Evaluation of Essential and Toxic Elements in Blood Samples of Male Smokers Having Different Types of Cancers with Reference to Healthy Male Smokers

Immense epidemiologic studies have been reported about the role of essential trace and toxic elements as risk factors for incidence of different type of cancers in population of developed and developing countries. In present work the levels of carcinogenic, Arsenic, Cadmium, and Nickel (As, Cd and Ni) and anti-carcinogenic, Zinc and Selenium (Zn and Se) elements were measured in blood of male cancer patients (urinary bladder, lung, mouth and esophageal) and healthy referents. The all patients and referents were smoker. The blood samples were analysed with atomic absorption spectrometry after microwave assisted acid digestion. The resulted data indicated that the levels of toxic elements As, Ni and Cd were considerably elevated whereas essential elements, Zn and Se were lower in blood samples of all cancer cases as compared to those values found in noncancerous subjects. As the levels of essential trace elements were low in blood samples of male cancerous patients but difference was highly significant in lung and mouth cancer subjects (p<0.001), whereas sequence of decreasing order was not uniform. The levels of Zn in blood samples of different cancerous patients were found in decreasing order as: esophagus< mouth< urinary bladder<lung, whereas in case of Se as mouth<lung<urinary bladder<esophagus.The study revealed that the carcinogenic processes are significantly affecting the essential and toxic elements levels in biological samples of cancerous patients as related to those obtained for controls/referents

Chemoenzymatic Conversion of Linoleic Acid into Conjugated Linoleic Acid

An efficient chemoenzymatic method for preparing conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) using free linoleic acid (LA) as a substrate is described. In the first step, LA was transformed into 10-hydroxy-cis-12-octadecenoic acid (HA) by the whole cells of Lactobacillus plantarum after 48 h of incubation. The preincubation of whole cells with 0.03% LA resulted in a better yield of HA (480 mg/g) compared to cells grown without LA. In a second fast microwave step, HA was converted to cis-9, trans-11-octadecadienoic acid in the presence of iodine as a catalyst over a silica gel surface. The advantage of this method in preparing cis-9,trans-11 CLA is simple via the whole cell bioconversion of LA into HA via L. plantarum followed by the fast microwave-assisted synthesis of cis-9,trans-11 CLA in higher yields

Comparison of Fatty Acid and Cholesterol Content of Pakistani Water Buffalo Breeds

Present study evaluates the milk fatty acid (FA) composition and cholesterol content of two main Pakistani dairy breeds water buffaloes, i.e. Kundi and Nili-Ravi (n = 25 for each breed). The buffaloes were housed together and received the same diet. The results show a significant variation (P < 0.05) in the FA content of the two breeds. The milk fat of Kundi buffalo was found to contain significantly lower (P < 0.05) amount of saturated fatty acid content than Nili-Ravi buffaloes (66.96 and 69.09 g/100 g). Determined mean monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) contents (27.62 vs. 25.20 g/100g) and total trans fatty acids (3.48 vs. 2.48) were significantly elevated (P < 0.05) in the milk fat of Kundi buffaloes. Amount of fat and conjugated linoleic acid content was higher (P = 0.04) in Kundi buffalo as compared to Nili-Ravi buffaloes (7.00 vs. 7.78 g /100g and 0.80 vs. 0.71g / 100g), while cholesterol content was not different among both breeds ranging from 8.89 – 10.24 mg /dl. Present studies show that in future genetic selection programs along with altered buffalo nutrition may be able to result in optimum levels of various fatty acids in milk

Biosorption of fluoride from aqueous solution by white—rot fungus Pleurotus eryngii ATCC 90888

AbstractIn present study the biosorption characteristics of fluoride anions from aqueous solution using white rot fungus (Pleurotus eryngii) were investigated as a function of pH, initial fluoride concentration, biosorbent dose, temperature, and contact time. Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin–Radushkevich (D–R) models were applied to describe the biosorption isotherm of fluoride ions by P. eryngii biomass. Langmuir model fitted the equilibrium data better than the Freundlich isotherm. The monolayer biosorption capacity of P. eryngii biomass for fluoride ions was found to be 66.6mgg−1. Thermodynamic parameters such as ΔH°, ΔS° and ΔG° indicate that the removal of fluoride ions by fungal biomass was endothermic and spontaneous in nature. Experimental data were also analyzed in terms of kinetic characteristics and it was found that biosorption process of fluoride ion followed well pseudo-second order model, where intra-particle diffusion was not the only rate-controlling step. The surface and sorption characteristics were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry. In order to check the practical utility of the studied biosorbent, batch studies were carried out with fluoride contaminated water samples collected from a fluoride-endemic area. Eventually, this fungal biomass recommended to be used as a suitable, environment friendly and low cost biosorbent for removal of fluoride ion concentration to standard permissible limit

Contamination profile of aflatoxin M1 residues in milk supply chain of Sindh, Pakistan

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is a potent carcinogen, teratogen and mutagen found in the milk when lactating animals consume feed contaminated with aflatoxin B1 (AFB1). In the present study, the contamination of AFM1 was evaluated in the milk supply chain of the province of Sindh, Pakistan. For the broader profiling of targeted toxin, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used for the determination of AFM1 in both branded and non-branded milk samples. The results showed that 96.43% of samples (81 out of 84) were contaminated with AFM1 in the range of 0.01–0.76 μg/L. The average contamination level was 0.38 μg/L. The determined values of AFM1 in the collected milk samples were above the standard limit of the European Commission while 70% of the samples exceeded levels established by United States regulations. According to these results, the estimated daily intake of AFM1 for adults was determined as 3.1 ng/kg of body weight per day

Impact of Refrigerated Storage on Quality of Oil from Freshwater Jarko (Wallago attu) Fish.

The effect of refrigerated storage on the quality of freshwater fish oil Jarko (Wallago attu) was evaluated by measuring fatty acid profile, free fatty acids (FFA), peroxide value (PV), acid value (AV), sponification value (SV), iodine value (IV) and poylene index (PI) up to the time period of 120 days. After 120 days storage, mono unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) contents were decreased by 24.89% and 33.70%, respectively. While, saturated fatty acids (SFA) content was found to be increased by 26.82%, against the actual value. The change in polyunsaturated fatty acids during refrigerated storage was measured by the PI value. The PI decreased during storage due to lipid oxidation, but remained nearly constant after 90th day of storage. The results of PV, AV and FFA demonstrates that Wallago attu fish oil remained acceptable for consumption for 60 days but eventually exceeded the recommended values after 60 days of refrigerated storage

Selective oxidation and reduction reactions with cofactor regeneration mediated by galactitol-, lactate-, and formate dehydrogenases immobilized on magnetic nanoparticles

Rapid immobilization with the one-pot purification of galactitol dehydrogenase (GatDH) and formate dehydrogenase (FDH) is achieved by using iminodiacetic acid (IDA) with chelated Co2+ modified magnetic nanoparticles as a carrier. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) from recombinant Escherichia coli and FDH commencing Candida methylica were used as an auxiliary enzyme for the regeneration of NADH/NAD(+) with a representative synthesis of (S)-1,2-propanediol and L-tagatose starting from hydroxyacetone and galactitol. The affinity magnetic nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), while the purity of GatDH and FDH was assayed by SDS-PAGE analysis. The immobilized two-enzyme system, reflecting the pH dependence of its constituent enzymes, showed optimal activity at pH 7 and 8 for (S)-1,2-propanediol and L-tagatose production, respectively. The immobilized enzyme system retained up to 70% of its activity after one week of repeated use. The use of affinity magnetic nanoparticles offers the advantage of a one-pot purification of His(6)-tagged GatDH and FDH followed by the production of rare sugar and chiral diol

Gold nanoparticles based sensor for in vitro analysis of drug-drug interactions using imipramine and isoniazid drugs: a proof of concept approach

Prediction of drug-drug interactions (DDIs) before their manifestation is of paramount importance in the development of drug-dosing protocols and drug-design. In this context, we proposed for the first time, gold nanopaticles (AuNPs) based sensor for in vitro assessment of DDIs. Here, we first conducted in-situ molecular docking and simulations studies to interrogate DDIs that allowed predictions of DDIs between two model drugs, such as imipramine (antidepressant) and isoniazid (anti-tuberculosis). This was followed by in vitro studies involving imipramine conjugated gold nanoparticles (Imipramine-AuNPs) as probes for screening DDIs. Association of isoniazid with imipramine molecules over the surface of AuNPs sensor occurred that was confirmed by a combination of physico-chemical methods. Electrochemical investigations revealed the quantitative association of imipramine and isoniazid molecules, where a linear relationship of peak current (Ip) was observed for increasing concentrations of isoniazid from 31 to 667 μM at Imipramine-AuNPs modified Screen Printed Electrodes (SPE), validating the predicted DDIs. The current study aims to highlight the possible interaction between the two drugs that provides valuable information useful for the prediction of similar types of DDIs with other drug pairs