Study of the role of IL-17F gene polymorphism in the development of immune thrombocytopenia among the Egyptian children

Background: Interleukin 17F (IL-17F) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that is recently proved to have a crucial role in the emergence of autoimmune diseases; it induces the expression of various cytokines, chemokines, and adhesion molecules. IL-17F polymorphism is subsequently related to enhanced IL-17F expression and activity; which may result in susceptibility to many autoimmune diseases including primary immune thrombocytopenia (PIT).Aim of the study: This case-control study aimed to investigate the possible association between IL and 17F gene single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) at rs 7488A/G and PIT susceptibility in Egyptian pediatric patients.Subjects and methods: A total of 50 children with PIT with a mean age of 7 years, together with 50 age and sexmatched healthy controls were enrolled in the study for evaluation. Polymerase chain reactionrestriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used for detection of IL-17F polymorphism at rs7488A/G.Results: Regarding the genotypes distribution, the frequencies of the AA, AG and GG genotypes were 96, 2, and 2% in PIT patients and 90, 10 and 0% in the control group respectively. The A and G allele frequencies were 97 and 3% in the patients’ group versus 95 and 5% in the control group. There was no significant difference in either genotypes or allelic distribution between PIT patients and the controls.Conclusion: Our study suggests that IL17F gene polymorphism at rs7488A/G may not contribute to the susceptibility in development of primary immune thrombocytopenia in the Egyptian children.Keywords: Interleukin 17F (IL-17F), Primary immune thrombocytopenia (PIT), Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), Polymerase chain reaction-restriction, fragment polymorphism (PCR-RFLP

The Potential of Raman Spectroscopy in the Diagnosis of Dysplastic and Malignant Oral Lesions

Early diagnosis, treatment and/or surveillance of oral premalignant lesions are important in preventing progression to oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The current gold standard is through histopathological diagnosis, which is limited by inter and intra observer and sampling errors. The objective of this work was to use Raman spectroscopy to discriminate between benign, mild, moderate and severe dysplasia and OSCC in formalin fixed paraffin preserved (FFPP) tissues. The study included 72 different pathologies from which 17 were benign lesions, 20 mildly dysplastic, 20 moderately dysplastic, 10 severely dysplastic and 5 invasive OSCC. The glass substrate and paraffin wax background were digitally removed and PLSDA with LOPO cross-validation was used to differentiate the pathologies. OSCC could be differentiated from the other pathologies with an accuracy of 70%, while the accuracy of the classifier for benign, moderate and severe dysplasia was ~60%. The accuracy of the classifier was lowest for mild dysplasia (~46%). The main discriminating features were increased nucleic acid contributions and decreased protein and lipid contributions in the epithelium and decreased collagen contributions in the connective tissue. Smoking and the presence of inflammation were found to significantly influence the Raman classification with respective accuracies of 76% and 94%

Biomedical Applications of Vibrational Spectroscopy: Oral Cancer Diagnostics

Vibrational spectroscopy, based on either infrared absorption or Raman scattering, has attracted increasing attention for biomedical applications. Proof of concept explorations for diagnosis of oral potentially malignant disorders and cancer are reviewed, and recent advances critically appraised. Specific examples of applications of Raman microspectroscopy for analysis of histological, cytological and saliva samples are presented for illustrative purposes, and the future prospects, ultimately for routine, chairside in vivo screening are discussed

Liver Enzymes in Children with beta-Thalassemia Major: Correlation with Iron Overload and Viral Hepatitis

BACKGROUND: Beta Thalassemia is the most common chronic hemolytic anemia in Egypt (85.1%) with an estimated carrier rate of 9-10.2%. Injury to the liver, whether acute or chronic, eventually results in an increase in serum concentrations of Alanine transaminase (ALT) and Aspartate transaminase (AST).AIM: Evaluating the potentiating effect of iron overload & viral hepatitis infection on the liver enzymes.PATIENTS AND METHODS: Eighty (80) thalassemia major patients were studied with respect to liver enzymes, ferritin, transferrin saturation, HBsAg, anti-HCV antibody and HCV-PCR for anti-HCV positive patients.RESULTS: Fifty % of the patients were anti-HCV positive and 55% of them were HCV-PCR positive. Patients with elevated ALT and AST levels had significantly higher mean serum ferritin than those with normal levels. Anti-HCV positive patients had higher mean serum ferritin, serum ALT, AST and GGT levels and higher age and duration of blood transfusion than the negative group. HCV-PCR positive patients had higher mean serum ferritin and serum ALT and also higher age and duration of blood transfusion than the negative group.CONCLUSION: Iron overload is a main leading cause of elevated liver enzymes, and presence of HCV infection is significantly related to the increased iron overload

EFFICIENCY OF CERTAIN INSECTICIDES ON WHITEFLY LEAF CURL VIRUS AND THEIR RESIDUES IN TOMATO FRUITS

The work was conducted to clarify the efficiency of certain insecticides on the population of whitefly B. tabaci and incidence of yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) in tomato field. The experiment was carried out during Nili plantation of two successive seasons at El-Fayoum governorate. The obtained data showed that the alternate use of etofenprox /thiamethoxam; imidacloprid/ thiamethoxam; acetamiprid/ etofenprox; single continuous application of etofenprox; etofenprox / imidacloprid; acetamiprid/ imidacloprid; thiamethoxam/ acetamiprid; imidacloprid; thiamethoxam and acetamiprid gave excellent initial mortality over 90% on the adult stage of B. tabaci and incidence of tomato yellow leaf curl virus without significant differences between treatments. Thimethoxam as soil drench proved to be the most effective insecticide against adult and immature stages of whitefly, while acetamiprid achieved the lowest mortality for these two stages as well as short residual mortality. On the other hand, alternation of etofenprox / imidacloprid showed the highest initial mortality on nymphs. Residue levels in tomato fruits were also investigated at 30, 45 and 60 days after application of tested insecticides. For imidacloprid residues were found in amounts nearly above maximum residue levels MRLs 30 days while degraded to amounts below MRL by the progression of time to 45 and 60 days after application. Application of imidacloprid in alternate spray program with thiamethoxam; etofenprox; acetamiprid resulted in residues below MRL at the 3 preharvest intervals. Acetamiprid when used at the recommended rate showed the residue of 0.36 mg/kg at early season and then decreased to 0.08 mg/kg at late season. Alternate use of acetamiprid with thiamethoxam; etofenprox or imidacloprid reduce MRLs in tomato fruits. The successive applications of etofenprox alone at the recommended rate resulted in residues above MRL after 30 and 45 days and approximately near MRL at 60 days. On the other hand, the half rate in alternative use with imidacloprid; acetamiprid or thiamethoxam showed residues below MRL at all sampling intervals. Thiamethoxam when used in single successive applications gave residues of 2.5, 1.9 and 1.5 mg/kg at the 3 preharvest intervals, respectivel

Influence of Interleukin-6 (174G/C) Gene Polymorphism on Obesity in Egyptian Children

BACKGROUND: Obesity is a multi-factorial chronic disorder. A considerable number of studies have been performed to figure out whether there is an association between obesity and polymorphisms of gene IL-6 (174G/C), but the results are equivocal.AIM: This study aimed to find out whether the IL-6 (174G/C) gene was associated with the risk of developing obesity in Egyptian children.SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The study included 149 children and adolescents with age ranged between 9.5 – 18 years. Eighty-five of them were obese which BMIZ-score is > 2, and sixty-four children with BMIZ-score ≤ 2 served as control group. Serum level of IL-6 and genetic analysis for IL-6 (174G/C) gene polymorphism were done.RESULTS: Obese children had significantly higher serum levels of IL-6 as compared to those of control children (P = 0.003). A high percentage of IL-6 polymorphism GC was found in obese subjects (93.7%), while the control group had a higher percentage of IL-6 polymorphism GG (70.6 %).CONCLUSION: Our study showed that carriers of the C allele for the IL-6 (174G/C) polymorphism have higher BMI. As the G174C polymorphism is likely to affect IL-6 expression and its physiological regulation; consequently this polymorphism may affect adiposity

Structure-activity relationships, biological evaluation and structural studies of novel pyrrolonaphthoxazepines as antitumor agents

Microtubule-targeting agents (MTAs) are a class of clinically successful anti-cancer drugs. The emergence of multidrug resistance to MTAs imposes the need for developing new MTAs endowed with diverse mechanistic properties. Benzoxazepines were recently identified as a novel class of MTAs. These anticancer agents were thoroughly characterized for their antitumor activity, although, their exact mechanism of action remained elusive. Combining chemical, biochemical, cellular, bioinformatics and structural efforts we developed improved pyrrolonaphthoxazepines antitumor agents and their mode of action at the molecular level was elucidated. Compound 6j, one of the most potent analogues, was confirmed by X-ray as a colchicine-site MTA. A comprehensive structural investigation was performed for a complete elucidation of the structure-activity relationships. Selected pyrrolonaphthoxazepines were evaluated for their effects on cell cycle, apoptosis and differentiation in a variety of cancer cells, including multidrug resistant cell lines. Our results define compound 6j as a potentially useful optimized hit for the development of effective compounds for treating drug-resistant tumors.This work was supported in part by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (31003A_166608; to M.O.S), grant BFU2016-75319-R (AEI/FEDER, EU) from Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Blueprint 282510, AIRC-17217. The authors acknowledge networking contribution by the COST Action CM1407 “Challenging organic syntheses inspired by nature - from natural products chemistry to drug discovery” (to M.O.S. and J.F.D.) and the COST Action EPICHEMBIO CM-1406 (to L.A. and G.C.). This work has also received partial funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 (EU) research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 721906. Finally, this work was partially funded by MIUR-PRIN project n. 2015Y3C5KP (to L.M.)

Children’s and adolescents’ rising animal-source food intakes in 1990–2018 were impacted by age, region, parental education and urbanicity

Animal-source foods (ASF) provide nutrition for children and adolescents’ physical and cognitive development. Here, we use data from the Global Dietary Database and Bayesian hierarchical models to quantify global, regional and national ASF intakes between 1990 and 2018 by age group across 185 countries, representing 93% of the world’s child population. Mean ASF intake was 1.9 servings per day, representing 16% of children consuming at least three daily servings. Intake was similar between boys and girls, but higher among urban children with educated parents. Consumption varied by age from 0.6 at <1 year to 2.5 servings per day at 15–19 years. Between 1990 and 2018, mean ASF intake increased by 0.5 servings per week, with increases in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa. In 2018, total ASF consumption was highest in Russia, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey, and lowest in Uganda, India, Kenya and Bangladesh. These findings can inform policy to address malnutrition through targeted ASF consumption programmes.publishedVersio