Naringin (Nar) has been reported to exert potential hepatoprotective effects against acetaminophen (APAP)-induced injury. Mitochondrial dysfunction plays an important role in APAP-induced liver injury. However, the protective mechanism of Nar against mitochondrial damage has not been elucidated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the hepatoprotective effects of Nar against APAP and the possible mechanisms of actions. Primary rat hepatocytes and HepG2 cells were utilized to establish an in vitro model of APAP-induced hepatotoxicity. The effect of APAP and Nar on cell viability was evaluated by a CCK8 assay and detection of the concentrations of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and lactate dehydrogenase. The cellular concentrations of biomarkers of oxidative stress were measured by ELISA. The mRNA expression levels of APAP-related phase II enzymes were determined by real-time PCR. The protein levels of Nrf2, phospho (p)-AMPK/AMPK, and biomarkers of mitochondrial dynamics were determined by western blot analysis. The mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) was measured by high-content analysis and confocal microscopy. JC-1 staining was performed to evaluate mitochondrial depolarization. Nar pretreatment notably prevented the marked APAP-induced hepatocyte injury, increases in oxidative stress marker expression, reductions in the expression of phase II enzymes, significant loss of MMP, mitochondrial depolarization, and mitochondrial fission in vitro. In conclusion, Nar alleviated APAP-induced hepatocyte and mitochondrial injury by activating the AMPK/Nrf2 pathway to reduce oxidative stress in vitro. Applying Nar for the treatment of APAP-induced liver injury might be promising.

In this study, a novel electrospun nanofibrous composite was synthesized from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and well-dispersed oxide nanoparticles containing Ti and Ag (PAN-TA). The nanoparticles incorporated into the nanofibers can endow the composite with photocatalytic and antimicrobial ability. The morphologies and structure of the nanofibers were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Controlled experiments were carried out with the effects of chemical modification, solution pH, temperature, dosage, contact time, and initial concentration of the dye. The methylene blue (MB) dye was completely removed within 20 min at room temperature 25 ºC with high maximum retention capacity of 155.4 mg g-1. Moreover, equilibrium data and kinetics data indicated that the dye adsorption agreed well with the Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-second order model, respectively. In addition, the nanofibers could be easily separated from dye solution and showed high reusability for numerous repeat cycles, thus indicating good application prospects for the wastewater treatment.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial material which can lead to endocrine disorders. In this work, a simple and sensitive spectrophotometric method for determination of BPA using diazotization-coupling reaction was presented. To achieve the best performance of the developed method, the experimental parameters were optimized in terms of reagent concentration, reaction time, pH, and temperature. Under the optimal conditions, the absorbance increased linearly with the increasing concentration of BPA in the range of 0.16-10.4 µg mL-1 with the correlation coefficient of 0.9991 and the detection limit of 0.05 µg mL-1. Results achieved with the spectrophotometric method were compared with those obtained using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. The proposed method was successfully applied to determine BPA in milk and water bottle samples and satisfactory results were obtained, which make it very suitable for routine analysis of BPA in quality control laboratories.