Studies using dietary supplementation of eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic fatty acids (FA) in horses report inconsistent anti-inflammatory results but consistently report an increase in plasma arachidonic acid (C20:4), the major substrate of cyclooxygenase (COX) II inflammatory pathway. Conjugated linoleic acid has shown anti-inflammatory effects in laboratory and food animal species, but e...

Inflammation plays a considerable role in the progression of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a severe muscle disease caused by a mutation in the dystrophin gene. We previously showed that genetic ablation of Protein Kinase C θ (PKCθ) in mdx, the mouse model of DMD, improves muscle healing and regeneration, preventing massive inflammation. To establish whether pharmacological targeting of PKC...

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a monomer with estrogenic activity that is used in the production of food packaging, dental sealants, polycarbonate plastic, and many other products. The monomer has previously been reported to hydrolyze and leach from these products under high heat and alkaline conditions, and the amount of leaching increases as a function of use. We examined whether new and used polycarbo...

Let 2 6 k1 < k2 < · · · < kt, 3 6 g1 < g2 < · · · < gs < N be integer parameters. A (k1, k2, . . . , kt; g1, g2, . . . , gs;N)-graph is a graph that contains vertices of degrees k1, k2, . . . , kt but no other degrees and cycles of lengths g1, g2, . . . , gs but no other cycles of length < N . For any given set of parameters satisfying the above conditions, we present an explicit construction o...

The fullerenes are the first "free-standing" elemental hollow cages identified by spectroscopy experiments and synthesized in the bulk. Here, we report experimental and theoretical evidence of hollow cages consisting of pure metal atoms, Au(n)(-) (n = 16-18); to our knowledge, free-standing metal hollow cages have not been previously detected in the laboratory. These hollow golden cages ("bucky...

Beta-tricalcium phosphate (beta-TCP) combined with recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) was examined as a substitute for autograft for packing into interbody fusion cages in the canine lumbar spine model. Discectomy and interbody cage fusion were performed at three disc spaces in eight dogs. Examination of microradiographs and histological sections of the lumbar spine at 16 we...

The synthesis of novel acetal thia-cage compounds has been accomplished by the direct substitution for the oxygen atom by the sulfur atom in the reaction of the acetal groups of oxa-cages with Lawesson reagent (LR). Reaction of the tetraoxa-cage compound 2 with LR in dichloromethane at 25 degrees C sequentially gave the monothia-, dithia-, trithia-, and tetrathia-cage compounds 3, 6, 7, and 9. ...

The anti-inflammatory drug predinisolone (1) was reduced to 20β-hydroxyprednisolone (2) by the marine endophytic fungus Penicilium lapidosum isolated from an alga. The structural elucidation of 2 was achieved by 1D- and 2D-NMR, MS, IR data. Although, 2 is a known compound previously obtained through microbial transformation, the data provided failed to prove the C20 stereochemistry. To solve th...

Carotenoids and their fatty acid esters in the carapace of the spiny lobster Panulirus japonicus were investigated. Fatty acid esters of astaxanthin, adonixanthin, and pectenolone were characterized by (1)H-NMR and FAB-MS. The acylated position of adonixanthin and pectenolone monoesters was determined to be a hydroxy group at C-3' by (1)H-NMR. The fatty acids esterified with these carotenoids w...