The effect of essential oil of Achillea wilhelmsii flowers on cisplatin-induced hepatotoxicity

Background: The essential oil of Achillea wilhelmsii has‎ anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Cisplatin is one of the most important anticancer drugs that are widely used to treat various types of cancers. This study aimed at examining the effects of the essential oil of A. wilhelmsii flowers on cisplatin-induced hepatotoxicity in rats. Materials and Methods: In this study, 36 male Wistar rats weighing 200-250 g were divided into 6 groups: 1) control, 2) cisplatin (0.4 mg/kg), 3) cisplatin and essential oil (30 mg/kg), 4) cisplatin and essential oil (60 mg/kg), 5) essential oil (30 mg/kg) and 6) essential oil (60 mg/kg).The injection was performed in the groups every day for 8 weeks. Then, serum levels of liver enzymes were measured and the liver tissue was removed for histopathological studies. Results: The results showed no significant changes in the albumin level (P>0.05). However, the activities of hepatic factors ALT, AST, ALP and bilirubin were decreased significantly in the groups received essential oil 30 and 60 mg/kg + cisplatin and in groups only received the essential oil 30 and 60 mg/kg compared to the cisplatin group (P<0.05). Histopathological analysis of liver showed a significant difference in all groups compared to the control group, which this difference in the group received essential oil 60 mg/kg + cisplatin was higher than other groups. Conclusion: The essential oil of A. wilhelmsii decreases serum levels of liver factors and bilirubin against cisplatin

Observing the Structure of the Landscape with the CMB Experiments

Assuming that inflation happened through a series of tunneling in the string theory landscape, it is argued that one can determine the structure of vacua using precise measurements of the scalar spectral index and tensor perturbations at large scales. It is shown that for a vacuum structure where the energy gap between the minima is constant, i.e. $\epsilon_i=i m_f^4$, one obtains the scalar spectral index, $n_s$, to be $\simeq 0.9687$, for the modes that exit the horizon 60 e-folds before the end of inflation. Alternatively, for a vacuum structure in which the energy gap increases linearly with the vacuum index, i.e. $\epsilon_i=\frac{i^2}{2} m_f^4$, $n_s$ turns out to be $\simeq 0.9614$. Both these two models are motivated within the string theory landscape using flux-compactification and their predictions for scalar spectral index are compatible with WMAP results. For both these two models, the results for the scalar spectral index turn out to be independent of $m_f$. Nonetheless, assuming that inflation started at Planckian energies and that there had been successful thermalization at each step, one can constrain $m_f<2.6069\times 10^{-5} m_P$ and $m_f<6.5396\times 10^{-7} m_P$ in these two models, respectively. Violation of the single-field consistency relation between the tensor and scalar spectra is another prediction of chain inflation models. This corresponds to having a smaller tensor/scalar ratio at large scales in comparison with the slow-roll counterparts. Similar to slow-roll inflation, it is argued that one can reconstruct the vacuum structure using the CMB experiments.Comment: v1: 8 pages, 2 figures; v2: grammatical typos corrected, results unchanged v3: To be published in JCA

Sumoylation is developmentally regulated and required for cell pairing during conjugation in Tetrahymena thermophila

The covalent attachment of small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) to target proteins regulates numerous nuclear events in eukaryotes, including transcription, mitosis and meiosis, and DNA repair. Despite extensive interest in nuclear pathways within the field of ciliate molecular biology, there have been no investigations of the SUMO pathway in Tetrahymena. The developmental program of sexual reproduction of this organism includes cell pairing, micronuclear meiosis, and the formation of a new somatic macronucleus. We identified the Tetrahymena thermophila SMT3 (SUMO) and UBA2 (SUMO-activating enzyme) genes and demonstrated that the corresponding green fluorescent protein (GFP) tagged gene products are found predominantly in the somatic macronucleus during vegetative growth. Use of an anti-Smt3p antibody to perform immunoblot assays with whole-cell lysates during conjugation revealed a large increase in SUMOylation that peaked during formation of the new macronucleus. Immunofluorescence using the same antibody showed that the increase was localized primarily within the new macronucleus. To initiate functional analysis of the SUMO pathway, we created germ line knockout cell lines for both the SMT3 and UBA2 genes and found both are essential for cell viability. Conditional Smt3p and Uba2p cell lines were constructed by incorporation of the cadmium-inducible metallothionein promoter. Withdrawal of cadmium resulted in reduced cell growth and increased sensitivity to DNA-damaging agents. Interestingly, Smt3p and Uba2p conditional cell lines were unable to pair during sexual reproduction in the absence of cadmium, consistent with a function early in conjugation. Our studies are consistent with multiple roles for SUMOylation in Tetrahymena, including a dynamic regulation associated with the sexual life cycle

runt homology domain transcription factors (Runx, Cbfa, and AML) mediate repression of the bone sialoprotein promoter: evidence for promoter context-dependent activity of Cbfa proteins

Expression of the bone sialoprotein (BSP) gene, a marker of bone formation, is largely restricted to cells in mineralized tissues. Recent studies have shown that the Cbfa1 (also known as Runx2, AML-3, and PEBP2alphaA) transcription factor supports commitment and differentiation of progenitor cells to hypertrophic chondrocytes and osteoblasts. This study addresses the functional involvement of Cbfa sites in expression of the Gallus BSP gene. Gel mobility shift analyses with nuclear extracts from ROS 17/2.8 osteoblastic cells revealed that multiple Cbfa consensus sequences are functional Cbfa DNA binding sites. Responsiveness of the 1.2-kb Gallus BSP promoter to Cbfa factors Cbfa1, Cbfa2, and Cbfa3 was assayed in osseous and nonosseous cells. Each of the Cbfa factors mediated repression of the wild-type BSP promoter, in contrast to their well known activation of various hematopoietic and skeletal phenotypic genes. Suppression of BSP by Cbfa factors was not observed in BSP promoters in which Cbfa sites were deleted or mutated. Expression of the endogenous BSP gene in Gallus osteoblasts was similarly downregulated by forced expression of Cbfa factors. Our data indicate that Cbfa repression of the BSP promoter does not involve the transducin-like enhancer (TLE) proteins. Neither coexpression of TLE1 or TLE2 nor the absence of the TLE interaction motif of Cbfa1 (amino acids 501 to 513) influenced repressor activity. However, removal of the C terminus of Cbfa1 (amino acids 362 to 513) relieved suppression of the BSP promoter. Our results, together with the evolutionary conservation of the seven Cbfa sites in the Gallus and human BSP promoters, suggest that suppressor activity by Cbfa is of significant physiologic consequence and may contribute to spatiotemporal expression of BSP during bone development

Models of pollutant transport in natural aquifers

We present an approach for modelling the transport of pollution within a groundwater aquifer. The model is based on vertical discretisation of the aquifer into a number of horizontal layers. The approach can be used in a variety of situations. In particular, aquifers with lenses and phreatic surfaces are discussed. The use of the model is illustrated with examples including a comparison with experimental field data and the use of a second transported substance for remediation of the pollution. References A. Ali (2015) Simplified modelling of pollutant transport in naturally-layered aquifers, PhD Thesis, Massey University, NZ. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/6782 A. Ali, R. McKibbin, W.L. Sweatman (2012) Fluid flow and solute transport in unevenly-stratified groundwater aquifers, AIP Conference Proceedings, 1453, 11&ndash;16. doi:10.1063/1.4711146 A. Ali, R. McKibbin, W.L. Sweatman (2012) Simplified modelling of pollutant transport in stratified groundwater aquifers, Proceedings of IEMSs 2012, 2739&ndash;2746. http://www.iemss.org/sites/iemss2012/proceedings/I1_0675_Ali_et_al.pdf A. Ali, R. McKibbin, W.L. Sweatman (2012) Tracer transport: Appearing or disappearing sub-layer in a groundwater aquifer, In: G. Mallinson, ed., Proceedings of the 23rd International Symposium on Transport Phenomena (ISTP), The University of Auckland, NZ. A. Ali, R. McKibbin, W.L. Sweatman (2014) A simplified model for transport in aquifers, Proceedings of ICPM5, ECI Symposium Series. http://dc.engconfintl.org/porous_media_V/56 A. Ali, W.L. Sweatman, R. McKibbin (2014) Pollutant transport and its alleviation in groundwater aquifers, Mathematics in Industry, 19, 53&ndash;58. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-05365-3_8 M.P. Anderson, J.A. Cherry (1979) Using models to simulate the movement of contaminants through groundwater flow systems, CRC Critical Reviews in Environmental Control, 9(2):97&ndash;156. doi:10.1080/10643387909381669, J. Bear (1972) Dynamics of fluid in porous media Dover, New York. ISBN 10 0486656756 J. Bear, Y. Bachmat (1991) Introduction to modeling of transport phenomena in porous media, Kluwer. ISBN 978-94-009-1926-6 J. Bear, A. Verruijt (1978) Modeling groundwater flow and pollution D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland. H.P.G. Darcy (1856) Les fontaines publiques de la ville de dijon, Technical report, Victor Dalmont, Paris. J. Dupuit (1863) Etudes theoriques et pratiques sur le mouvement des eaux dans les canaux decouverts et a travers les terrains permeables, Dunod, Paris, 2nd edition. D.L. Freyberg (1986) A natural gradient experiment on solute transport in a sand aquifer: 2. Spatial moments and the advection and dispersion of nonreactive tracers, Water Resources Research, 22, 2031&ndash;2046. doi:10.1029/WR022i013p02031 D.M. Mackay, D.L. Freyberg, P.V. Roberts, J.A. Cherry (1986) A natural gradient experiment on solute transport in a sand aquifer: 1. Approach and overview of plume movement, Water Resources Research, 22, 2017&ndash;2029. doi:10.1029/WR022i013p02017 R. McKibbin (2009) Groundwater pollutant transport: transforming layered models to dynamical systems, An. St. Univ. Ovidius Constanta, Ser. Mat., 17(3), 183&ndash;196. http://www.emis.ams.org/journals/ASUO/mathematics/pdf19/McKibbin.pdf R. McKibbin (2010) Some aspects of modelling pollution transport in groundwater aquifers, In: L.H. Weiranto, S. Pudjaprasetya, editors, Proceedings of CIAM 2010, 9&ndash;16, ITB, Indonesia

Application of imaging technologies in breast cancer detection: A review article

One of the techniques utilised in the management of cancer in all stages is multiple biomedical imaging. Imaging as an important part of cancer clinical protocols can provide a variety of information about morphology, structure, metabolism and functions. Application of imaging technics together with other investigative apparatus including in fluids analysis and vitro tissue would help clinical decision-making. Mixed imaging techniques can provide supplementary information used to improve staging and therapy planning. Imaging aimed to find minimally invasive therapy to make better results and reduce side effects. Probably, the most important factor in reducing mortality of certain cancers is an early diagnosis of cancer via screening based on imaging. The most common cancer in women is breast cancer. It is considered as the second major cause of cancer deaths in females, and therefore it remained as an important medical and socio-economic issue. Medical imaging has always formed part of breast cancer care and has used in all phases of cancer management from detection and staging to therapy monitoring and post-therapeutic follow-up. An essential action to be performed in the preoperative staging of breast cancer based on breast imaging. The general term of breast imaging refers to breast sonography, mammography, and magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) of the breast (magnetic resonance mammography, MRM). Further development in technology will lead to increase imaging speed to meet physiological processes requirements. One of the issues in the diagnosis of breast cancer is sensitivity limitation. To overcome this limitation, complementary imaging examinations are utilised that traditionally includes screening ultrasound, and combined mammography and ultrasound. Development in targeted imaging and therapeutic agents calls for close cooperation among academic environment and industries such as biotechnological, IT and pharmaceutical industries. © 2019 Zeinab Safarpour Lima, Mohammad Reza Ebadi, Ghazaleh Amjad, Ladan Younesi

Relieving frustration: The case of antiferromagnetic Mn-3 molecular triangles

Recently, various triangular [Mn-III](3) molecules have been extensively studied due to the fact that one can modulate the magnitude and the sign of the inter-ion exchange, thereby giving rise to very simple clusters that constitute some of the cleanest and best examples of so-called single-molecule magnets. However, magnetic and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) characterizations of low-spin antiferromagnetic [Mn-III](3) complexes have been problematic due to the significant spin frustration that exists for this topology. We show that this frustration is relieved in the highly distorted [NEt4](3)Mn3Zn2(salox)(3)O(N-3)(8)]center dot MeOH molecule: Susceptibility data suggest a well isolated S = 2 ground state; EPR spectroscopy and high-field torquemetry support this conclusion and further indicate the presence of a very significant zero-field-splitting (zfs) separating the lowest-lying m(S) = +/- 2 states from the excited levels within the same S = 2 multiplet. Remarkably, this zfs is sufficient to give rise to magnetic bistability, as evidenced through the observation of low-temperature magnetization hysteresis