51 ± 9.11% of the whole-cell GAD activity was inhibited. D101 MAR exhibited excellent properties in stabilizing the pH of the conversion reaction system, supplementing free L-Glu and removing excess GABA. Comparison of the biotransformation only in acetate buffer, the GABA production, with 50 g/100 mL of D101 MAR, was significantly increased by 138.71 ± 5.73%. D101 MAR with pre-adsorbed L-Glu could significantly enhance the production of GABA by gradual replenishment of free L-Glu, removing GABA and maintaining the pH of the reaction system, which would eventually make the GABA production more economical and eco-friendly.BACKGROUND Oral squamous cell carcinoma is occupying the eighth position of all malignant neoplasia worldwide. Nowadays, natural compounds found in vegetables and fruits are important resources of many anticancer drugs especially those with high levels of phytochemicals representing an efficient strategy for cancer prevention and treatment. Artichoke (Cynara cardunculus L.) is a kind of antioxidant-rich vegetables demonstrated a potential anticancer activity on various types of cancer cells related to its content of phenolic compounds. Anticarcinogenic effects of polyphenolic extracts were reported to cause a reduction in cell viability, inhibition of cell growth, and initiation of apoptotic mechanisms. The present study aimed to investigate the cell cycle arrest, cytotoxic, and apoptotic effects of artichoke extract against the invasive oral squamous cell carcinoma. RESULTS A pure extract from the edible part and leaves of fresh artichoke was added to oral squamous carcinoma cell lines and to control group to evaluate the expression of caspase-9, Bcl-2, and Bax genes. Artichoke extract demonstrated the highest cytotoxic effect against cancer cell lines which increased in a time-dependent manner. No apparent effects were observed in the normal control group. Expression of Bax and caspase-9 genes revealed a highly significant increase in cancer cell lines (p = 0.0001) when compared to the control group. In addition to a highly significant decrease (p = 0.005) in Bcl-2 of cancer cells. It was demonstrated that artichoke extract induced cell growth arrest at G2/M phase which revealed a significant increase (p less then 0.05) in comparison to the untreated control group. CONCLUSION Artichoke exerts potent cell cycle arrest, cytotoxic, and apoptotic effects on oral squamous carcinoma cell lines.The present study investigated the acute (72 h) and sub-acute (14 days) toxicity of mercury, lead, and cadmium to the green microalga, Nannochloropsis oculata. The acute toxicity testing was conducted according to the modified OECD guideline (No. 201). The 72-h IC50 values of Hg, Pb, and Cd exposed to N. oculata were 0.87, 1.81, and 4.97 mg/L, respectively. These results showed that mercury is about twice as toxic as lead and about 5.7 times more toxic than cadmium to this marine microalga. Lead is about 2.7 times more toxic than cadmium. The chlorophyll a content of the microalga decreased in the 10th and 14th days of the sub-acute toxicity test. Although the carotenoid content increased following exposure to the low levels of tested heavy metals (which may show the protective role of carotenoids against oxidative stress), with increased exposure time the total carotenoid reduced compared to control. A regular monitoring program to examine the level of metals in the aquatic ecosystem for protecting microalgae should be implemented.INTRODUCTION Moisturizers are one of the mainstays of the topical treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD). One of the adverse effects of moisturizers is skin irritation, especially on excoriated AD skin. We compared the potential for irritation of two commercially available moisturizer products for the treatment of AD a ceramide-based moisturizer (Ceradan® Cream; Hyphens Pharma Pte Ltd, Singapore) and a urea 5% moisturizer (Aqurea Lite Cream; ICA Pharma Pte Ltd, Singapore). METHODS We performed a prospective single-blind randomized controlled study recruiting AD patients aged between 8 and 16 years with symmetrical or near symmetrical scratch marks (excoriations) of at least grade 2 to 3 severity score, according to the Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI), over bilateral antecubital fossae. Subjects were randomized to receive the ceramide-based moisturizer to either the left or right antecubital fossa or urea 5% cream to the other antecubital fossa. https://www.selleckchem.com/JAK.html Subjects were asked to grade the immediate skin irritation of both creams on a standard visual analogue scale (VAS) and which cream they would prefer to use as a daily moisturizer. Primary outcome was the mean irritant score of each cream, and secondary outcome was the subjects' preference of either cream as their daily moisturizer. RESULTS A total of 42 participants were enrolled with a mean age of 11 years 5 months. The ceramide-based cream had a significantly lower mean VAS score (mean 0.69, SD = 1.63) for irritation compared with urea 5% cream (1.43, SD = 1.64) (p = 0.035). More participants also preferred the ceramide-based cream over urea 5% cream (62% versus 38%) as their daily moisturizer, but this did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.164). CONCLUSIONS A ceramide-based moisturizer may be considered as a suitable choice for children to minimize irritation from moisturizer treatment for AD.PURPOSE Gliomas are the most common and aggressive type of brain tumors due to their infiltrative nature and rapid progression. The process of distinguishing tumor boundaries from healthy cells is still a challenging task in the clinical routine. Fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) MRI modality can provide the physician with information about tumor infiltration. Therefore, this paper proposes a new generic deep learning architecture, namely DeepSeg, for fully automated detection and segmentation of the brain lesion using FLAIR MRI data. METHODS The developed DeepSeg is a modular decoupling framework. It consists of two connected core parts based on an encoding and decoding relationship. The encoder part is a convolutional neural network (CNN) responsible for spatial information extraction. The resulting semantic map is inserted into the decoder part to get the full-resolution probability map. Based on modified U-Net architecture, different CNN models such as residual neural network (ResNet), dense convolutional network (DenseNet), and NASNet have been utilized in this study.