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MST FARHANA NAZNEEN CHOWDHURY¹, MOHD RAFII YUSOP^1,2,*, SITI IZERA ISMAIL³, SHAIRUL IZAN RAMLEE¹, YUSUFF OLADOSU², MONIR HOSEN², GOUS MIAH⁴
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 269-278, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.09627 - 22 September 2020
（This article belongs to the Special Issue: )
Abstract Chili (Capsicum annuum L.) is the popular spicy vegetable crops belonging to family Solanaceae. Chili peppers are known for their pungency characteristic due to the presence of capsaicinoids that classifies them into hot or sweet pepper. Chili is used as spices, folk remedies for diseases, vegetables, and coloring agent showing a diverse role in human’s life. However, its production is hampered by different biotic stress and abiotic factors. Similarly, the unavailability of high yielding varieties, high temperature, and disease incidence, particularly, anthracnose disease, are the major constraints responsible for the low production of chili pepper. The… More >

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SHYAM BADU¹, SANJAY PRABHAKAR^1,2, RODERICK MELNIK^1,3,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 279-291, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.010916 - 22 September 2020
（This article belongs to the Special Issue: )
Abstract Photosynthesis is a fundamental process in biosciences and biotechnology that influences profoundly the research in other disciplines. In this paper, we focus on the characterization of fundamental components, present in pigment-protein complexes, in terms of their spectroscopic properties such as infrared spectra, nuclear magnetic resonance, as well as nuclear quadrupole resonance, which are of critical importance for many applications. Such components include chlorophylls and bacteriochlorophylls. Based on the density functional theory method, we calculate the main spectroscopic characteristics of these components for the Fenna-Matthews-Olson light-harvesting complex, analyze them and compare them with available experimental results. More >

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MARÍA ELISA MILLÁN¹, MARÍA FERNANDA MARRA¹, LEONARDO ANDRÉS SALVARREDI^1,2,3, EMILIO FERNANDO LIZARRAGA^4,*, LUIS ALBERTO LOPEZ^1,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 293-299, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.012342 - 22 September 2020
Abstract The ajenjo, Artemisia mendozana DC. var. mendozana (Asteraceae), grows in the Andean foothills of Mendoza and San Juan, Argentina, and is used as a medicinal plant for its antispasmodic and antifungal properties. The aim of this work was to obtain fractions of a chloroform extract of ajenjo leaves and to evaluate the in vitro effects on proliferation, viability and clonogenicity of B16-F0 melanoma cells. Using a silica gel chromatography column, 120 fractions were collected and grouped according to the chromatographic profile in 9 main fractions (F1–F9). Their major compounds identified were: terpenes (F1), terpenes and sesquiterpene lactones (F2–F3), More >

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YUAN BI^1,2,#, TIANQI LI^2,#, HONGJIE PAN², MING GUO², LIANGKANG CHEN², QI QI¹, MEIXIN ZHANG², LINGLING ZHANG², LININ YU², XIAOFENG WAN², HUAJUN ZHENG^2,*, RUNSHENG LI^2,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 301-313, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.011208 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Elemental sulfur has been used as a traditional Chinese medicine to treat the late-onset hypogonadism and impotence without a clarified mechanism for many hundreds of years. In the present study, mice were received sulfur or distilled water for 35 days by daily intragastric gavage at a dose of 250 mg/kg body weight. Then, the serum testosterone level and genes associated with testicular testosterone biosynthesis (TTB) were detected. The gut microbiota was also analyzed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Serum testosterone level was significantly increased by 291.1% in sulfur-treated mice. The H₂S levels in serum and feces… More >

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DONG ZHAO, QIANG JI^*, SHIJIE ZHU, KAI ZHU, CHUNSHENG WANG^*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 315-321, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.09169 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Except for the standard aortic valve replacement, no effective medical treatment is available to prevent or delay calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) progression. Recently, macrophages and high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) are the most intriguing candidates in various inflammatory disorders. However, the association between serum HMGB1, CAVD, and macrophage polarization remains unclear. Therefore, we examined whether the level of serum HMGB1 is clinically associated with aortic valve calcification and whether HMGB1 treatment can promote macrophage differentiation toward M1 or M2 phenotype. This experimental study included 19 CAVD patients and 20 healthy controls whose serum HMGB1 More >

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TIECHENG SUN^1,#, LUYANG CHENG^2,#, JING MA^3,#, SHANJIE ZHOU¹, YANDONG ZHANG¹, WENDI ZHOU⁴, SHOULONG DENG⁵, SHUSONG WANG^3,*, TIAN LI^1,6,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 323-327, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.011890 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Sperm cryopreservation is useful in assisted reproductive technology and male fertility preservation. However, freezing and thawing significantly reduces the total and progressive motility of human spermatozoa. In the present study, we explored the effects of peroxiredoxin 6 (PRDX6) on total and progressive motility of human spermatozoa after cryopreservation. Semen samples of 20 males with normal parameters were collected and frozen in media supplemented with different concentrations of PRDX6 (0 mM, 10⁻⁵ mM, 10⁻⁷ mM, and 10⁻⁹ mM, respectively). Postthaw total and progressive motility of sperms were measured. The results showed that in comparison with 0 mM, the More >

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XUHE GONG¹, GUANGPU FAN², HUI LIU¹, SIJIA WANG³, RONGCHONG HUANG^1,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 329-336, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.09639 - 22 September 2020
Abstract This work aimed to study the beneficial role of human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cellconditioned medium (MSC-CM) in hypoxia-induced apoptosis in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts, in which the serine/heroine kinases (Akt) pathway would be involved. For this, CM was collected by culturing MSCs in serum-free DMEM medium for 24 h, and paracrine factors were analyzed by protein chip. H9c2 cells were divided into the following groups: control group, hypoxia group, MSC-CM intervention group (CM group), MSC-CM + Akt phosphorylation inhibitor (LY294002) group (LY group). Apoptosis of the H9c2 cells was tested with chromatin dye Hoechst 33342… More >

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MEHMET TASPINAR^1,2,*, ALIHAN BOZOGLAN^3,4, ABDULLAH SECKIN ERTUGRUL⁵, LEVENT ELMAS⁶
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 337-344, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.011470 - 22 September 2020
（This article belongs to the Special Issue: Stem Cells, Protein Therapeutics, and Regenerative Medicine)
Abstract This study was carried out to compare individuals diagnosed with atherosclerosis and periodontal periodontitis based on the degree of change in the human beta-defensins (HBD) HBD-2, HBD-3, and calprotectin. Atherosclerosis is the most frequently observed cardiovascular disease. Dental and periodontal infections are known to provide a considerable basis for atheroma plaque formation. The study group consists of a total number of 40 subjects, with 20 patients diagnosed with atherosclerosis and chronic periodontitis and 20 systemically healthy patients diagnosed with chronic periodontitis. Clinical periodontal and blood parameters and HBD-2, HBD-3, and calprotectin biomarkers in the gingival… More >

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HONGWEI CHEN^#, XUAN SONG^#, HEMEI LI^*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 345-351, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.08944 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Ovarian cancer (OC) is a major cause of cancer-related deaths among gynaecological malignancies. Emerging studies suggest that the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) may be the potential biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of the cancer. The current study was carried out to investigate the role of lncRNA CCHE1 silencing in OC cell invasion and migration. Expression of lncRNA CCHE1 in normal ovarian cell Hose and OC cell lines HO 8910, A2780 and SKOV3 was detected. LncRNA were transfected with siRNA, and then the proliferation of cells was detected by using MTT assay. Cell invasion and… More >

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MENGSHU ZHAO¹, PINGSHI GAO¹, LIANG TAO¹, JINGJING WEN¹, LEI WANG¹, YUGUO YI¹, YUXIN CHEN², JUNSONG WANG¹, XI XU¹, JIANFA ZHANG¹, DAN WENG^1,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 353-361, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.08955 - 22 September 2020
Abstract As a natural analog of resveratrol, piceatannol (Pic) exhibits good antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities in different disease models. However, the role of Pic in type 1 diabetes mouse model has not been reported yet. In this study, we investigated the in vivo effect of Pic in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced type 1 diabetic mice. Mice were injected with STZ to establish the type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) model. After stable hyperglycemia was achieved, mice were then orally treated with Pic (40 mg/kg b.w., i.g.) for 30 days. The results indicated that Pic supplementation efficiently alleviated the typical symptoms… More >

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REVIEW

HAZAEL RAMIRO CEJA-GÁLVEZ¹, ERANDIS DHENI TORRES-SÁNCHEZ¹, JUAN HERIBERTO TORRES-JASSO², ARTURO VILLALOBOS ORNELAS¹, JOEL SALAZAR-FLORES^1,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 363-370, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.09147 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Paraoxonase-1 (PON1) is an important enzyme in various pathologies such as pesticide poisoning, diabetes, atherosclerosis, neuronal disorders, and cancer, due to its multifunctional activity since it acts on different metabolites. However, one of its main functions is the hydrolysis of organophosphate (OP) compounds from pesticides that cause fatal poisoning at the level of the central nervous system (CNS). The objective of this review was to investigate whether the structure, genetics, and function of PON1 affect the metabolism of organophosphate pesticides or other abnormalities. Information was selected from articles in the database PubMed–NCBI (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/) with More >

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HUIFANG CHEN^1,2, XIAOYING ZHOU², ZONGHONG LONG², XIANGLONG TANG², HONG LI^2,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 371-379, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.08893 - 22 September 2020
Abstract UQCRC1 is one of the 10 mitochondrial complex III subunits, this protein has a role in energy metabolism, myocardial protection, and neurological diseases. The upstream mechanism of the UQCRC1 protective effect on cardiomyocytes is currently unavailable. In order to explore the upstream molecules of UQCRC1 and elucidate the protective mechanism of UQCRC1 on cardiomyocytes in more detail, we focused on the nuclease-sensitive elementbinding protein 1 (YB-1). We hypothesized YB-1 acts as an upstream regulatory molecule of UQCRC1. This study found that YB-1 RNAi significantly reduces the expression of the UQCRC1 protein level (p < 0.05) and More >

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TING YANG^#, JIANNONG LU^#, AKWASI YEBOAH, SHUAILEI GU, DONGNA LI, YUZHEN SHI, XUEGUI YIN^*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 381-388, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.09112 - 22 September 2020
（This article belongs to the Special Issue: )
Abstract In order to provide a molecular basis for selecting good hybrid combinations for the identification of castor bean germplasm resources, fingerprint and genetic diversity analysis of 52 castor bean materials from 12 regions in 5 countries were constructed by using the Functinal Markers (FMs) associated with fatty acid metabolism-related genes. A total of 72 alleles were amplified by 29 pairs of FMs with an average of 2.483 per marker and the polymorphic information content was 0.103–0.695. Shannon’s information index (I), observed heterozygosity (Ho) and expected heterozygosity (He) were 0.699, 0.188 and 0.436 respectively. The clustering More >

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YUNZE XUAN^1,#, BIN JIN^1,#, SAYAN DEB DUTTA^5,#, MENGMENG LIU², ZAIXIAN SHEN¹, XIWEN LIU³, YANG KANGJUAN^4,*, LIM KI-TAEK^5,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 389-400, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.09170 - 22 September 2020
（This article belongs to the Special Issue: Stem Cells, Protein Therapeutics, and Regenerative Medicine)
Abstract Periodontitis is a type of chronic inflammation in the gingival tissue caused by infectious bacteria colonizing the surface of the teeth, leading to the destruction of tooth-supporting tissues and loss of alveolar bone. Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA), a class of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, has the potential to stimulate osteoblast differentiation by acetylating histone proteins, and thus suppressing the expression of adipogenic and chondrogenic genes. However, the effect of SAHA on the differentiation of human periodontal ligament stem cells (hPDLSCs) is yet to be elucidated. Herein, we investigated the effects of SAHA on in vitro More >

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OLIVIA A. ROBLES-RODRÍGUEZ¹, MARÍA J. LOERA-ARIAS^1,*, JOSÉ J. PÉREZ-TRUJILLO¹, ARNULFO VILLANUEVA-OLIVO¹, ERNESTO PICÓN-GALINDO¹, LAURA VILLARREAL-MARTÍNEZ², ADOLFO SOTO-DOMÍNGUEZ¹, HUMBERTO RODRÍGUEZ-ROCHA¹, ARACELY GARCÍA-GARCÍA¹, ODILA SAUCEDO-CÁRDENAS^1,3, ROBERTO MONTES DE OCA-LUNA^1,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 401-409, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.010064 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are an accessible source of adult-derived, patient-specific pluripotent stem cells for use in basic research, drug discovery, disease modeling, and stem cell therapy. Improving the accessibility of methods to obtain iPSCs regardless of the cell source can enhance their clinical application. Therefore, our purpose is to report a simple protocol to obtain iPS-like cells from urine-derived renal epithelial cells (RECs) using different extracellular matrices and transfection reagents. In this study, we began by culturing urine-derived cells from healthy donors to establish a primary culture of renal epithelial cells, followed by… More >

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SOHEILA HASANIAN¹, NOUR AMIRMOZAFARI², AHMAD FARAJZADEH SHEIKH^3,*, IRAJ MEHREGAN¹
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 411-419, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.08976 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains are the essential cause of infections in communities and hospitals. The present study was conducted to determine the molecular typing of MRSA, isolated from hospitalized patients, using the double-locus sequence typing (DLST). In total, 280 S. aureus isolated from clinical specimens by phenotypic (catalase, coagulase, DNase, oxacillin, vancomycin screening agar and antibiotic disk diffusion), and molecular methods (PCR for determining the mecA, vanA and nuc genes). The DLST and sequencing was performed for MRSA containing mecA. Out of 280 specimens, confirmed as Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), 123 (43.9%) strains were MRSA. The highest resistance… More >

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HAO WANG^1,2,#, FANG FANG^1,#, CHAOYI FANG¹, RUNSHENG ZHAO^1,*, SHAOXIAN WANG^1,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 421-429, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.010257 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Stress is an inevitable interference factor that seriously affects health. Listening to music is an economical, noninvasive, and highly accepted tool for easing stress. However, physiological studies investigating the ability of music to reduce stress in daily life are limited. We established rat models of chronic immobilization stress (CIS) to observe changes in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus (ARC) neurons involved in the regulation of food intake and the effect of comfortable classical music exposure. Twenty-one days of stress resulted in decreased food intake and delayed body weight gain; up-regulation of leptin receptor (Ob-R), cocaine- and… More >

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XINGXING ZHU^1,2, TIANFENG HUA^1,2, MINGFEI WU³, JIATIAN WU^1,2, JIANCHAO HONG^1,2, MIN YANG^1,2,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 431-441, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.010323 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Post-resuscitation myocardial dysfunction (PRMD) is the most severe myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury (MIRI) and is characterized by difficult treatment and poor prognosis. Research has shown the protective effects of the rational use of ivabradine (IVA) against PRMD; however, the molecular mechanisms of IVA remain unknown. In this study, an ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) model was established using hypoxic chambers. The results demonstrated that pretreatment with IVA reduced IRI-induced cytotoxicity and apoptosis. IVA attenuated mitochondrial damage, eliminated excess reactive oxygen species (ROS), suppressed IRI-induced ATP and NAD⁺ , and increased the AMP/ATP ratio. We further found that IVA increased More >

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HELIN FENG^1,2, XIAOCHONG ZHANG³, QIANQIAN ZHANG⁴, ZE LI⁵, LILI ZHAO^1,6,*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 443-450, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.010705 - 22 September 2020
Abstract Osteosarcoma (OS) is a primary high-grade malignant bone neoplasm, and the prognosis of OS remains poor due to early metastasis. Leptin plays an essential role in tumorigenesis, but the role of leptin in the development of OS is still not fully understood. In this study, we used a human osteosarcoma MG-63 cell line as an experimental model. MG-63 cells were treated with leptin, and cell proliferation, apoptosis, adhesion, invasion, and gene expression, were evaluated. The results showed that leptin promoted proliferation, decreased adhesion, suppressed apoptosis, and promoted invasion, of MG-63 cells. Moreover, the expression of More >

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LU GAN, XIAOSHU DENG, YAN LIU, ANCAI LUO, JIAO CHEN, JING XIANG, ZHENGWU ZHAO^*
BIOCELL, Vol.44, No.3, pp. 451-459, 2020, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2020.08007 - 22 September 2020
Abstract The present study focused on the segregation of the percentage of grains with chalkiness (PGWC), using Huanghuazhan as the female parent and CS197 as the male parent to construct the hybrid rice F₂ population. Molecular markers were used for genotype analysis among the extremely low and extremely high PGWC individuals from the F₂ population. The results revealed that the genotypes of 10 extremely low PGWC individuals were 80.00% and 3.33%, which is identical to Huanghuazhan and CS197, respectively. The heterozygotes accounted for 16.67%. On the contrary, the genotypes of 10 extremely high PGWC individuals were 37.78%… More >

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