Metabolite Variations in the Hippocampus and Corpus Callosum of Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment Using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy with Three-Dimensional Chemical Shift Images.

This study compared the metabolites in the brain regions of hippocampus and corpus callosum between patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy controls using no-radiation and high-sensitivity magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) with three-dimensional chemical shift images (3D-CSI). Twenty volunteers (seven patients with MCI and 13 healthy controls) aged 50-71 years were recruited for this prospective study. MRS with 3D-CSI images of a variety of metabolites was collected from the hippocampus and corpus callosum. Sex and weight showed no significant differences between the two groups. The metabolite levels in the hippocampus and corpus callosum of the MCI group were generally lower than in those of the healthy group, especially for creatine (p < 0.001 in the hippocampus and p = 0.020 in the corpus callosum) and N-acetyl aspartate/creatine (p < 0.001 in the hippocampus and p = 0.020 in the corpus callosum); however, choline/creatine showed a significant difference (p < 0.001) only in the hippocampus, and myo-inositol/creatine showed a significant difference (p < 0.001) only in the corpus callosum. Our study demonstrated that MRS with 3D-CSI can be used to measure these metabolite levels to determine the differences between patients with MCI and healthy individuals. This would aid early diagnosis of MCI in clinical practice, and patients could receive prompt intervention to improve their quality of life.

Exploring Disease Management and Control through Pathogen Diagnostics and One Health Initiative: A Concise Review.

The "One Health" initiative is a critical strategy that recognizes the interconnectedness between human, animal, and environmental health in the spread and containment of infectious pathogens. With the ease of global transportation, transboundary disease outbreaks pose a significant threat to food safety and security, endangering public health and having a negative economic impact. Traditional diagnostic techniques based on genotypic and phenotypic analyses are expensive, time-consuming, and cannot be translated into point-of-care tools, hindering effective disease management and control. However, with advancements in molecular methods, biosensors, and new generation sequencing, rapid and reliable diagnostics are now available. This review provides a comprehensive insight into emergent viral and bacterial pathogens and antimicrobial resistance, highlighting the importance of "One Health" in connecting detection and effective treatment. By emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between human and animal health, this paper underscores the critical role of "One Health" initiatives in preventing and controlling infectious diseases.

Investigation of anti-oxidative stress in vitro and water apparent diffusion coefficient in MRI on rat after spinal cord injury in vivo with Tithonia diversifolia ethanolic extracts treatment.

BACKGROUND: Spinal cord injury (SCI)-induced secondary oxidative stress associates with a clinical complication and high mortality. Treatments to improve the neurological outcome of secondary injury are considered as important issues. The objective of the current study is to evaluate the anti-oxidative effect of Tithonia diversifolia ethanolic extracts (TDE) on cells and apply the pharmacological effect to SCI model using a MRI imaging algorism. METHODS: The anti-oxidation properties were tested in a 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay. Rat liver cells (clone-9) were treated with various doses of TDE (0 ~ 50 µg/ml) before exposed to 250 µM H2O2 and cell survival was determined by MTT and LDH assays. We performed water apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) map in MR techniques to investigate the efficacy of TDE treatment on SCI animal model. We performed T5 laminectomy and compression (50 g, 1 min) to induce SCI. PHILIP 3.0 T MRI was used to image 24 male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 280-320 g. Rats were randomly divided into three groups: sham group, SCI group, SCI treated with TDE group. The MRI images were taken and ADC were acquired before and after of treatment of TDE (50 mg/kg B. W. orally, 5 days) in SCI model. RESULTS: TDE protected clone-9 cells against H2O2-induced toxicity through DPPH scavenging mechanism. In addition, SCI induced the increase in ADC after 6 hours. TDE treatment slightly decreased the ADC level after 1-week SCI compared with control animals. CONCLUSION: Our studies have proved that the cytoprotection effect of TDE, at least in part, is through scavenging ROS to eliminate intracellular oxidative stress and highlight a potential therapeutic consideration of TDE in alternative and complementary medicine.

Transgenic overexpression of heat shock protein 72 in mouse muscle protects against exhaustive exercise-induced skeletal muscle damage.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Lifelong overexpression of heat shock protein (HSP) 72 in skeletal muscle is known to protect against age-related oxidative stress and muscle damage. This study aimed to ascertain whether exhaustive exercise (EE)-induced muscle fatigue and damage can be prevented by lifelong overexpression of HSP72 in skeletal muscle. METHODS: Transgenic mice heterozygous for the porcine HSP70.2 gene ([+]HSP72) and transgene-negative littermate controls ([-]HSP72) were subjected to an EE protocol. Mice were randomly divided into four groups: sedentary [-]HSP72, sedentary [+]HSP72, EE [-]HSP72, and EE [+]HSP72. Animals were killed 82 minutes after the start of EE to determine muscular levels of HSP72, serum levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD, an antioxidant enzyme) and lactate (an indicator of muscle fatigue), muscular levels of matrix metalloproteinase (an indicator of inflammatory myopathies), and muscular damage. RESULTS: During the test, the latency value for the occurrence of EE was 79-85 minutes and 100-110 minutes for [-]HSP72 and [+]HSP72 mice, respectively. After EE, [+]HSP72 mice had significantly higher serum SOD and significantly lower serum lactate, muscular matrix metalloproteinase or myeloperoxidase activity, and muscle damage compared to [-]HSP72 mice. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that HSP72 overexpression in skeletal muscle may improve muscle fatigue and damage in EE by reducing oxidative damage and phagocytic infiltration, at least in mice.

Anti-human hepatoma Hep-G2 proliferative, apoptotic, and antimutagenic activity of tagitinin C from Tithonia diversifolia leaves.

Tagitinin C, a major sesquiterpenoid, was isolated from the leaves of Tithonia diversifolia. The high morbidity and mortality rate of hepatoma in Taiwan motivated our interest in the investigation of tagitinin C's mechanism against the human hepatocellular carcinoma. The methanolic extract of leaves of T. diversifolia (TDM) and tagitinin C were found to have cytotoxic activities against human hepatoma Hep-G2 cells in the MTT assay with IC(50) values of 40.0 ± 2.0 and 2.0 ± 0.1 µg/mL, respectively. This compound induced population increase in the sub-G(1) phase and S phase arrest. Treatment with tagitinin C isolated from TDM resulted in activation of both caspase 3 and caspase 8 which suggested that the antiproliferative effect of this compound was caspase-dependent apoptosis. Magnetic resonance techniques indicated that the tumorigenisity of xenografts derived from Hep-G2 cells was retarded by the delivery of tagitinin C (15 µg/mouse/day) relative to the control counterparts.

Effect of lavender essential oil on LPS-stimulated inflammation.

Lavender essential oil (LEO) is one the most favorite and widely used essential oils in aromatherapy. Many studies have demonstrated its functions in calming, assisting sleep, reducing pain and muscular spasms and its antiseptic function. To date, however, the mechanism of LEO on inflammation response is not well understood. In this study, we examined the effect of LEO on 5 µg/ml lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced inflammation reaction in human monocyte THP-1 cells. We found treatment of 0.1% LEO significantly increased cell viability and inhibited the IL-1ß and superoxide anion generation in LPS-stimulated THP-1 cells. Treatment with LEO down-regulated both LPS-induced protein levels of phospho-NF-κB and membrane Toll-like receptor 4. To determine whether the chaperone protein was involved in the reaction, we determined the levels of Heat Shock Protein 70 (HSP70). Our results showed that LEO increased HSP70 expression in LPS-stimulated THP-1 cells, suggesting that the LEO inhibited LPS-induced inflammatory effect might be associated with the expression of HSP70.

Identification and anti-human glioblastoma activity of tagitinin C from Tithonia diversifolia methanolic extract.

The Tithonia diversifolia methanolic extract (TDM), which showed antiproliferative activity against human glioblastoma U373 cells, with an IC50 value of 59.2±3.7 µg mL(-1), was passed through silica gel chromatography and successively eluted with different percentages of EtOAc/hexane. The 10-60% EtOAc/hexane subfractions, which exhibited a comparatively higher antiproliferative activity, were isolated, and then structural identification was proceeded with 1H nuclear magnetic resonance. The isolated compound was tagitinin C, a kind of sesquiterpenoid. The IC50 value was 6.1±0.1 µg mL(-1) in U373 treated with tagitinin C. In flow cytometric analysis and inhibition of pan-caspase, the results showed that the anti-glioblastoma effect was apoptosis-independent. In PARP, p-p38, ULK1, and LC3-II expression, the anti-glioblastoma induced by tagitinin C was likely via autophagy. In the ULK1 siRNA transfection experiment, autophagy blockade counteracted the suppression induced by tagitinin C. The result suggested that tagitinin C induces U373 cell death dependent upon autophagy under certain conditions.

Tithonia diversifolia and its main active component tagitinin C induce survivin inhibition and G2/M arrest in human malignant glioblastoma cells.

We investigated the antitumour activity of Tithonia diversifolia (TD) on malignant glioblastoma cells. Our results suggested that tagitinin C was the main component in viability inhibition on malignant glioblastoma cells, and also accounted to be the most abundant component (>65%) in TD extract. Both TD extract and tagitinin C exhibited vigorous potential to produce in vitro viability inhibition, autophagic cell death and G2/M arrest. Furthermore, the activity of survivin, a critical resistant-factor in cancer therapy, could be downregulated significantly by TD extract and tagitinin C. These findings suggested that TD extract and tagitinin C were effective for treating malignant glioblastoma.

Chronic hypoxia preconditioning increases survival in rats suffering from heatstroke.

1. In the present study, we assessed the protective effects of chronic hypoxia preconditioning against heatstroke-induced injury in urethane-anaesthetized rats. Heatstroke was induced by exposing the animals to an ambient temperature of 42 degrees C. The time at which both the mean arterial pressure (MAP) and local cerebral blood flow (CBF) in the striatum began to decrease from peak levels was taken as the onset of heatstroke. Control rats were exposed to a temperature of 24 degrees C. 2. Mean arterial pressure, CBF, blood pH, PaO2, PaCO2 and survival time (the interval between onset of heatstroke and cardiac arrest) after heat stress were all lower than in control rats (in which 'survival time' was defined as > 360 min). However, blood lactate concentrations were greater in rats exposed to heat. Rats placed at high altitude (HA), when exposed to the same heat stress (42 degrees C) survived much longer (113 +/- 26 min; n = 8) than rats maintained at sea level (SL; 20 +/- 2 min; n = 8). 3. After the onset of heatstroke, blood pH and lactate concentrations were found to be significantly higher and lower, respectively, in HA rats than in SL rats. 4. Western blot assay revealed that chronic hypoxia preconditioning induced heat shock protein (HSP) 72 expression in both the kidneys and lungs. 5. Thus, it appears that the observed benefit of chronic hypoxia preconditioning is related to attenuation of tissue acidification and elevations of HSP72 expression in both kidneys and lungs during heatstroke.