Evaluation of micronucleus frequency in oral exfoliated buccal mucosa cells of smokers and tobacco chewers: a comparative study

Background: Oral cancer is one of the tenth most common cancers in the world and constitutes the third most important group of malignancies in India. Majority of these cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage resulting in poor prognosis and survival rates among patients. Hence early diagnosis of oral cancers seems to be the need of the hour. Analysis of exfoliated buccal cell micronuclei (MN) is a sensitive method of monitoring genetic damage. The present study aims to compare the frequency of micronucleus in tobacco chewers and smokers and thus evaluate the genotoxic potential of these habits.Methods: The study was conducted on 60 subjects, divided into 3 groups each of 20 subjects. Group 1: with history of chewing tobacco, group 2: with history of chewing tobacco and smoking, group 3: healthy subjects without any habits as controls. Oral exfoliated cells were obtained from buccal mucosa of the subjects, 2 slides were prepared from each subject stained with Giemsa and H&E stain respectively. Atleast 1000 cells were examined for each subject and micronuclei frequency was scored according to criteria of Tolbert et al.Results: The mean number of micronuclei was 18.5±9.5 in tobacco chewers, 19.1±9.2 in chewers with smoking habit and 8.2±5.6 in controls. Bonferroni multiple comparisons amongst these three groups showed the mean difference of micronuclei to be highly significant when chewers and chewers with smoking habit were compared to controls. Similarly based on the duration of addiction, a highly significant difference was noted in no. of micronucleated cells in subjects addicted to tobacco for more than 15 years.Conclusions: Tobacco can cause and increase the rate of nuclear anomalies in both smoking and smokeless forms. Thus oral mucosal micronuclei frequency can be used as a marker of epithelial carcinogenic progression.

An Evolutionary Approach to Optimizing Cloud Services

In this paper, we propose an optimized scheduling algorithm for cloud services. We propose a Genetic Algorithm for optimum allocation of Virtual Machines (VMs) that permit maximum usage of physical resources. We describe the fitness function and the GA operators in detail and how they manipulate the problem space. Keywords: cloud computing, service optimization, genetic algorith

Comparison of Efficacy and Safety between Super-bioavailable Itraconazole and Conventional Itraconazole in the Treatment of Tinea Infection of Glabrous Skin – A Randomised Observer-blinded Pilot Study

Itraconazole is now being used as the first line drug for dermatophytosis. Complete clinical and mycological cure are not achieved in some cases. The Super Bioavailable (SB) formulation is being marketed as a better formulation of drug in terms of bioavailability. To compare the efficacy and safety of SB and conventional Itraconazole in treatment of dermatophytosis. We compared the efficacy and safety of conventional itraconazole 100 mg twice daily with SB itraconazole 50 mg twice daily in dermatophytosis for two weeks. A convenient sample size of 30 was taken in each group. There was no significant difference in clinical parameters like erythema, scaling, number of papules between the two groups. Change in mean haemoglobin, total leucocyte count, platelet count, liver enzymes SGOT and SGPT and ALP did not differ significantly between the groups. There was no significant difference in the change in KOH status between the groups. There was no significant difference in clinical and mycological clearance between the conventional and the Super Bioavailable itraconazole at the end of two weeks in case of dermatophytosis of glabrous skin

Dopamine induces functional extracellular traps in microglia

Dopamine (DA) plays many roles in the brain, especially in movement, motivation, and reinforcement of behavior; however, its role in regulating innate immunity is not clear. Here, we show that DA can induce DNA-based extracellular traps in primary, adult, human microglia and BV2 microglia cell line. These DNA-based extracellular traps are formed independent of reactive oxygen species, actin polymerization, and cell death. These traps are functional and capture fluorescein (FITC)-tagged Escherichia coli even when reactive oxygen species production or actin polymerization is inhibited. We show that microglial extracellular traps are present in Glioblastoma multiforme. This is crucial because Glioblastoma multiforme cells are known to secrete DA. Our findings demonstrate that DA plays a significant role in sterile neuro-inflammation by inducing microglia extracellular traps

Evaluation of micronucleus frequency in oral exfoliated buccal mucosa cells of smokers and tobacco chewers: a comparative study

Background: Oral cancer is one of the tenth most common cancers in the world and constitutes the third most important group of malignancies in India. Majority of these cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage resulting in poor prognosis and survival rates among patients. Hence early diagnosis of oral cancers seems to be the need of the hour. Analysis of exfoliated buccal cell micronuclei (MN) is a sensitive method of monitoring genetic damage. The present study aims to compare the frequency of micronucleus in tobacco chewers and smokers and thus evaluate the genotoxic potential of these habits. Methods: The study was conducted on 60 subjects, divided into 3 groups each of 20 subjects. Group 1: with history of chewing tobacco, group 2: with history of chewing tobacco and smoking, group 3: healthy subjects without any habits as controls. Oral exfoliated cells were obtained from buccal mucosa of the subjects, 2 slides were prepared from each subject stained with Giemsa and H and E stain respectively. Atleast 1000 cells were examined for each subject and micronuclei frequency was scored according to criteria of Tolbert et al. Results: The mean number of micronuclei was 18.5+/-9.5 in tobacco chewers, 19.1+/-9.2 in chewers with smoking habit and 8.2+/-5.6 in controls. Bonferroni multiple comparisons amongst these three groups showed the mean difference of micronuclei to be highly significant when chewers and chewers with smoking habit were compared to controls. Similarly based on the duration of addiction, a highly significant difference was noted in no. of micronucleated cells in subjects addicted to tobacco for more than 15 years. Conclusions: Tobacco can cause and increase the rate of nuclear anomalies in both smoking and smokeless forms. Thus oral mucosal micronuclei frequency can be used as a marker of epithelial carcinogenic progression. [Int J Res Med Sci 2016; 4(8.000): 3130-3133

Restoring India's Terrestrial Ecosystems: Needs, Challenges, and Policy Recommendations

<p>This document is a product of the preparatory phase project of the National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being which was catalysed and supported by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. It is the outcome of a series of stakeholder consultation meetings on ecological restoration of terrestrial landscapes and climate change in India. The insights from these meetings have been used to develop this document which highlights the challenges and best-practices in the restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, can serve as a guide for successful restoration of landscapes across different biomes of the Indian subcontinent, and help achieve India’s commitments to the Bonn Challenge and the goals set by India for biodiversity conservation, land restoration, climate mitigation and adaptation.</p&gt