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In this study, we tested if caspase-3 inhibition decreased ischemia-induced Aβ elevation by reducing β-secretase (BACE1) activity. Changes in caspase-3, Aβ and BACE1 levels were detected in rat striatum on different days after middle cerebral artery occlusion using immunostaining. We found that the positive labeled cells of activated caspase-3, Aβ, and BACE1 were significantly and time-dependently increased in the ipsilateral striatum. The results of Western blotting and RT-PCR showed that caspase-3 inhibitor Z-DEVD-FMK reduced BACE1 mRNA and protein levels, and inhibited its protease activity, thereby decreasing the amount of APP C99 and Aβ in ischemic brains. Moreover, Z-DEVD-FMK reduced BACE1 and GFAP double-labeled cells, but not GFAP protein levels or GFAP-labeled cells, in the ipsilateral striatum. Thus, we demonstrated that caspase-3 inhibition attenuated ischemia-induced Aβ formation by reducing BACE1 production and activity. This finding provides a therapeutic strategy for preventing Aβ accumulation and reducing the risk of neurodegeneration after stroke.

A phytochemical study of the ethanolic extract of Stachyurus imalaicus var. himalaicus was undertaken and as a result a new polyoxygenated steroid, named stachsterol ((20S)-20, 25-dihydroxy-4-cholesten-3-one, 1) and three known ecdysteroids, 20-hydroxyecdysone (2), 20-hydroxyecdysone-20, 22-monoacetonide (3) and polypodine B-20,22-monoacetonide (4), were isolated. Their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic methods, including UV, NMR, MS and HR-MS. The purified product 1 was found to have in vitro cytotoxic activity against human Hela cell lines with an IC50 value of 2.5 μg/mL. This is the first time that phytoecdysteroids have been found in the genus Stachyurus.

Due to the disadvantages of the current smart Geogrid for geotechnical use only being able measure strain and evaluate load location, a smart Geogrid embedded with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors has been developed. Also, a deformation reconstruction technique has been investigated, which enables the newly designed smart Geogrid to evaluate the deformation fields of the key areas in geotechnical structures. After the fabricating process of the FBG embedded smart Geogrid was briefly introduced, a curvature information based deformation reconstruction method for the smart Geogrid was detailed. In order to optimize the distribution of the FBG nodes in the smart Geogrid, the finite element (FE) simulation data of the three possible causes of deformation were extracted, and the reconstruction results of the four distributions were compared. The results indicated that equidistantly distributed FBG sensors at the ribs of the smart Geogrid were the optimal distribution for the newly designed smart Geogrid. In addition, a modified deformation reconstruction technique was proposed to reduce reconstruction errors due to the stress concentration on the junctions of the smart Geogrid. The modified method, which employs FBG measured strains for calculating the deformation of the ribs and weighted strains to compute the coordinates of the two junctions, was validated by FE simulations. The simulation results illustrated that the modified method can improve the deformation reconstruction accuracy for both a Geogrid embedded with one fiber optic cable into one warp thread and a Geogrid embedded with multiple fiber optic cables in different warp threads. For the purpose of verifying the feasibility of the deformation measurements for the designed smart Geogrid using the proposed reconstruction techniques, experiments for the smart Geogrid embedded with one fiber optic cable were conducted in constant temperature environments. The curvatures of the smart Geogrid were calibrated prior to the deformation experiments in order to remove the errors induced by the strain measurement. The experimental results demonstrated that the reconstruction technique for the newly designed smart Geogrid was capable of evaluating the deformation field, and the modified reconstruction technique was able to effectively improve the reconstruction accuracy in order to fulfill the requirements of geotechnical usages. The newly developed smart Geogrid with deformation reconstruction techniques can be a promising smart Geosynthetic for the reinforcement as well as the monitoring of geotechnical engineering-related applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]