Search

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a common and devastating disease characterized by pathological aggregations of beta-amyloid (Aβ) plaques extracellularly, and Tau tangles intracellularly. While our understandings of the aetiologies of AD have greatly expanded over the decades, there is no drug available to stop disease progression. Here, we demonstrate the potential of P. edulis pericarp extract in protecting against Aβ-mediated neurotoxicity in mammalian cells and Caenorhabditis elegans models of AD. We show P. edulis pericarp protects against memory deficit, neuronal loss, and promotes longevity in the Aβ model of AD via stimulation of mitophagy, a selective cellular clearance of damaged and dysfunctional mitochondria. P. edulis pericarp also restores memory and increases neuronal resilience in a C. elegans Tau model of AD. While defective mitophagy-induced accumulation of damaged mitochondria contributes to AD progression, P. edulis pericarp improves mitochondrial homeostasis through NIX/DCT1-dependent mitophagy and SOD3-dependent mitochondrial resilience, both via increased nuclear translocation of the upstream transcriptional regulator FOXO3/DAF-16. Further studies to identify active molecules in P. edulis pericarp that could maintain neuronal mitochondrial homeostasis may enable the development of potential drug candidates for AD.

Relay technology can enlarge the coverage of cellular network, improve the spectral efficiency, and enhance the robustness of communication system. It has been one of the most striking areas in recent years. In this paper we discussed the relay technology with one-way relay and two-way relay, introduced two kinds of relay techniques: amplify-and-forward (AF), and Decode-and-Forward (DF). Then based on two-way amplify-and-forward relay, we derived the amplify factors of unequal emission power relay.

A new hydrogelator, pyridinium bromide salt of N -6-bromohexanoyl- l -phenylamino octadecane, was synthesized. Supramolecular hydrogels can be formed through the self-assembly of this hydrogelator in water. In this work, D 2 O was used instead of H 2 O as solvent for FT-IR measurement due to the fact that it is impossible to obtain useful FT-IR information on the hydrogen bonding in water. The investigation of FT-IR and steady-state fluorescence indicated that the driving forces for the self-assembly were mainly hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interaction. Based on the data of XRD and molecular modeling, the possible mechanism of the formation of hydrogelator aggregates was proposed.

Polystyrene terminated with an organic sulfide group was prepared by styrene bulk polymerization using three organic disulfides as initiators, and the content of the organic sulfide group (Xn) was determined quantitatively from the data of UV and Mn. Styrene–vinyl acetate block copolymer was prepared by using polystyrene ended with the organic sulfide group as the photosensitizer to initiate vinyl acetate polymerization. The copolymer was characterized by IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, DSC, and TEM, respectively. Different copolymerization conditions were investigated systematically. The result reveals that the Xn value is a key factor in the copolymerization and the copolymerization proceeds via living radical mechanism. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.