Tropospheric air pollution has impacts on scales ranging from local to global. Reactive intermediates in the oxidation of mixtures of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) play central roles: the hydroxyl radical (OH), during the day; the nitrate radical (NO3), at night; and ozone (O3), which contributes during the day and night. Halogen atoms can also play a role durin...

UV-B radiation is a driving factor for the chemistry of the polluted boundary layer. It is involved in the formation of radicals and consequently influences the formation and concentration of photo-oxidants. The 3-D mesoscale photochemical Metphomod model was employed to study the effect of changes in UV-B radiation on the concentration of photo-oxidants in the boundary layer over the Swiss Pla...

Chemical and meteorological parameters measured on board the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) BAe 146 Atmospheric Research Aircraft during the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) campaign are presented to show the impact of NOx emissions from recently wetted soils in West Africa. NO emissions from soils have been previously observed in many geographical areas ...

The analysis and forecast of elevated boundary layer ozone is of particular concern since it is known to have adverse effects on health, vegetation and material. The main contributors to the formation of photochemical smog, and high ozone levels are the emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and NOx. There is a complex relationship between VOC and NOx leading to ozone generation, which v...

Tumor-forming endothelial cells have highly elevated levels of Nox-4 that release H2O2 into the nucleus, which is generally not compatible with cell survival. We sought to identify compensatory mechanisms that enable tumor-forming endothelial cells to survive and proliferate under these conditions. Ape-1/ref-1 (Apex-1) is a multifunctional protein that promotes DNA binding of redox-sensitive tr...

The first priority in designing a strategy to control nitrogen oxides is to protect human health. Human health impacts appear to be related to peak exposures to nitrogen oxides (NOx). In addition to potentially damaging human health, nitrogen oxides are precursors to ozone (O3) formation, which can harm human health and vegetation. Finally, nitrogen oxides contribute to acid deposition, which d...

Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) formation was initially linked with host defence and extracellular killing of pathogens. However, recent studies have highlighted their inflammatory potential. Oxidized low density lipoprotein (oxLDL) has been implicated as an independent risk factor in various acute or chronic inflammatory diseases including systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). ...

[1] The kinetics of ozone (O3) chemistry and its two main precursors, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC), represents an important field of uncertainty in atmospheric chemistry and photochemical modeling. This uncertainty affects the design of control strategies to reduce tropospheric O3 production. The effect of controlling ozone precursors on sensitivity regimes was eva...

VvhA, a virulent factor of Vibrio (V.) vulnificus, induces acute cell death in a destructive manner. Autophagy plays an important role in cell death, but the functional role of VvhA in autophagy-related cell death has not been elucidated yet. We found that rVvhA significantly increased LC3 puncta formation and autophagic flux in promoting the cell death of human intestinal epithelial Caco-2 cel...

BACKGROUND Hypercholesterolemia causes inflammation and insulin resistance in the vasculature. Previous data suggest that vascular endothelium is a physiological target of insulin. Dyslipidemia and atherosclerosis are disorders with endothelial dysfunction that are associated with an increased production of superoxide anion, and early deficit of nitric oxide (NO) production. We examined alterat...