Advanced electrode designs have made single-unit neural recordings commonplace among modern neuroscience research. However, single-unit resolution remains out of reach for the intrinsic neurons of the gastrointestinal system. Single-unit recordings of the enteric (gut) nervous system have been conducted in anesthetized animal models and excised tissue, but there is a large physiological gap between awake and anesthetized animals, particularly for the enteric nervous system. Here, we describe the opportunity for advancing enteric neuroscience offered by single-unit recording capabilities in awake animals. We highlight the primary challenges to microelectrodes in the gastrointestinal system including structural, physiological, and signal quality challenges.

The study was done to investigate the kinetics of first order bioremediation. The effectiveness of remediating soils polluted with raw crude oil and treated crude oil using Aspergillus niger (fungi) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (bacteria) were investigated. Eight systems of 500g soil sample were polluted with both raw and treated crude oil. Four systems were polluted with 40g treated crude oil while the other remaining four systems were polluted with 40g raw crude oil. Two systems with raw crude and treated crude were left as control (RCC and TCC). Raw crude samples were treated with Aspergillus niger only (RCA) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (RCP) while treated crude samples were also treated with same (TCA) and (TCP) only. The last two systems were treated with both Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Aspergillus niger (RCAP and TCAP). The first order bioremediation kinetics and biostimulant efficiency for these systems were studied by monitoring Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH). At the end of the bioremediation period, the results obtained showed that treated crude oil polluted soil generally remediated faster and better than raw crude oil polluted soil. The highest level of bioremediation occurred in systems amended with both Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Aspergillus niger which had about 98% TPH decrease.

In this paper, we investigate the use of fat tissue as a communication channel between in-body, implanted devices at R-band frequencies (1.7–2.6 GHz). The proposed fat channel is based on an anatomical model of the human body. We propose a novel probe that is optimized to efficiently radiate the R-band frequencies into the fat tissue. We use our probe to evaluate the path loss of the fat channel by studying the channel transmission coefficient over the R-band frequencies. We conduct extensive simulation studies and validate our results by experimentation on phantom and ex-vivo porcine tissue, with good agreement between simulations and experiments. We demonstrate a performance comparison between the fat channel and similar waveguide structures. Our characterization of the fat channel reveals propagation path loss of 1.4 dB and 3.8 dB per 20 mm for phantom and ex-vivo porcine tissue, respectively. These results demonstrate that fat tissue can be used as a communication channel for high data rate intra-body networks.

Transferring in vitro-cultured Eustoma seedlings to an ex vitro condition (acclimation) is a big challenge that may expose the seedlings to biotic and abiotic stresses, and affect the internal and external structure of the plants. In addition, in vitro-cultured seedlings of Eustoma are difficult to handle and phenotype and physiological traits such as survival and rosette rate may have altered in the acclimation stage. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the effects of blue, red, and white LED light on the growth and development ex vitro of in vitro-cultured seedlings of Eustoma. The results showed that blue LEDs resulted in greater plant height, internode length, and leaf number, increased upper and lower fresh biomass, and higher chlorophyll content compared with treatment by the other LED lights. Higher stomatal density on the abaxial leaf surface was also observed in the blue LED-treated plants, which also showed a higher survival rate and lower rosette rate. In contrast, the white LED-treated plants had the highest leaf width and internode diameter. Acclimation of the Eustoma plants ex vitro suggests that a combination of blue and white LEDs may be advantageous for better growth and development for large-scale production in a controlled environment.

In an effort to discover an effective and selective antitumour agent, synthesis and anti-cancer potential of 4-(pyridin-4-yl)-6-(thiophen-2-yl)pyrimidin-2(1H)-one (SK-25), which has been reported earlier by us with significant cytotoxicity towards MiaPaCa-2 malignant cells, with an IC₅₀ value of 1.95 μM and was found to instigate apoptosis. In the present study, the antitumour efficacy of SK-25 was investigated on Ehrlich ascites tumour (solid), Sarcoma 180 (solid) tumour and Ehrlich ascites carcinoma. The compound was found to inhibit tumour development by 94.71% in Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC), 59.06% in Ehrlich tumour (ET, solid) and 45.68% in Sarcoma-180 (solid) at 30 mg/kg dose. Additionally, SK-25 was established to be non-toxic at a maximum tolerated dose of 1000 mg/kg in acute oral toxicity in Swiss-albino mice. Computer-based predictions also show that the compounds could have an interesting DMPK profile. The current study provides insight for further investigation of the antitumour potential of the molecule.

Far-red fluorescent reporter genes can be used for tracking cells non-invasively in vivo using fluorescence imaging. Here, we investigate the effectiveness of the far-red fluorescent protein, E2-Crimson (E2C), for tracking mouse embryonic cells (mESCs) in vivo following subcutaneous administration into mice. Using a knock-in strategy, we introduced E2C into the Rosa26 locus of an E14-Bra-GFP mESC line, and after confirming that the E2C had no obvious effect on the phenotype of the mESCs, we injected them into mice and imaged them over 9 days. The results showed that fluorescence intensity was weak, and cells could only be detected when injected at high densities. Furthermore, intensity peaked on day 4 and then started to decrease, despite the fact that tumour volume continued to increase beyond day 4. Histopathological analysis showed that although E2C fluorescence could barely be detected in vivo at day 9, analysis of frozen sections indicated that all mESCs within the tumours continued to express E2C. We hypothesise that the decrease in fluorescence intensity in vivo was probably due to the fact that the mESC tumours became more vascular with time, thus leading to increased absorbance of E2C fluorescence by haemoglobin. We conclude that the E2C reporter has limited use for tracking cells in vivo, at least when introduced as a single copy into the Rosa26 locus.

Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in maize (Zea mays L.) is an important trait to maximize yield with minimal input of nitrogen (N) fertilizer. Expired Plant Variety Protection (ex-PVP) Act-certified germplasm may be an important genetic resource for public breeding sectors. The objectives of this research were to evaluate the genetic variation of N-use traits and to characterize maize ex-PVP inbreds adapted to the U.S. Corn Belt for NUE performance. Eighty-nine ex-PVP inbreds [36 stiff stalk synthetic (SSS), and 53 non-stiff stalk synthetic (NSSS)] were genotyped using 26,769 single-nucleotide polymorphisms, then 263 single-cross maize hybrids derived from these inbreds were grown in eight environments from 2011 to 2015 at two N fertilizer rates (0 and 252 kg N ha⁻¹) and three replications. Genetic utilization and the yield response to N fertilizer were stable across environments and were highly correlated with yield under low and high N conditions, respectively. Cluster analysis identified inbreds with desirable NUE performance. However, only one inbred (PHK56) was ranked in the top 10% for yield under both N-stress and high N conditions. Broad-sense heritability across 12 different N-use traits ranged from 0.11 to 0.77, but was not associated with breeding value accuracy. Nitrogen-stress tolerance was negatively correlated with the yield increase from N fertilizer.

The inhibition of alpha-glucosidase and alpha-amylase is one of clinic strategies for remedy the type II diabetes. Herbal medicines are reported to alleviate hyperglycemia. However, the constituents from those sources whether are targeted to the alpha-glucosidase and alpha-amylase still unexplored. This study attempted to select the compounds for efficacy of hypoglycemia via cellular and mouse levels. The results illustrated that the cytotoxicity in all tested compounds at various concentrations except the concentration of 16-hydroxy-cleroda-3,13-dine-16,15-olide (HCD) at 30 µM were not significant difference (p > 0.05) when compared with the untreated control. Acarbose (reference drug), Antroquinonol, Catechin, Quercetin, Actinodaphnine, Curcumin, HCD, Docosanol, Tetracosanol, Berberine, and Rutin could effectively inhibit the alpha-glucosidase activity of Caco-2 cells when compared with the control (maltose). The compounds (Curcumin, HCD, Tetracosanol, Antroquinonol, Berberine, Catechin, Actinodaphnine, and Rutin) could reduce blood sugar level at 30 min in tested mice. The effects of tested compounds on area under curve (AUC) were significant (p < 0.05) among Acarbose, Tetracosanol, Antroquinonol, Catechin, Actinodaphnine, and Rutin along with Berberine and Quercetin. In in vitro (alpha-glucosidase) with in vivo (alpha-amylase) experiments suggest that bioactive compounds can be a potential inhibitor candidate of alpha-glucosidase and alpha-amylase for the alleviation of type II diabetes.

The present work aims to demonstrate that colloidal dispersions of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles stabilized with dextran macromolecules placed in an alternating magnetic field can not only produce heat, but also that these particles could be used in vivo for local and non-invasive deposition of a thermal dose sufficient to trigger thermo-induced gene expression. Iron oxide nanoparticles were first characterized in vitro on a bio-inspired setup, and then they were assayed in vivo using a transgenic mouse strain expressing the luciferase reporter gene under transcriptional control of a thermosensitive promoter. Iron oxide nanoparticles dispersions were applied topically on the mouse skin or injected sub-cutaneously with Matrigel™ to generate so called pseudo tumors. Temperature was monitored continuously with a feedback loop to control the power of the magnetic field generator and to avoid overheating. Thermo-induced luciferase expression was followed by bioluminescence imaging 6 hours after heating. We showed that dextran-coated magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles dispersions were able to induce in vivo mild hyperthermia compatible with thermo-induced gene expression in surrounding tissues and without impairing cell viability. These data open new therapeutic perspectives for using mild magnetic hyperthermia as non-invasive modulation of tumor microenvironment by local thermo-induced gene expression or drug release.

Metalloproteinases are zinc-dependent endopeptidases that function as primary effectors of tissue remodelling, cell-signalling, and many other roles. Their regulation is ferociously complex, and is exquisitely sensitive to their molecular milieu, making in vivo studies challenging. Phenanthroline (PhN) is an inexpensive, broad-spectrum inhibitor of metalloproteinases that functions by chelating the catalytic zinc ion, however its use in vivo has been limited due to suspected off-target effects. PhN is very similar in structure to phenanthrene (Phe), a well-studied poly aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) known to cause toxicity in aquatic animals by activating the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR). We show that zebrafish are more sensitive to PhN than Phe, and that PhN causes a superset of the effects caused by Phe. Morpholino knock-down of the AhR rescues the effects of PhN that are shared with Phe, suggesting these are due to PAH toxicity. The effects of PhN that are not shared with Phe (specifically disruption of neural crest development and angiogenesis) involve processes known to depend on metalloproteinase activity. Furthermore these PhN-specific effects are not rescued by AhR knock-down, suggesting that these are bona fide effects of metalloproteinase inhibition, and that PhN can be used as a broad spectrum metalloproteinase inhibitor for studies with zebrafish in vivo.