Herbal Remedies Used in the Treatment of Scorpion Sting and Snake Bite from the Malwa Region of Madhya Pradesh, India

Traditional medicine has a long history of serving people all over the world. Medicinal plants are an important element of indigenous medical systems in India as well as elsewhere. The enthnobotany and ubiquitous plants provide a rich resource for natural drug research and development. In recent years, the use of traditional medicine information on plant research has again received considerable interest. The circumstances under which the people lived- object poverty, disease and hunger combined with their curiosity towards their closed neighbour, the forest in which they lived and sought help in mitigating their woves and sorrows, must have been the essential factor in preserving their knowledge of herbs and usefulness to mankind. The present paper deals with the survey of 8 medicinal plant used in scorpion sting and snake bite by the aboriginal, tribal and non-tribal people of the Malwa region of India

Drug utilization study in diabetic patients seeking medical treatment in a north Indian rural medical college hospital

Background: Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic disease and its life-long management causes burden on lifestyle and financial condition of the patients. Drug utilization studies provide useful insights into the current prescribing practices.Methods: To evaluate the drug utilization pattern of anti-diabetic drugs in diabetic patients. A prospective observational study was carried out in adult diabetic patients visiting the Wards and Outpatient Department of General Medicine of a tertiary care hospital. The demographic data and utilization of different classes of anti-diabetic agents as well as individual drugs were analyzed.Results: In 125 patients (Male-65, Female-60), a total of 379 drugs (average 3.032±2.05) were used per day, out of which 76 (20.05%) were rational fixed dose combinations (FDCs) and 261 (68.86%) were prescribed from National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2015. The number of drugs prescribed to be ingested was 326 (86.01%) and 63 (16.62%) were injectables.Conclusions: It was found that the prescription tendencies of the doctors were quite rational. More improvement can be done by sensitizing them to prescribe more drugs from NLEM. The limitations in the affordability of rural population should be taken care of while prescribing drugs for this chronic disease

Development of Micro-Emulsion Gel Based Topical Delivery of Salicylic Acid and Neem Oil for the Management of Psoriasis

Microemulsions (MEs) are clear, thermodynamically stable systems. They were used to solubilise drugs and to improve topical drug availability. Salicylic acid (SA) is a keratolytic agent used in topical products with antimicrobial actions. This study aimed to formulate an optimized SA micro emulsion gel for the slow, variable and incomplete oral drug absorption in patient suffering from psoriasis infection. The dispersion solubility of SA was studied in various oils, surfactants and co-surfactants and by constructing pseudo phase ternary diagram, micro emulsion area was identified. The optimized formulations of micro emulsion were subjected to thermodynamic stability tests. After stability study, stable formulation was characterized for droplet size, pH determination, centrifugation, % drug content in micro emulsion, zeta Potential and vesicle size measurement and then micro emulsion gel were prepared and characterized for spreadability, measurement of viscosity, drug content, In-vitro diffusion, in-vitro release data. Labrasol was selected as surfactant, plurol oleique as co surfactant and neem oil as oil component based on solubility study. The optimized formulation contained SA 0.05 (%w/w), labrasol (24%), plurol oleique (8 %) and neem oil (8%). The in vitro drug release from SA micro emulsion gel was found to be considerably higher in comparison to that of the pure drug. The in-vitro diffusion of micro emulsion gel was significantly good. Based on this study, it can be concluded the solubility and permeability of SA can be increased by formulating into micro emulsion gel. Keywords: Salicylic Acid, Neem Oil, Micro-emulsion, In-vitro diffusion, Zeta potential, Stability, Labraso

Cross genera amplification of ginger EST-SSRs in large cardamom using genomic DNA isolated from standardized simplified protocol

323-330Large cardamom (Amomum subulatum Roxb.) is one of the most important cash crops of Sikkim. The issues crippling its production have been largely addressed through improved agronomic practices but efforts for genetic improvement have not been made. Being an orphan crop with regard to its genomic resources, the present study was carried out to standardize DNA isolation protocol for large cardamom using minimal resources and cross amplification of ginger expressed sequence tag (EST) based simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in large cardamom. The DNA isolation protocol was standardized through various modifications in the general cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) procedure. The DNA isolated through standardized protocol was of high quality confirmed through both electrophoretic (clear and intact bands) and spectrophotometric studies (A260/A280 ratio 1.68 to 1.97). The isolated DNA of all the six large cardamom samples was employed for PCR studies with 73 EST-SSR primers of ginger, out of which 18 showed cross amplification. Out of 18 primers, only 5 exhibited polymorphism showing maximum of 2 alleles per locus. In total, the PIC ranged from 0 to 0.63. A total of  23 alleles were amplified with average of 1.3 alleles per marker. A null allele marker was also observed. The results indicated low cross amplification rate (24.6%).  DNA isolation protocol standardized in the study can be used across labs for extraction of quality DNA with minimal resources and primers showed cross-amplification may be further used for various molecular studies in large cardamoms

Characterization of the GBoV1 Capsid and Its Antibody Interactions

Human bocavirus 1 (HBoV1) has gained attention as a gene delivery vector with its ability to infect polarized human airway epithelia and 5.5 kb genome packaging capacity. Gorilla bocavirus 1 (GBoV1) VP3 shares 86% amino acid sequence identity with HBoV1 but has better transduction efficiency in several human cell types. Here, we report the capsid structure of GBoV1 determined to 2.76 Å resolution using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and its interaction with mouse monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and human sera. GBoV1 shares capsid surface morphologies with other parvoviruses, with a channel at the 5-fold symmetry axis, protrusions surrounding the 3-fold axis and a depression at the 2-fold axis. A 2/5-fold wall separates the 2-fold and 5-fold axes. Compared to HBoV1, differences are localized to the 3-fold protrusions. Consistently, native dot immunoblots and cryo-EM showed cross-reactivity and binding, respectively, by a 5-fold targeted HBoV1 mAb, 15C6. Surprisingly, recognition was observed for one out of three 3-fold targeted mAbs, 12C1, indicating some structural similarity at this region. In addition, GBoV1, tested against 40 human sera, showed the similar rates of seropositivity as HBoV1. Immunogenic reactivity against parvoviral vectors is a significant barrier to efficient gene delivery. This study is a step towards optimizing bocaparvovirus vectors with antibody escape properties

How is India doing on malnutrition and non-communicable diseases? Insights from the National Family Health Surveys (2005-06 to 2019-21)

A set of global nutrition targets for maternal and child nutrition together with diet related non communicable diseases ( to be achieved by 2025 was endorsed by the World Health Assembly in 2013 These targets provide goals against which progress towards ending malnutrition in all its forms can be measured and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals This data note describes trends in multiple forms of malnutrition and NCD outcomes at the national, state, and district levels for India using survey data from NFHS 3 2005 06 NFHS 4 2015 2016 and NFHS 5 2019 2021 Insights on other malnutrition targets such as anemia and breastfeeding will be forthcomin

Plumbagin inhibits invasion and migration of breast and gastric cancer cells by downregulating the expression of chemokine receptor CXCR4

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Increasing evidence indicates that the interaction between the CXC chemokine receptor-4 (CXCR4) and its ligand CXCL12 is critical in the process of metastasis that accounts for more than 90% of cancer-related deaths. Thus, novel agents that can downregulate the CXCR4/CXCL12 axis have therapeutic potential in inhibiting cancer metastasis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this report, we investigated the potential of an agent, plumbagin (5-hydroxy-2-methyl-1, 4-naphthoquinone), for its ability to modulate CXCR4 expression and function in various tumor cells using Western blot analysis, DNA binding assay, transient transfection, real time PCR analysis, chromatin immunoprecipitation, and cellular migration and invasion assays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that plumbagin downregulated the expression of CXCR4 in breast cancer cells irrespective of their HER2 status. The decrease in CXCR4 expression induced by plumbagin was not cell type-specific as the inhibition also occurred in gastric, lung, renal, oral, and hepatocellular tumor cell lines. Neither proteasome inhibition nor lysosomal stabilization had any effect on plumbagin-induced decrease in CXCR4 expression. Detailed study of the underlying molecular mechanism(s) revealed that the regulation of the downregulation of CXCR4 was at the transcriptional level, as indicated by downregulation of mRNA expression, inhibition of NF-κB activation, and suppression of chromatin immunoprecipitation activity. In addition, using a virtual, predictive, functional proteomics-based tumor pathway platform, we tested the hypothesis that NF-κB inhibition by plumbagin causes the decrease in CXCR4 and other metastatic genes. Suppression of CXCR4 expression by plumbagin was found to correlate with the inhibition of CXCL12-induced migration and invasion of both breast and gastric cancer cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Overall, our results indicate, for the first time, that plumbagin is a novel blocker of CXCR4 expression and thus has the potential to suppress metastasis of cancer.</p