BACKGROUND To investigate the potential mechanisms underlying the protective effects of 18α Glycyrrhizin (GL) on rat hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and hepatocytes in vivo and in vitro. MATERIAL/METHODS Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: normal control group, liver fibrosis group, high-dose 18α GL group (25 mg/ kg/d), intermediate-dose 18α GL group (12.5 mg/kg/d) and...

We have obtained a good quality R∼400 0.8–2.5 µm spectrum and accurate photometry of Gl 570D, one of the coolest and least luminous brown dwarfs currently known. The spectrum shows that Gl 570D has deeper absorptions in the strong water and methane bands at 1. ′ than previously observed T dwarfs. Data analysis using model spectra coupled with knowledge of the well-understood primary implies tha...

The glucose concentration (gl) in mammalian serum incorporates a normal range of variation of several millimoles. We studied the effects of such variations on light-evoked electrical signals in the in vitro arterially perfused cat eye, avoiding extraocular regulatory mechanisms that might confound data interpretation. Changes in gl from the nominal control value of 5 mmol/l were maintained for ...

IL-12 is a potent antitumor cytokine that exhibits significant clinical toxicities after systemic administration. We hypothesized that intratumoral (i.t.) administration of IL-12 coformulated with the biodegradable polysaccharide chitosan could enhance the antitumor activity of IL-12 while limiting its systemic toxicity. Noninvasive imaging studies monitored local retention of IL-12, with and w...

Metabolic diseases in China have been on the rise during recent decades. To investigate dietary glycaemic load (GL) and its correlation with the prevalence of metabolic diseases in hospitalised Chinese adults, we analysed the total energy and macronutrient intakes in 1040 patients. Dietary GL was calculated based upon glycaemic index (GI), carbohydrate content and daily intake of individual foo...

We derive the Green-Schwarz action on AdS 5 × S 5 using an alternate version of the coset superspace construction. By Wick rotations and Lie algebra identifications we bring the coset to GL(4|4)/(Sp(4) ⊗ GL(1)) 2 , which allows us to represent the conformal transformations on unconstrained matrices. The derivation is more streamlined even for the bosonic sector, and conformal symmetry is manife...

Chitosan has proved to have antimicrobial properties, which can be used to protect seafood from contamination and growth of pathogens such as Vibrio cholerae. The aim of this study was to model the inhibition of Vibrio cholerae Non-01 by low and high molecular weight chitosan. Chitosan of low (LMWC) and high (HMWC) molecular weight (150 and 320 KDa respectively) was used at final concentrations...

A prerequisite for understanding the molecular function of the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) gH (UL75)-gL (UL115) complex is a detailed knowledge of the structure of this complex in its functional form, as it is present in mature virions. The gH protein is known to be a component of a 240-kDa envelope complex designated as gCIII (D. R. Gretch, B. Kari, L. Rasmussen, R. C. Gehrz, and M. F. Stinsk...

In 1987, this author introduced three-dimensional (3D) versions of the two-dimensional (2D) cellular automaton (CA) made famous by John Conway [1]. At that time, some criteria were given to validate candidate 3D CA rules as “game of life” (GL) rules. Informally, we say that a CA rule is a GL rule if (a) when we count neighbors of a cell, we count all touching neighbors, and they are all treated...

PURPOSE Although previous research has associated the glycaemic load (GL) of a meal with cognitive functioning, typically the macro-nutrient composition of the meals has differed, raising a question as to whether the response was to GL or to the energy, nutrients or particular foods consumed. Therefore, the present study contrasted two breakfasts that offered identical levels of energy and macr...