The purpose of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are to create optimum thermal comfort and appropriate indoor air quality (IAQ) for occupants. Air ventilation systems can significantly affect the health risk in indoor environm...
The use of microorganisms in mining processes is a technology widely employed around the world. Leaching bacteria are characterized by having resistance mechanisms for several metals found in their acidic environments, some of which have been partial...
The simulation of the ventilation and the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems of vehicles could be used in the energy demand management of vehicles besides improving the air quality inside their cabins. Moreover, traveling by pu...
The cholinergic system is one of the most ancient and widespread signaling systems in the body, implicated in a range of pathological conditions—from neurodegenerative disorders to cancer. Given its broad relevance, there is growing interest in...
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are targets for developing new drugs to treat severe pain, nicotine addiction, Alzheimer disease, epilepsy, etc. α-Conotoxins are biologically and chemically diverse. With 12–19 residues and two disulfides,...
The subfamily Amaryllidoideae within of the Amaryllidaceae family has an exclusive group of compounds called Amaryllidaceae alkaloids. Galanthamine, the most known Amaryllidaceae alkaloid, is approved by the FDA as an inhibitor of the enzyme acetylch...
The “distal axonopathy” hypothesis in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) proposes that pathological changes occur at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) early in the disease. While acetylcholinesterase (AChE) plays an important role in the...
Acetylcholine (ACh) is the classical neurotransmitter in the cholinergic nervous system. However, ACh is now known to regulate various immune cell functions. In fact, T cells, B cells, and macrophages all express components of the cholinergic system,...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a complex and widespread condition, still not fully understood and with no cure yet. Amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide is suspected to be a major cause of AD, and therefore, simultaneously blocking its formation and agg...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a complex multifactorial disorder, mainly characterized by the progressive loss of memory and cognitive, motor, and functional capacity. The absence of effective therapies available for AD alongside the consecutive failure...
The synthesis of eleven new and previously undescribed benzamides was designed. These compounds were specifically projected as potential inhibitors of the enzymes acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and β-secretase (BACE1). N,N′-(1,4-phenylene)bis...
Mucociliary clearance is a primary defence mechanism of the airways consisting of two components, ciliary beating and transepithelial ion transport (ISC). Specialised chemosensory cholinergic epithelial cells, named brush cells (BC), are involved in...
Multi-target drug development has become an attractive strategy in the discovery of drugs to treat of Alzheimer’s disease (AzD). In this study, for the first time, a rule-based machine learning (ML) approach with classification trees (CT) was a...
Two new triterpenoids, named kadsuricoccins A and B, together with three known ones, were isolated from the Li folk herb Heilaohu, the stems of Kadsura coccinea (Lem.) A. C. Smith, which was used for food and as a healthy supplement. Their structures...
Three novel monoterpenoid indole alkaloids gardflorine A (1), gardflorine B (2), and gardflorine C (3) were isolated from the leaves of Gardneria multiflora. Their structures, including absolute configurations, were established on the basis of spectr...
We describe a patterned surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate with the ability to pre-concentrate target molecules. A surface-adsorbed nanosphere monolayer can serve two different functions. First, it can be made into a SERS platform w...
Acetylcholine (ACh) is the principal vestibular efferent neurotransmitter among mammalians. Pharmacologic studies prove that ACh activates a small conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels (KCa) current (SK2), mediated by α9-containing nicotinic ACh re...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) lies in the category of those diseases which are still posing challenges to medicinal chemists, and the search for super-effective drugs for the treatment of AD is a work in progress. The inhibition of cholinesterase is consi...
A pair of novel lipopeptide epimers, sinulariapeptides A (1) and B (2), and a new phthalide glycerol ether (3) were isolated from the marine algal-associated fungus Cochliobolus lunatus SCSIO41401, together with three known chromanone derivates (4&nd...
Background/Objectives: Tannic acid (TA), a known natural polyphenolic acid with many bioactivities including antioxidants, antibacterial, and antiviral, can be combined with a natural essential amino acid L-lysine (LYS) in nanogel formulations to pro...
The β3 subunit of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) participates in heteropentameric assemblies with some α and other β neuronal subunits forming a plethora of various subtypes, differing in their electrophysiological and pha...
Three-finger toxins (3FTX) are a group of peptides that affect multiple receptor types. One group of proteins affected by 3FTX are nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR). Structural information on how neurotoxins interact with nAChR is limited and...
Cholinergic signaling, which modulates cell activities via nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (n- and mAChRs) in response to internal or external stimuli, has been demonstrated in mammalian non-neuronal cells that synthesize acetylcholi...
Calicioids form a research field that has encompassed ascomycetous fungi with stalked ascomata similar to those of the lichen genus Calicium. Early generic circumscriptions of calicioid lichens and fungi were mainly based on morphological and seconda...
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Exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to impact human sperm quality. The epigenetic mechanisms underlying the effect remain unknown. The acetylcholinesterase (ACHE) gene is a sperm-expressed gene encoding the acetylcholine hydrolyzing enzyme a...
Malaria remains one of the great killers in tropical regions of the world due to the transmission of the Plasmodium parasite by the bites of the female mosquito Anopheles. The resistance of this species to synthetic insecticides contributes to an inc...
Extensive research has been dedicated to develop compounds that can target multiple aspects of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) treatment due to a growing understanding of AD’s complex multifaceted nature and various interconnected pathological p...
After spinal cord transection (SCT) the interaction between motoneurons (MNs) and muscle is impaired, due to reorganization of the spinal network after a loss of supraspinal inputs. Rats subjected to SCT, treated with intraspinal injection of a AAV-B...
The centrality of amyloid-beta (Aβ) is an indisputable tenet of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It was initially indicated by the detection (1991) of a mutation within Aβ protein precursor (AβPP) segregating with the disease, which ser...
The high toxicity of hydrogen sulfide combined with poor sensitivity at room operating temperature urge for the development of new sensitive materials for sensors complying with this requirement, as well as a fast response and low cost. In this work,...
Background: Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the leading cause of death among infants aged between one month and one year. Altered enzyme activities or expression of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) have been observe...
α-conotoxins are 13–19 amino acid toxin peptides that bind various nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subtypes. α-conotoxin Mr1.7c (MrIC) is a 17 amino acid peptide that targets α7 nAChR. Although MrIC has no activating effect on α7 nAChR when...
Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers are common and pose a major public health issue. An inflammatory microenvironment drives their development and progression. The α7nAChR receptor, known to suppress autoimmune and inflammatory bowel dise...
Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is largely linked with oxidative stress, the accumulation of amyloid-β plaques, and hyperphosphorylated τ-protein aggregation. Alterations in dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmission have als...
Background: This cross-sectional study investigated the associations between medication-induced xerostomia (perceived oral dryness) and intraoral painful aching in 141 middle-aged adults (45–64 years) with self-reported xerostomia resulting fro...
α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) is an important nicotinic acetylcholine receptors subtype and closely associated with cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia disease. The mutant ArIB (V11L, V16A) of α...
Neuropathic pain, which refers to pain caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory system, represents a wide variety of peripheral or central disorders. Treating neuropathic pain is quite demanding, primarily because of its intricate underlyin...
The a-C:H (amorphous carbon-hydrogen) films belong to the family of DLC (diamond-like carbon) coatings. The a-C:H coating was deposited on medical grade CoCrMo substrates by plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition (PA-CVD) using benzene as gaseous...
Nereistoxin (NTX) is a marine toxin isolated from an annelid worm that lives along the coasts of Japan. Its insecticidal properties were discovered decades ago and this stimulated the development of a variety of insecticides such as Cartap that are r...
Nicotine in tobacco smoke is considered carcinogenic in several malignancies including lung cancer. The high incidence of lung adenocarcinoma (LAC) in non-smokers, however, remains unexplained. Although LAC has long been less associated with smoking...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects the majority of people worldwide. To date, there is no cure for the disease, so new therapeutic targets need to be identified and studied. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and buty...
Experimental and clinical studies of cardiac pathology associated with epilepsy have demonstrated an impact on the autonomic nervous system (ANS). However, the underlying molecular mechanism has not been fully elucidated. Molecular investigation of t...
Background: Anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibodies (Abs) unleash an immune response to cancer. However, a disruption of the immune checkpoint function by blocking PD-1/PD-ligand 1(PD-L1) signaling may trigger myasthenia gravis (MG)...
Recently, we reported that nicotine plays a role in the failure of the macrophage in the clearance of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) during infection in Crohn’s disease smokers. We also demonstrated that nicotine enhances macro...
Tobacco smoking has become a prominent health problem faced around the world. The α3β4 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) is strongly associated with nicotine reward and withdrawal symptom. α-Conotoxin TxID, cloned from Conus t...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) numbers among the most precipitative neurodegenerative disorders, constituting a constant subject of interest for medicinal chemistry researchers. The treatment of such disorders remains a challenge due to the complexit...
Arsenopyrite is the most abundant arsenic-bearing sulfide mineral in the lithosphere, usually associated with sulfide gold ores. The recovery of this highly valuable metal is associated with the release of large quantities of soluble arsenic. One way...
Hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) has been considered a promising biocompatible coating to protect metallic alloys against corrosion for medical applications, namely orthodontics. However, there is still no optimal solution for this biomedical fi...
Polycarbonate (PC) is a material that is used in many areas: automotive, aerospace engineering and data storage industries. Its hardness is of particular importance, but some applications are affected by its low wettability or scratch susceptibility....
Neonicotinoid pesticides were initially designed in order to achieve species selectivity on insect nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). However, concerns arose when agonistic effects were also detected in human cells expressing nAChRs. In the...
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