Displaying publications 1 - 20 of 145 in total

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  1. Fulltext Oral myiasis : case report
    Ramli R, Abd Rahman R
    Malays J Med Sci, 2002 Jul;9(2):47-50.
    PMID: 22844224
    Myiasis occurs when living tissues of mammals are invaded by eggs or larvae of flies, mainly from the order of Diptera. Most of the previousty reported cases are in the tropics and they were usually associated with inadequate personal hygiene, sometimes with poor manual dexterity. This report describes two cases of oral myiasis in cerebral palsy patients in Seremban General Hospital, Malaysia. This article also discusses the therapeutic property of maggots and highlights the importance of oral health care in the special needs patients.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  2. Fulltext Conspectus of flora, fauna and micro-climate data in Tasik Kenyir from Mac 2015-February 2016
    Afiq Ramlee MN, Hussin MF, Roslan A, Rosmidi FH, Pesiu E, Aisyah A Rahim N, et al.
    Data Brief, 2020 Apr;29:105328.
    PMID: 32181296 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.105328
    This data article presents the diversity of flora and selected fauna in Tasik Kenyir, Malaysia. This man-made lake once suffered huge loss of biodiversity for allowing an earth-dam construction during 1980s. Series of publications on different types of target taxa have been published separately after the post-dam construction. A biodiversity assessment was conducted in Tasik Kenyir from March 2015 until February 2016. The one year assessment were compiled with the previous published data to document and updated the biodiversity checklist in the lake. The data show that Tasik Kenyir is occupied by 113 tree species, 217 butterfly species, 35 bee species, 26 reptile species, 267 aves species and 153 mammal species. The micro-climate data was downloaded from the Malaysian Meteorological Department and analysed in R Studio to highlight the relationship between climate data and biodiversity data.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  3. Fulltext Data on ectoparasites infestation on small mammals from different habitats in east-coast Peninsular Malaysia
    Ahmad NII, Rahim NAA, Roslan A, Adrus M, Ahamad M, Hassan M, et al.
    Data Brief, 2020 Jun;30:105621.
    PMID: 32395585 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.105621
    This data article presents on the ectoparasites infestation on small mammals in Peninsular Malaysia. The dataset on ectoparasites infestation is important because it raises a major medical concern regarding the spread of potentially zoonotic disease from wildlife to human. Tick and chigger are the primary ectoparasites as reservoirs of vector-borne diseases found on small mammals in Malaysia. These small mammals that are infested with ectoparasites occupy various types of habitats, including human settlements, could be of community health risks as the carriers of potentially zoonotic diseases. Field samplings were conducted from February 2015 to February 2016 in three different ecological habitats of mixed dipterocarp forest, coastal forest and insular forest, in Terengganu, Malaysia. A total of 35 and 22 species of bats and rodents respectively were captured and examined for ectoparasites. Twenty-three species of bats and 16 species of small mammal were recorded as hosts for at least one species of ectoparasites. These findings show that the highest ectoparasite infestation occurred on bat community.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  4. Rare k-mer DNA: Identification of sequence motifs and prediction of CpG island and promoter
    Mohamed Hashim EK, Abdullah R
    J Theor Biol, 2015 Dec 21;387:88-100.
    PMID: 26427337 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2015.09.014
    Empirical analysis on k-mer DNA has been proven as an effective tool in finding unique patterns in DNA sequences which can lead to the discovery of potential sequence motifs. In an extensive study of empirical k-mer DNA on hundreds of organisms, the researchers found unique multi-modal k-mer spectra occur in the genomes of organisms from the tetrapod clade only which includes all mammals. The multi-modality is caused by the formation of the two lowest modes where k-mers under them are referred as the rare k-mers. The suppression of the two lowest modes (or the rare k-mers) can be attributed to the CG dinucleotide inclusions in them. Apart from that, the rare k-mers are selectively distributed in certain genomic features of CpG Island (CGI), promoter, 5' UTR, and exon. We correlated the rare k-mers with hundreds of annotated features using several bioinformatic tools, performed further intrinsic rare k-mer analyses within the correlated features, and modeled the elucidated rare k-mer clustering feature into a classifier to predict the correlated CGI and promoter features. Our correlation results show that rare k-mers are highly associated with several annotated features of CGI, promoter, 5' UTR, and open chromatin regions. Our intrinsic results show that rare k-mers have several unique topological, compositional, and clustering properties in CGI and promoter features. Finally, the performances of our RWC (rare-word clustering) method in predicting the CGI and promoter features are ranked among the top three, in eight of the CGI and promoter evaluations, among eight of the benchmarked datasets.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  5. Fulltext Plant disease control: understanding the roles of toxins and phytoalexins in host-pathogen interaction
    Magaji G. Usman, Tijjani Ahmadu, Adamu Jibrin Nayaya, Aisha M. Dodo
    The Pertanika Journal of Scholarly Research Reviews, 2018;4(1):54-66.
    MyJurnal
    Naturally, plant habitats are exposed to several potential effects of biotic and different abiotic environmental challenges. Several types of micro-organisms namely; bacteria, viruses, fungi, nematodes, mites, insects, mammals and other herbivorous animals are found in large amounts in all ecosystems, which lead to considerable reduction in crop productivity. These organisms are agents carrying different diseases that can damage the plants through the secretion of toxic-microbial poisons that can penetrate in the plant tissues. Toxins are injurious substances that act on plant protoplast to influence disease development. In response to the stress effect, plants defend themselves by bearing some substances such as phytoalexins. Production of phytoalexins is one of the complex mechanisms through which plants exhibit disease resistance. Several findings specifically on phytoalexins have widen the understanding in the fields of plant biochemistry and molecular biology. However, this review reports the interaction of toxins and phytoalexins in plant-pathogen cycle, research progress on the association of phytoalexins with plant disease resistance as well as the role of the phytoalexins in plant disease control.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  6. A new twist on a very old binary similarity coefficient
    Alroy J
    Ecology, 2015 Feb;96(2):575-86.
    PMID: 26240877
    Pairwise similarity coefficients are downward biased when samples only record presences and sampling is partial. A simple but forgotten index proposed by Stephen Forbes in 1907 can help solve this problem. His original equation requires knowing the number of species absent in both samples that could have been present. It is proposed that this count should simply be ignored and that the coefficient should be adjusted using a simple heuristic correction. Four analyses show that the corrected equation outperforms the Dice and Simpson indices, which are highly correlated with many others. In two-sample simulations, similarity is almost always closer to the assumed value when the species pool size and sampling intensity are varied, regardless of whether the underlying abundance distribution is uniform, log-normal, or geometric. The index is also much more robust when sampling is unequal. An analysis of bat samples from peninsular Malaysia buttresses these conclusions. The corrected coefficient also indicates that local assemblages of North American mammals are random subsamples of larger species pools by returning similarity of values of around 1, and it suggests a more consistent relationship between biome-scale comparisons and local-scale comparisons. Finally, it yields a better-dispersed pattern when the biome-scale inventories are ordinated. If these results are generalizable, then the new and old equation should see wide application, potentially taking the place of the two most commonly used alternatives (the interrelated Dice and Jaccard indices) whenever sampling is incomplete.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals/physiology*
  7. Correlation and persistence of hunting and logging impacts on tropical rainforest mammals
    Brodie JF, Giordano AJ, Zipkin EF, Bernard H, Mohd-Azlan J, Ambu L
    Conserv Biol, 2015 Feb;29(1):110-21.
    PMID: 25196079 DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12389
    Humans influence tropical rainforest animals directly via exploitation and indirectly via habitat disturbance. Bushmeat hunting and logging occur extensively in tropical forests and have large effects on particular species. But how they alter animal diversity across landscape scales and whether their impacts are correlated across species remain less known. We used spatially widespread measurements of mammal occurrence across Malaysian Borneo and recently developed multispecies hierarchical models to assess the species richness of medium- to large-bodied terrestrial mammals while accounting for imperfect detection of all species. Hunting was associated with 31% lower species richness. Moreover, hunting remained high even where richness was very low, highlighting that hunting pressure persisted even in chronically overhunted areas. Newly logged sites had 11% lower species richness than unlogged sites, but sites logged >10 years previously had richness levels similar to those in old-growth forest. Hunting was a more serious long-term threat than logging for 91% of primate and ungulate species. Hunting and logging impacts across species were not correlated across taxa. Negative impacts of hunting were the greatest for common mammalian species, but commonness versus rarity was not related to species-specific impacts of logging. Direct human impacts appeared highly persistent and lead to defaunation of certain areas. These impacts were particularly severe for species of ecological importance as seed dispersers and herbivores. Indirect impacts were also strong but appeared to attenuate more rapidly than previously thought. The lack of correlation between direct and indirect impacts across species highlights that multifaceted conservation strategies may be needed for mammal conservation in tropical rainforests, Earth's most biodiverse ecosystems.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals/physiology*
  8. Evaluating multispecies landscape connectivity in a threatened tropical mammal community
    Brodie JF, Giordano AJ, Dickson B, Hebblewhite M, Bernard H, Mohd-Azlan J, et al.
    Conserv Biol, 2015 Feb;29(1):122-32.
    PMID: 25065425 DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12337
    Habitat corridors are important tools for maintaining connectivity in increasingly fragmented landscapes, but generally they have been considered in single-species approaches. Corridors intended to facilitate the movement of multiple species could increase persistence of entire communities, but at the likely cost of being less efficient for any given species than a corridor intended specifically for that species. There have been few tests of the trade-offs between single- and multispecies corridor approaches. We assessed single-species and multispecies habitat corridors for 5 threatened mammal species in tropical forests of Borneo. We generated maps of the cost of movement across the landscape for each species based on the species' local abundance as estimated through hierarchical modeling of camera-trap data with biophysical and anthropogenic covariates. Elevation influenced local abundance of banded civets (Hemigalus derbyanus) and sun bears (Helarctos malayanus). Increased road density was associated with lower local abundance of Sunda clouded leopards (Neofelis diardi) and higher local abundance of sambar deer (Rusa unicolor). Pig-tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina) local abundance was lower in recently logged areas. An all-species-combined connectivity scenario with least-cost paths and 1 km buffers generated total movement costs that were 27% and 23% higher for banded civets and clouded leopards, respectively, than the connectivity scenarios for those species individually. A carnivore multispecies connectivity scenario, however, increased movement cost by 2% for banded civets and clouded leopards. Likewise, an herbivore multispecies scenario provided more effective connectivity than the all-species-combined scenario for sambar and macaques. We suggest that multispecies habitat connectivity plans be tailored to groups of ecologically similar, disturbance-sensitive species to maximize their effectiveness.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals/physiology*
  9. Fulltext Four New Species of Nepenthes L. (Nepenthaceae) from the Central Mountains of Mindanao, Philippines
    Gronemeyer T, Coritico F, Wistuba A, Marwinski D, Gieray T, Micheler M, et al.
    Plants (Basel), 2014;3(2):284-303.
    PMID: 27135505 DOI: 10.3390/plants3020284
    Together with the islands of Sumatra (Indonesia) and Borneo (Indonesia, Malaysia), the Philippines are the main center of diversity for carnivorous pitcher plants of the genus, Nepenthes L. Nepenthes are the largest of all carnivorous plants, and the species with the biggest pitchers are capable of trapping and digesting small amphibians and even mammals. The central cordillera of Mindanao Island in the south of the Philippines is mostly covered with old, primary forest and is the largest remaining cohesive, untouched area of wilderness in the Philippines. In a recent field exploration of two areas of the central cordillera, namely Mount Sumagaya and a section of the Pantaron range, four new taxa of Nepenthes were discovered. These four remarkable new species, N. pantaronensis, N. cornuta, N. talaandig and N. amabilis, are described, illustrated and assessed.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  10. Fulltext Standardized Assessment of Biodiversity Trends in Tropical Forest Protected Areas: The End Is Not in Sight
    Beaudrot L, Ahumada JA, O'Brien T, Alvarez-Loayza P, Boekee K, Campos-Arceiz A, et al.
    PLoS Biol, 2016 Jan;14(1):e1002357.
    PMID: 26785119 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002357
    Extinction rates in the Anthropocene are three orders of magnitude higher than background and disproportionately occur in the tropics, home of half the world's species. Despite global efforts to combat tropical species extinctions, lack of high-quality, objective information on tropical biodiversity has hampered quantitative evaluation of conservation strategies. In particular, the scarcity of population-level monitoring in tropical forests has stymied assessment of biodiversity outcomes, such as the status and trends of animal populations in protected areas. Here, we evaluate occupancy trends for 511 populations of terrestrial mammals and birds, representing 244 species from 15 tropical forest protected areas on three continents. For the first time to our knowledge, we use annual surveys from tropical forests worldwide that employ a standardized camera trapping protocol, and we compute data analytics that correct for imperfect detection. We found that occupancy declined in 22%, increased in 17%, and exhibited no change in 22% of populations during the last 3-8 years, while 39% of populations were detected too infrequently to assess occupancy changes. Despite extensive variability in occupancy trends, these 15 tropical protected areas have not exhibited systematic declines in biodiversity (i.e., occupancy, richness, or evenness) at the community level. Our results differ from reports of widespread biodiversity declines based on aggregated secondary data and expert opinion and suggest less extreme deterioration in tropical forest protected areas. We simultaneously fill an important conservation data gap and demonstrate the value of large-scale monitoring infrastructure and powerful analytics, which can be scaled to incorporate additional sites, ecosystems, and monitoring methods. In an era of catastrophic biodiversity loss, robust indicators produced from standardized monitoring infrastructure are critical to accurately assess population outcomes and identify conservation strategies that can avert biodiversity collapse.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals*
  11. A mini review on immune role of chemokines and its receptors in snakehead murrel Channa striatus
    Bhatt P, Kumaresan V, Palanisamy R, Ravichandran G, Mala K, Amin SMN, et al.
    Fish Shellfish Immunol, 2018 Jan;72:670-678.
    PMID: 29162541 DOI: 10.1016/j.fsi.2017.11.036
    Chemokines are ubiquitous cytokine molecules involved in migration of cells during inflammation and normal physiological processes. Though the study on chemokines in mammalian species like humans have been extensively studied, characterization of chemokines in teleost fishes is still in the early stage. The present review provides an overview of chemokines and its receptors in a teleost fish, Channa striatus. C. striatus is an air breathing freshwater carnivore, which has enormous economic importance. This species is affected by an oomycete fungus, Aphanomyces invadans and a Gram negative bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila is known to cause secondary infection. These pathogens impose immune changes in the host organism, which in turn mounts several immune responses. Of these, the role of cytokines in the immune response is immense, due to their involvement in several activities of inflammation such as cell trafficking to the site of inflammation and antigen presentation. Given that importance, chemokines in fishes do have significant role in the immunological and other physiological functions of the organism, hence there is a need to understand the characteristics, activities and performace of these small molecules in details.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  12. Fulltext The illustration of a rat large intestine: a model for the effect of Carcinogens
    Khodijah Zulkiflee, Zunariah Buyong, Asmah Hanim Hamdan
    International Medical Journal Malaysia, 2017;16(11):28-28.
    MyJurnal
    Rat large intestine is an established model to study the effect of
    carcinogens. There are several distinctive features among mammalian gastrointestinal
    tracts in gross anatomy but they share some basic similar structures. The variety in
    digestive system relies on its physiology. Rats rarely eat high fatty diets, thus the
    function of gall bladder become less significant in their digestive system and this is
    justified by the fact that rats have none. Rats have large caecum designated for their
    fermentation chamber to digest cellulose. Another notable difference is the size and
    length of colon itself, in which human colon is significantly bigger and longer. We aimed
    to demonstrate the gross anatomy and histology of rat digestive system particularly the
    large intestine. (Copied from article).
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  13. Fulltext Molecular cloning of a functional FADS2 promoter from zebrafish
    Chung, Hung Hui, Azham Zulkharnain
    Journal of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Biotechnology, 2016;4(1):1-6.
    MyJurnal
    The FADS2 catalyzes the first rate-limiting step in the long chain-polyunsaturated fatty acids
    (LC-PUFAs) biosynthesis pathway by converting -linolenic acid and linoleic acid into
    stearidonic acid and -linolenic acid via the -3 and -6 pathways respectively. In mammals,
    PPAR and SREBP-1c have been implicated in the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs)
    mediated transcriptional activation of FADS2 promoter. However, in zebrafish, not much is
    known regarding the regulation of fads2 transcriptional regulation. Here, in this study, five
    vectors containing different promoter regions were constructed in order to analyse putative
    promoter activities. Through truncation analysis, it was found that the 1.2 kb promoter was able
    to drive luciferase activity to an approximate 40-fold in HepG2 cells. Upon mutagenesis
    analysis, three sites which are the putative NF-Y, SREBP and PPAR binding sites were found
    to be essential in driving the promoter activity. Lastly, the 1.2 kb fads2 promoter was able to
    direct EGFP expression specifically to the yolk syncytial layer (YSL) when transiently
    expressed in microinjected zebrafish embryos.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  14. Fulltext CTP synthase: the hissing of the cellular serpent
    Thangadurai S, Bajgiran M, Manickam S, Mohana-Kumaran N, Azzam G
    Histochem Cell Biol, 2022 Dec;158(6):517-534.
    PMID: 35881195 DOI: 10.1007/s00418-022-02133-w
    CTP biosynthesis is carried out by two pathways: salvage and de novo. CTPsyn catalyzes the latter. The study of CTPsyn activity in mammalian cells began in the 1970s, and various fascinating discoveries were made regarding the role of CTPsyn in cancer and development. However, its ability to fit into a cellular serpent-like structure, termed 'cytoophidia,' was only discovered a decade ago by three independent groups of scientists. Although the self-assembly of CTPsyn into a filamentous structure is evolutionarily conserved, the enzyme activity upon this self-assembly varies in different species. CTPsyn is required for cellular development and homeostasis. Changes in the expression of CTPsyn cause developmental changes in Drosophila melanogaster. A high level of CTPsyn activity and formation of cytoophidia are often observed in rapidly proliferating cells such as in stem and cancer cells. Meanwhile, the deficiency of CTPsyn causes severe immunodeficiency leading to immunocompromised diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and parasites, making CTPsyn an attractive therapeutic target. Here, we provide an overview of the role of CTPsyn in cellular and disease perspectives along with its potential as a drug target.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  15. Fulltext Ecological importance of sedges: a survey of the Australasian Cyperaceae genus Lepidosperma
    Barrett RL
    Ann Bot, 2013 Apr;111(4):499-529.
    PMID: 23378523 DOI: 10.1093/aob/mct008
    BACKGROUND: Sedges (Cyperaceae) form an important ecological component of many ecosystems around the world. Sword and rapier sedges (genus Lepidosperma) are common and widespread components of the southern Australian and New Zealand floras, also occurring in New Caledonia, West Papua, Borneo, Malaysia and southern China. Sedge ecology is seldom studied and no comprehensive review of sedge ecology exists. Lepidosperma is unusual in the Cyperaceae with the majority of species occurring in dryland habitats.

    SCOPE: Extensive review of ecological literature and field observations shows Lepidosperma species to be important components of many ecosystems, often dominating understorey and sedge-rich communities. For the first time, a detailed ecological review of a Cyperaceae genus is presented.

    CONCLUSIONS: Lepidosperma species are long-lived perennials with significant abundance and persistence in the landscape. Speciation patterns in the genus are of considerable interest due to complex biogeographical patterns and a high degree of habitat specificity. Potential benefits exist for medicinal products identified from several Lepidosperma species. Over 178 organisms, including 26 mammals, 42 birds, six reptiles, five amphibians, eight arachnids, 75 insects, three crustaceans and 13 fungi, are found to be dependent on, or making use of, Lepidosperma species. A significant relationship exists between Lepidosperma species and the moth genus Elachista. Implications for the conservation and ecology of both sedges and associated species are discussed.

    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  16. Host specificity and niche partitioning in flea-small mammal networks in Bornean rainforests
    Wells K, Lakim MB, Beaucournu JC
    Med Vet Entomol, 2011 Sep;25(3):311-9.
    PMID: 21219372 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2915.2010.00940.x
    The diversity of ectoparasites in Southeast Asia and flea-host associations remain largely understudied. We explore specialization and interaction patterns of fleas infesting non-volant small mammals in Bornean rainforests, using material from a field survey carried out in two montane localities in northwestern Borneo (Sabah, Malaysia) and from a literature database of all available interactions in both lowland and montane forests. A total of 234 flea individuals collected during our field survey resulted in an interaction network of eight flea species on seven live-captured small mammal species. The interaction network from all compiled studies currently includes 15 flea species and 16 small mammal species. Host specificity and niche partitioning of fleas infesting diurnal treeshrews and squirrels were low, with little difference in specialization among taxa, but host specificity in lowland forests was found to be higher than in montane forests. By contrast, Sigmactenus alticola (Siphonaptera: Leptopsyllidae) exhibited low host specificity by infesting various montane and lowland nocturnal rats. However, this species exhibited low niche partitioning as it was the only commonly recorded flea from rats on Borneo. Overall complementary specialization was of intermediate intensity for both networks and differed significantly from random association; this has important implications for specific interactions that are also relevant to the potential spread of vector-borne diseases.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals/parasitology*
  17. Japanese encephalitis in Sarawak: studies on mosquito behaviour in a Land Dayak village
    Bendell PJ
    Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg, 1970;64(4):497-502.
    PMID: 4394985
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  18. Oil palm plantations fail to support mammal diversity
    Yue S, Brodie JF, Zipkin EF, Bernard H
    Ecol Appl, 2015 Dec;25(8):2285-92.
    PMID: 26910955
    Agricultural expansion is the largest threat to global biodiversity. In particular, the rapid spread of tree plantations is a primary driver of deforestation in hyperdiverse tropical regions. Plantations tend to support considerably lower biodiversity than native forest, but it remains unclear whether plantation traits affect their ability to sustain native wildlife populations, particularly for threatened taxa. If animal diversity varies across plantations with different characteristics, these traits could be manipulated to make plantations more "wildlife friendly." The degree to which plantations create edge effects that degrade habitat quality in adjacent forest also remains unclear, limiting our ability to predict wildlife persistence in mixed-use landscapes. We used systematic camera trapping to investigate mammal occurrence and diversity in oil palm plantations and adjacent forest in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Mammals within plantations were largely constrained to locations near native forest; the occurrence of most species and overall species richness declined abruptly with decreasing forest proximity from an estimated 14 species at the forest ecotone to -1 species 2 km into the plantation. Neither tree height nor canopy cover within plantations strongly affected mammal diversity or occurrence, suggesting that manipulating tree spacing or planting cycles might not make plantations more wildlife friendly. Plantations did not appear to generate strong edge effects; mammal richness within forest remained high and consistent up to the plantation ecotone. Our results suggest that land-sparing strategies, as opposed to efforts to make plantations more wildlife-friendly, are required for regional wildlife conservation in biodiverse tropical ecosystems.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals/classification*
  19. Fulltext Phytosterols activating nuclear receptors are involving in steroid hormone-dependent cancers: Myth or fact?
    Bakrim S, El Omari N, Khan EJ, Khalid A, Abdalla AN, Chook JB, et al.
    Biomed Pharmacother, 2023 Dec 31;169:115783.
    PMID: 37944439 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopha.2023.115783
    Nuclear receptors (NRs) represent intracellular proteins that function as a signaling network of transcriptional factors to control genes in response to a variety of environmental, dietary, and hormonal stimulations or serve as orphan receptors lacking a recognized ligand. They also play an essential role in normal development, metabolism, cell growth, cell division, physiology, reproduction, and homeostasis and function as biological markers for tumor subclassification and as targets for hormone therapy. NRs, including steroid hormone receptors (SHRs), have been studied as tools to examine the fundamentals of transcriptional regulation within the development of mammals and human physiology, in addition to their links to disturbances. In this regard, it is widely recognized that aberrant NR signaling is responsible for the pathological growth of hormone-dependent tumors in response to SHRs dysregulation and consequently represents a potential therapeutic candidate in a range of diseases, as in the case of prostate cancer and breast cancer. On the other hand, phytosterols are a group of plant-derived compounds that act directly as ligands for NRs and have proven their efficacy in the management of diabetes, heart diseases, and cancers. However, these plants are not suggested in cases of hormone-dependent cancer since a certain group of plants contains molecules with a chemical structure similar to that of estrogens, which are known as phytoestrogens or estrogen-like compounds, such as lignans, coumestans, and isoflavones. Therefore, it remains an open and controversial debate regarding whether consuming a phytosterol-rich diet and adopting a vegetarian lifestyle like the Mediterranean diet may increase the risk of developing steroid hormone-dependent cancers by constitutively activating SHRs and thereby leading to tumor transformation. Overall, the purpose of this review is to better understand the relevant mechanistic pathways and explore epidemiological investigations in order to establish that phytosterols may contribute to the activation of NRs as cancer drivers in hormone-dependent cancers.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals
  20. Fulltext The combined impacts of experimental defaunation and logging on seedling traits and diversity
    Granados A, Bernard H, Brodie JF
    Proc Biol Sci, 2018 02 28;285(1873).
    PMID: 29491176 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2882
    Animals can have both positive (e.g. via seed dispersal) and negative (e.g. via herbivory) impacts on plants. The net effects of these interactions remain difficult to predict and may be affected by overhunting and habitat disturbance, two widespread threats to tropical forests. Recent studies have documented their separate effects on plant recruitment but our understanding of how defaunation and logging interact to influence tropical tree communities is limited. From 2013 to 2016, we followed the fate of marked tree seedlings (n = 1489) from 81 genera in and outside experimental plots. Our plots differentially excluded small, medium and large-bodied mammal herbivores in logged and unlogged forest in Malaysian Borneo. We assessed the effects of experimental defaunation and logging on taxonomic diversity and plant trait (wood density, specific leaf area, fruit size) composition of seedling communities. Although seedling mortality was highest in the presence of all mammal herbivores (44%), defaunation alone did not alter taxonomic diversity nor plant trait composition. However, herbivores (across all body sizes) significantly reduced mean fruit size across the seedling community over time (95% confidence interval (CI): -0.09 to -0.01), particularly in logged forest (95% CI: -0.12 to -0.003). Our findings suggest that impacts of mammal herbivores on plant communities may be greater in forests with a history of disturbance and could subsequently affect plant functional traits and ecological processes associated with forest regeneration.
    Matched MeSH terms: Mammals/physiology*
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