Effect of a fish oil-enriched nutritional supplement on metabolic mediators in patients with pancreatic cancer cachexia

Weight loss in advanced cancer patients is refractory to conventional nutritional support. This may be due to metabolic changes mediated by proinflammatory cytokines, hormones, and tumor-derived products. We previously showed that a nutritional supplement enriched with fish oil will reverse weight loss in patients with pancreatic cancer cachexia. The present study examines the effect of this supplement on a number of mediators thought to play a role in cancer cachexia. Twenty weight-losing patients with pancreatic cancer were asked to consume a nutritional supplement providing 600 kcal and 2 g of eicosapentaenoic acid per day. At baseline and after 3 wk, patients were weighed and samples were collected to measure serum concentrations of interleukin (IL)-6 and its soluble receptor tumor necrosis factor receptors I and II, cortisol, insulin, and leptin, peripheral blood mononuclear cell production of IL-1 beta, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor, and urinary excretion of proteolysis inducing factor. After 3 wk of consumption of the fish oil-enriched nutritional supplement, there was a significant fall in production of IL-6 (from median 16.5 to 13.7 ng/ml, P = 0.015), a rise in serum insulin concentration (from 3.3 to 5.0 mU/l, P = 0.0064), a fall in the cortisol-to-insulin ratio (P = 0.0084), and a fall in the proportion of patients excreting proteolysis inducing factor (from 88% to 40%, P = 0.008). These changes occurred in association with weight gain (median 1 kg, P = 0.024). Various mediators of catabolism in cachexia are modulated by administration of a fish oil-enriched nutritional supplement in pancreatic cancer patients. This may account for the reversal of weight loss in patients consuming this supplement.

Carbon monoxide expedites metabolic exhaustion to inhibit tumor growth

One classical feature of cancer cells is their metabolic acquisition of a highly glycolytic phenotype. Carbon monoxide (CO), one of the products of the cytoprotective molecule heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) in cancer cells, has been implicated in carcinogenesis and therapeutic resistance. However, the functional contributions of CO and HO-1 to these processes are poorly defined. In human prostate cancers, we found that HO-1 was nuclear localized in malignant cells, with low enzymatic activity in moderately differentiated tumors correlating with relatively worse clinical outcomes. Exposure to CO sensitized prostate cancer cells but not normal cells to chemotherapy, with growth arrest and apoptosis induced in vivo in part throughmitotic catastrophe. CO targeted mitochondria activity in cancer cells as evidenced by higher oxygen consumption, free radical generation, and mitochondrial collapse. Collectively, our findings indicated that CO transiently induces an anti-Warburg effect by rapidly fueling cancer cell bioenergetics, ultimately resulting in metabolic exhaustion. ©2013 AACR.

Reactor design and its impact on performance and products

This chapter discusses engineering design and performance of various types of biomass transformation reactors. These reactors vary in their operating principle depending on the processing capacity and the nature of the desired end product, that is, gas, chemicals or liquid bio-oil. Mass balance around a thermal conversion reactor is usually carried out to identify the degree of conversion and obtain the amount of the various components in the product. The energy balance around the reactors is essential for determining the optimum reactor temperature and the amount of heat required to complete the overall reactions. Experimental and pilot-plant testing is essential for proper reactor design. However, it is common practice to use correlation and valid parameter values in determining the realistic reactor dimensions and configurations. Despite the recent progress in thermochemical conversion technology, reactor performance and scale up potential are the subjects of continuing research.

Aminoglutethimide-induced leucopenia in a mouse model:effects of metabolic and structural determinates

A model of human leucopenia has been developed further in the female mouse. Following daily administration to female mice of 50 mg/kg of the aromatase inhibitor aminoglutethimide, significant falls in platelet and white cell counts occurred after 2 and 3 weeks. At week 4, drug dosage was stopped and the cell counts recovered at the end of that week, although on rechallenge at the beginning of week 5, both platelet and white cell counts fell rapidly. Administration to the mice of structural analogues of aminoglutethimide, such as WSP-3, glutethimide and 4-nitroglutethimide, showed no reductions in platelet and white cell counts. The haemotoxicity of aminoglutethimide over 21 days was unaffected by the presence of either the P-450 inhibitor SKF-525A or the hepatic P-450 inducer phenobarbitone. However, the co-administration of cimetidine abolished the haemotoxicity of aminoglutethimide in terms of platelet and white cell levels. In in vitro studies, both aminoglutethimide and WSP-3 were oxidised to cytotoxic species, although aminoglutethimide was significantly more cytotoxic than WSP-3. The NADPH-dependent covalent binding of 14C aminoglutethimide to mouse microsomes in vitro was significantly reduced by the presence of cimetidine. The activation of the compound to reactive species in vitro, the inhibitory effects of cimetidine in vivo and in vitro, as well as the rapid fall in the in vivo white cell count on rechallenge with aminoglutethimide suggest that this model illustrates a form of leucopenia which may be related to hapten formation and subsequent immune-mediated platelet and white cell lysis. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Bioinformatic analysis for exploring relationships between genes and gene products

To carry out their specific roles in the cell, genes and gene products often work together in groups, forming many relationships among themselves and with other molecules. Such relationships include physical protein-protein interaction relationships, regulatory relationships, metabolic relationships, genetic relationships, and much more. With advances in science and technology, some high throughput technologies have been developed to simultaneously detect tens of thousands of pairwise protein-protein interactions and protein-DNA interactions. However, the data generated by high throughput methods are prone to noise. Furthermore, the technology itself has its limitations, and cannot detect all kinds of relationships between genes and their products. Thus there is a pressing need to investigate all kinds of relationships and their roles in a living system using bioinformatic approaches, and is a central challenge in Computational Biology and Systems Biology. This dissertation focuses on exploring relationships between genes and gene products using bioinformatic approaches. Specifically, we consider problems related to regulatory relationships, protein-protein interactions, and semantic relationships between genes. A regulatory element is an important pattern or "signal", often located in the promoter of a gene, which is used in the process of turning a gene "on" or "off". Predicting regulatory elements is a key step in exploring the regulatory relationships between genes and gene products. In this dissertation, we consider the problem of improving the prediction of regulatory elements by using comparative genomics data. With regard to protein-protein interactions, we have developed bioinformatics techniques to estimate support for the data on these interactions. While protein-protein interactions and regulatory relationships can be detected by high throughput biological techniques, there is another type of relationship called semantic relationship that cannot be detected by a single technique, but can be inferred using multiple sources of biological data. The contributions of this thesis involved the development and application of a set of bioinformatic approaches that address the challenges mentioned above. These included (i) an EM-based algorithm that improves the prediction of regulatory elements using comparative genomics data, (ii) an approach for estimating the support of protein-protein interaction data, with application to functional annotation of genes, (iii) a novel method for inferring functional network of genes, and (iv) techniques for clustering genes using multi-source data.

Gut content, fatty acid composition and metabolic rates of the amphipod Anonyx sarsi during POLARSTERN cruise ARK-XIX/1, ice station PS64/070-6

During a winter expedition to the western Barents Sea in March 2003, benthic amphipods of the species Anonyx sarsi were observed directly below pack ice. Only males and juveniles [16.0-37.0 mm long, 16.2-120.8 mg dry mass (DM)] were collected. Guts contained macroalgal fibres, fish eggs and flesh from large carrion. Amphipods had very low levels of total lipids (2.7-17.2% DM). Analysis of lipid biomarkers showed that some of the specimens had preyed on pelagic copepods. Individual respiration rates ranged over 0.4-1.7 ml O2/day (mean: 1.2 ml, SD: 0.5 ml). Individual ammonia excretion rates varied between 7.8 µg and 49.3 µg N/day (mean: 30.7 µg, SD: 15.2 µg). The atomic O:N ratio ranged over 35 to 71 (mean: 55, SD: 14), indicating lipid-dominated metabolism. Mass-specific respiration ranged over 9.8-16.6 ml O2/day/g DM (mean: 13.1 ml, SD: 2.2 ml). The metabolic rates of A. sarsi were twice as high as those of the truly sympagic amphipod Gammarus wilkitzkii, which is better adapted to the under-ice habitat by its energy-saving attached lifestyle. It is concluded that males and juveniles of A. sarsi were actively searching for food in the water column and at the ice underside, but that the nutritional status of the amphipods in late Arctic winter was generally very poor.

Short-term metabolic and growth responses of the cold-water coral lophelia pertusa to ocean acidification

Cold-water corals are amongst the most three-dimensionally complex deep-sea habitats known and are associated with high local biodiversity. Despite their importance as ecosystem engineers, little is known about how these organisms will respond to projected ocean acidification. Since preindustrial times, average ocean pH has already decreased from 8.2 to ~ 8.1. Predicted CO2 emissions will decrease this by up to another 0.3 pH units by the end of the century. This decrease in pH may have a wide range of impacts upon marine life, and in particular upon calcifiers such as cold-water corals. Lophelia pertusa is the most widespread cold-water coral (CWC) species, frequently found in the North Atlantic. Data here relate to a short term data set (21 days) on metabolism and net calcification rates of freshly collected L. pertusa from Mingulay Reef Complex, Scotland. These data from freshly collected L. pertusa from the Mingulay Reef Complex will help define the impact of ocean acidification upon the growth, physiology and structural integrity of this key reef framework forming species.

Podcast: After the Liverpool Care Pathway clear guidance and support on end-of-life care is needed

In this podcast Roberta Heale talks to Dr Peter O'Halloran about the paper "After the Liverpool Care Pathway clear guidance and support on end-of-life care is needed." They discuss the newly implemented pathways and the effects these have on practice and patients.

Managing and utilizing information flow for new products’ periodic account sales process

The goal was to understand, document and module how information is currently flown internally in the largest dairy organization in Finland. The organization has undergone radical changes in the past years due to economic sanctions between European Union and Russia. Therefore, organization’s ultimate goal would be to continue its growth through managing its sales process more efficiently. The thesis consists of a literature review and an empirical part. The literature review consists of knowledge management and process modeling theories. First, the knowledge management discusses how data, information and knowledge are exchanged in the process. Knowledge management models and processes are describing how knowledge is created, exchanged and can be managed in an organization. Secondly, the process modeling is responsible for visualizing information flow through discussion of modeling approaches and presenting different methods and techniques. Finally, process’ documentation procedure was presented. In the end, a constructive research approach was used in order to identify process’ related problems and bottlenecks. Therefore, possible solutions were presented based on this approach. The empirical part of the study is based on 37 interviews, organization’s internal data sources and theoretical framework. The acquired data and information were used to document and to module the sales process in question with a flowchart diagram. Results are conducted through construction of the flowchart diagram and analysis of the documentation. In fact, answers to research questions are derived from empirical and theoretical parts. In the end, 14 problems and two bottlenecks were identified in the process. The most important problems are related to approach and/or standardization for information sharing, insufficient information technology tool utilization and lack of systematization of documentation. The bottlenecks are caused by the alarming amount of changes to files after their deadlines.

Boost Software Business Products with Hybrid Development

This paper presents how new paradigms and methodologies for software development are changing rapidly in the last two years. In the current scenario where we live on, occurs a transition that, although slight, reflects the rapid manner in which the software production paradigms are reinvented due to the change of display devices and interaction with the end user. Studies indicate that in 2013 was the turn out of the internet access domain for mobile devices over the traditional desktop device, which is currently at around 60% mobile, against 40% desktop. This field will tend to grow in the coming years and it is expected that the use of internet for a desktop terminal tends to be less each day (comScore). In this context, the software industry has been re-invented and updated with respect to technologies that promote software and mobile applications, building products capable of responding to the user market. The development of software products, such as applications, must be put into production for different user environments, such as Web, iOS and Android in a way to enhance efficiency, optimization and productivity in the software development cycle (Langer, Arthur M.).

Control of grey mould and stem-end rot in strawberry plants growing in a subtropical environment

The effect of different fungicide programs on grey mould (caused by Botrytis cinerea) and stem-end rot (caused by Gnomoniopsis fructicola) affecting strawberry plants (Fragaria ×ananassa cv. Festival) was studied in subtropical Australia over three years. The treatments involved a range of different synthetic multi- and single-site fungicides with different modes of action, a plant-defence promoter, plant extracts (lupin and rhubarb), organic acids, fatty acids, a salt, two strains of Bacillus subtilis, and single strains of B. amyloliquefaciens, Streptomyces lydicus and Trichoderma harzianum. Standard programs based on captan and thiram alternated, and applied with iprodione, fenhexamid, cyprodinil + fludioxonil, and penthiopyrad resulted in 3–4 % of unmarketable fruit compared with 25–38 % in the water-treated controls. There was no difference in the level of disease suppression when five or thirteen applications of single-site fungicides were rotated with the two multi-site fungicides. The incidence of unmarketable fruit was similar to the standard programs using isopyrazam (in 1 year out of 2), or penthiopyrad, fluazinam, chlorothalonil or thiram alone (in 1 year out of 1). The other fungicide programs were generally less effective. There were strong relationships between marketable yield and the incidence of unmarketable fruit over the three years (R2s = 0.82–0.93). A strategy based on thiram and captan applied alternately, with reduced applications of single-site fungicides is recommended and should reduce the chance of resistance to single-site fungicides becoming widespread in populations of the grey mould fungus. Although the program based on thiram alone had a similar incidence of unmarketable fruit as the standard program, repeated weekly applications of thiram are not recommended as they may cause unacceptable residues in the fruit. There were issues with some of the other fungicides due to phytotoxicity, residues, or difficulties with registering new fungicides that are in the same chemical group as currently registered products.

Effect of commercial starter cultures and native yeasts on ochratoxin a production by aspergillus westerdijkiae and penicillium nordicum in meat products

Processed meat products are of worldwide importance and, because of their intrinsic factors as well as the processing methods, they are highly prone to fungal and mycotoxin contamination. Ochratoxin A (OTA) is the most significant mycotoxin in processed meat products. Penicillium nordicum is considered to be responsible for OTA contamination of meat products, as it is highly adapted to salt and protein-rich matrices and is moderately psycrotrophic. However, another OTA-producing fungus, Aspergillus westerdijkiae, adapted to carbon-rich matrices such as cereals and coffee beans, has been recently associated with high levels of OTA in meat products. Several Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) and yeasts have been tested as biocontrol agents against P. nordicum growth and OTA production in meat products, with promising results, but none of the studies have considered A. westerdijkiae. The aim of this work was to evaluate in vitro the effect of a commercial starter culture used in sausage fermentation and four yeasts isolated from dry-cured sausage on these two OTA-producing fungi, both in terms of fungal growth and of OTA production, using different meat-based culture media as model systems. The mechanisms underlying the observed effect were also studied. For this purpose, C. krusei, C. zeylanoides, R. mucilaginosa, R. glutinis, a mix of these yeasts and the starter culture were co-inoculated with P. nordicum and A. westerdijkiae in industrial sausage, traditional sausage, and ham-based media, under conditions of water activity, salt concentration and temperature that mimic real conditions at beginning and end of sausage curing process. Fungal growth was determined by measuring colony diameter, and OTA production was quantified by HPLC-FLD after extraction with methanol. Yeasts where found to inhibit significantly the growth of both fungi. P. nordicum was unable to produce detectable OTA in both sausage-based media under any condition. In ham, yeasts reduced OTA production, while the starter culture significantly increased it. Unexpectedly, OTA production by A. westerdijkiae was significantly stimulated in all media tested by all microorganisms. Matrix has a significant effect on OTA production by P. nordicum, but not by A. westerdijkiae, for which only temperature showed to have effect. By testing the mechanisms of action by which starter culture and C. zeylanoides influenced fungal responses, we were able to determine that direct contact and simultaneous growth of test organisms were the mechanisms more significantly involved in the responses. In conclusion, ochratoxigenic fungi do not all respond to antagonistic microorganisms in the same way. The use of biocontrol agents with the intent of reducing fungal growth and mycotoxin production by one fungus can have unexpected effects on others, thus leading to unforeseen safety problems. Further experiments are recommended to properly understand the reasons behind the different effects of microorganisms, to ensure their safe as biocontrol agents.

Use of Products and Systems for Scientific and Technical College Education and Development for Industrial

Have been less than thirty years since a group of graduate students and computer scientists working on a federal contract performed the first successful connection between two computers located at remote sites. This group known as the NWG Network Working Group, comprised of highly creative geniuses who as soon as they began meeting started talking about things like intellectual graphics, cooperating processes, automation questions, email, and many other interesting possibilities 1 . In 1968, the group's task was to design NWG's first computer network, in October 1969, the first data exchange occurred and by the end of that year a network of four computers was in operation. Since the invention of the telephone in 1876 no other technology has revolutionized the field of communications over the computer network. The number of people who have made great contributions to the creation and development of the Internet are many, the computer network a much more complex than the phone is the result of people of many nationalities and cultures. However, remember that some years later in 19732 two computer scientists Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerft created a more sophisticated communication program called Transmission Control Protocol - Internet Protocol TCP / IP which is still in force in the Internet today.

Frequency of metabolic syndrome in women treated at the Menopause Clinic of the “Dr. José Eleuterio González” University Hospital of the UANL in Northeastern Mexico

Objectives: To determine the frequency of metabolic syndrome (MS) in patients with menopause, and to compare the incidence of MS between surgical and natural menopause. Methods: This was an observational, longitudinal, descriptive, retrospective, unblinded study of cases seen at the Menopause Clinic of the University Hospital “Dr. José eleuterio González” of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León from March 2009 to December 2011. The frequency of MS was determined based on Adult Treatment Panel III (ATPIII) classiication. Results: at the end of the study, 391 patients were evaluated. The mean age was 50.1 years. We found a frequency of MS of 38.1%, the risk factor most often found was low HDL cholesterol (62.5%), followed by obesity (46.5%), hypercholesterolemia (42.3%), hyperglycemia (11.5%), and hypertension (7.7%). The incidence of natural and surgical menopause was 37.6% vs. 39.2% respectively; however, the result was not statistically signiicant (p = 0.093). Conclusions: Patients with menopause are at increased risk of developing MS. it is important to detect MS early in this of patients, when they have one risk factor to avoid complications which may trigger the syndrome. We recommend screening for MS during perimenopause, in order to detect and try to delay it in a timely manner and recommend primary prevention (diet and exercise), or secondary prevention in cases with one or more risk factors.