EVALUATION OF ANTICANCER ACTIVITY OF CUCUMIS CALLOSUS AGAINST EHRLICH'S ASCITES CARCINOMA BEARING MICE

Objective: Our previous research isolated Cucurbitacin B (CuB) and ebenone leucopentaacetate (ELP) from methanolic fruit extract of Cucumis callosus (MFCC). The fruits of C. callosus (Rottl.) Cogn. (Family: Cucurbitaceae) plant have been traditionally used for antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antidiabetic actions. The objective of this research was to evaluate in vitro and in vivo anticancer effect of MFCC on Ehrlich Ascites Carcinoma (EAC) cell lines.Methods: In vitro anticancer assay of MFCC and standard drug, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) was evaluated using Trypan blue and 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-yl)-2, 5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide methods. In vivo anticancer activity of MFCC and 5-FU was also performed after 24h of EAC cells (2×106cells/ mouse) inoculation based on toxicity study for 9 consecutive days. The activity of the extract was assessed by the study of tumor volume, tumor weight, viable and non-viable cell count, hematological parameters, and biochemical estimations.Results: The MFCC showed the direct antitumor effect on EAC cells in a dose-dependent manner with an IG50 value of 0.61 mg/ml. Furthermore, MFCC (350 mg/kg) exhibited significant (p<0.01) decrease in tumor volume, tumor weight, and viable cell count of EAC-treated mice. Hematological profile, biochemical estimation assay significantly (p<0.01) reverted to normal level in MFCC, and 5-FU treated mice.Conclusion: The anticancer activity of fruits of C callosus is may be either due to the presence of CuB or/and ELP as phytoconstituent and the activity is comparable to standard drug 5-FU

Health related quality of life in survivors of acute respiratory illness who required invasive respiratory support in a tertiary paediatric ICU: A prospective observational study

INTRODUCTION : Owing to medical and technological advances in paediatric intensive care, there is increased survival of critically ill children. Unlike in adult medical care, many children surviving intensive care have the prospect of a full life with good quality. Though there are many literature available on Quality of life of adult patients, there is paucity of studies in assessing quality of life after discharge in children with acute respiratory illness admitted in pediatric intensive care, especially in Indian setting. Hence we conducted this study. AIM OF THE STUDY: To assess long term health related quality of life in all PICU survivors with acute respiratory illness requiring invasive respiratory support, three to eight years after discharge METHODOLOGY: All premorbidly well children between 1month to 15years of age who were ventilated for more than 48 hours for acute respiratory illness between March 2008- February 2014 and who were survived and discharged were included in our study. Neonates, children with acute neurological dysfunction, premorbidly unwell children, readmission to PICU were excluded. Data was collected from medical records. Those who were non contactable were written a postal letter. Quality of life assessment was done with the help of the Health Utility Index 2 which has 6 domains; sensation, mobility, emotion, cognition, self care and pain. Functioning within each attribute is represented by four or five levels. The assessment was done either by telephone questionnaire or by objective assessment in PICU office/Out patient department(OPD) by using HUI2 index. By using this,the outcome is classified as NORMAL(Score>0.99),FAIR(0.89-0.99) and POOR(Score<0.89). RESULTS: In our study we had total 259 children who were admitted with acute respiratory illness requiring invasive ventilation in PICU for more than 48 hours during our study period. Out of these, 67 children (26%) died during PICU stay due to various complications and 46 (18%) were discharged against medical advice. Among 146 children, we were able to contact 66 children and the remaining 74 children could not be contacted through telephone or postal service. In the study group, six children died after discharge due to various causes . HUI2 questionnaire details were obtained either through personal interview(n=24) or by telephonic interview (n=42). HUI2 assesment was done for 66 children (Mean age 7.8± 2.6 years). Mean HUI2 score was 0.94±0.062. Majority of children are having good quality of life(84%) and 16% having poor quality of life who were affected in more than one domain. Of these 66 children, only one child was having learning disability and was affected badly in 4 domains(Score of 0.69) of quality of life. He needs spectacles to see and can walk with some limitation and often anxious and studies less compared to peer groups. Most common affected domain in our study group is ‘Cognition’. 23(35%) children are able to learn and remember school work less than their peer groups at school otherwise there were normal in all other domains. This is based on their parents perspective. Second most common affected domain is ‘Emotion’. 12(19%) children in our study group(66) are occasionally irritable, angry, depressed, anxious due to various reasons.Third most common affected domain is ‘Sensation’. Eleven(17%) children among our study group required either spectacles or hearing aid. In the ‘Pain’ domain, only 7 children (11%) out of 66 has occasional pain and discomfort. In the ‘selfcare’ domain, only 5 children (8%) out of 66 children are affected. These children have some difficulty to handle their day to day activities. Least commonly affected domain is ‘Mobility’(1.5%) where only one child was affected who needs some assistance while walking . In our study, duration of PICU stay, complications of ventilation(VAP, Pneumothorax, Pneumomediastinum) and multiorgan dysfunction(ARF,ALF,DIC-9) had influence on the long term outcome but it is not statistically significant (P value 0.128, 0.206 and 0.638 respectively). This may be due to the decrease in effect of acute illness in long term quality of life. In our study there was no correlation noted between maternal and paternal education and quality of life. CONCLUSION : Majority of PICU survivors(84%) have a good long term Quality of life (HUI mean score 0.94+/0.06). Even though, factors (Duration of PICU stay, complications of ventilation and multiorgan dysfunction) influencing long term quality of life were present more in the Poor outcome group, they are not statistically significant. This may be due to the decrease in effect of acute illness in long term quality of life

Difficult Denture Birds: An Easy Psychological Assessment

Individuals who present uncommon and abnormal denture&nbsp;problems require unusual and resourceful treatment. Because&nbsp;of the extreme complexity of their systemic illness, physical,psychogenic abnormalities, anatomic abnormalities and&nbsp;neurological disorders, these are the difficult denture birds. This&nbsp;article mainly describes about difficult denture birds and theirmanagement.&nbsp

Online) An Open Access

ABSTRACT Ninety-eight ewe lambs (14.9 kg ±0.63) divided into four groups at random were subjected to four feeding regimes to evaluate the effects of feed restriction on the body weight gain in a CRD model. The feed restriction was at four levels viz-0, 20, 30 and 40 percent for T1 (Control), T2, T3 and T4 for the four groups, respectively. The duration of the trial was for 105 days containing preliminary (up to 18 kg), restriction (5 weeks) and realimentation (5 weeks) periods. The decrease is significantly (P&lt;0.05) different among groups and the increase in weight gain for the first group was 6.54, 17.7 and 23.8 percent higher as compared to groups 2, 3 and 4, respectively during feed restriction. The body weights recorded were significantly different (P&lt;0.05) during realimentation phase. The increase in weight or compensatory growth for groups 2, 3 and 4 as compared to group 1 was in the order of 2&gt;3&gt;4 and it was 15. 6% and 13.4% higher for groups 4 and 3 as compared to group 2. It was concluded that the lambs can be feed restricted up to 40% and the loss in weight can be recouped with the phenomenon of compensatory growth

1-(2-Hy­droxy-4-meth­oxy­phen­yl)-3-(4-methyl­phen­yl)prop-2-en-1-one

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C17H16O3, exists in the E conformation with respect to the central C=C bond, is almost planar(r.m.s. deviation = 0.003 Å) and has an intra­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond, which generates an S(6) ring. In the crystal, mol­ecules are linked by C—H⋯O inter­actions

Negative phenotypic and genetic associations between copulation duration and longevity in male seed beetles

Reproduction can be costly and is predicted to trade-off against other characters. However, while these trade-offs are well documented for females, there has been less focus on aspects of male reproduction. Furthermore, those studies that have looked at males typically only investigate phenotypic associations, with the underlying genetics often ignored. Here, we report on phenotypic and genetic trade-offs in male reproductive effort in the seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus. We find that the duration of a male's first copulation is negatively associated with subsequent male survival, phenotypically and genetically. Our results are consistent with life-history theory and suggest that like females, males trade-off reproductive effort against longevity

Impacts of biomedical hashtag-based Twitter campaign: #DHPSP utilization for promotion of open innovation in digital health, patient safety, and personalized medicine

The open innovation hub Digital Health and Patient Safety Platform (DHPSP) was recently established with the purpose to invigorate collaborative scientific research and the development of new digital products and personalized solutions aiming to improve human health and patient safety. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of a Twitter-based campaign centered on using the hashtag #DHPSP to promote the visibility of the DHPSP initiative. Thus, tweets containing #DHPSP were monitored for five weeks for the period 20.10.2020–24.11.2020 and were analyzed with Symplur Signals (social media analytics tool). In the study period, a total of 11,005 tweets containing #DHPSP were posted by 3020 Twitter users, generating 151,984,378 impressions. Analysis of the healthcare stakeholder-identity of the Twitter users who used #DHPSP revealed that the most of participating user accounts belonged to individuals or doctors, with the top three user locations being the United States (501 users), the United Kingdom (155 users), and India (121 users). Analysis of co-occurring hashtags and the full text of the posted tweets further revealed that the major themes of attention in the #DHPSP Twitter-community were related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), medicine and health, digital health technologies, and science communication in general. Overall, these results indicate that the #DHPSP initiative achieved high visibility and engaged a large body of Twitter users interested in the DHPSP focus area. Moreover, the conducted campaign resulted in an increase of DHPSP member enrollments and website visitors, and new scientific collaborations were formed. Thus, Twitter campaigns centered on a dedicated hashtag prove to be a highly efficient tool for visibility-promotion, which could be successfully utilized by healthcare-related open innovation platforms or initiatives

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

The International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce (INPST) and the power of Twitter networking exemplified through #INPST hashtag analysis

Background: The development of digital technologies and the evolution of open innovation approaches have enabled the creation of diverse virtual organizations and enterprises coordinating their activities primarily online. The open innovation platform titled "International Natural Product Sciences Taskforce" (INPST) was established in 2018, to bring together in collaborative environment individuals and organizations interested in natural product scientific research, and to empower their interactions by using digital communication tools. Methods: In this work, we present a general overview of INPST activities and showcase the specific use of Twitter as a powerful networking tool that was used to host a one-week "2021 INPST Twitter Networking Event" (spanning from 31st May 2021 to 6th June 2021) based on the application of the Twitter hashtag #INPST. Results and Conclusion: The use of this hashtag during the networking event period was analyzed with Symplur Signals (https://www.symplur.com/), revealing a total of 6,036 tweets, shared by 686 users, which generated a total of 65,004,773 impressions (views of the respective tweets). This networking event's achieved high visibility and participation rate showcases a convincing example of how this social media platform can be used as a highly effective tool to host virtual Twitter-based international biomedical research events