An open access journal of molecular signaling: a critical need at a critical time

Molecular signaling is an exponentially growing field that encompasses different molecular aspects of cell signaling underlying normal and pathological conditions. This area also focuses on defining the genetic and epigenetic changes that modulate the signaling properties of cells and the resultant physiological as well as pathological conditions. Therefore, rapid publication of results from these endeavors and, more importantly, free access to such publications can truly accelerate the progress in this field leading to the development of novel targeted drugs. With this goal in mind, Journal of Molecular Signaling, a journal fully devoted to open access publishing of rigorously peer-reviewed quality manuscripts in the molecular signaling area of research, is being launched. The focus, significance, and, the open access model of publishing of Journal of Molecular Signaling are discussed

Gonadotropin regulation of rat ovarian lysosomes: existence of a hormone specific dual control mechanism

Gonadotropic hormones PMSG (15 IU/rat), FSH (3 μg/rat), LH (9 μg/rat) and hCG (3 μg/rat) were shown to decrease the free cytosolic lysosomal enzymes during the acute phase of hormone action in rat ovaries. When isolated cells from such rats were analyzed for the cathepsin-D activity, the granulosa cells of the ovary showed a reduction in the free as well as in the total lysosomal enzyme activities in response to FSH/PMSG; the stromal and thecal compartment of the ovary showed a reduction only in the free activity in response to hCG/PMSG. The results suggest the presence of two distinct, target cell specific, mechanisms by which the lysosmal activity of the ovary is regulated by gonadotropins

Anemia Detection using a Deep Learning Algorithm by Palm Images

Our aim is to detect anemia through a comparative analysis of three convolutional neural network (CNN) models, namely EfficientNet B3, DenseNet121, and CNN AllNet. A collection of 3,000 microscopic palm pictures, including 1,500 anaemic and 1,500 non-anemic samples, was used to train and test the algorithms. The dataset was preprocessed to balance the classes, augment the images, and normalize the pixel values. The models were trained using transfer learning on the ImageNet dataset and fine-tuned on the anemia dataset. The performance of the models was evaluated based on accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. The results showed that CNN ALLNET achieved the highest accuracy of 96.8%, followed by DenseNet121 with 94.4%, and EfficientNet B3 with 91.2%. The precision, recall, and F1-score also followed a similar trend. The study concludes that CNN ALLNET is the optimal model for anemia detection due to its high accuracy and overall better performance when compared with the different models. The findings of this research could provide a basis for further studies on anemia detection using CNN models, ultimately improving the accuracy and efficiency of anemia diagnosis and treatment

Surveillance of multidrug resistant bacteria pathogens from female infertility cases

Antibiotic resistance is a public health problem of increasing magnitude. Female reproductive system is vulnerable to a number of diseases. Diseased condition results in infertility, menstrual irregularity, pregnancy loss, and in association with pregnancy, morbidity to both the mother and child increases. In the present work, the bacteria pathogens were isolated from the endometrial sample of 50 female infertility cases among which 42 cases were positive for the pathogens. This study reveals that Escherichia coli was the most dominant, followed by Enterococcus faecalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus sp., and Enterobacter. The isolates were characterized and its susceptibility against important antibiotics were performed. Highest sensitivity was observed with gatifloxacin, imipenam and piperacillin and tazobactum. Thus, according to this study, these antibiotics can be recommended against multi drug resistant bacteria pathogens.Keywords: Multidrug resistance, female infertility, bacteria pathogensAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(26), pp. 4129-413

Probiotic Effect of Lactobacillus Isolates Against Bacterial Pathogens in Fresh Water Fish

A total of 59 Lactobacillus isolates were isolated from 5 different fresh water fish such as Cat fish ( Clarias orientalis) , Hari fish (Anguilla sp), Rohu fish ( Labeo rohita), Jillabe fish (Oreochromis sp) and Gende fish ( Punitus carnaticus). Among the 59 isolates only 4 Lactobacillus isolates were selected for further study. Based on morphological and biochemical characteristics, the isolates were identified as Lactobacillus sp. The pathogen were isolated from infected cat fishes, characterized and identified as Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Aeromonas sp and Aeromonas salmonicida. The Lactobacillus isolates were screened for antagonistic activity against Aeromonas, Vibrio sp. by agar diffusion assay. Among the 4 isolates, Lactobacilli RLD2 showed significant antagonistic activity against Aeromonas and Vibrio sp alone. and was further evaluated by standard plate count assay for the viability of pathogen. The isolate was multiplied and the fish feed was supplement with Lactobacillus isolates. The results reveal that the size, weight of the fish was statically increased in comparison to that of control fish. The present study concluded that the Lactobacillus isolates could be used as probiotic bacteria in aquaculture, to manage aeromonasis

Immune associated LncRNAs identify novel prognostic subtypes of renal clear cell carcinoma

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148402/1/mc22949_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148402/2/mc22949.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148402/3/mc22949-sup-0001-SuppData-S1.pd

Glycolysis Inhibition of Autophagy Drives Malignancy in Ovarian Cancer: Exacerbation by IL-6 and Attenuation by Resveratrol.

peer reviewedCancer cells drive the glycolytic process towards the fermentation of pyruvate into lactate even in the presence of oxygen and functioning mitochondria, a phenomenon known as the "Warburg effect". Although not energetically efficient, glycolysis allows the cancer cell to synthesize the metabolites needed for cell duplication. Autophagy, a macromolecular degradation process, limits cell mass accumulation and opposes to cell proliferation as well as to cell migration. Cancer cells corrupt cancer-associated fibroblasts to release pro-inflammatory cytokines, which in turn promote glycolysis and support the metastatic dissemination of cancer cells. In mimicking in vitro this condition, we show that IL-6 promotes ovarian cancer cell migration only in the presence of glycolysis. The nutraceutical resveratrol (RV) counteracts glucose uptake and metabolism, reduces the production of reactive oxygen species consequent to excessive glycolysis, rescues the mitochondrial functional activity, and stimulates autophagy. Consistently, the lack of glucose as well as its metabolically inert analogue 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), which inhibits hexokinase 2 (HK2), trigger autophagy through mTOR inhibition, and prevents IL-6-induced cell migration. Of clinical relevance, bioinformatic analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas dataset revealed that ovarian cancer patients bearing mutated TP53 with low expression of glycolytic markers and IL-6 receptor, together with markers of active autophagy, display a longer overall survival and are more responsive to platinum therapy. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that RV can counteract IL-6-promoted ovarian cancer progression by rescuing glycolysis-mediated inhibition of autophagy and support the view that targeting Warburg metabolism can be an effective strategy to limit the risk for cancer metastasis

The diterpenoid alkaloid noroxoaconitine is a Mapkap kinase 5 (MK5/PRAK) inhibitor

The mitogen-activated protein kinase-activated protein kinase MK5 is ubiquitously expressed in vertebrates and is implicated in cell proliferation, cytoskeletal remodeling, and anxiety behavior. This makes MK5 an attractive drug target. We tested several diterpenoid alkaloids for their ability to suppress MK5 kinase activity. We identified noroxoaconitine as an ATP competitor that inhibited the catalytic activity of MK5 in vitro (IC50 = 37.5 μM; Ki = 0.675 μM) and prevented PKA-induced nuclear export of MK5, a process that depends on kinase active MK5. MK5 is closely related to MK2 and MK3, and noroxoaconitine inhibited MK3- and MK5- but not MK2-mediated phosphorylation of the common substrate Hsp27. Molecular docking of noroxoaconitine into the ATP binding sites indicated that noroxoaconitine binds more strongly to MK5 than to MK3. Noroxoaconitine and derivatives may help in elucidating the precise biological functions of MK5 and may prove to have therapeutic values