Role of APN and TNF-α in type 2 diabetes mellitus complicated by nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a chronic liver disease caused by non-excessive alcohol consumption and is the most common cause of elevated levels of serum liver enzymes. We examined changes in adiponectin (APN) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) complicated by NAFLD and their relationships with insulin resistance (IR). Forty-two T2DM, 39 NAFLD, and 45 T2DM complicated with NAFLD (complicated group) patients were enrolled in this study. Body mass index, fasting blood plasma glucose (FPG), fasting insulin, triglyceride (TG), alanine aminotransferase, gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, APN, TNF-α, and homeostasis model of assessment (HOMA)-IR were determined. The degree of fatty liver was graded according to liver/spleen computed tomography ratio and intrahepatic vessel manifestations. Compared with the T2DM and NAFLD groups, fasting blood plasma glucose, alanine aminotransferase, gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, TG, TNF-α, and HOMA-IR in the complicated group were significantly increased, while APN was significantly reduced. Body mass index in the complicated group was significantly higher than in the T2DM group. The complicated group was prone to severe fatty liver compared with the NAFLD group. APN was negatively correlated with body mass index, fasting blood plasma glucose, TG, TNF-α, and HOMA-IR. TNF-α was negatively correlated with APN, but positively correlated with FPG, fasting insulin, TG, and HOMA-IR. The complicated group had clear IR. A more severe degree of fatty liver was associated with higher HOMA-IR and TNF-α and lower APN. APN was an important factor for antagonizing inflammation and mitigating IR.

Nano-silver-modified PQC/DNA biosensor for detecting E. coli in environmental water.

To meet the requirement of World Health Organization for zero tolerance of E. coli cell in 100mL drinking water, a new procedure based on photodeposition of nano-Ag at TiO(2)-coated piezoelectric quartz crystal (PQC) electrode was developed to fabricate a highly sensitive PQC/DNA biosensor. Enhancement of 3.3 times for binding of complementary DNA has been shown and attributed to the following effects arising from the nano-Ag coating. First, a large increase in the active surface area and packing density of neutravidin enhances the maximum neutravidin load to 1.8 times of a normal electrode. Second, the functional activity of neutravidin is enhanced by chemical interaction with nano-Ag to give rise to an increase in the binding ratio between neutravidin and biotinylated DNA probe from 1.00:1.76 to 1.00:3.01. Third, the stronger binding leads to a higher stability of the biotinylated DNA probes bound and increase in hybridization with the complementary DNA. Under the optimized conditions for flow analysis with online PCR product denaturing and hybridization, a detection limit of eight E. coli cells are obtained which require sampling at least 800mL water to detect a single E. coli cell in 100mL water.

4,5-Diazafluoren-9-ol.

The title compound, C(11)H(8)N(2)O, has two crystallographically independent molecules in the crystal. Each molecule is basically planar except for the O atom. The two N atoms in the molecule show different behaviour as hydrogen-bonding acceptors. One of them is involved in intermolecular O-H.N hydrogen bonds which stabilize the crystal packing.