Inhibitory Effects of Vaccinium arctostaphylos Extract on Prostate Cancer Cells

Background & objectives: Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, and its prevention is expected to increase in the future appreciably. Following the emergence of the new field of nutritional genetics and investigations about the effect of natural antioxidants on the hypermethylation of genes, this study was performed to measure the effect of  Vaccinium arctostaphylos poly phenols and anthocyanins on PC-3 cell line as well as methylation and expression changes of GSTP1 gene. Methods:  In order to evaluate the survival potency of PC-3 cell line in a completely randomized design, MTT test was used and these cells were treated with different concentrations of Vaccinium arctostaphylos extract (4500, 2250, 1125, 562.5, 140.62, 70.31, 35.15, 17.57, 8.78, 4.39 µg/ml) for 24, 48 and 72 hours. Expression level of GSTP1 gene was analyzed by Q-RT-PCR method in 2500, 1250, 625, 312 and 156 µg/ml concentrations of Vaccinium. Results: Statistical results showed that Vaccinium arctostaphylos poly phenolic extract at 35-70 ppm concentration  significantly reduced the survival rate of  PC-3 cells. Moreover, compared to control cells, the expression level of GST gene significantly increased in PC-3 cells treated with 1250ppm extract. Conclusion: Anthocyanin- polyphenolic extract from Vaccinium arctostaphylos can decrease the survival rate of cancerous cells and GST gene expression in human prostate cancer PC-3 cells. This may be explained by changes in cell carcinogenesis pathway or CpG demethylation process. Keywords: Vaccinium arctostaphylos; Antioxidant; Cancerous Cells; Prostate.   Background & objectives: Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, and its prevention is expected to increase in the future appreciably. Following the emergence of the new field of nutritional genetics and investigations about the effect of natural antioxidants on the hypermethylation of genes, this study was performed to measure the effect of  Vaccinium arctostaphylos poly phenols and anthocyanins on PC-3 cell line as well as methylation and expression changes of GSTP1 gene. Methods:  In order to evaluate the survival potency of PC-3 cell line in a completely randomized design, MTT test was used and these cells were treated with different concentrations of Vaccinium arctostaphylos extract (4500, 2250, 1125, 562.5, 140.62, 70.31, 35.15, 17.57, 8.78, 4.39 µg/ml) for 24, 48 and 72 hours. Expression level of GSTP1 gene was analyzed by Q-RT-PCR method in 2500, 1250, 625, 312 and 156 µg/ml concentrations of Vaccinium. Results: Statistical results showed that Vaccinium arctostaphylos poly phenolic extract at 35-70 ppm concentration  significantly reduced the survival rate of  PC-3 cells. Moreover, compared to control cells, the expression level of GST gene significantly increased in PC-3 cells treated with 1250ppm extract. Conclusion: Anthocyanin- polyphenolic extract from Vaccinium arctostaphylos can decrease the survival rate of cancerous cells and GST gene expression in human prostate cancer PC-3 cells. This may be explained by changes in cell carcinogenesis pathway or CpG demethylation process.          &nbsp

Levels of conscience and related factors among Iranian oncology nurses

Background: Having a conscience is one of the main pre-requisite of providing nursing care. The knowledge regarding levels of conscience among nurses in eastern countries is limited. So, the purpose of this study was to examine the level of conscience and its related factors among Iranian oncology nurses. Materials and Methods: This descriptive-correlational study was conducted in 3 hospitals in Tabriz, Iran. Overall, 68 nurses were selected using a non-probability sampling method. The perceptions of conscience questionnaire was used to identify the levels of conscience among nurses. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 13.0. Results: The mean nurses' level of conscience scores was 72.7. In the authority and asset sub-scales nurses acquired higher scores. The mean of nurses' scores in burden and depending on culture sub-scales were the least. Also, there were no statistical relationship between some demographic characteristics of participants and their total score on the perceptions of conscience questionnaire. Conclusions: According to study findings Iranian nurses had high levels of conscience. However, understanding all the factors that affect nurses' perception of conscience requires further studies

Comparison of Pattern Recognition, Artificial Neural Network and Pedotransfer Functions for Estimation of Soil Water Parameters

This paper presents the comparison of three different approaches to estimate soil water content at defined values of soil water potential based on selected parameters of soil solid phase. Forty different sampling locations in northeast of Iran were selected and undisturbed samples were taken to measure the water content at field capacity (FC), -33 kPa, and permanent wilting point (PWP), -1500 kPa. At each location solid particle of each sample including the percentage of sand, silt and clay were measured. Organic carbon percentage and soil texture were also determined for each soil sample at each location. Three different techniques including pattern recognition approach (k nearest neighbour, k-NN), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and pedotransfer functions (PTF) were used to predict the soil water at each sampling location. Mean square deviation (MSD) and its components, index of agreement (d), root mean square difference (RMSD) and normalized RMSD (RMSDr) were used to evaluate the performance of all the three approaches. Our results showed that k-NN and PTF performed better than ANN in prediction of water content at both FC and PWP matric potential. Various statistics criteria for simulation performance also indicated that between kNN and PTF, the former, predicted water content at PWP more accurate than PTF, however both approach showed a similar accuracy to predict water content at FC

Investigation on plasma-driven methane dry reforming in a self-triggered spark reactor

The performance of methane dry reforming in a self-triggered spark discharge reactor is evaluated in terms of conversion of reagents, yield and selectivity of desired products (syngas), and energy efficiency. The effects of feed gas composition (CO2:CH4 ratio), flow rate and input electrical power were investigated. The process performance is very good: under the best experimental conditions (CO2: CH4 of 1: 1 at 100 mL . min(-1), input power of 20 W) conversion (71% for CH4 and 65% for CO2), selectivity (78% for H-2 and 86% for CO), and energy efficiency (2.3-2.4 mmol . kJ(-1)) are all quite high. The formation of ethane, ethylene, and acetylene was also detected and analyzed as a function of the CO2: CH4 ratio. As the CO2: CH4 ratio is decreased below 1, the conversion of both CH4 and CO2 slightly increases, but the yield in syngas decreases favoring the formation of C-2 hydrocarbons and the appearance of carbon deposits. Increasing the CO2: CH4 ratio from 0.5 to 1.5 has virtually no effect on the reagents conversion and on H-2 production but promotes the formation of CO and reduces that of C-2 hydrocarbons. The best CO2: CH4 was determined to be 1.0 considering also the lowest formation of water as byproduct and the optimal discharge stability