Bioavailability of Iron, Zinc, Phytate and Phytase Activity during Soaking and Germination of White Sorghum Varieties

The changes in phytate, phytase activity and in vitro bioavailability of iron and zinc during soaking and germination of three white sorghum varieties (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench), named Dorado, Shandweel-6, and Giza-15 were investigated. Sorghum varieties were soaked for 20 h and germinated for 72 h after soaking for 20 h to reduce phytate content and increase iron and zinc in vitro bioavailability. The results revealed that iron and zinc content was significantly reduced from 28.16 to 32.16% and 13.78 to 26.69% for soaking treatment and 38.43 to 39.18% and 21.80 to 31.27% for germination treatments, respectively. Phytate content was significantly reduced from 23.59 to 32.40% for soaking treatment and 24.92 to 35.27% for germination treatments, respectively. Phytase enzymes will be activated during drying in equal form in all varieties. The results proved that the main distinct point is the change of phytase activity as well as specific activity during different treatment which showed no significant differences between the varieties used. The in vitro bioavailability of iron and zinc were significantly improved as a result of soaking and germination treatments

Pharmacogenetics: data, concepts and tools to improve drug discovery and drug treatment

Variation in the human genome is a most important cause of variable response to drugs and other xenobiotics. Susceptibility to almost all diseases is determined to some extent by genetic variation. Driven by the advances in molecular biology, pharmacogenetics has evolved within the past 40 years from a niche discipline to a major driving force of clinical pharmacology, and it is currently one of the most actively pursued disciplines in applied biomedical research in general. Nowadays we can assess more than 1,000,000 polymorphisms or the expression of more than 25,000 genes in each participant of a clinical study – at affordable costs. This has not yet significantly changed common therapeutic practices, but a number of physicians are starting to consider polymorphisms, such as those in CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6, TPMT and VKORC1, in daily medical practice. More obviously, pharmacogenetics has changed the practices and requirements in preclinical and clinical drug research; large clinical trials without a pharmacogenomic add-on appear to have become the minority. This review is about how the discipline of pharmacogenetics has evolved from the analysis of single proteins to current approaches involving the broad analyses of the entire genome and of all mRNA species or all metabolites and other approaches aimed at trying to understand the entire biological system. Pharmacogenetics and genomics are becoming substantially integrated fields of the profession of clinical pharmacology, and education in the relevant methods, knowledge and concepts form an indispensable part of the clinical pharmacology curriculum and the professional life of pharmacologists from early drug discovery to pharmacovigilance