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The aim of this study was to demonstrate the potential application of electrically-assisted methods, including iontophorcsis and electroporation, on the transdermal delivery of buspirone hydrochloride from a submicron emulsion-based system. The results showed that by applied iontophoresis at 0.5 mA/cm^2 for 3 h or electroporation at 1 pulse, 300 V, 200 ms, 0.5 min spacing for 10 min. increased the cumulative amount of buspirone at 10 h by 2.4 and 2.1 folds, respectively compared to passive diffusion. The combination of iontophoresis and electroporation did not show synergistic effects. For long-time application of iontophoresis, the enhancement effect decreased in the later stage due to skin polarization. The duty cycle or current applied was found to increase iontophoretic efficiency. When compared to passive diffusion, the lag time of buspirone-loaded submicron emulsion permeated through skill was shortened from 3 h to 0.5 h with the use of both electrically-assisted methods, indicating that more rapid onset of buspirone could be obtained by using electrically-assisted methods.

The conversion of lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) to microbial oils is attracting a growing amount of attention. However, the growth of the oleaginous yeast Rhodotorula glutinis on LCB hydrolysate (mainly rice straw) only will lead to a low lipid mass fraction, in the range of 10–20%. This study shows that the addition of crude glycerol to the LCB hydrolysate medium can efficiently raise the lipid mass fraction to the range of 30–40%. Crude glycerol is a by-product in the biodiesel production process. The use of renewable LCB hydrolysate and crude glycerol would greatly reduce the substrate cost for microbial oil production using R. glutinis. In addition, the results of experiments show that a low-cost airlift bioreactor is a more suitable fermentation process for the growth of R. glutinis than the use of a conventional agitation tank. When using mixed carbon sources of LCB hydrolysate with 30 kg m−3 of reducing sugars and 30 kg m−3 of crude glycerol, a maximal cell mass of 21.4 kg m−3 and lipid mass fraction of 58.5 ± 6.2 were achieved in an internal loop airlift bioreactor, and this process may have the potential to be applied in scale-up production.

The conversion of abundant lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) to valuable compounds has become a very attractive idea recently. This study successfully used LCB (rice straw) hydrolysate as a carbon source for the cultivation of oleaginous yeast-Rhodotorula glutinis in an airlift bioreactor. The lipid content of 34.3 ± 0.6% was obtained in an airlift batch with 60 g reducing sugars/L of LCB hydrolysate at a 2 vvm aeration rate. While using LCB hydrolysate as the carbon source, oleic acid (C18:1) and linoleic acid (C18:2) were the predominant fatty acids of the microbial lipids. Using LCB hydrolysate in the airlift bioreactor at 2 vvm achieved the highest cell mass growth as compared to the agitation tank. Despite the low lipid content of the batch using LCB hydrolysate, this low cost feedstock has the potential of being adopted for the production of β-carotene instead of lipid accumulation in the airlift bioreactor for the cultivation of R. glutinis.

Despite measures to reduce disease transmission, a risk can occur when blood glucose meters (BGMs) are used on multiple individuals or by caregivers assisting a patient. The laboratory and in-clinic performance of a BGM system before and after disinfection should be demonstrated to guarantee accurate readings and reliable control of blood glucose (BG) for patients. In this study, an effective disinfection procedure, conducting wiping 10 times to assure a one minute contact time of the disinfectant on contaminated surface, was first demonstrated using test samples of the meter housing materials, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), and polycarbonate (PC), in accordance with ISO 15197:2013. After bench studies comprising 10,000 disinfection cycles, the elemental compositions of the disinfected ABS, PMMA, and PC samples were almost the same as in the original samples, as indicated by electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis. Subsequently, the validated disinfection procedure was then directly applied to disinfect 5 commercial BGM systems composed of ABS, PMMA, or PC to observe the effect of the validated disinfection procedure on meter accuracy. The results of HBsAg values after treatment with HBV sera and disinfectant wipes for each material were less than the LoD of each material of 0.020 IU/mL. Before and after the multiple disinfection cycles, 900 of 900 samples (100%) were within the system accuracy requirements of ISO 15197:2013. All of the systems showed high performance before and after the series of disinfection cycles and met the ISO 15197:2013 requirements. In addition, our results demonstrated multiple cleaning and disinfection cycles that represented normal use over the lifetime of a meter of 3-5 years. Our validated cleaning and disinfection procedure can be directly applied to other registered disinfectants for cleaning commercial BGM products in the future.

The nephroblastoma overexpressed (NOV) gene, also called CCN3, regulates differentiation of skeletal mesenchymal cells. Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) play important roles in osteoblast differentiation and bone formation, but the effects of CCN3 on BMP expression and bone formation in cultured osteoblasts are largely unknown. Here we found that CCN3 increased BMP-4 expression and bone nodule formation in cultured osteoblast. Monoclonal antibodies for α5β1 and αvβ5 integrins, and inhibitors of integrin-linked kinase (ILK), p38, and JNK, all inhibited CCN3-induced bone nodule formation and BMP-4 up-regulation of osteoblasts. CCN3 stimulation increased the kinase activity of ILK and phosphorylation of p38 and JNK. Inhibitors of activator protein-1 (AP-1) also suppressed bone nodule formation and BMP-4 expression enhanced by CCN3. Moreover, CCN3-induced c-Jun translocation into the nucleus, and the binding of c-Jun to the AP-1 element on the BMP-4 promoter were both inhibited by specific inhibitors of the ILK, p38, and JNK cascades. Taken together, our results provide evidence that CCN3 enhances BMP-4 expression and bone nodule formation in osteoblasts, and that the integrin receptor, ILK, p38, JNK, and AP-1 signaling pathways may be involved.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of components such as type, level, and hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB) value of surfactant, type and amount of cosurfactant, and drug concentration on the permeability of buspirone hydrochloride microemulsions through rat skin. The cumulative amount at 24 h ranged from 502.2 ± 57.8 to 1754.3 ± 616.6 μg/cm(2), flux ranged from 23.03 ± 1.84 to 83.36 ± 25.08 μg/(cm(2)/h), and lag time ranged from 3.0 to 4.7 h, indicating that the permeation parameters of buspirone from microemulsions were markedly influenced by the composition of microemulsions. In comparison with the effect of composition of microemulsions on the buspirone permeation capacity, it was found that microemulsions containing surfactant with HLB value of 11.16 possessed higher flux. The viscosity of microemulsions increased, flux decreased, and lag time was prolonged when amount of surfactant in microemulsions increased. The various cosurfactants can also influence the microemulsion formation and drug permeability. The microemulsion with ethanol as cosurfactant had higher permeation rate. However, the buspirone microemulsion with higher flux can provide the therapeutic minimum effective concentration, at workable administrated area about 3.3-5.8 cm(2), demonstrating microemulsions could be a promising drug carrier for transdermal delivery systems.

Various structures of CrAPO-5 clusters are studied via density functional B3LYP exchange-correlation method. The optimized structures are compared with data from X-ray absorption. Their total energies and atomic net charges are also analyzed. Results indicate that the substitution of the aluminum site of an AFI framework by chromium is in general not feasible. The chromium ion is more likely docked in between two neighboring 12-membered rings of the framework of AFI. To further verify our claim, the excitation energies of the representative chromium structures of CrAPO-5 clusters are calculated via the TDDFT method. The results for excitation energies further support that Cr 3+ is not incorporated into the framework.

This study proposes a two-stage cultivation process with an autotrophic growth followed by a mixotrophic process. The results indicated that a two-stage cultivation process using a daily dose of 3 g/L of glucose could achieve 7.4 g/L of biomass, which was about a 64 % increase over simple autotrophic cultivation. In the second stage of mixotrophic cultivation, glucose was regarded as a better carbon source for cell growth, than was glycerol. Linoleic acid (C18:2) would be the primary component in the two-stage cultivation as in the autotrophic cultivation. Even carbon source was provided in the second stage of mixotrophic cultivation; lower light intensity limited the mixotrophic growth, which indicated that photosynthesis still plays an important role in the second stage of mixotrophical cultivation. The final biomass was higher after this two-stage cultivation process, which made it suitable for application in the production scale-up of algal biomass.

In this paper, density functional theory (DFT) with asymptotically corrected potentials is used to investigate CH(3)CN, CH(3)NC, CH(3)SCN, and CH(3)NCS molecules. For the energies of σ* and π* temporary anion states, the stabilized Koopmans' theorem (S-KT) using long-range correction functional and stabilized Koopmans-based (S-KB) approximation using local functional, are adopted. The stabilization procedure is accomplished by varying the exponents of appropriate diffuse functions. Results indicate that the calculations based on asymptotically corrected density functionals can yield better energy results of temporary anion states over conventional DFT methods.

In this paper, density functional theory is used to investigate (benzene)chromium tricarbonyl, (cyclopentadienyl)manganese tricarbonyl, (1,3-butadiene)iron tricarbonyl, and (cyclopentadienyl)cobalt dicarbonyl. For the energies of low-lying temporary anion states, the stabilized Koopmans-based (S-KB) and stabilized Koopmans theorem (S-KT) methods are adopted. Stabilization is accomplished by varying the exponents of appropriate diffuse functions. Results indicate that the calculations of S-KB using PBEPBE and S-KT using CAM-B3LYP are able to yield energies of temporary anion states in good agreement with the experimental values. Furthermore, the ionization potentials can be determined accurately via the Koopmans-based (KB) PBEPBE method.

Bradykinin (BK) is an inflammatory mediator, and shows elevated levels in regions of severe injury and inflammatory diseases. BK has recently been shown to be involved in carcinogenesis and cancer progression. In this study, we found that BK increased the migration and the expression of alpha2beta1 integrin in human chondrosarcoma cells. We also found that human chondrosarcoma tissues had significantly higher expression of the B1 and B2 receptors comparing to normal cartilage. BK-mediated migration and integrin up-regulation was attenuated by B1 and B2 BK receptor siRNA or antagonist. Activations of phospholipase C (PLC), protein kinase Cdelta (PKCdelta), and NF-kappaB pathways after BK treatment was demonstrated, and BK-induced integrin expression and migration activity was inhibited by the specific inhibitor of PLC, PKCdelta, and NF-kappaB cascades. Taken together, our results indicated that BK enhances the migration of chondrosarcoma cells by increasing alpha2beta1 integrin expression through the BK receptors/PLC/PKCdelta/NF-kappaB signal transduction pathway.

The Koopmans-based (KB) approximation is used to investigate the ionization potentials of ferrocene and dibenzene chromium in density functional theory. As to the energies of low-lying temporary anion states of these transition metal complexes, the stabilization method coupled with KB approximation (S-KB) is adopted. Here, the stabilization is accomplished by varying the exponents of appropriate diffuse functions. Results indicate that the S-KB method is much more successful than other methods in predicting absolute and relative energies of temporary anion states. Furthermore, the ionization potentials via KB approach are very close to the experimental values.