of turbid media from hyperspectral scatter imaging measurements: metamodeling approach.

In many research areas and application domains, the bulk optical properties of biological materials are of great interest. Unfortunately, these properties cannot be obtained easily for complex turbid media. In this study, a metamodeling approach has been proposed and applied for the fast and accurate estimation of the bulk optical properties from contactless and non-destructive hyperspectral scatter imaging (HSI) measurements. A set of liquid optical phantoms, based on intralipid, methylene blue and water, were prepared and the Vis/NIR bulk optical properties were characterized with a double integrating sphere and unscattered transmittance setup. Accordingly, the phantoms were measured with the HSI technique and metamodels were constructed, relating the Vis/NIR reflectance images to the reference bulk optical properties of the samples. The independent inverse validation showed good prediction performance for the absorption coefficient and the reduced scattering coefficient, with R(2)(p) values of 0.980 and 0.998, and RMSE(P) values of 0.032 cm(-1) and 0.197 cm(-1) respectively. The results clearly support the potential of this approach for fast and accurate estimation of the bulk optical properties of turbid media from contactless HSI measurements.

Metamodeling approach for efficient estimation of optical properties of turbid media from spatially resolved diffuse reflectance measurements.

A metamodeling approach is introduced and applied to efficiently estimate the bulk optical properties of turbid media from spatially resolved spectroscopy (SRS) measurements. The model has been trained on a set of liquid phantoms covering a wide range of optical properties representative for food and agricultural products and was successfully validated in forward and inverse mode on phantoms not used for training the model. With relative prediction errors of 10% for the estimated bulk optical properties the potential of this metamodeling approach for the estimation of the optical properties of turbid media from spatially resolved spectroscopy measurements has been demonstrated.

The potential of spatially resolved spectroscopy for monitoring angiogenesis in the chorioallantoic membrane.

Over the last decade, the poultry sector has sought to develop ways to monitor chicken embryonic development as to optimize the incubation conditions. One of the parameters of development which may change under different incubation conditions is the angiogenesis in the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM). To be able to quantify these changes in the angiogenesis and detect long-term effects on health, a non-destructive technique is necessary. In this article, the first steps toward such a non-destructive technique are successfully taken. A spatially resolved spectroscopy set-up is built and tested for its potential to measure changes in angiogenesis with incubation time, and differences between a normal and hypercapnic incubation. In this first study, reflectance measurements are performed directly on the CAM as the eggshell considerably complicates the analysis. This issue should be addressed in future research to come to a really non-destructive technique. An experiment was conducted in which one group was incubated under normal conditions, and another under early prenatal hypercapnic conditions (i.e., increased CO(2) concentrations). The angiogenesis in the CAM was measured at embryonic day (ED) 10, 13, and 16. The measurements showed a clear blood spectrum with an increasing amount of blood in time, and significant differences in the reflectance as function of the source-detector distances. However, no significant differences between the hypercapnia and the control group could be detected.