MyMedR

Displaying all 5 publications

Abstract:

Sort:

D-galactose-induced liver aging model: Its underlying mechanisms and potential therapeutic interventions

Azman KF, Safdar A, Zakaria R

Exp Gerontol, 2021 07 15;150:111372.
PMID: 33905879 DOI: 10.1016/j.exger.2021.111372

Aging is associated with a variety of morphological and functional changes in the liver. Oxidative stress and inflammation are now widely accepted as the main mechanisms involved in the aging process that may subsequently cause severe injury to mitochondrial DNA which leads to apoptosis. As aging may increase the risks for various liver diseases and plays as an adverse prognostic factor increasing the mortality rate, knowledge regarding the mechanisms of age-related liver susceptibility and the possible therapeutic interventions is imperative. Due to cost and time constraints, a mimetic aging model is generally preferred to naturally aged animals to study the underlying mechanisms of aging liver. The use of D-galactose in aging research is dated back to 1962 and has since been used widely. This review aims to comprehensively summarize the effects of D-galactose-induced aging on the liver and the underlying mechanisms involved. Its potential therapeutic interventions are also discussed. It is hoped that this invaluable information may facilitate researchers in choosing the appropriate aging model and provide a valuable platform for testing potential therapeutic strategies for the prevention and treatment of age-related liver diseases.
Goat milk attenuates mimetic aging related memory impairment via suppressing brain oxidative stress, neurodegeneration and modulating neurotrophic factors in D-galactose-induced aging model

Safdar A, Zakaria R, Aziz CBA, Rashid U, Azman KF

Biogerontology, 2020 04;21(2):203-216.
PMID: 31792648 DOI: 10.1007/s10522-019-09854-x

One of the most significant hallmarks of aging is cognitive decline. D-galactose administration may impair memory and mimic the effects of natural aging. In this study, the efficiency of goat milk to protect against memory decline was tested. Fifty-two male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into four groups: (i) control group, (ii) goat milk treated group, (iii) D-galactose treated group, and (iv) goat milk plus D-galactose treated group. Subcutaneous injections of D-galactose at 120 mg/kg and oral administrations of goat milk at 1 g/kg were chosen for the study. Goat milk and D-galactose were administered concomitantly for 6 weeks, while the control group received saline. After 6 weeks, novel object recognition and T-maze tests were performed to evaluate memory of rats. Following behavioral tests, the animals were sacrificed, and right brain homogenates were analyzed for levels of lipid peroxidation, antioxidant enzymes and neurotrophic factors. The left brain hemisphere was used for histological study of prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. There was a significant memory impairment, an increase in oxidative stress and neurodegeneration and a reduction in antioxidant enzymes and neurotrophic factors levels in the brain of D-galactose treated rats compared to controls. Goat milk treatment attenuated memory impairment induced by D-galactose via suppressing oxidative stress and neuronal damage and increasing neurotrophic factors levels, thereby suggesting its potential role as a geroprotective food.
Intelligent microscopic approach for identification and recognition of citrus deformities

Safdar A, Khan MA, Shah JH, Sharif M, Saba T, Rehman A, et al.

Microsc Res Tech, 2019 Sep;82(9):1542-1556.
PMID: 31209970 DOI: 10.1002/jemt.23320

Plant diseases are accountable for economic losses in an agricultural country. The manual process of plant diseases diagnosis is a key challenge from last one decade; therefore, researchers in this area introduced automated systems. In this research work, automated system is proposed for citrus fruit diseases recognition using computer vision technique. The proposed method incorporates five fundamental steps such as preprocessing, disease segmentation, feature extraction and reduction, fusion, and classification. The noise is being removed followed by a contrast stretching procedure in the very first phase. Later, watershed method is applied to excerpt the infectious regions. The shape, texture, and color features are subsequently computed from these infection regions. In the fourth step, reduced features are fused using serial-based approach followed by a final step of classification using multiclass support vector machine. For dimensionality reduction, principal component analysis is utilized, which is a statistical procedure that enforces an orthogonal transformation on a set of observations. Three different image data sets (Citrus Image Gallery, Plant Village, and self-collected) are combined in this research to achieving a classification accuracy of 95.5%. From the stats, it is quite clear that our proposed method outperforms several existing methods with greater precision and accuracy.
Fulltext Goat milk enhances memory of d-galactose-induced aging rats

Safdar A, Azman KF, Zakaria R, Ab Aziz CB, Rashid U

J Tradit Complement Med, 2021 Mar;11(2):117-122.
PMID: 33728271 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtcme.2020.02.005

Background and aim: Goat milk is a food of high nutritional value and has been proved to possess strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. However, thus far, little is known of its possible effects on brain especially on memory during aging. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of goat milk supplementation on memory in d-galactose-induced aging rat model.
Experimental procedure: Fifty-two male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into four groups: 1) control group, 2) goat milk treated group, 3) d-galactose treated group, and 4) goat milk plus d-galactose treated group. Goat milk (1 g/kg orally) and/or d-galactose (120 mg/kg subcutaneously) were administered continuously for six weeks preceded and followed by novel object recognition and T-maze test.
Results and conclusion: Prior to goat milk and d-galactose administration, there was no significant difference (p > 0.05) in memory between all groups. Goat milk administration alone significantly increased short- and long-term memory (p
Fulltext Retraction notice to "Goat milk enhances memory of d-galactose-induced aging rats" [J Tradit Complement Med 11 (2021) 117-122]

Safdar A, Azman KF, Zakaria R, Ab Aziz CB, Rashid U

J Tradit Complement Med, 2021 Jul;11(4):381.
PMID: 34195033 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtcme.2021.06.003

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.1016/j.jtcme.2020.02.005.].