Ornithine decarboxylase activity, a clinical biomarker for evaluating cancer chemopreventive efficacy of phytomolecules

Biomarkers of cancer have made a strong traipse in predicting the disease pattern and contributed significantly to the understanding of tumour state, progression, characteristics and response to therapies. Polyamines such as putrescine, spermine and spermidine are cationic biomolecules essential for the cell cycle function and serve as excellent biomarkers of tumour progression. The polyamine biosynthesis is tightly regulated by ornithine decarboxylase, a highly inducible enzyme specific to pH, temperature, time and substrate concentration. The expression of this enzyme is very high during cell transformation and tumour progression leading to elevated level of polyamines. To measure the activity of ornithine decarboxylase an improved, easy, simple, reliable and cost-effective method has been developed utilizing small quantity of chemicals. The methodology is based on the cognizance that enzyme transforms L-ornithine hydrochloride substrate to a yellow coloured product putrescine soluble in pentanol, the absorbance of which was measured spectrophotometrically. The procedure is being utilized for evaluating cancer chemopreventive efficacy of phytomolecules. We have analyzed hundreds of molecules belonging to flavonoid, terpenes and alkaloid groups and very few were found to inhibit enzyme activity in a concentration dependent manner (0.4-50µg/mL). In addition, the molecules were also tested for their radical scavenging properties. Our results depict that molecules having phenolic groups and lactone rings in their structure are better inhibitors than their counterparts. The comparative analysis of the groups reassures flavonoids as better scavengers of radical formation and a positive correlation was observed among the nitric oxide and 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl inhibition (p<0.01). Further evaluation and augmentation may reveal novel ornthine decarboxylase inhibitors and cancer chemopreventive agents from plants

Anticancer efficacy of phenolics based structurally related compounds and their radical scavenging action

Cancer, one of the leading causes of death worldwide, is an abnormal cell proliferation that fails to respond to the normal signals. In an effort to eradicate the growing menace of cancer, a clear understanding of fundamental biology and molecular mechanism of carcinogenesis is essential for targeted therapies. Among the devised strategies in use for cancer treatment, the one that is of immense interest is the development of plant based novel anticancer agents. Due to their tremendous availability, biological activity and efficacy, the phytochemicals deemed a gibbous future in chemoprevention. In the present study, several phenolics based structurally related compounds of steroidal and non-steroidal skeleton were synthesized and tested for their modulatory effect on ornithine decarboxylase activity, an enzyme highly upregulated in cancer. Additionally, these compounds were also examined for radical scavenging extent to establish a correlation with the anticancer property. Our result suggests that the tested compounds possessed radical scavenging activity, for being the inherent property of the phenolics. 3-(3’,4’5’-trimethoxyphenyl)-4,5,6-trimethoxyindan-1-one oxime exhibited highest inhibition of enzyme activity (91%) followed by 1-(2,4-dibromophenyl)-3-[3-methoxyestra 1,3,5(10)-trien-17-acetate,2-yl]-2-propen-1-one (85%), 2-Hydroxy, 3-(3’,4’,5’-trimethoxy phenyl)-4,5,6-trimethoxy ind-2-en-1-one (80%), 1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-3-(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)-2-propen-1-one (74%) and 1-(3,-methoxy, 4-hydroxyphenyl)-3-[3-methoxyestra 1,3,5(10)-trien-17-acetate, 2-yl]-2-propen-1-one (67%). Furthermore, it was observed that 1-(3-Methoxy, 4- hydroxyphenyl)-3-[3-methoxyestra 1,3,5 (10)-trien-17-acetate, 2-yl]-2-propen-1-one showed the highest scavenging effect (67%) in nitric oxide assay, whereas 1-(3-methylphenyl)-3-[3-methoxy, 17-hydroxyestra 1,3,5(10)-trien, 2-yl]-2-propen-1-one showed maximum inhibition of radical formation in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl analysis. Most of these compounds possessed a 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl unit which might be inducing enzyme inhibition and scavenging radical formation. Further investigations are on the way to establish the structure-activity relationship, so that these compounds can be developed as anticancer agents

Nutritional status of pregnant women reporting at Rural Health Training Centre

Background: United Nations had passed MDGs followed by SDGs, half of which are based on women’s health. Despite best efforts, malnutrition remains a major problem that affects our country. This is a significant risk factor for maternal and foetal mortality. This study was conducted to identify current status of maternal wellbeing in villages under an RHTC to get baseline for further interventional studies in the villages.Methods: A descriptive study was done on the rural pregnant patients attending RHTC of LNMC and JKH situated at outskirts of Bhopal was done. All pregnant women attending RHTC from January 2016 to June 2017 were studied for nutrition indicators. Their weight and height were recorded and haemoglobin was measured by Sahli’s Haemoglobinometer and the data was compared. WMA Declaration of Helsinki was followed during this study.Results: Two hundred participants in this study were between age ranges 17 to 35 years with gravidity level of the participants ranging 1 to 5. Their Body Mass Index (BMI) ranging 14 to 30. One fourth participants were having BMI of 18.5 or less and four fifth had anaemia.Conclusions: Majority of pregnant women reporting for prenatal checkup at RHTC are malnourished and anaemic. It is recommended to study government scheme at micro level if it is serving as cash incentive for frequent and multiple pregnancy to potentially catapult the desired effect to worsen the situation of maternal health on one side and population control on the other. Health education for the rural public is recommended

SPRING-INX: A Multilingual Indian Language Speech Corpus by SPRING Lab, IIT Madras

India is home to a multitude of languages of which 22 languages are recognised by the Indian Constitution as official. Building speech based applications for the Indian population is a difficult problem owing to limited data and the number of languages and accents to accommodate. To encourage the language technology community to build speech based applications in Indian languages, we are open sourcing SPRING-INX data which has about 2000 hours of legally sourced and manually transcribed speech data for ASR system building in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi and Tamil. This endeavor is by SPRING Lab , Indian Institute of Technology Madras and is a part of National Language Translation Mission (NLTM), funded by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. We describe the data collection and data cleaning process along with the data statistics in this paper.Comment: 3 pages, About SPRING-INX Dat

Capnography-assisted airway management by awake blind nasal intubation in maxillofacial surgeries: An observational study

Background: Maxillofacial surgery patients frequently pose challenges to airway management due to anatomical and functional constraints. While fiber-optic-aided nasotracheal intubation is considered the gold standard, not all medical facilities have access to fiber-optic bronchoscopes, particularly in low-resource settings. In such situations, awake nasal tracheal intubation is often the safest approach for managing patients with known or suspected difficult airways. Aims and Objectives: (1) To assess the technique of capnography-assisted airway management by awake blind nasal intubation (ABNI) in maxillofacial surgeries. (2) To find out any complications encountered by the technique of capnography-assisted airway management by ABNI in maxillofacial surgeries. Materials and Methods: 40 patients undergoing various maxillofacial surgeries and in whom blind nasotracheal intubation was attempted were included in this study. The institutional ethical committee approved the study, and informed consent was obtained from all the patients. The number of attempts for ABNI, successful versus failed ABNI, and complications encountered were studied. SSPS 21.0 software was used for statistical analysis. Results: There were 23 (57.50%) males and 17 (42.50%) females. There was a male preponderance, with the M: F ratio being 1:0.73. The mean age of the patients was 40.97±8.92 years. In 36 (90%) of the patients, the intubation could be successfully done. In 19 (47.50%) patients, blind nasal intubation was successfully done in the first attempt; 2 attempts were required in 15 (37.50%) patients, and 3 attempts were required in 2 (5%) patients. Epistaxis (10%) and sore throats (7.5%) were the most common complications in the studied cases. Conclusion: Capnography-assisted ABNI is an effective technique for airway control in patients undergoing maxillofacial surgeries with an acceptable complication rate

Facile ring opening of 2-aryl[1,3,4]oxadiazino[5,6-<i style="">b</i>]quinoxalines with sodium alkoxides

573-576Reactions of 2,3-dichloroquinoxaline 1 with various acid hydrazides 2 in acetonitrile under PTC conditions give the corresponding oxadiazinoquinoxalines 3, which on reaction with sodium alkoxides in alcohol yielded the respective ring opened products i.e. 2-acylhydrazino-3-alkoxyquioxalines 4. The compound 4 has been also synthesised from 2-acylhydrazino-3-chloroquinoxaline 5, which is obtained by the reaction of 1 with 2 in DMF at room temperature.</b

Studies on the synthesis of 2-phenylsulphonyl-3-styrylquinoxalines

565-573o-Phenylenediamine 1 is condensed with pyruvic acid or sodium pyruvate to yield 3-methylbenzo-1H-dihydropyrazine-2-one 2. The latter on condcnsation with aromatic aldehydes give 3-styrylquinoxaline-1H-2-one 3. Reaction of 3 with POCl3 in the presence of catalytic amount of DMF yields 2-chloro-3-styrylquinoxaline 4, which on reaction with thiophenol in the presence of triethylamine in methanol gives 2-phenylthio-3-styrylquinoxaline 5. Oxidation of 5 with H2O2 in the presence of acetic anhydride affords 2-phenylsulphonyl-3-styrylquinoxaline 6. 6 has also been prepared directly from 4 by reaction with sodium benzenesulphinate under phase transfer conditions. In an alternate approach to the synthesis of title compound, 2 is treated with POCl3 in DMF to obtain the known 2-chloro-3-methylquinoxaline 7. Reaction of 7 with thiophenol in the presence of triethylamine in methanol gives 2-methyl-3-phenylthioquinoxaline 8. Oxidation of 8 with H2O2 in Ac2O affords 2-methyl-3-phenylsulphonylquinoxaline 9. 9 was also prepared in an alternate method from 7 by reaction with sodium benzenesulphinate. 9 on reaction with aromatic aldehydes yields the title compounds 6