The effects of Malaysian herb, Labisia pumila var. alata on oestrous cyclicity and reproductive parameters of nulliparous rats

Numerous nutraceutical products containing the powdered or extracted parts of Labisia pumila (Myrsinaceae) have been widely available for years in Malaysia, aimed at women of reproductive age. However, there is scarce of information concerning the effects of this plant on the reproductive function of nulliparous females prior to the present study. The toxicity potential of Labisia pumila var. alata (LPA) on oestrous cycle and reproductive parameters was evaluated in groups of 40 virgin rats. They were administered with LPA at the doses of 0 (control), 20, 200 or 1000 mg/kg/day for duration of three weeks. The results obtained indicated that the administration of LPA at all dose levels did not cause mortality nor show noticeably any treatment-related signs of toxicity on the physical appearance, behaviour and body weight of all the rats studied. The pattern and length of oestrous cyclicity as well as the changes in reproductive hormones were statistically comparable among groups. No indications of abnormalities in the histology of uterus and vagina were observed. However, the presence of ovarian follicular cysts has raised apprehension that requires further investigation. The current findings suggested that oral treatment of LPA were associated with toxicity concerns

Breast Tumor Angiogenesis and Tumor-Associated Macrophages: Histopathologist's Perspective

Much progress has been made since the conceptualization of tumor angiogenesis—the induction of growth of new blood vessels by tumor—as a salient feature of clinically significant primary or metastatic cancers. From a practicing histopathologist's point of view, we appraise the application of this concept in breast cancer with particular reference to the evaluation of proangiogenic factors and the assessment of new microvessels in histopathological examination. Recently, much focus has also been centered on the active roles played by tumor-associated macrophages in relation to tumor angiogenesis. We review the literature; many data supporting this facet of tumor angiogenesis were derived from the breast cancer models. We scrutinize the large body of clinical evidence exploring the link between the tumor-associated macrophages and breast tumor angiogenesis and discuss particularly the methodology and limitations of incorporating such an assessment in histopathological examination

(Analysis of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen(PCNA) and Ki-67 as proliferating cell markers) Expressions in colorectal carcinoma at HUSM and its relationship with the duke staging system

Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and Ki-67 are the two important molecules expressed by the proliferating cells. They are important during the DNA synthesis. We applied the antibodies (using DAKO EPOS system) against these two proteins to a series of 54 cases of colorectal adenocarcinoma of various Dukes' stages in order to observe the degree of expressions and their relationship with Dukes' stage. Our study showed, regardless of the Dukes' stage almost all cases are strongly expressed PCNA. However we failed to demonstrate the expression of Ki-67. We conclude that expression of PCNA is strong in colorectal carcinoma but the degree of expression has no relationship with the Dukes' stage. Expression of Ki-67 is probably best seen if we use fresh tissue rather than formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue

Antioxidant Protective Effect of Honey in Cigarette Smoke-Induced Testicular Damage in Rats

Cigarette smoke (CS) can cause testicular damage and we investigated the possible protective effect of honey against CS-induced testicular damage and oxidative stress in rats. CS exposure (8 min, 3 times daily) and honey supplementation (1.2 g/kg daily) were given for 13 weeks. Rats exposed to CS significantly had smaller seminiferous tubules diameter and epithelial height, lower Leydig cell count and increased percentage of tubules with germ cell loss. CS also produced increased lipid peroxidation (TBARS) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity, as well as reduced total antioxidant status (TAS) and activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT). However, supplementation of honey significantly reduced histological changes and TBARS level, increased TAS level, as well as significantly restored activities of GPx, SOD and CAT in rat testis. These findings may suggest that honey has a protective effect against damage and oxidative stress induced by CS in rat testis

HISTOLOGICAL CHANGES IN MALE ACCESSORY REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS IN RATS EXPOSED TO CIGARETTE SMOKE AND THE PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF HONEY SUPPLEMENTATION

The effect of cigarette smoke (CS) on histology of male accessory reproductive organs and the possible protective effect of honey supplementation in rats were investigated in this study. Rats received distilled water, honey, CS exposure or honey plus CS exposure. Honey (1.2 g/kg body weight/day) was administered by gavage and CS exposure (3 times per day) was done in a chamber for 13 weeks. CS exposure significantly increased relative weight of epididymis and ventral prostate. There were also significantly increased number of clear cells and epithelial height of cauda epididymis as well as severe interstitial oedema and decreased epithelial height of prostate gland. However, with the supplementation of honey, these histological changes were significantly reversed suggesting the protective effect of honey against the toxic effect of CS on male accessory reproductive organs in rats

IGF-1 enhances cell proliferation and survival during early differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells to neural progenitor-like cells

BACKGROUND: There has been increasing interest recently in the plasticity of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and their potential to differentiate into neural lineages. To unravel the roles and effects of different growth factors in the differentiation of MSCs into neural lineages, we have differentiated MSCs into neural lineages using different combinations of growth factors. Based on previous studies of the roles of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in neural stem cell isolation in the laboratory, we hypothesized that IGF-1 can enhance proliferation and reduce apoptosis in neural progenitor-like cells (NPCs) during differentiation of MSCs into NCPs. We induced MSCs differentiation under four different combinations of growth factors: (A) EGF + bFGF, (B) EGF + bFGF + IGF-1, (C) EGF + bFGF + LIF, (D) EGF + bFGF + BDNF, and (E) without growth factors, as a negative control. The neurospheres formed were characterized by immunofluorescence staining against nestin, and the expression was measured by flow cytometry. Cell proliferation and apoptosis were also studied by MTS and Annexin V assay, respectively, at three different time intervals (24 hr, 3 days, and 5 days). The neurospheres formed in the four groups were then terminally differentiated into neuron and glial cells. RESULTS: The four derived NPCs showed a significantly higher expression of nestin than was shown by the negative control. Among the groups treated with growth factors, NPCs treated with IGF-1 showed the highest expression of nestin. Furthermore, NPCs derived using IGF-1 exhibited the highest cell proliferation and cell survival among the treated groups. The NPCs derived from IGF-1 treatment also resulted in a better yield after the terminal differentiation into neurons and glial cells than that of the other treated groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggested that IGF-1 has a crucial role in the differentiation of MSCs into neuronal lineage by enhancing the proliferation and reducing the apoptosis in the NPCs. This information will be beneficial in the long run for improving both cell-based and cell-free therapy for neurodegenerative diseases

An introduction to double stain normalization technique for brain tumour histopathological images

Stain normalization is an image pre-processing method extensively used to standardize multiple variances of staining intensity in histopathology image analysis. Staining variations may occur for several reasons, such as unstandardized protocols while preparing the specimens, using dyes from different manufacturers, and varying parameters set while capturing the digital images. In this study, a double stain normalization technique based on immunohistochemical staining is developed to improve the performance of the conventional Reinhard’s algorithm. The proposed approach began with preparing a target image by applying the contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) technique to the targeted cells. Later, the colour distribution of the input image will be matched to the colour distribution of the target image through the linear transformation process. In this study, the power-law transformation was applied to address the over-enhancement and contrast degradation issues in the conventional method. Five quality metrics comprised of entropy, tenengrad criterion (TEN), mean square error (MSE), structural similarity index (SSIM) and correlation coefficient were used to measure the performance of the proposed system. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperformed all conventional techniques. The proposed method achieved the highest average values of 5.59, 3854.11 and 94.65 for entropy, TEN, and MSE analyses

Comparison of conjunctival impression cytology between glaucoma patients treated with topical timolol maleate 0.5% and topicallatanoprost 0.005%.

Introduction: All topical medications are known to cause conjunctival reactions, and topical antiglaucoma drugs are also no exception. Long term drug induced toxicity to the conjunctiva is postulated to cause filtering bleb scarring and filtration surgery failure. Chronic application of topical timolol maleate 0.5% and topical latanoprost 0.005% had been shown to alter the morphology of the conjunctival ocular surface. Objective: To compare conjunctival surface morphological changes with the use of the topical timolol maleate 0.5% and topicallatanoprost 0.005%. Methodology: Newly diagnosed glaucoma patients who met the selection criteria were randomly divided into two groups. One group treated with topical timolol maleate 0.5%, another group treated with topical latanoprost 0. 005%. Before the treatment was started, the first conjunctival impression cytology was taken. After three months of treatment, the second conjunctival impression cytology was obtained. The changes that occurred between thefrrst and second conjunctival impression cytology in the individual group were analyzed. Conjunctival surface changes that occurred with the use of topical timolol maleate 0.5% were also compared with the conjunctiva surface changes that occurred with the use of topicallatanoprost 0. 005%. Results: There were thirty-nine newly diagnosed glaucoma patients included in this study. Twenty patients were in the Timolol group and nineteen patients in the Latanoprost group. In both groups of patients, there was no change of the conjunctival epithelial cell morphology after three months of anti-glaucoma therapy. However, there was statistically significant reduction of the goblet cell and mucous granule density in both groups of patients after three months of the topical anti-glaucoma therapy (P- value <0.001). By using the independent T -test, there was no significant difference of the goblet cell and mucous granule density between the Timolol group and the Latanoprost group after three months of treatment. Conclusion: This concludes that both timolol maeate 0.5% and topicallatanoprost 0.005% cause great reduction of conjunctival goblet cells and mucous granules within three months of treatment. However, the conjunctival epithelial cell morphology remained normal after three month of treatment in both groups of patients. This study gives evidence that topical timolol maleate 0.5% and topicallatanoprost 0.005% cause morphological changes ofthe conjunctival surface after short term (three months) therapy. However, there was nodifference in the conjunctival morphological changes between the Timolol group and Latanoprost group