Apigenin Attenuates Mesoporous Silica NanoparticlesInduced Nephrotoxicity through Activating FOXO3a

After adjusting for confounding variables and compared to the risk of stroke in the non-NAFLD group, the risk of stroke in the NAFLD group was the highest (hazard ratio [HR] 1.98, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.17-3.34), followed by the risk of stroke in the intermediate group (HR 1.41, 95% CI 0.94-2.21) (p for trend less then 0.001). However, the level of aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, or gamma-glutamyltransferase alone did not show any significant association with stroke. (4) Conclusions This study demonstrated that the risk of stroke incidence gradually increased with the degree of FLI. Individuals with NAFLD should be properly counseled and monitored for risk for stroke.Industries' air pollution causes serious challenges to modern society, among them exhaust gases from internal combustion engines, which are currently one of the main sources. This study proposes a non-thermal plasma (NTP) system for placement in the exhaust system of internal combustion engines to reduce the toxic contaminants (HC, CO, and NOx) of exhaust gases. This NTP system generates a high-voltage discharge that not only responds to the ion chemical reaction to eliminate NOx and CO, but that also generates a combustion reaction at the local high temperature of plasma to reduce HC. The NTP system was designed on both the front and rear of the exhaust pipe to analyze the difference of different exhaust flow rates under the specified frequency. The results indicate that the NTP system can greatly reduce toxic contaminants. The NTP reactor placed in the front of exhaust pipe gave HC and CO removal efficiency of about 34.5% and 16.0%, respectively, while the NTP reactor placed in the rear of exhaust pipe gave NOx removal efficiency of about 41.3%. In addition, the voltage and material directly affect the exhaust gases obviously. In conclusion, the proposed NTP system installed in the exhaust system can significantly reduce air pollutants. These results suggest that applying NTP to the combustion engine should be a useful tool to simultaneously reduce both emissions of NOx and CO.The hepatotoxin microcystin-LR (MC-LR) represents one of the most toxic cyanotoxins for human health. Considering its harmful effect, the World Health Organization recommended a limit in drinking water (DW) of 1 µg L-1. Due to the ineffectiveness of conventional treatments present in DW treatment plants against MC-LR, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are gaining interest due to the high redox potential of the OH• radicals. In this work UV/H2O2 was applied to a real lake water to remove MC-LR. The kinetics of the UV/H2O2 were compared with those of UV and H2O2 showing the following result UV/H2O2 > UV > H2O2. Within the range of H2O2 tested (0-0.9 mM), the results showed that H2O2 concentration and the removal kinetics followed an increasing quadratic relation. By increasing the initial concentration of H2O2, the consumption of oxidant also increased but, in terms of MC-LR degraded for H2O2 dosed, the removal efficiency decreased. As the initial MC-LR initial concentration increased, the removal kinetics increased up to a limit concentration (80 µg L-1) in which the presence of high amounts of the toxin slowed down the process. Operating with UV fluence lower than 950 mJ cm-2, UV alone minimized the specific energy consumption required. CXCR antagonist UV/H2O2 (0.3 mM) and UV/H2O2 (0.9 mM) were the most advantageous combination when operating with UV fluence of 950-1400 mJ cm-2 and higher than 1400 mJ cm-2, respectively.Water extracts of both Morus alba L. root bark (MBW) and Cornus officinalis Siebold and Zucc fruit (CFW) have traditionally been used to promote men's health in the elderly in Asia. We determined that the 12-week consumption of MBW and CFW could alleviate testosterone-deficiency syndrome and osteoarthritis (OA) symptoms in testosterone-deficient rats, and the action mechanisms were explored. Rats with bilateral orchiectomy (ORX) were fed a 45% fat diet containing either 0.5% MBW (ORX-MBW), 0.5% CFW(ORX-CFW), or 0.5% dextrin (ORX-CON). Sham-operated rats also received 0.5% dextrin (Non-ORX-CON). After 8 weeks of treatment, all rats had an injection of monoiodoacetate (MIA) into the left knee, and they continued the same diet for the additional 4 weeks. ORX-CFW and ORX-MBW partially prevented the reduction of serum testosterone concentrations and decreased insulin resistance, compared to the ORX-CON. ORX-CFW and ORX-MBW protected against the reduction of bone mineral density (BMD) and lean body mass (LBM) compared to the ORX-CON. The limping and edema scores were lower in the order of the ORX-CON, ORX-CRF = ORX-MBW, and Non-ORX-CON (p less then 0.05). The scores for pain behaviors, measured by weight-distribution on the OA leg and maximum running velocity on a treadmill, significantly decreased in the same order as limping scores. ORX-MBW protected against the increased expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-3 and MMP-13 and reduced the production of inflammatory markers such as TNF-α and IL-1β, by MIA in the articular cartilage, compared to the ORX-CON (p less then 0.05). The cartilage damage near the tidemark of the knee and proteoglycan loss was significantly less in ORX-MBW than ORX-CON. In conclusion, MBW, possibly CFW, could be effective alternative therapeutic agents for preventing osteoarthritis in testosterone-deficient elderly men.Peptide Nucleic Acid (PNAs) and small noncoding RNAs including small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) represent a new class of oligonucleotides considered as an alternative therapeutic strategy in the chronic hepatitis B treatment. Indeed, chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major public health problem worldwide, despite the availability of an effective prophylactic vaccine. Current therapeutic approaches approved for chronic HBV treatment are pegylated-interferon alpha (IFN)-α and nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs). Both therapies do not completely eradicate viral infection and promote severe side effects. In this context, the development of new effective treatments is imperative. This review focuses on antiviral activity of both PNAs and siRNAs targeting hepatitis B virus. Thus, we briefly present our results on the ability of PNAs to decrease hepadnaviral replication in duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV) model. Interestingly, other oligonucleotides as siRNAs could significantly inhibit HBV antigen expression in transient replicative cell culture.