Background. The notion that diabetic nephropathy is the leading cause of renal fibrosis prompted us to investigate the effects of blood glucose fluctuation (BGF) under high glucose condition on kidney in the mice. Methods. The diabetic and BGF animal models were established in this study. Immunohistochemistry, Western blot, and RT-PCR analysis were applied to detect the expression of type I collagen, matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP1), metalloproteinase inhibitor 1 (TIMP1), transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1), phosphorylated-ERK, p38, smad2/3, and Akt. Results. BGF treatment increased type I collagen synthesis by two times compared with the control. The expression of MMP1 was reduced markedly while TIMP1 synthesis was enhanced after BGF treatment. ERK phosphorylation exhibits a significant increase in the mice treated with BGF. Furthermore, BGF can markedly upregulate TGF-β1 expression. The p-smad2 showed 2-fold increases compared with the only diabetic mice. However, p-AKT levels were unchanged after BGF treatment. Conclusions. These data demonstrate that BGF can accelerate the trend of kidney fibrosis in diabetic mice by increasing collagen production and inhibiting collagen degradation. Both ERK/MAPK and TGF-β/smad signaling pathways seem to play a role in the development of kidney fibrosis accelerated by blood glucose fluctuation.
To accompany the search for optimal materials in electrochemical supercapacitors, appropriate characterization tools to assess key parameters of newly developed electrodes are required. Here we demonstrate the capabilities of ac-mode electrogravimetry to study in details the capacitive charge storage mechanisms in electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (ERGO) thin film electrodes. The coupling of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) with fast quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) complements classical electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) by capturing here the dynamics of the electroadsorption process, identifying charged moieties and detecting solvation effects. We evidenced the coelectroadsorption of two types of cationic species (fully and partially hydrated cations) in the potential range studied and the indirect intervention of free solvent molecules. Further kinetic information on electroadsorption is also obtained which leads to a full deconvolution of the global EQCM response at both gravimetric and temporal level. Through a fine analysis of the interactions of different cations of period one elements, Li + , Na + , and K + , with ERGO, we evidenced the critical role of solvation processes on the kinetics of electroadsorption, and provided an experimental proof to the phenomena that smaller ions are more tightly bound to their water molecules such that an inverse relationship exists between the dehydration energy and the ion size. Such gravimetric and dynamic subtleties are unreachable with classical tools and with EQCM method alone which permits us to suggest the ac-mode electrogravimetry as a baseline diagnostic tool to explore charge transfer mechanisms at the nanoscale.
The characteristic of an ideal bacteria-detection method should have high sensitivity and specificity, be easy to operate, and not have a time-consuming culture process. In this study, we report a new bacteria-detection strategy that can recognize bacteria quickly and directly by surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with the formation of well-defined bacteria-aptamer@AgNPs. SERS signals generated by bacteria-aptamer@AgNPs exhibited a linear dependence on bacteria (R = 0.9671) concentration ranging from 10 to 10 cfu/mL. The detection limit is sensitive down to 1.5 cfu/mL. Meanwhile, the bacteria SERS signal was dramatically enhanced by its specifically recognized aptamer, and the bacteria could be identified directly and visually through the SERS spectrum. This strategy eliminates the puzzling data analysis of previous studies and offers significant advantages over existing approaches, getting a critical step toward the creation of SERS-based biochips for rapid in situ bacteria detection in mixture samples.
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