The neuroprotective actions of cannabidiol and other cannabinoids were examined in rat cortical neuron cultures exposed to toxic levels of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate. Glutamate toxicity was reduced by both cannabidiol, a nonpsychoactive constituent of marijuana, and the psychotropic cannabinoid (2)D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Cannabinoids protected equally well against neurotox...

The accurate and sensitive detection of radical oxidants is a central problem in the field of chemical biology. Radical oxidants can be detected in vitro with fluorescent leucodyes such as dihydroethidium (DHE), dihydrorhodamine (DHR), the hydrocyanines, redoxfluor-1, and their organelle-specific analogues. Although these probes are widely used in cell culture, their accuracy is compromised by ...

The pharmacological role of garlic in prevention and treatment of cancer has received increasing attention, but thorough investigations into the molecular mechanisms of action of garlic compounds are rare. The present study demonstrates that ajoene, a major compound of garlic induces apoptosis in human leukemic cells, but not in peripheral mononuclear blood cells of healthy donors. The effect w...

The mortality rate for septic patients with acute renal failure is approximately doubled compared with patients with sepsis alone. Unfortunately, the treatment for sepsis-induced renal failure has advanced little during the last several decades. Because sepsis is often caused by lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a mouse model of LPS challenge was used to study the development of kidney injury. We hypot...

The utilisation of sunlight as an abundant and renewable resource has motivated the development of sustainable photocatalysts that can collectively harvest visible light. However, the bottleneck in utilising the low energy photons has led to the discovery of plasmonic photocatalysts. The presence of noble metal on the plasmonic photocatalyst enables the harvesting of visible light through the u...