FACS

Nanoparticles (NPs) are playing a progressively more significant role in multimodal and multifunctional molecular imaging. The agents like Superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO), manganese oxide (MnO), gold NPs/nanorods and quantum dots (QDs) possess specific properties like paramagnetism, superparamag-netism, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and photoluminescence respectively. These specific properties make them able for single/multi-modal and single/multi-functional molecular imaging. NPs generally have nanomolar or micromolar sensitivity range and can be detected via imaging instrumentation. The distinctive characteristics of these NPs make them suitable for imaging, therapy and delivery of drugs. Multifunctional nanoparticles (MNPs) can be produced through either modification of shell or surface or by attaching an affinity ligand to the nanoparticles. They are utilized for targeted imaging by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET), computed tomography (CT), photo acoustic imaging (PAI), two photon or fluorescent imaging and ultra sound etc. Toxicity factor of NPs is also a very important concern and toxic effect should be eliminated. First generation NPs have been designed, developed and tested in living subjects and few of them are already in clinical use. In near future, molecular imaging will get advanced with mul-timodality and multifunctionality to detect diseases like cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiac diseases , inflammation, stroke, atherosclerosis and many others in their early stages. In the current review, we discussed single/multifunctional nanoparticles along with molecular imaging modalities. Statement of Significance The present article intends to reveal recent avenues for nanomaterials in multimodal and multifunctional molecular imaging through a review of pertinent literatures. The topic emphasises on the distinctive characteristics of nanomaterial which makes them, suitable for biomedical imaging, therapy and delivery of drugs. This review is more informative of indicative technologies which will be helpful in a way to plan, understand and lead the nanotechnology related work.

<p>(A) <i>Ex vivo</i> images of 12-weeks-old WT C57BL6 mice organs. The organs were removed and imaged 1.5 h and 3 h after mice were injected s.c. and compared with organs of a mouse that had been injected with unconjugated dye and of a mouse that had not been injected with the proteins (right). To determine whether M-CSF<sub>RGD</sub> variant 5.6 accumulates in the bones, the epiphysis and diaphysis of the femur of a mouse injected with variant 5.6 were compared with those of the control mice (left). (B) Ten-weeks-old mice were ovariectomized, and starting 2 wk after the surgery, they were injected twice a day with PBS or M-CSF<sub>RGD</sub> variants 4.22 or 5.6 for 3 d. Thereafter, serum CTX-I levels were determined by ELISA. Data are means ± SEM. *<i>p</i> < 0.05, **<i>p</i> < 0.01, ***<i>p</i> < 0.001. Source data and its analysis can be found in <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.2002979#pbio.2002979.s024" target="_blank">S6 Data</a>. CTX-I, carboxy-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen; ELISA, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay; M-CSF, macrophage colony-stimulating factor; OVX, ovariectomy-induced bone loss; PBS, phosphate-buffered saline; RGD, Arginine-Glycine-Aspartic acid; s.c., subcutaneously; WT, wild type.</p

A novel approach to automatic facial expression recognition from static images is proposed in this paper. First, active appearance model (AAM) is used to locate facial feature points automatically. Then, both local texture information and local shape information in these points are extracted and are combined with global texture information for face presentation. Finally, the linear programming (LP) technique is used for classification. Experimental results demonstrate an average recognition accuracy of 83.6% on the JAFFE database, which shows that the proposed method is promising

Genetic testing for the two major breast cancer susceptibility genes has now been available for several years with more than 70,000 people tested in the USA alone. While the current genetic testing identifies many sequence alterations there are problems with both sensitivity and ...

BACKGROUND AIMS Adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have a higher capacity for proliferation and differentiation compared with other cell lineages. Although distraction osteogenesis is the most important therapy for treating bone defects, this treatment is restricted in many situations. The aim of this study was to examine the therapeutic potential of adipose tissue-derived MSCs and osteoblasts differentiated from adipose tissue-derived MSCs in the treatment of bone defects. METHODS Bone defects were produced in the tibias of New Zealand rabbits that had previously undergone adipose tissue extraction. Tibial osteotomy was performed, and a distractor was placed on the right leg of the rabbits. The rabbits were placed in control (group I), stem cell (group II) and osteoblast-differentiated stem cell (group III) treatment groups. The rabbits were sacrificed, and the defect area was evaluated by radiologic, biomechanical and histopathologic tests to examine the thera...

C-Phycocyanin (C-PC), the major light harvesting biliprotein from Spirulina platensis is of greater importance because of its various biological and pharmacological properties. It is a water soluble, non-toxic fluorescent protein pigment with potent anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. In the present study the effect of highly purified C-PC was tested on growth and multiplication of human chronic myeloid leukemia cell line (K562). The results indicate significant decrease (49%) in the proliferation of K562 cells treated with 50 μM C-PC up to 48 h. Further studies involving fluorescence and electron microscope revealed characteristic apoptotic features like cell shrinkage, membrane blebbing and nuclear condensation. Agarose electrophoresis of genomic DNA of cells treated with C-PC showed fragmentation pattern typical for apoptotic cells. Flow cytometric analysis of cells treated with 25 and 50 μM C-PC for 48 h showed 14.11 and 20.93% cells in sub-G0/G1 phase, respectively. C-PC treatment of K562 cells also resulted in release of cytochrome c into the cytosol and poly(ADP) ribose polymerase (PARP) cleavage. These studies also showed down regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 but without any changes in pro-apoptotic Bax and thereby tilting the Bcl-2/Bax ratio towards apoptosis. These effects of C-PC appear to be mediated through entry of C-PC into the cytosol by an unknown mechanism. The present study thus demonstrates that C-PC induces apoptosis in K562 cells by cytochrome c release from mitochondria into the cytosol, PARP cleavage and down regulation of Bcl-2.