Effects of glibenclamide and troxerutin on the sperm parameters and histopathological changes of testis in streptozotocin-induced diabetic male rats: An experimental study

Background: Oxidative stress is a major contributor to diabetes mellitus (DM), which leads to testicular damage and infertility. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of glibenclamide (GL) as a chemical medicine and troxerutin (TR) as an herbal agent on sperm parameters and histopathological changes of testis in diabetic male rats. Materials and Methods: Forty male Wistar rats (230-260 gr) were randomly divided into 5 groups (n = 8/each), including control, diabetic (D), GL, TR, and GL+TR. DM was induced by the administration of 60 mg/kg streptozotocin intraperitoneally. The groups were treated with 5 mg/kg/day of GL or 150 mg/kg/day of TR via oral gavage for 4 wk. In the final stage of the treatment, blood sampling was done for biochemical analysis. The rats were then sacrificed and their left testis and epididymis were dissected for sperm analysis, histopathology, and morphometric assessment. Results: A significant decrease in the number, motility, viability, maturity, and chromatin quality of sperm was found in diabetic rats compared to control group. (p < 0.001). DM also increased the malondialdehyde level and decreased the level of the serum’s total antioxidant capacity compared to the control group (p < 0.001). Furthermore, we observed a significant difference in seminiferous tubule diameter, germinal epithelium height, and testicular histological abnormalities in diabetic rats compared to control group (p < 0.001). Administration of GL, TR, and their combination improved the abovementioned parameters, and treatment with TR provided a higher improvement (p < 0.001). Conclusion: According to these findings, it can be concluded that TR plays a more influential role than GL to treat diabetic-induced infertility. Key words: Diabetes, Glibenclamide, Sperm, Testis, Troxerutin

Protective Effect of Crocin on Ovarian Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury in Rats

Background & Aims: Ischemia-reperfusion (I-R) injury of the ovary may lead to ovarian injury. In this study, we investigated the protective effect of the crocin on ovarian I-R injury. Materials & Methods: Thirty-six male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 6 groups: sham surgery, ischemia, I-R, I-R+normal saline (NS), I-R+low dose crocin (20 mg/kg crocin), and I-R+ high dose crocin (80 mg/kg crocin). Neurological function, biochemical and histological evaluation was done 72 hours after ischemia. Results: The plasma levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and Total Antioxidative Capacity (TAC) in the ischemia, I-R, and I-R+ NS groups increased and decreased significantly compared to the crocin groups, respectively (p<0.01, p<0.05, respectively). Catalase activity in the high dose crocin group was higher than the ischemia, I-R, and I-R+ NS groups (p<0.01). The mean scores of edema, congestion, hemorrhage, and follicular degeneration were significantly lower than in the crocin groups than in the ischemia, I-R, and I-R+NS groups (p<0.05). Conclusion: Findings suggest that crocin may protect ovary from ischemia-reperfusion injury

Online Parameter Estimation for Supercapacitor State-of-Energy and State-of-Health Determination in Vehicular Applications

WOS:000536291000079Online accurate estimation of supercapacitor state-of-health (SoH) and state-of-energy (SoE) is essential to achieve efficient energy management and real-time condition monitoring in electric vehicle (EV) applications. In this article, for the first time, unscented Kalman filter (UKF) is used for online parameter and state estimation of the supercapacitor. In the proposed method, a nonlinear state-space model of the supercapacitor is developed, which takes the capacitance variation and self-discharge effects into account. The observability of the considered model is analytically confirmed using a graphical approach. The SoH and SoE are then estimated based on the supercapacitor online identified model with the designed UKF. The proposed method provides better estimation accuracy over Kalman filter (KF) and extended KF algorithms since the linearization errors during the filtering process are avoided. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through several experiments on a laboratory testbed. An overall estimation error below 0.5% is achieved with the proposed method. In addition, hardware-in-the-loop experiments are conducted and real-time feasibility of the proposed method is guaranteed

Racial disparities among patients with lung cancer who were recommended operative therapy.

HYPOTHESIS: Health care system and provider biases and differences in patient characteristics are thought to be prevailing factors underlying racial disparities. The influence of these factors on the receipt of care would likely be mitigated among patients who are recommended optimal therapy. We hypothesized that there would be no significant evidence of racial disparities among patients with early-stage lung cancer who are recommended surgical therapy. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS: Retrospective cohort study of patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare database who were diagnosed with stage I or II lung cancer between January 1, 1992, and December 31, 2002 (follow-up through December 31, 2005). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Receipt of lung resection and overall survival. RESULTS: Among 17,739 patients who were recommended surgical therapy (mean [SD] age, 75 [5] years; 89% white, 6% black), black patients less frequently underwent resection compared with white patients (69% vs 83%, respectively; P < .001). After adjustment, black race was associated with lower odds of receiving surgical therapy (odds ratio = 0.43; 99% confidence interval, 0.36-0.52). Unadjusted 5-year survival rates were lower for black patients compared with white patients (36% vs 42%, respectively; P < .001). After adjustment, there was no significant association between race and death (hazard ratio = 1.03; 99% confidence interval, 0.92-1.14) despite a 14% difference in receipt of optimal therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Even among patients who were recommended surgical therapy, black patients underwent lung resection less often than white patients. Unexpectedly, racial differences in the receipt of optimal therapy did not appear to affect outcomes. These findings suggest that distrust, beliefs and perceptions about lung cancer and its treatment, and limited access to care (despite insurance) might have a more dominant role in perpetuating racial disparities than previously recognized

RNAi-induced targeted silencing of developmental control genes during chicken embryogenesis

The RNA interference technique is a powerful tool to understand gene function. Intriguingly, RNA interference cannot only be used for cells in vitro, but also in living organisms. Here, we have adapted the method for use in the chick embryo. However, this technique is limited by the uncertainty in predicting the RNAi transfection efficiency and site in the embryo. Hence, we elaborated a modified vector system, pEGFP-shRNA, which can coexpress enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) and short hairpin RNA (shRNA) simultaneously to facilitate analysis of gene silencing in chicken embryos. We tested the silencing of two highly conserved genes (cAxin2, cParaxis), which play crucial roles in chicken embryonic developmental processes. For each target gene, four to five small DNA inserts, each of them encoding one shRNA, were selected and cloned individually to the vector downstream of the Pol III promoter (either human H1 or U6 promoter), which shared with highly conserved motifs in human and chicken. The pEGFP-shRNA constructs were electroporated into the neural tube or somites. After subsequent re-incubation of 24 h, the EGFP expression, with green fluorescent signal, indicated the transfected regions in the neural tube or somites. The EGFP expressing embryos were further submitted into the process of in situ hybridization for examination of the silencing effects. The results show that the EGFP signal in transfected areas correlated with the silencing of the target genes (cAxin2, cParaxis). The cAxin2 expression was inhibited by shRNAs of either targeting the RGS domain or the DAX domain coding region. The cParaxis mRNA level in transgenic somites and the related migratory myogenic population was also reduced. The results suggest that our novel dual expression EGFP-shRNA system opens a new possibility to study gene function in a convenient and efficient way. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved