Radioactivity characterization of 125I brachytherapy seeds used in prostate cancer treatment

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - A procedure for characterizing the activity amount of 125I seed was developed in order to establish a secondary standard activity measurement...     

Generating Excess Protons in Microsolvated Acid Clusters under Ambient Conditions: An Issue of Configurational Entropy versus Internal Energy

Acid dissociation, and thus liberation of excess protons in small water droplets, impacts on diverse fields such as interstellar, atmospheric or environmental chemistry. At cryogenic temperatures below 1 K, it is now well established that as few as four water molecules suffice to dissociate the generic strong acid HCl, yet temperature-driven recombination sets in simply upon heating that cluster. Here, the fundamental question is posed of how many more water molecules are required to stabilize a hydrated excess proton at room temperature. Ab initio path integral simulations disclose that not five, but six water molecules are needed at 300 K to allow for HCl dissociation independently from nuclear quantum effects. In order to provide the molecular underpinnings of these observations, the classical and quantum free energy profiles were decomposed along the dissociation coordinate in terms of the corresponding internal energy and entropy profiles. What decides in the end about acid dissociation, and thus ion pair formation, in a specific microsolvated water cluster at room temperature is found to be a fierce competition between classical configurational entropy and internal energy, where the former stabilizes the undissociated state whereas the latter favors dissociation. It is expected that these are generic findings with broad implications on acid–base chemistry depending on temperature in small water assemblies.     

Lactoferrin and Its Derived Peptides: An Alternative for Combating Virulence Mechanisms Developed by Pathogens

Due to the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens, it is necessary to develop options to fight infections caused by these agents. Lactoferrin (Lf) is a cationic nonheme multifunctional glycoprotein of the innate immune system of mammals that provides numerous benefits. Lf is bacteriostatic and/or bactericidal, can stimulate cell proliferation and differentiation, facilitate iron absorption, improve neural development and cognition, promote bone growth, prevent cancer and exert anti-inflammatory and immunoregulatory effects. Lactoferrin is present in colostrum and milk and is also produced by the secondary granules of polymorphonuclear leukocytes, which store this glycoprotein and release it at sites of infection. Lf is also present in many fluids and exocrine secretions, on the surfaces of the digestive, respiratory and reproductive systems that are commonly exposed to pathogens. Apo-Lf (an iron-free molecule) can be microbiostatic due to its ability to capture ferric iron, blocking the availability of host iron to pathogens. However, apo-Lf is mostly microbicidal via its interaction with the microbial surface, causing membrane damage and altering its permeability function. Lf can inhibit viral entry by binding to cell receptors or viral particles. Lf is also able to counter different important mechanisms evolved by microbial pathogens to infect and invade the host, such as adherence, colonization, invasion, production of biofilms and production of virulence factors such as proteases and toxins. Lf can also cause mitochondrial and caspase-dependent regulated cell death and apoptosis-like in pathogenic yeasts. All of these mechanisms are important targets for treatment with Lf. Holo-Lf (the iron-saturated molecule) can contain up to two ferric ions and can also be microbicidal against some pathogens. On the other hand, lactoferricins (Lfcins) are peptides derived from the N-terminus of Lf that are produced by proteolysis with pepsin under acidic conditions, and they cause similar effects on pathogens to those caused by the parental Lf. Synthetic analog peptides comprising the N-terminus Lf region similarly exhibit potent antimicrobial properties. Importantly, there are no reported pathogens that are resistant to Lf and Lfcins; in addition, Lf and Lfcins have shown a synergistic effect with antimicrobial and antiviral drugs. Due to the Lf properties being microbiostatic, microbicidal, anti-inflammatory and an immune modulator, it represents an excellent natural alternative either alone or as adjuvant in the combat to antibiotic multidrug-resistant bacteria and other pathogens. This review aimed to evaluate the data that appeared in the literature about the effects of Lf and its derived peptides on pathogenic bacteria, protozoa, fungi and viruses and how Lf and Lfcins inhibit the mechanisms developed by these pathogens to cause disease.     

Seed layer effect on morphological,structural, and optical properties of electrochemically grown ZnO nanowires over different SnO2:F/glass substrates

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Transparent conductive oxide electrodes and specifically SnO2:F/glass are widely employed substrates in the preparation of optoelectronic devices. This...     

Antibacterial activity of agave fructans against salmonella typhimurium

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial effect of Agave fructans against the Salmonella Typhimurium in “in vitro” experiments. The result of the antimicrobial activity was 263.89?±?0, 414.95?±?12.83, 494.54?±?13.88, 522.29?±?0, 580.41?±?14.92?AU for 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50% of Agave fructans (AF) respectively. In addition, there is a significant effect on the growth of the bacteria with all the percentages of AF evaluated (p?<?0.001, R2?=?0.859) with respect to the control. The growth rate of Salmonella with 25% AF was statistically significant compared to the control (?0.7353?±?0.586, 0.0079?±?0.002?D.O./h, respectively; p?>?0.01). Agave fructans could be an alternative to prevent the infections caused by Salmonella.     

Nonassociative Star Product Deformations for D-Brane World-Volumes in Curved Backgrounds

We investigate the deformation of D-brane world-volumes in curved backgrounds. We calculate the leading corrections to the boundary conformal field theory involving the background fields, and in particular we study the correlation functions of the resulting system. This allows us to obtain the world-volume deformation, identifying the open string metric and the noncommutative deformation parameter. The picture that unfolds is the following: when the gauge invariant combination ω=B+F is constant one obtains the standard Moyal deformation of the brane world-volume. Similarly, when dω= 0 one obtains the noncommutative Kontsevich deformation, physically corresponding to a curved brane in a flat background. When the background is curved, H=dω≠ 0, we find that the relevant algebraic structure is still based on the Kontsevich expansion, which now defines a nonassociative star product with an A _∞ homotopy associative algebraic structure. We then recover, within this formalism, some known results of Matrix theory in curved backgrounds. In particular, we show how the effective action obtained in this framework describes, as expected, the dielectric effect of D-branes. The polarized branes are interpreted as a soliton, associated to the condensation of the brane gauge field. Received: 22 March 2001 / Accepted: 13 July 2001