University of Iceland

About: University of Iceland is a education organization based out in Reykjavik, Suðurnes, Iceland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Genome-wide association study. The organization has 5423 authors who have published 16199 publications receiving 694762 citations. The organization is also known as: Háskóli Íslands.

The complexation efficiency

Abstract: Studies have shown that cyclodextrins form both inclusion and non-inclusion complexes and that several different types of complexes can coexist in aqueous solutions. In addition, both cyclodextrins and cyclodextrin complexes are known to form aggregates and it is thought that these aggregates are able to solubilize drugs through micellar-type mechanism. Thus, stability constants determined from phase-solubility profiles are rarely true stability constants for of some specific drug/cyclodextrin complexes. A more precise method for evaluation of the solubilizing effects of cyclodextrins is to determine their complexation efficiency (CE). CE can be determined by measuring the solubility of a given drug at 2–3 cyclodextrin concentrations in pure water or a medium constituting the pharmaceutical formulation such as parenteral solution or aqueous eye drop formulation. Based on the CE value the drug:cyclodextrin ratio in the complexation medium can be determined as well as the increase in the formulation bulk in a solid dosage form. Determination of CE is a simple method for quick evaluating the solubilizing effects of different cyclodextrins and/or the effects of excipients on the solubilization. Here we report the CE of 43 different drugs with mainly 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin but also with randomly methylated β-cyclodextrin as well as few other cyclodextrins. Calculation of CE, drug:cyclodextrin molar ratio and the increase in the formulation bulk is discussed, as well as the influence of the intrinsic solubility and drug lipophilicity on the CE.

Transcriptional activation of RagD GTPase controls mTORC1 and promotes cancer growth.

Abstract: The mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) is recruited to the lysosome by Rag guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases) and regulates anabolic pathways in response to nutrients. We found that MiT/TFE transcription factors—master regulators of lysosomal and melanosomal biogenesis and autophagy—control mTORC1 lysosomal recruitment and activity by directly regulating the expression of RagD. In mice, this mechanism mediated adaptation to food availability after starvation and physical exercise and played an important role in cancer growth. Up-regulation of MiT/TFE genes in cells and tissues from patients and murine models of renal cell carcinoma, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, and melanoma triggered RagD-mediated mTORC1 induction, resulting in cell hyperproliferation and cancer growth. Thus, this transcriptional regulatory mechanism enables cellular adaptation to nutrient availability and supports the energy-demanding metabolism of cancer cells.

Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in Norse Greenland

Abstract: Norse Greenland has been seen as a classic case of maladaptation by an inflexible temperate zone society extending into the arctic and collapse driven by climate change. This paper, however, recognizes the successful arctic adaptation achieved in Norse Greenland and argues that, although climate change had impacts, the end of Norse settlement can only be truly understood as a complex socioenvironmental system that includes local and interregional interactions operating at different geographic and temporal scales and recognizes the cultural limits to adaptation of traditional ecological knowledge. This paper is not focused on a single discovery and its implications, an approach that can encourage monocausal and environmentally deterministic emphasis to explanation, but it is the product of sustained international interdisciplinary investigations in Greenland and the rest of the North Atlantic. It is based on data acquisitions, reinterpretation of established knowledge, and a somewhat different philosophical approach to the question of collapse. We argue that the Norse Greenlanders created a flexible and successful subsistence system that responded effectively to major environmental challenges but probably fell victim to a combination of conjunctures of large-scale historic processes and vulnerabilities created by their successful prior response to climate change. Their failure was an inability to anticipate an unknowable future, an inability to broaden their traditional ecological knowledge base, and a case of being too specialized, too small, and too isolated to be able to capitalize on and compete in the new protoworld system extending into the North Atlantic in the early 15th century.