Metabolic Profiling of Murine Macrophages Exposed to Silver Nanoparticles at Dose and Time Dependencies

The macrophage time-dependent metabolic profile changing basal metabolism triggered by nanoparticles can be obtained and used to improve wound healing treatments. Herein this study demonstrates that metabolic status responds systematically to cytotoxicity manipulation, providing an interesting way of cellular control. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) based metabolomics and cytotoxic assays are used to study RAW 264.7 cells exposed to AgNPs at different concentrations and incubation times. Cytotoxicity data show a slight decrease in cellular expansion rates accompanied by morphological changes in cells. Metabolomics show that despite the glycolytic activity of treated and non-treated cells remains unchanged; however, only the treated cells present a rich Citrate environment signaling up-regulation of Tricarboxylic-Acid-Cycle (TCA). Cells choose aerobic routes instead of anaerobic ones to produce energy and self-regulate their amino acid metabolism to balance TCA. Choline metabolism is down-regulated once its sub-products, Betaine and Glycine, are reduced, thus compromising Creatine synthesis. Phospholipid metabolism is down-regulated due to the decreasing of Phosphocholine and Sn-Glycerol-3-PC, in agreement with the cytotoxicity results. Pyroglutamate decreases in treated cells, signaling different levels of oxidative stress. These analytical tools can characterize AgNPs-treatments, even distinguishing dose and time dependencies. Therefore, the fine-tuning of exposition parameters can modulate cellular activity to achieve better wound healing.     

The modulation transfer function in the hologram copying process

The concept of MTF is introduced to analyze and describe consistently the hologram copying process, considering the original hologram as a volume hologram. The effect of the copying condition on the quality of the replica is expressed quantitatively in terms of the MTF. It turns out that holograms can be copied most successfully when the copying beam is oriented parallel to the original reference beam. The theoretical prediction is experimentally confirmed.     

A variant of Shelah's characterization of Strong Chang's Conjecture

Shelah considered a certain version of Strong Chang's Conjecture which we denote , and proved that it is equivalent to several statements, including the assertion that Namba forcing is semiproper. We introduce an apparently weaker version, denoted , and prove an analogous characterization of it. In particular, is equivalent to the assertion that the the Friedman‐Krueger poset is semiproper. This strengthens and sharpens results by Cox and sheds some light on problems posed by Usuba, Torres‐Perez and Wu.     

Oligosaccharide-Carrying Styrene-Type Macromers. Polymerization and Specific Interactions Between the Polymers and Liver Cells

Polystyrene derivatives with lactose, glucose, maltose, maltotriose, maltopentaose, and maltoheptaose on each benzene ring were prepared by the radical polymerization of a new class of macromers synthesized by coupling the corresponding oligosaccharide lactones with p-vinylbenzylamine. These polymers consisting of amphiphilic structural units were water-soluble, and organic solutes were bound to hydrophobic microenvironments of the polymers in water. α-D-Glucopyranose-carrying polymers were recognized and precipitated by concanavalin A. Cultivation of liver cells (hepatocytes) was attempted using culture dishes whose surface was coated with lactose-, glucose-, maltose-, and maltotriose-carrying polystyrenes. It has been found that a lactose-carrying polystyrene (PVLA) is a useful surface material for hepatocyte culture. 1) Highly specific adhesion of hepatocytes was attained for PVLA-coated dishes with or without serum supplement. 2) The cell adhesion was a threshold phenomenon with respect to the PVLA concentration on the dish. 3) The cell adhesion was effectively inhibited when hepatocytes were treated with PVLA molecules in the medium prior to culture. 4) The adhesion was not inhibited by albumin, an adhesion-inhibitory protein in serum. These findings suggest that pendent galactose residues of a PLVA molecule functioned as a strong recognition determinant for hepatocytes. We assume that multi-antennary, high-density galactose residues of PVLA are attributed to the specific adhesion of hepatocytes.     

Enantioresolution of 2-methoxy-2-(1-naphtyl)propionic acid using diastereomeric salt formation with chiral phenylethylamine

An enantioresolution of 2-methoxy-2-(1-naphtyl)propionic acid (MαNP acid) using the diastereomeric salt with chiral (R)-phenylethylamine was achieved to give enantiopure (R)-MαNP acid in 29% yield with >99% ee based on rac-MαNP acid. X-ray crystallographic analysis of diastereomeric salt revealed that (R)-MαNP acid was tightly arranged by four independent hydrogen bonds and one CH–π interaction with (R)-phenylethylamine.     

Morphological Investigation of Midblock‐Sulfonated Block Ionomers Prepared from Solvents Differing in Polarity

Recent developments regarding charged multiblock copolymers that can form physical networks and exhibit robust mechanical properties herald new and exciting opportunities for contemporary technologies requiring amphiphilic attributes. Due to the presence of strong interactions, however, control over the phase behavior of such materials remains challenging, especially since their morphologies can be solvent‐templated. In this study, transmission electron microscopy and microtomography are employed to examine the morphological characteristics of midblock‐sulfonated pentablock ionomers prepared from solvents differing in polarity. Resultant images confirm that discrete, spherical ion‐rich microdomains form in films cast from a relatively nonpolar solvent, whereas an apparently mixed morphology with a continuous ion‐rich pathway is generated when the casting solvent is more highly polar. Detailed 3D analysis of the morphological characteristics confirms the coexistence of hexagonally‐packed nonpolar cylinders and lamellae, which facilitates the diffusion of ions and/or other polar species through the nanostructured medium.

     

A new method to improve validity range of Lie canonical perturbation theory: with a central focus on a concept of non-blow-up region

Validity ranges of Lie canonical perturbation theory (LCPT) are investigated in terms of non-blow-up regions. We investigate how the validity ranges depend on the perturbation order in two systems, one of which is a simple Hamiltonian system with one degree of freedom and the other is a HCN molecule. Our analysis of the former system indicates that non-blow-up regions become reduced in size as the perturbation order increases. In case of LCPT by Dragt and Finn and that by Deprit, the non-blow-up regions enclose the region inside the separatrix of the Hamiltonian, but it may not be the case for LCPT by Hori. We also analyze how well the actions constructed by these LCPTs approximate the true action of the Hamiltonian in the non-blow-up regions and find that the conventional truncated LCPT does not work over the whole region inside the separatrix, whereas LCPT by Dragt and Finn without truncation does. Our analysis of the latter system indicates that non-blow-up regions do not necessarily cover the whole regions inside the HCN well. We propose a new perturbation method to improve non-blow-up regions and validity ranges inside them. Our method is free from blowing up and retains the same normal form as the conventional LCPT. We demonstrate our method in the two systems and show that the actions constructed by our method have larger validity ranges than those by the conventional and our previous methods proposed in Teramoto and Komatsuzaki (J Chem Phys 129:094302, 2008; Phys Rev E 78:017202, 2008).