The Antimicrobial Potential and Phytochemical Composition of Aristolochia Ringens VAHL

Aristolochia ringens, a plant called Ako-igun in Yoruba, is widely distributed in southwestern Nigeria. Traditionally, it is used for the treatment of cancerous sore, lung inflammation, dysentery and dermatitis. The antimicrobial activity of A. ringens was tested on six pathogenic bacteria viz., Shigella sonnei, Salmonella typhii, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Proteus mirabilis and five fungi viz., Fusarium sp, Sporotrichum sp, Pichia sp, Penicillium camemberti and Aspergillus niger.Extracts from powdered stem and root barks of A. ringens were prepared using sterile water, ethanol, petroleum ether and acetone. The extracts were tested on each of the pathogens for their antimicrobial properties. The stem and the root barks were also screened for presence of secondary metabolites following standard procedures.The aqueous extracts of the stem and the root barks were not effective against all the bacteria and fungi tested except Shigella sonnei with Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of 40mg/ml. Petroleum ether extracts of the stem and root barks were equally not active against all the bacteria isolates used but the root bark extracts reacted effectively against the fungal isolates, showing good potency at 40mg/ml. Ethanol extract of the stem bark was very potent against all the bacteria isolates at MIC of 33.3mg/ml except Shigella sonnei while the root bark ethanol extract only showed little effectiveness against the fungi. A similar result was obtained when acetone was used as solvent of extraction. Comparatively, ethanol and acetone stem and root bark extracts were less potent on the fungi isolates than the petroleum ether extract. The plant parts studied showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, terpenoids and cardiac glycosides.Thus, the root and stem bark extracts from Aristolochia ringens may be broad based in their antimicrobial activities. The extracts, if purified and crystallized, may serve as alternatives to antimicrobial drugs. Keywords: Aristolochia ringens, Microorganisms, Ethnomedicine, Phytochemicals, Plant extract

Chemical composition, toxicity and antioxidant activities of essential oils of stem bark of Nigerian species of guava (Psidium guajava Linn.)

Essential oil from the stem bark of Nigerian species of Psidium guajava of the family Myrtaceae was obtained by hydro-distillation using an all-glass Clavenger apparatus. GC and GC/MS analysis were carried out on the essential oil and was found to contain 62 compounds constituting 99.98 % of the total oil composition. The principal constituents are hydrocarbons, amines, amides and esters with 3,6-dioxa-2,4,5,7- etraoctane,2,2,4,4,5,5,7,7-octamethyl (11.67 %) and cyclononane (10.66 %) dominating the total essential oil. Brine shrimp lethality test was carried out to determine the toxicity of the oils to living organisms (shrimps). LC50 value (μg/ml) of 1.0009 obtained showed that the essential oil of P. guajava stem bark was toxic. The antioxidant property of essential oil was investigated by measuring the decrease in absorption at 517 nm of 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH) in a UV/visible spectrophotometer. The oil showed better activity as a radical scavenger than α-tocopherol. The oil activity was 71.83 % at 0.2 mg/ml and the absorption is stoichiometric with respect to the number of electron taken up. Thus, the results of this study showed that the essential oil from P. guajava was not only toxic; it possessed antioxidant activity, which could exert beneficial actions against pathological alterations caused by the presence of highly reactive free radicals. The toxicity of the oil can be taken advantage of in the therapy of diseases involving cell or tumor growth

A Methodological Framework to Discover Pharmacogenomic Interactions Based on Random Forests

The identification of genomic alterations in tumor tissues, including somatic mutations, deletions, and gene amplifications, produces large amounts of data, which can be correlated with a diversity of therapeutic responses. We aimed to provide a methodological framework to discover pharmacogenomic interactions based on Random Forests. We matched two databases from the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopaedia (CCLE) project, and the Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) project. For a total of 648 shared cell lines, we considered 48,270 gene alterations from CCLE as input features and the area under the dose-response curve (AUC) for 265 drugs from GDSC as the outcomes. A three-step reduction to 501 alterations was performed, selecting known driver genes and excluding very frequent/infrequent alterations and redundant ones. For each model, we used the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) for assessing the predictive performance, and permutation importance for assessing the contribution of each alteration. In a reasonable computational time (56 min), we identified 12 compounds whose response was at least fairly sensitive (CCC > 20) to the alteration profiles. Some diversities were found in the sets of influential alterations, providing clues to discover significant drug-gene interactions. The proposed methodological framework can be helpful for mining pharmacogenomic interactions

Pharmacogenomics: A Step forward Precision Medicine in Childhood Asthma

Personalized medicine, an approach to care in which individual characteristics are used for targeting interventions and maximizing health outcomes, is rapidly becoming a reality for many diseases. Childhood asthma is a heterogeneous disease and many children have uncontrolled symptoms. Therefore, an individualized approach is needed for improving asthma outcomes in children. The rapidly evolving fields of genomics and pharmacogenomics may provide a way to achieve asthma control and reduce future risks in children with asthma. In particular, pharmacogenomics can provide tools for identifying novel molecular mechanisms and biomarkers to guide treatment. Emergent high-throughput technologies, along with patient pheno-endotypization, will increase our knowledge of several molecular mechanisms involved in asthma pathophysiology and contribute to selecting and stratifying appropriate treatment for each patient

Radiation Recall Pneumonitis Anticipates Bilateral Immune-Induced Pneumonitis in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Radiation recall pneumonitis (RRP) is a rare inflammatory reaction that occurs in previously irradiated fields, and it may be caused by various triggering agents. Immunotherapy has been reported to potentially be one of these triggers. However, precise mechanisms and specific treatments have not been explored yet due to a lack of data in this setting. Here, we report a case of a patient who received radiation therapy and immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for non-small cell lung cancer. He developed first radiation recall pneumonitis and subsequently immune-checkpoint inhibitor-induced pneumonitis (IIP). After presenting the case, we discuss the currently available literature on RRP and the challenges of differential diagnosis between RRP, IIP, and other forms of pneumonitis. We believe that this case is of particular clinical value since it highlights the importance of including RRP in a differential diagnosis of lung consolidation during immunotherapy. Furthermore, it suggests that RRP might anticipate more extensive ICI-induced pneumonitis

ETHNOBOTANICAL SURVEY AND PHYTOCHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF MEDICINAL PLANTS USED IN SOUTHWESTERN PART OF NIGERIA AS ANALGESICS

The gradual threat to plants and the inevitable disappearance of the aged Traditional Medical Practitioner are posing an impending time limit for people to learn, acquire, and document the rich medical cultural endowment.  This cultural endowment is essential for the benefit of all Africans and indeed the entire mankind. Hence, the urgent need for continual ethno-botanical survey of medicinal plants in Nigeria. Ethnobotanical survey was carried out using structured questionnaire to obtain information from trado-medical practitioners from Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and Lagos States.  Samples of eleven commonly used plants were collected and authenticated at the Forest Herbarium Ibadan, where voucher specimens were deposited. Extracts of each plant (leaf, root or seeds) were obtained by soxhlet extraction using methanol, diethyl ether and water, concentrated and screened for phytochemical constituents using standard procedures. Thirty-one plant species belonging to 24 families are being used as analgesics, of which Macrosphyra longistyla, Strophanthus hispidus, Buchholzia coriacea, Calliandra portoricensis, Secamone afzeli, Chasmanthera dependens, Spilanthes filicaulis, Moringa oleifera, Clerodendrum volubile, Petiveria alliacea, Carpolobia lutea were prevalent. Methanol and diethyl ether extracts of the plants contained alkaloids, saponins, tannins, phenols, anthraquinones and glycosides while, aqueous extracts contained alkaloids, saponins and glycosides. &nbsp

Association between Asthma Control and Exposure to Greenness and Other Outdoor and Indoor Environmental Factors: A Longitudinal Study on a Cohort of Asthmatic Children

Achieving and maintaining asthma control (AC) is the main goal of asthma management. Indoor and outdoor environmental factors may play an important role on AC. The aim of this longitudinal study was to evaluate the association between AC and exposure to greenness and other outdoor or indoor environmental factors in a cohort of asthmatic children. This study involved 179 asthmatic children (5–16 years). Parents were interviewed through a modified version of the SIDRIA questionnaire. AC was assessed at each visit. Exposure to greenness was measured using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). A logistic regression model was applied for assessing risk factors for uncontrolled asthma (UA). Low NDVI exposure was a risk factor for UA (OR: 2.662, 95% CI (1.043–6.799)); children exposed to passive smoke during pregnancy had a higher risk of UA than those non-exposed to passive smoke during pregnancy (OR: 3.816, 95% CI (1.114–13.064)); and a unit increase in the crowding index was associated with an increased risk of UA (OR: 3.376, 95% CI (1.294–8.808)). In conclusion, the current study provided a comprehensive assessment of urban-related environmental exposures on asthma control in children, using multiple indicators of greenness and other outdoor or indoor environmental factors

What to do in an oncology department to face the new COVID-19 era challenges?

9noItaly was the first European country to be hit by COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence, Italian oncologists had to guarantee essential treatments although minimizing exposure to the virus, and accidental infection, of patients and healthcare professionals. As Department of Medical Oncology of the University Hospital of Udine, in this short report, we describe the measures that we have taken, and gradually updated, since February 26, 2020. All accesses to our Oncology facilities are currently regulated by entrance check-points where patients are screened for infections following dedicated algorithms. Up to date, after 6 weeks of systematic execution of swabs no physician, nurse or other individual of the staff has been found positive to COVID-19. Only one patient admitted for therapy has been identified as COVID-19 positive. The aim of our work is to propose a model, made up of a set of operative procedures, that may be adopted by all the oncologists that daily struggle to guarantee safety and care in Oncology during this COVID-19 emergency.openopenGarattini S.K.; Bin A.; Donato R.; Mansutti M.; Rizzato S.; Troiero G.; Candoni A.; Fanin R.; Fasola G.Garattini, S. K.; Bin, A.; Donato, R.; Mansutti, M.; Rizzato, S.; Troiero, G.; Candoni, A.; Fanin, R.; Fasola, G

Short-term effects of air pollution on cardiovascular hospitalizations in the pisan longitudinal study

Air pollution effects on cardiovascular hospitalizations in small urban/suburban areas have been scantly investigated. Such effects were assessed among the participants in the analytical epidemiological survey carried out in Pisa and Cascina, Tuscany, Italy (2009-2011). Cardiovascular hospitalizations from 1585 subjects were followed up (2011-2015). Daily mean pollutant concentrations were estimated through random forests at 1 km (particulate matter: PM10, 2011-2015; PM2.5, 2013-2015) and 200 m (PM10, PM2.5, NO2, O3, 2013-2015) resolutions. Exposure effects were estimated using the case-crossover design and conditional logistic regression (odds ratio-OR-and 95% confidence interval-CI-for 10 μg/m3 increase; lag 0-6). During the period 2011-2015 (137 hospitalizations), a significant effect at lag 0 was observed for PM10 (OR = 1.137, CI: 1.023-1.264) at 1 km resolution. During the period 2013-2015 (69 hospitalizations), significant effects at lag 0 were observed for PM10 (OR = 1.268, CI: 1.085-1.483) and PM2.5 (OR = 1.273, CI: 1.053-1.540) at 1 km resolution, as well as for PM10 (OR = 1.365, CI: 1.103-1.690), PM2.5 (OR = 1.264, CI: 1.006-1.589) and NO2 (OR = 1.477, CI: 1.058-2.061) at 200 m resolution; significant effects were observed up to lag 2. Larger ORs were observed in males and in subjects reporting pre-existent cardiovascular/respiratory diseases. Combining analytical and routine epidemiological data with high-resolution pollutant estimates provides new insights on acute cardiovascular effects in the general population and in potentially susceptible subgroups living in small urban/suburban areas