Aim: To investigate the effect of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist on T helper (TH) cell differentiation and intracellular transcriptional factors in vitro. Methods: Ten male healthy volunteers (aged 20-45 y, BMI 18-25) were enrolled in this study. Twenty milliliters peripheral blood was collected in the morning from fasted volunteers and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were isolated. PBMC were incubated with phorbol-myristate-acetate (25 ng/ml) (PMA) plus ionomycin (1 mu g/ml) in the presence of ketamine or MK-801 at 37 degrees C. TH subsets, supernatant interferon gamma (IFN-gamma), interleukin 4 (IL-4), and intracellular transcriptional factors T-bet and GATA3 were analyzed 4 h later. Results: The number of TH0 cells was kept constant and at baseline before PMA and ionomycin stimulation in each group. TH1 cells, TH2 cells, IFN-gamma and IL-4 levels were significantly increased after PMA and ionomycin stimulation. Ketamine and MK-801 decreased TH1 cells, TH2 cells, 1FN-gamma and IL-4 levels but increased the ratio of TH1/TH2 and IFN-gamma/IL-4 in the presence of PMA and ionomycin. Ketamine or MK-801 alone had no effect on either of them. T-bet and GATA3 activities in PBMC were significantly increased after PMA and ionomycin stimulation. Ketamine and MK-801 decreased T-bet and GATA3 activities but increased the ratio of T-bet/GATA3 following PMA and ionomycin stimulation. Ketamine or MK-801 alone had no effect on the activity of T-bet, GATA3 or T-bet/GATA3. Conclusion: NMDA antagonist can suppress TH cell differentiation and subsequent cytokines production but increase TH1/TH2 ratio following PMA and ionomycin stimulation, it may be related to its regulation on T-bet and GATA3 activities. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The self-healing mechanism of radiation-induced defects in nickel-graphene nanocomposite is investigated by atomistic simulations. Compared with pure nickel, nickel-graphene nanocomposite has less defects remained in the bulk region after collision cascades, illustrating self-healing performance. Nickel-graphene interfaces (NGIs) serve as sinks for radiation-induced defects and preferentially trap interstitials over vacancies. Energetic and kinetic calculations reveal that the defect formation energy and diffusion barrier are reduced in the vicinity of NGIs, and the reduction are pronounced for interstitials. When NGIs are loaded with interstitials, their segregation ability on radiation-induced defects improves significantly, and the radiation-induced defects near the NGIs diffuse more easily. Especially, the vacancies (or interstitials) near the NGIs tend to annihilate (or aggregate) with the interstitials trapped at the NGIs, which only happens at the interstitial-loaded side of NGIs. Therefore, nickel-graphene nanocomposite exhibits excellent radiation tolerance and shows promise as a structural material for advanced nuclear reactors due to its NGIs with the energetic and kinetic driving forces acting on radiation-induced defects. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nickel-graphene (N-G) composites are potential candidate structural materials for molten salt reactors. A rapid preparation method for these composites by jet electrodeposition was developed, and the microstructure, microhardness, and corrosion properties of these composites were studied to explore the key parameters of the jet electrodeposition. Results indicated that the distribution of graphene in composites mainly depended on the concentration of graphene oxide (GO) in the plating solution. Composites deposited with GO concentration of 0, 0.5, 1 g/L showed surface root-mean-square roughness value (Rq) of 6, 12, and 28 nm, respectively. Meanwhile with the increase of GO concentration, the Hardness value became larger. The corrosion potential E-corr and current I-corr of composites obtained at 0.5 g/L with the best surface quality were 193 mV and 5.7 x 10(-6) A/cm(2), respectively, which indicated the best electrochemical corrosion resistance. Hydrogen annealing can help self-repair of graphene microstructure.