BACKGROUND Ratio of second digit length to fourth digit length (2D:4D) has been extensively used in human and experimental research as a marker of fetal sex steroid exposure. However, very few human studies have measured the direct relationship between fetal androgen or estrogen concentrations and digit ratio. AIMS We investigated the relationships between both androgen and estrogen concentra...

BACKGROUND Compared with titanium (Ti) and other metal implant materials, poly(ether-ether ketone) (PEEK) shows outstanding biomechanical properties. A number of studies have also reported attractive bioactivity for nano-TiO(2) (n-TiO(2)). METHODS In this study, n-TiO(2)/PEEK nanocomposites were prepared, taking advantage of the unique properties of both PEEK polymer and n-TiO(2). The in vitr...

Resveratrol (RVT) is a naturally occurring trihydroxy stilbene that displays a wide spectrum of physiological activity. Its ability to behave therapeutically as a component of red wine has attracted wide attention. The phenol acts as a protective agent involving various body constituents. Most attention has been given to beneficial effects in insults involving cancer, aging, cardiovascular syst...

New metal complexes showed the magic of bivalent which have higher bioactivity than free ligand.

Abstract Herein, we report the physicochemical, thermal, mechanical and biological characteristics, including bioactivity, biodegradation cytocompatibility of additive manufacturing-enabled novel nanocomposite scaffolds. The scaffolds comprise a blend polylactic acid (PLA) poly-?-caprolactone (PCL) reinforced with halloysite nanotubes (HNTs). nanoengineered filaments were developed by melt blen...

Purpose: In this study, the optimization of antitumor therapy with tumor necrosis factor(TNF) was attempted. Experimental Design: Using the phage display technique, we created a lysine-deficient mutant TNF(mTNFK90R). This mutant had higher affinities to both TNF receptors, despite reports that certain lysine residues play important roles in trimer formation and receptor binding. Results: The mT...

In order to delineate functionally important domains in erythropoietin (Epo), we have prepared and tested a series of amino acid replacements at 51 conserved sites predicted to be on the surface of the molecule. Alanine replacements permitted preservation of a-helical structure. Wild type and mutant Epo cDNAs were transiently expressed at high levels in COS1 and COS7 cells. The biological activ...

INTRODUCTION Monitoring the central nervous system during aortic dissection repair may improve the understanding of the intraoperative changes related to its bioactivity. AIM The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of deep hypothermia on intraoperative brain bioactivity measured by the compressed spectral array (CSA) method and to assess the influence of the operations on postopera...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering high-throughput and computational methods to evaluate the endocrine bioactivity of environmental chemicals. Here we describe a multistep, performance-based validation of new methods and demonstrate that these new tools are sufficiently robust to be used in the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP). Results from 18 estrogen rec...

Ascorbic acid enhances NO bioactivity in patients with vascular disease through unclear mechanism(s). We investigated the role of intracellular ascorbic acid in endothelium-derived NO bioactivity. Incubation of porcine aortic endothelial cells (PAECs) with ascorbic acid produced time- and dose-dependent intracellular ascorbic acid accumulation that enhanced NO bioactivity by 70% measured as A23...