Positive effects of Phycocyanobilin on gene expression in glutamate-induced excitotoxicity in SH-SY5Y cells and animal models of multiple sclerosis and cerebral ischemia.

Background: Oxidative stress has a predominant role in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases and therefore the modulation of genes and the identification of biological pathways associated with antioxidant therapies, have an impact on its treatment. Objective: The objective of this study was the comparison of 2 methods for the analysis of real-time PCR (qPCR) data, through the use of the evaluation of genes that mediate the effect of Phycocyanobilin (PCB) and its validation in animal models. Methods: We evaluated the effect of PCB:" in vitro" on gene modulation through qPCR analyzed by parametric ANOVA and multivariate principal component analysis (PCA) in a model of glutamate-induced excitotoxicity in the SH-SY5Y cell line and" in vivo"; in animal models of multiple sclerosis (MS) and cerebral ischemia (CI). Results: The results showed that PCA is a robust and powerful method that allows the assessment of gene expression profiles. We detected the significant down-regulation of the CYBB (NOX2), and HMOX1 by the action of PCB in SH-5YSH cell line insulted with Glutamate. The decrease in pro-inflammatory cytokines and markers related to apoptosis and innate immune response, mediated the effect of PCB in the animal models of MS and CI, respectively. Conclusion: We concluded that the mechanisms by which PCB protected cells included the reduction of oxidative stress damage, which could contribute to its clinical efficacy for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Easy and rapid multi-pass detection of antigen and antibody with micro-lens sensors.

We introduce a micro-lens imaging method that can perform easy and rapid multi-pass detection of antigen/antibody (Ag/Ab) without the requirement of any labeling, expensive enzymes, pre-immobilization/modification, and post-washing. Our method detects Ag or Ab presenting in solutions in a quantitative or qualitative manner by using micro-lens as the sensor to monitor the refractive index variation of the solutions during the primary stage of Ag-Ab reaction. The detection can be taken rapidly and finished in two minutes, while requires very low sample volume (several micron liters) and its detection limit can be as low as ∼pg/mL. The method is also able to provide kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of Ag-Ab reactions. The detections of ten Ag-Ab systems and two kinds of clinical samples demonstrated that our method is of high sensitivity, accuracy, reliability and permitting on-site analysis.