Recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP) is a benign disease caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), characterized by the formation of recurrent, epithelial neoplastic lesions in the airways. While benign, they can cause significant airway obstruction in some cases. Difficulties in treatment arise from the recurrent nature of the lesions despite repeated procedures. Other known procedures that result in deep tissue damage also cause unacceptable collateral damage to the underlying airway mucosa. We describe a case of recurrent papillomatosis that was successfully treated with argon plasma coagulation ( APC) when laser and electrocautery ablation had failed in the past. After the papillomatasis was treated with APC, there is no recurrence on repeat scope at 4 months and 9 months after the initial procedure. The procedure was done as a day case and there is no complication from the procedure. The property of the APC that allows it to cause only superficial thermal damage to the tissue makes it a suitable adjunct therapy to the treatment of papillomas, which are usually superficial lesions.
Five heteroleptic palladium(II) complexes of the general formula Pd(PR3)(tu)Cl2, where PR3 = triphenylphosphine (1), diphenyl-o-tolylphosphine (2), diphenyl-p-tolylphosphine (3), diphenyl-t-butylphosphine (4), and diphenyl-o-methoxyphenylphosphine (5), and tu = 1,3-bis(2-methoxyphenyl) thiourea. They all have been synthesized and characterized by various spectroscopic techniques (elemental analysis, FTIR, and (1)H NMR and the ligand 1,3-bis(2-methoxyphenyl) thiourea was synthesized by single crystal X-ray diffraction technique). The synthesized compounds were screened for their antibacterial activity against four strains of bacteria (Escherichia coli, Shigella flexneri, Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus subtilis). The antitumor potential was evaluated in terms of activity against brine shrimp eggs and DNA interaction. The mixed ligand complexes have exhibited moderate antibacterial activity and promising antitumor potential.
A general method for the synthesis of a library of hitherto unreported amino-1,4-naphthoquinone-appended triazoles was accomplished via a sequential three-component reaction of substituted N-propargylaminonaphthoquinones with variously substituted alkyl bromides/2-bromonaphthalene-1,4-dione and sodium azide in the presence of Et3N/CuI in water. Aminonaphthoquinone-appended iminochromene-triazole hybrid heterocycles were also synthesized from the amino-1,4-naphthoquinone-appended-1,2,3-triazolylacetonitriles. All the triazole hybrids were screened for their in vitro activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv (MTB). Among the triazoles, 2-(((1-benzyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl)methyl)(4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)amino)naphthalene-1,4-dione (7d) emerged as the most active one with IC50 = 1.87 μM, being more potent than the anti-TB drugs, cycloserine (6 times), pyrimethamine (20 times) and equipotent as the drug ethambutol (IC50
Date Fruits are consumed in Arab areas for a long time as a part of essential diet. Phoenix dactylifera belongs to family Arecaceae and its leaves, barks, pits, fruits and pollens have anticancer, antioxidant, hepatoprotective, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, antiulcertavie, anti-inflammatory, antiproliferative, antimutagenic, antidiarheal, antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral potential. Besides these, Dates also increase level of estrogen, testosterone, RBCs, Hb, PCV, reticulocytes and platelet counts. It can also cure lead induced heamotoxicity, side effects of methylprednisolon, male and female infertility. It has also cerebroprotective, neuroprotective and haemopoietic activity. Phoenix dactylifera can be used for number of complications if further evaluated and isolated. The present paper is an overview of pharmacological properties of Phoenix dactylifera reported in literature.
Microwave heating is one of the most attractive cooking methods for food preparation, commonly employed in households and especially in restaurants for its high speed and convenience. The chemical constituents of oils that degrade during microwave heating do so at rates that vary with heating temperature and time in a similar manner to other type of processing methods. The rate of quality characteristics of the oil depends on the fatty acid composition and the minor components during heating. Addition of oxidative-stable palm olein (PO) to heat sensitive canola oil (CO), may affect the quality characteristics of CO during microwave heating. The aim of this study was to evaluate how heat treatments by microwave oven affect the quality of CO in presence of PO.
The HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium (PASNP) has generated a genetic resource of almost 55,000 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across more than 1,800 individuals from 73 urban and indigenous populations in Asia. This has offered valuable insights into the correlation between the genetic ancestry of these populations with major linguistic systems and geography. Here, we attempt to understand whether adaptation to local climate, diet and environment partly explains the genetic variation present in these populations by investigating the genomic signatures of positive selection.
This paper elaborates on the novel intelligence assessment method using the brainwave sub-band power ratio features. The study focuses only on the left hemisphere brainwave in its relaxed state. Distinct intelligence quotient groups have been established earlier from the score of the Raven Progressive Matrices. Sub-band power ratios are calculated from energy spectral density of theta, alpha and beta frequency bands. Synthetic data have been generated to increase dataset from 50 to 120. The features are used as input to the artificial neural network. Subsequently, the brain behaviour model has been developed using an artificial neural network that is trained with optimized learning rate, momentum constant and hidden nodes. Findings indicate that the distinct intelligence quotient groups can be classified from the brainwave sub-band power ratios with 100% training and 88.89% testing accuracies.
This paper proposes an approach based on an optical imaging technique for the period measurement of fiber Bragg gratings (FBG). The simple, direct technique involves a differential interface contrast (DIC) microscope and a high-resolution CCD camera. Image processing is performed on the microscope images to obtain low-noise grating profiles and then the grating periods. Adopting a large image sample size in the image processing can reduce uncertainty. During the investigation, FBGs of different grating periods are fabricated by prestraining the photosensitive fibers during the UV-writing process. A good linearity between the measured Bragg wavelengths and grating periods is observed and the measured strain-optics coefficient was found to be in agreement with reported literature.
Direct amplified length polymorphism (DALP) combines the advantages of a high-resolution fingerprint method and also characterizing the genetic polymorphisms. This molecular method was also found to be useful in brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens species complex for the analysis of genetic polymorphisms. A total of 11 populations of Nilaparvata spp. were collected from 6 locations from Malaysia. Two sympatric populations of brown planthopper, N. lugens, one from rice and the other from a weed grass (Leersia hexandra), were collected from each of five locations. N. bakeri was used as an out group. Three oligonucleotide primer pairs, DALP231/DALPR'5, DALP234/DALPR'5, and DALP235/DALPR'5 were applied in this study. The unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) dendrogram based on genetic distances for the 11 populations of Nilaparvata spp. revealed that populations belonging to the same species and the same host type clustered together irrespective of their geographical localities of capture. The populations of N. lugens formed into two distinct clusters, one was insects with high esterase activities usually captured from rice and the other was with low esterase activities usually captured from L. hexandra. N. bakeri, an out group, was the most isolated group. Analyses of principal components, molecular variance, and robustness also supported greatly to the findings of cluster analysis.
The pig (Sus scrofa) mitochondrial genome was targeted to design short (15-30 nucleotides) DNA markers that would be suitable for biosensor-based hybridization detection of target DNA. Short DNA markers are reported to survive harsh conditions in which longer ones are degraded into smaller fragments. The whole swine mitochondrial-genome was in silico digested with AluI restriction enzyme. Among 66 AluI fragments, five were selected as potential markers because of their convenient lengths, high degree of interspecies polymorphism and intraspecies conservatism. These were confirmed by NCBI blast analysis and ClustalW alignment analysis with 11 different meat-providing animal and fish species. Finally, we integrated a tetramethyl rhodamine-labeled 18-nucleotide AluI fragment into a 3-nm diameter citrate-tannate coated gold nanoparticle to develop a swine-specific hybrid nanobioprobe for the determination of pork adulteration in 2.5-h autoclaved pork-beef binary mixtures. This hybrid probe detected as low as 1% pork in deliberately contaminated autoclaved pork-beef binary mixtures and no cross-species detection was recorded, demonstrating the feasibility of this type of probe for biosensor-based detection of pork adulteration of halal and kosher foods.
We used 40 ± 5 nm gold nanoparticles (GNPs) as colorimetric sensor to visually detect swine-specific conserved sequence and nucleotide mismatch in PCR-amplified and non-amplified mitochondrial DNA mixtures to authenticate species. Colloidal GNPs changed color from pinkish-red to gray-purple in 2 mM PBS. Visually observed results were clearly reflected by the dramatic reduction of surface plasmon resonance peak at 530 nm and the appearance of new features in the 620-800 nm regions in their absorption spectra. The particles were stabilized against salt-induced aggregation upon the adsorption of single-stranded DNA. The PCR products, without any additional processing, were hybridized with a 17-base probe prior to exposure to GNPs. At a critical annealing temperature (55 °C) that differentiated matched and mismatched base pairing, the probe was hybridized to pig PCR product and dehybridized from the deer product. The dehybridized probe stuck to GNPs to prevent them from salt-induced aggregation and retained their characteristic red color. Hybridization of a 27-nucleotide probe to swine mitochondrial DNA identified them in pork-venison, pork-shad and venison-shad binary admixtures, eliminating the need of PCR amplification. Thus the assay was applied to authenticate species both in PCR-amplified and non-amplified heterogeneous biological samples. The results were determined visually and validated by absorption spectroscopy. The entire assay (hybridization plus visual detection) was performed in less than 10 min. The LOD (for genomic DNA) of the assay was 6 µg ml(-1) swine DNA in mixed meat samples. We believe the assay can be applied for species assignment in food analysis, mismatch detection in genetic screening and homology studies between closely related species.
Contamination of insect DNA for RAPD-PCR analysis can be a problem because many primers are non-specific and DNA from parasites or gut contents may be simultaneously extracted along with that of the insect. We measured the quantity of food ingested and assimilated by two sympatric populations of brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, one from rice and the other from Leersia hexandra (Poaceae), a wetland forage grass, and we also investigated whether host plant DNA contaminates that of herbivore insects in extractions of whole insects. Ingestion and assimilation of food were reduced significantly when individuals derived from one host plant were caged on the other species. The bands, OPA3 (1.25), OPD3 (1.10), OPD3 (0.80), OPD3 (0.60), pUC/M13F (0.35), pUC/M13F (0.20), BOXAIR (0.50), peh#3 (0.50), and peh#3 (0.17) were found in both rice-infesting populations of brown planthopper and its host plant (rice). Similarly, the bands, OPA4 (1.00), OPB10 (0.70), OPD3 (0.90), OPD3 (0.80), OPD3 (0.60), pUC/ M13F (0.35), pUC/M13F (0.20), and BOXAIR (0.50) were found in both Leersia-infesting populations of brown planthopper and the host plant. So, it is clear that the DNA bands amplified in the host plants were also found in the extracts from the insects feeding on them.
OBJECTIVES: We studied the role of the regulatory T cells CD4+CD25+ (Treg) and activated CD4+CD30+ cells in the pathogenesis of asthma and their association with apoptosis and NF-kappaB in patients with mild intermittent asthma (MA), severe persistent asthma (SA), and healthy volunteers (HV).
METHODS: Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) were extracted from asthmatic patients during exacerbations, and CD4+ cells were separated using Dynal beads. Immunostaining of whole PBL for NF-kappaB, Bax, and Bcl-2, and immunostaining of CD4+ cells for CD25+ and CD30+ cells were performed using immunocytochemistry.
RESULTS: Treg cells were expressed at higher levels in MA than in HV and SA (P < .05), while CD30+ T cells were expressed at higher levels in both SA and MA than in HV (P < .05), although there was no remarkable difference between SA and MA (P>.05). Levels of NF-kappaB, Bcl-2, and Bcl-2/Bax increased, whereas those of Bax decreased, progressively, from MA to SA (P < .05). NF-kappaB levels correlated directly with the Bcl-2/Bax ratio and with CD4+CD30+ cells in SA and MA, whereas CD4+CD30+ cells correlated inversely with the Bcl-2/Bax ratio.
CONCLUSIONS: Unregulated Treg cells probably return inflammatory responses to normal values during exacerbations in MA; however, expression of Treg cells was extensively diminished in SA, leading to probable loss of suppressive control over underlying immune reactions. CD4+CD30+ cells were associated with the pathogenesis of asthma but not with severity. NF-kappaB seems to be the central inflammatory factor in SA, with a remarkable loss of PBL apoptosis, diminished Treg levels, and high CD30+ cell levels that probably induce NF-kappaB, which in turn blocks the proapoptotic potential of CD30 induction itself.
Bone formation is an active process whereby osteoblasts are found on the surface of the newly formed bone. Adhesion to extracellular matrix is essential for the development of bone however not all surfaces are suitable for osteoblast adhesion and don't support osteoblastic functions. The objective of this study was to test the suitability of a collagen based microcarrier which would support osteoblastic functions.
A portable infrared spectroscopy system has been designed and developed for assessment of quality of mango fruit. This paper describes the design and development of a fruit quality grading device using reflectance mode optical sensor. The experiment was conducted to obtain the best results from the system and the device was correlated according to the measured output. In the experiment, several samples of mango fruits have been monitored for six days to study the relation how fruit quality increases with time as fruit ripens. Between the unripe mango fruit and the ripest one, a range of 3.5 V to 4.2 V was measured by the developed system. The rate of quality increase was calculated as an average of 6.7 mV per day. These results were used to correlate the final hardware and software development of the device. The results demonstrate that, portable near infrared spectroscopy is feasible for evaluating mango quality non-destructively.
A series of compounds consisting of 25 novel oxadiazole-benzohydrazone hybrids (6-30) were synthesized through a five-step reaction sequence and evaluated for their β-glucuronidase inhibitory potential. The IC50 values of compounds 6-30 were found to be in the range of 7.14-44.16μM. Compounds 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 18, and 25 were found to be more potent than d-saccharic acid 1,4-lactone (48.4±1.25μM). These compounds were further subjected for molecular docking studies to confirm the binding mode towards human β-d-glucuronidase active site. Docking study for compound 13 (IC50=7.14±0.30μM) revealed that it adopts a binding mode that fits within the entire pocket of the binding site of β-d-glucuronidase. Compound 13 has the maximum number of hydrogens bonded to the residues of the active site as compared to the other compounds, that is, the ortho-hydroxyl group forms hydrogen bond with carboxyl side chain of Asp207 (2.1Å) and with hydroxyl group of Tyr508 (2.6Å). The other hydroxyl group forms hydrogen bond with His385 side chain (2.8Å), side chain carboxyl oxygen of Glu540 (2.2Å) and Asn450 side-chain's carboxamide NH (2.1Å).
Sixteen 4-hydroxycoumarin derivatives were synthesized, characterized through EI-MS and (1)H NMR and screened for urease inhibitory potential. Three compounds exhibited better urease inhibition than the standard inhibitor thiourea (IC50=21±0.11μM) while other four compounds exhibited good to moderate inhibition with IC50 values between 29.45±1.1μM and 69.53±0.9μM. Structure activity relationship was established on the basis of molecular docking studies, which helped to predict the binding interactions of the most active compounds.
A significant difference in the levels of thyroxine (T4), thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and thyroid volume among settlements at various selected Orang Asli locations is reported. The levels improved according to the level of socio-economic development. No significant difference was found in mental performance by location.
In order to study the effect of levothyroxine in the treatment of endemic goitre, a longitudinal study was conducted among the Aborigines in Lanai Post and Sinderut Post, situated in an iodine-deficient area located in the district of Kuala Lipis, Pahang. All subjects in the treatment group (Lanai Post) were given 100 µg of levothyroxine per day and were followed for 1 1/2 years. A total of 311 subjects were examined at baseline, 323 on the first, 256 on the second, 239 on the third and 184 on the fourth visit following levothyroxine supplementation. Goitre prevalence, thyroid hormones, thyroid volume, nutritional status, urinary iodine levels, arterial blood pressure and mental performance were determined. Following the intervention, goitre prevalence was significantly reduced in the treatment group (baseline 42.8% vs final visit 13.0%, p<0.0001); however, no significant difference was noted in the control group. Total T4 levels were increased in the treatment group (p<0.0001), while a significant reduction was noted in the control group (p<0.0001). Thyroid-stimulating hormone levels increased significantly in the treatment group following 1 year of intervention, while no significant changes were observed in the control group. As for the thyroid volume, both groups showed a significant increment following the intervention (p<0.0001). With respect to the nutritional status, the treatment group showed a significant increase in body weight following the intervention (p<0.05). In addition, the mid-arm circumference and body mass index also increased after 1 year of intervention. However, the control group showed a reduction in the waist-hip ratio (p<0.0001). Although there was no statistical difference in the waist-hip ratio in the treatment group, there has been a significant reduction observed after 1 year of intervention. At 1 year, a reduction in skinfold thickness was noted in the treatment group while only the triceps and subscapular were increased in the control group. The body fat was decreased in the treatment group following 1 year of intervention (p<0.0001). No particular trend was noted in the urinary iodine excretion in the treatment group, but surprisingly, the levels were increased in the control group (p<0.0001). A significant increase in both systolic and diastolic blood pressures was observed in the treatment group following 1 year of intervention, but the controls showed a reduction in the systolic blood pressure (p<0.0001). Both groups showed a remarkable increase in mental performance, with a more pronounced effect in the treatment group (p<0.05). The correction of iodine deficiency by levothyroxine supplementation has a short-term beneficial effect in reducing the prevalence of goitre and improving the mental ability among the Aborigines in endemic areas; however, proper monitoring and close supervision are needed to maintain compliance.
A test for assessing pork adulteration in meatballs, using TaqMan probe real-time polymerase chain reaction, was developed. The assay combined porcine-specific primers and TaqMan probe for the detection of a 109 bp fragment of porcine cytochrome b gene. Specificity test with 10 ng DNA of eleven different species yielded a threshold cycle (Ct) of 15.5 ± 0.20 for the pork and negative results for the others. Analysis of beef meatballs with spiked pork showed the assay can determine 100-0.01% contaminated pork with 102% PCR efficiency, high linear regression (r(2) = 0.994) and ≤ 6% relative errors. Residuals analysis revealed a high precision in all determinations. Random analysis of commercial meatballs from pork, beef, chicken, mutton and goat, yielded a Ct between 15.89 ± 0.16 and 16.37 ± 0.22 from pork meatballs and negative results from the others, showing the suitability of the assay to determine pork in commercial meatballs with a high accuracy and precision.