Morphological and molecular characterization of L-methioninase producing Aspergillus species

Six species of L-methioninase producing Aspergillus species, isolated from Egyptian soil, were selected for comprehensive morphotypic and molecular characterization. Based on morphological and physiological features, these isolates were identified as Aspergillus flavipes, Aspergillus carneus, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus tamari, Aspergillus oryzae, and Aspergillus parasiticus. Regarding to the maximum enzyme productivity by A. flavipes, it was selected as authentic strain for ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) primer design. Using primer combinations for 18S rRNA and internal transcribed spacers (ITS)1 amplification, these isolates gave the same polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplicon size, revealing the relative molecular identity. Moreover, using ITS2 primers, among the six isolates, Aspergillus flavipes EK and A. carneus displayed PCR products on agarose gel, approving the actual morphological and biochemical similarities of these two isolates, A. flavipes group. By sequencing of ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 region, blasting and alignment from the data base, A. flavipes EK showed a typical identity to gene bank deposited A. flavipes isolates. The rRNA sequence of A. flavipes EK was deposited to genbank under accession number JF831014.Key words: Aspergillus, morphological descriptions, 18 S rRNA, internal transcribed spacers (ITS) regions

Simulation: Early Detection of Brain Vessels Stroke by Applying Electromagnetic Waves Non-Invasively

Introduction: Early recognition of stroke with its two types Ischemic and Hemorrhagic, is one of the most crucial research points, commonly used methods are CT- (computerized tomography), and MRI- (Magnetic resonance imaging). These techniques cause a delay in the detection of the condition, which causes permanent disability. The main reason behind the fatal consequences of stroke is the delay of detection. Therefore, this research paper aims to early detection of the type of stroke without delay until the appropriate diagnosis of each type is made, and then the appropriate treatment without delay. Method: Using a non-invasive and fast technique to determine the stroke type by wave, we simulate and design a vessel containing a liquid as a laminar flow with the same density and velocity of blood, and it was surrounded by a Homogenized multi-turn coil consisting of (n) turns to represent the magnetic field, using specific frequency (HZ) with Electrical field in coil current (A) to see the changing in magnetic flux density (MFD), Depending on the changes in MFD, the flow of blood in laminar flow can be affected by clotting (Ischemic) or Hemorrhagic (cutting) in our vessel designed. We have built three different scenarios to apply the technique which are: First: Normal Scenario (where the blood in vessel has no problem), second: clotting (ischemic, where the vessel blocked in specific three position) and Third: Cutting (Hemorrhagic, where the vessel cut in certain nine positions). Results: This paper presents-through our own design-the studying of applying the electromagnetic waves on blood inside the vessel to detect the stroke type in our three scenarios (normal, ischemic three positions or hemorrhagic nine positions), Studying the magnetic field and laminar flow. This study covered in three areas. First: coil geometry analysis, Second: stationary, and Third: frequency domain. through the changes in Magnetic Flux Density -MFD- waves. The results were promising and distinct for distinguishing between the three scenarios which are normal, ischemic (3 positions) and hemorrhagic (9 positions) the results of MFD are: 0.09 to 3.3*10^-3, 0.08 to 3.15*10^-4, 0.15 to 6.2*10^-3 respectively

Quality of care of Egyptian asthmatic children: Clinicians adherence to asthma guidelines

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite the development and dissemination of guidelines for the diagnosis and management of asthma, a gap remains between current recommendations and actual practice.</p> <p>Objectives</p> <p>To assess the physicians attitude towards asthma guidelines and their adherence to its recommendations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Three hundred and fifty two clinicians (101 General practitioners, 131 pediatric specialists, 35 pediatric consultants and 85 doctors did not report the qualification) engaged in direct childhood asthma care in Cairo, Egypt were subjected to a self-administered questionnaire with 35 questions of which most were multiple choices, aiming at assessment of three important aspects about the involved physicians; physician's knowledge, practice and attitude. 165 of the clinicians were working in governmental hospitals, 68 clinicians work in private clinics and 119 clinicians work in both.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Agreement with asthma guidelines was present in 76.2% of the studied physicians, however those who not in agreement with the guidelines claimed that this was mainly due to patient factors, firstly the poor socioeconomic standard of the patient (18.1%) and secondly due to poor patient compliance (16%). Poor knowledge was found in 28.5%, poor practice was found in 43.6% and poor attitude was found in 14.4% of the studied physicians. There was positive highly significant correlation between qualification and knowledge, (p < 0.01), positive highly significant correlation between qualification and practice, (p < 0.01), and positive highly significant correlation between qualification and attitude, (p < 0.01).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The attitude of the studied physicians revealed agreement of their majority with the guidelines, while the disagreement was mainly explained by the poor socioeconomic standard of the patients. The degree of poor practice is more marked than that of poor knowledge or poor attitude reflecting resources limitations and applications obstacles in the physician's practice.</p

Protective effect of zinc against cadmium toxicity on pregnant rats and their fetuses at morphological, physiological and molecular level

Cadmium is a potent teratogen in laboratory animals, causing exencephaly when administered at early stages of development. Due to its heterogenicity with respect to molecular targets, the mechanisms behind cadmium toxicity are not well understood. In the present study, 40 pregnant rats (Sprague-Dawley) were divided into four groups (10 each); first group served as the control (G1), the second group (G2) received 61.3 mg/kg cadmium chloride daily from 7th to 16th day of gestation (organogenesis period) by oral tube. Group 3 (G3) was administrated a solution of 25 mg/kg zinc chloride orally from the 1st day to 20th day of pregnancy. Group 4 were administrated a solution of cadmium chloride (61.3 mg/kg) and zinc chloride (25 mg /kg) daily from the 7th to16th day of gestation. Maternal body weights were measured on gestational day 0, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 20. At the 20th day of gestation, blood samples were collected from the eye, using orbital sinus technique. Serum aspartate transaminase (AST) and alanine transaminase (ALT) were determined calorimetrically and serum, urea and creatinine were determined. All of the pregnant rats were sacrificed by ether anaesthesia at the 20th day of gestation and foetuses were removed from the uterus. The implantation sites, corpora lutea, living, dead and reabsorbed foetuses were counted and recorded. Liver of pregnant rats and their fetuses were used to isolate a total RNA for quantification of Msx1, Cx43, Bcl2 and Bax genes. The results show the toxic effect of Cd on the pregnant rats and their fetuses, at morphological, physiological and molecular level but, zinc has a very effective protection against cadmium-induced developmental toxicity.Keywords: Cadmium, zinc, rat, organogenesis, gene expressionAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(16), pp. 2110-211

Brain Tumor Classification Using Hybrid Single Image Super-Resolution Technique with ResNext101_32x8d and VGG19 Pre-Trained Models

High-quality images acquired from medical devices can be utilized to aid diagnosis and detection of various diseases. However, such images can be very expensive to acquire and difficult to store, and the process of diagnosis can consume significant time. Automatic diagnosis based on artificial intelligence (AI) techniques can contribute significantly to overcoming the cost and time issues. Pre-trained deep learning models can present an effective solution to medical image classification. In this paper, we propose two such models, ResNext101_ 32×8d and VGG19 to classify two types of brain tumor: pituitary and glioma The proposed models are applied to a dataset consisting of 1,800 MRI images comprising in two classes of diagnoses; glioma tumor and pituitary tumor. A single-image super-resolution (SISR) technique is applied to the MRI images to classify and enhance their basic features, enabling the proposed models to enhance particular aspects of the MRI images and assist the training process of the models. These models are implemented using PyTorch and TensorFlow frameworks with hyper-parameter tuning, and data augmentation. Experimentally, receiver operating characteristic curve (ROCC), the error matrix, Precision, and Recall are used to analyze the performance of the proposed model. Results obtained demonstrate that VGG19 and ResNext101_ 32×8d achieved testing accuracies of 99.98% and 100%, and loss rates of 0.0120 and 0.108, respectively. The F1-score, Precision, Recall, and the area under the ROC for VGG19 were 99.89%, 99.90%, 99.89%, and 100%, respectively, while for the ResNext101_ 32×8d they were all 100%. The proposed models when applied to MRI images to provide a quick and accurate approach to distinguishing between patients with pituitary and glioma tumors, and could aid doctors and radiologists in the screening of patients with brain tumors

Homing and reparative effect of intra-articular injection of autologus mesenchymal stem cells in osteoarthritic animal model

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This work aimed to study the homing evidence and the reparative effect of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in the healing process of induced osteoarthritis in experimental animal model (donkeys).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Twenty-seven donkeys were equally divided into 3 groups based on the observation period after induction of arthritis (3, 6 and 9 weeks) to achieve different degrees of osteoarthritis. Each group was subdivided into three subgroups of three animals each based on the follow-up period (1, 2 and 6 months) after treatment. The induction was done through intra-articular (IA) injection of 2 ml of Amphotericin-B in both carpal joints. MSCs were harvested in a separate procedure, labeled with green fluorescent protein (GFP) using monster GFP vector and suspended in hyaluronic acid for IA injection. Treatment approaches consisted of cell-treatment using MSCs suspended in 3 ml of hyaluronic acid (HA) for the right carpal joint; and using the same amount of (HA) but without MSCs for the left contralateral carpal joint to serve as a control. Animals were assessed clinically and radiologically before and after treatment. Synovial fluid was also evaluated. Histopathologically; articular cartilage structural changes, reduction of articular cartilage matrix staining, osteophyte formation, and subchondral bone plate thickening were graded. Data was summarized using median and percentile for scores of histopathologic grading. Comparison between groups was done using non-parametric Mann Whitney test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The reparative effect of MSCs was significant both clinically and radiologically in all treated groups (P < 0.05) compared to the control groups. Fluorescence microscopy of sections of the cell-treated joints of all animals indicated that the GFP-transduced injected cells have participated effectively in the reparative process of the damaged articular surface and have integrated within the existing articular cartilage. The cells were associated with the surface of the cartilage and, were also detected in the interior.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Homing was confirmed by the incorporation of injected GFP-labeled MSCs within the repaired newly formed cartilage. Significant recovery proves that the use of IA injection of autologous MSCs is a viable and a practical option for treating different degrees of osteoarthritis.</p

Stimulation of rhamnolipid biosurfactants production in Pseudomonas aeruginosa AK6U by organosulfur compounds provided as sulfur sources

AbstractA Pseudomonas aeruginosa AK6U strain produced rhamnolipid biosurfactants to variable extents when grown on MgSO4 or organosulfur compounds as sulfur sources and glucose as a carbon source. Organosulfur cultures produced much higher biosurfactants amounts compared to the MgSO4 cultures. The surface tension of the growth medium was reduced from 72mN/m to 54 and 30mN/m in cultures containing MgSO4 and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DM-DBT), respectively. AK6U cultures produced different rhamnolipid congener profiles depending on the provided sulfur source. The dibenzothiophene (DBT) culture produced more diverse and a higher number of rhamnolipid congeners as compared to the DBT-sulfone and MgSO4 cultures. The number of mono-rhamnolipid congeners in the DBT culture was also higher than that detected in the DBT-sulfone and MgSO4 cultures. Di-rhamnolipids dominated the congener profiles in all the analyzed cultures. The sulfur source can have a profound impact on the quality and quantity of the produced biosurfactants

Aerosol delivery of trail pheromone disrupts the foraging of the red imported fire ant, \u3ci\u3eSolenopsis invicta\u3c/i\u3e

BACKGROUND: The fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, is one of the most aggressive and invasive species in the world. The trail pheromone Z,E-α-farnesene (91% purity)was prepared, and disruption of worker trail orientation was tested using an ethanol based aerosol formulation presenting a single puff of this compound by airbrush and compressed air. Trail-following behavior was recorded by overhead webcam and ants digitized before and after presentation of the aerosol treatment at four rates (1.6, 16, 160 and 1600 ng cm−2). RESULTS: Ants preferred 110 ng cm−1 over 11, 1.1 and 0.11 ng cm−1 for trail following. Within seconds of presentation of 1600 ng cm−2, the highest dose tested, trail disruption was observed. Disruption was evident as reduced arrival success and reduction in the trail integrity statistic (r2), as well as increased deviation from the trail (deg). The distribution of walking track angles was also flattened. CONCLUSIONS: The feasibility of using aerosol for delivery of trail pheromone was demonstrated, but the need for high purity combined with the difficulty of commercial supply makes this technique impractical. However, the commercial production of Z,E-α-farnesene of high purity by industrial biotechnology or from (E)-nerolidol may be possible in future, which would facilitate further development of trail pheromone disruption of S. invicta

Rumex dentatus L. phenolics ameliorate hyperglycemia by modulating hepatic key enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism, oxidative stress and PPARγ in diabetic rats

Rumex dentatus L. is a flowering plant with promising therapeutic effects. This study investigated the antioxidant efficacy of phenolic compounds isolated from R. dentatus L. in vitro and by conducting density function theory (DFT) studies to explore the mechanisms of action. The antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic effects of polyphenols-rich R. dentatus extract (RDE) were investigated in type 2 diabetic rats. Phytochemical investigation of the aerial parts of R. dentatus resulted in the isolation of one new and seven known compounds isolated for the first time from this species. All isolated phenolics showed in vitro radical scavenging activity. The antioxidant activity of the compounds could be oriented by the hydrogen atom transfer and sequential proton loss electron transfer mechanisms in gas and water phases, respectively. In diabetic rats, RDE attenuated hyperglycemia, insulin resistance and liver injury and improved carbohydrate metabolism. RDE suppressed oxidative stress and inflammation and upregulated PPARγ. In silico molecular docking analysis revealed the binding affinity of the isolated compounds toward PPARγ. In conclusion, the computational calculations were correlated with the in vitro antioxidant activity of R. dentatus derived phenolics. R. dentatus attenuated hyperglycemia, liver injury, inflammation and oxidative stress, improved carbohydrate metabolism and upregulated PPARγ in diabetic ratsThis work has DGI Project no. CTQ2015-63997-C2, a generous allocation of computing time at the Centro de Computación Científica of the UAM is also acknowledge