Studies of recruitment and migration of mesenchymal stem cells

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are used in therapy by injection into the blood. Adhesion and migration from flowing blood may be critical steps for their recruitment in the microvasculature. We aimed to understand how MSC from different sources might 'home' to injured tissue. MSC from Wharton’s jelly(WJMSC), bone marrow(BMMSC) or trabecular bone(TBMSC) were suspended in culture medium or added to whole blood, and perfused through capillaries coated with matrix proteins (collagen or fibronectin)or P- or E-selectin. Initial comparisons showed that none of the isolated MSC adhered to selectins even at low shear rate. All of the different cells were able to adhere to collagen or fibronectin at wall shear rates up to about 70s-1, with adhesion in the order WJMSC>BMMSC>TBMSC. Although BMMSC spread more efficiently than WJMSC, the WJMSC migrated faster through 8μm pore filters. In whole blood, MSC failed to bind to fibronectin, while the fibronectin itself became covered in a single layer of spread platelets. When perfused over collagen, only WJMSC were found to attach, forming aggregates with platelets on the surface. Adhesion of MSC to matrix proteins and to platelets involved both β1- and β3-integrins. Platelets used glycoproteins GpIb and GpIIbIIIa to adhere and aggregate on collagen, and GpIIbIIIa to adhere and spread on fibronectin, but these receptors did not support the interaction between MSC and platelets. These results show intrinsic differences in adhesion and migration of different MSC, including interaction with platelets that are predicted to influence their behavior in vivo and therapeutic effectiveness

Role of Interventional Radiology in Management of Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Gastrointestinal bleeding is a common and potentially life-threatening condition that requires prompt and effective management. Interventional radiology has emerged as a valuable tool in the management of gastrointestinal bleeding, offering minimally invasive techniques that can rapidly control bleeding and improve patient outcomes. This review aims to provide an overview of the role of interventional radiology in the management of gastrointestinal bleeding, including its various techniques and their efficacy. The review discusses the different interventional radiology procedures that can be used to diagnose and treat gastrointestinal bleeding. It also highlights the advantages of techniques used in evaluation and management, including their ability to localize and control bleeding, as well as their low complication rates and shorter recovery times compared to traditional surgical approaches. Furthermore, the review addresses the specific indications for interventional radiology in the management of gastrointestinal bleeding, as well as the role of interventional radiology in the setting of underlying conditions. Overall, this review provides a comprehensive overview of the role of interventional radiology in the management of gastrointestinal bleeding, highlighting its effectiveness and potential benefits for patients. It also emphasizes the need for further research and collaboration between interventional radiologists and gastroenterologists to optimize the use of these techniques in clinical practice

BM-MSCs alleviate diabetic nephropathy in male rats by regulating ER stress, oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptotic pathways

Introduction: Diabetic nephropathy (DN), a chronic kidney disease, is a major cause of end-stage kidney disease worldwide. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have become a promising option to mitigate several diabetic complications.Methods: In this study, we evaluated the therapeutic potential of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) in a rat model of STZ-induced DN. After the confirmation of diabetes, rats were treated with BM-MSCs and sacrificed at week 12 after treatment.Results: Our results showed that STZ-induced DN rats had extensive histopathological changes, significant upregulation in mRNA expression of renal apoptotic markers, ER stress markers, inflammatory markers, fibronectin, and intermediate filament proteins, and reduction of positive immunostaining of PCNA and elevated P53 in kidney tissue compared to the control group. BM-MSC therapy significantly improved renal histopathological changes, reduced renal apoptosis, ER stress, inflammation, and intermediate filament proteins, as well as increased positive immunostaining of PCNA and reduced P53 in renal tissue compared to the STZ-induced DN group.Conclusion: In conclusion, our study indicates that BM-MSCs may have therapeutic potential for the treatment of DN and provide important insights into their potential use as a novel therapeutic approach for DN

Tuning quantum interference through molecular junctions formed from cross-linked OPE-3 dimers †

This study highlights a novel strategy for tuning the electrical conductance of single molecules by cross linking the molecules to form a dimer. By studying the electrical conductance of dimers formed by cross linking OPE monomers, we demonstrate that the appearance of destructive or constructive quantum interference in cross-linked OPE-based dimers is independent of the nature of the molecular cross link. Instead, the type of the interference is controlled by the connectivity to external electrodes and is determined by the presence or otherwise of meta-connected phenyl rings in the transport path. This is expected to be an important design feature, when synthesising molecules with cross links of different stiffnesses for thermoelectric energy harvesting, since it shows that the stiffness (and hence phonon transport properties) can be tuned without affecting the nature of the electronic quantum interference

PREVALENCE AND RISK FACTORS OF BRONCHIAL ASTHMA IN CHILDREN IN SAUDI ARABIA, A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Background: The results of the few epidemiological studies that have been carried out in Saudi Arabia to determine the prevalence of childhood asthma are highly inconsistent. As a result, we did a systematic literature review to assess the frequency of childhood asthma in Saudi Arabia since knowing the prevalence of common bronchial asthma in children will help doctors better grasp the scope of this health problem and inform resource planning. Objectives: This study aims to summarize current estimations of the prevalence and risk factors of bronchial asthma among children in Saudi Arabia. Methods: The PubMed database and EBSCO Information Services were utilised to choose the articles. In our review, all pertinent articles related to both our topic and other articles were used.  Other articles that were unrelated to this field were not considered. The data was extracted in a specific format, which the group members reviewed. Conclusion: Bronchial asthma prevalence rates in Saudi Arabia are increasing annually. The highest prevalence rate was found in Al Hafouf region while the lowest was reported in Abha. Risk factors were significantly associated with bronchial asthma as phycological status, smoking family member, socioeconomic status, dust, air pollution, allergens as well as other factors

Antimicrobial Evaluation of Sulfonamides after Coupling with Thienopyrimidine Coplanar Structure

This work describes the design and synthesis of three series of hybrids of thienopyrimidines and sulfonamides. Dihydrofolate reductase enzyme was selected as a target for the in-silico screening of the synthesized thienopyrimidine–sulfonamide hybrid as an antibacterial, while squalene epoxidase was selected as an antifungal target protein. All screened compounds showed promising binding affinity ranges, with perfect fitting not exceeding 1.9 Å. The synthesized compounds were tested for their antimicrobial activity using agar well diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration tests against six bacterial strains in addition to two Candida strains. Compounds 8iii and 12ii showed varying degrees of inhibition against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli bacterial strains, whereas the best antifungal activity against Candida was displayed by compound 8iii. Compound 12ii, the cyclohexathienopyrimidine coupled with sulfadiazine at position 3, has the best antibacterial activity, which is consistent with molecular docking results at the active site of the oxidoreductase protein. Interestingly, compound 12ii also has the highest docking binding energy at the antifungal squalene epoxidase active site. Investigating the physicochemical properties of the synthesized hybrids revealed their high tolerability with cell membranes, and moderate to poor oral bioavailability, and that all are drug-like candidates, among which 4i, the cyclohexathieno[2,3-d] pyrimidine core with sulphaguanidine incorporated at position 4, recorded the best score (1.58)

Development of a map for land use and land cover classification of the Northern Border Region using remote sensing and GIS

The land use and land cover study (LULC) play an essential role in regional socio-economic development and natural resource management to develop sustainable development in vegetation changes, water quantity and quality, land resources, and coastal management. This study uses remote sensing data to investigate LULC in the Northern Border Region (NBR) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this study is to obtain a better understanding of the patterns and drivers of changes in LULC in the NBR over the past three decades. Remote sensing data from Landsat imagery between 1990 and 2022 were used to classify LULC types, and a time series analysis was performed using Landsat imagery to detect changes over time. The classification finds four main classes: bare land, built-up area, rocks, and vegetation. The results indicate a significant increase in urban development. The outcomes revealed that most urbanization occurred in the outskirts of the cities, where previously there were bare soil lands. The main drivers of urbanization were population growth and economic development. These findings have important implications for city planning, the management of green spaces, and the sustainable development of cities. Maximum Likelihood classifier was used to perform the classification. The accuracy assessment demonstrated satisfactory results, with an overall accuracy of 92.6%. The study paves the way for further monitoring LULC changes in the NBR geographic location. The technique used was adequate to address the objectives of this study

Toward a Vision-Based Intelligent System: A Stacked Encoded Deep Learning Framework for Sign Language Recognition

Sign language recognition, an essential interface between the hearing and deaf-mute communities, faces challenges with high false positive rates and computational costs, even with the use of advanced deep learning techniques. Our proposed solution is a stacked encoded model, combining artificial intelligence (AI) with the Internet of Things (IoT), which refines feature extraction and classification to overcome these challenges. We leverage a lightweight backbone model for preliminary feature extraction and use stacked autoencoders to further refine these features. Our approach harnesses the scalability of big data, showing notable improvement in accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and complexity analysis. Our model’s effectiveness is demonstrated through testing on the ArSL2018 benchmark dataset, showcasing superior performance compared to state-of-the-art approaches. Additional validation through an ablation study with pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) models affirms our model’s efficacy across all evaluation metrics. Our work paves the way for the sustainable development of high-performing, IoT-based sign-language-recognition applications