Formulation And Characterization of Carageenan Gels Encapsulating Amphotericin B And Lactobacillus acidophilus Against Candidal Vaginitis

The present study is concerned with the development and characterization of bioadhesive carageenan gel encapsulating Amphotericin B and Lactobacillus acidophillus, prepared by graft co-polymeriztion against Candidal vaginitis. Intravaginal gel systems based on bioadhesive polymer (carrageenan) were characterized with respect to swelling index, bioadhesive strength, percent encapsulation and in vitro drug release antimicrobial studies. A marked increase in swelling index of gel encapsulating Lactobacillus was found to be 1.9±0.35. The percent encapsulation of drug was found to be 98.63%±.0.2% and that of Lactobacillus was 91.81 ±0.01. The viability was observed for interval of 6 hrs on trypton soya agar and showed that viability was highly conserved till 4 hrs. The antimicrobial study of gels encapsulating Amphotericin B and Lactobacillus showed that carageenan gel can inhibit Candida albicans upto a maximum extent. Bioadhesivity study also conducted for gels that showed a bioadhesivity of 84.66% ±.0.5% with drug, 88.66% ±.02% with Lactobacillus. In-vitro drug release showed a sustained type release of drug from the polymer i.e. there was initial burst of Amphotericin B up to 5 hours, after which there was a sustained release upto 10 days. Thus it has been concluded from the present study that bioadhesive gels encapsulating Amphotericin B can act as promising drug carriers along with Lactobacillus against candidal vaginitis

Influence of carbohydrate to nitrogen ratio on the formation of diastase by Aspergillus oryzae

This article does not have an abstract

High pressure-temperature studies on an olivine tholeiite and a tholeiitic picrite from the pavagarh region, Gujarat, India

Experimental studies have been performed on an olivine tholeiite and tholeiitic picrite at pressure and temperature ranges of 20-40 kb and 1200-1300°C. The lower and upper limits of basalt-eclogite transition zone for tholeiitic picrite are 23 kb and 31.67 kb at 1200°C, and 24.67 kb and 33.67 kb at 1300°C, whereas for olivine tholeiite, these are 27 kb and 32.33 kb at 1200°C, and 28.70 kb and 33.70 kb at 1300°C. While the assemblages for both samples below the transition region are Pl+Px+Mt, they are Pl+Gt+Px+Mt within it. The eclogite field has Gt+Px+Mt. The ratio of garnet to plagioclase increases from the transition zone to the eclogite field and with the disappearance of plagioclase, the percentage of garnet increases to 30 in the eclogite field. Comparison of our results with previous studies on basalt-eclogite transition shows that the transition zone found by us occurs at higher pressure-temperature conditions. Seismic studies of the region below the Deccan Traps show an increase in velocity (1-4%) at depth. It is suggested that after partial melting, during ascent of the basaltic liquid, a significant portion of it crystallizes within the upper mantle as pockets of eclogite. As eclogite is more dense than peridotite, their presence should cause a similar increase in the seismic velocity below the Deccan area

Brain Metastases in Soft Tissue Sarcomas: Case Report and Literature Review

Background and purpose: Brain metastasis is a relatively uncommon event in the natural history of soft tissue sarcomas. The increasing use of chemotherapy may have caused a reduction in local relapses as well as distant failures leading to an improvement in survival, thereby allowing metachronous seeding of the brain, a sanctuary site. The purpose of this report is to increase awareness amongst clinicians regarding such a possibility

Annotating Whole Genome Sequencing in COSMIC (The Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer)

"COSMIC, the Catalogue Of Somatic Mutations In Cancer":http://www.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic is designed to store and display somatic mutation information relating to human cancers, combining detailed information on publications, samples and mutation types. The information is curated both from the primary literature and the laboratories at the Cancer Genome Project, Sanger Institute, UK, and then semi-automatically entered into the COSMIC database. The v47 release (May 2010) contained the curation of 9202 papers describing 116,977 mutations across 466,851 samples. In order to provide consistent annotation of the data, COSMIC has developed a classification system for cancer histology and tissue ontology, and adapted HGVS mutation nomenclature recommendations to describe the multiple mutation types involved in cancer. 

Cancer genetics is moving from systematic screens of candidate gene sets to whole genome sequencing analyses, and COSMIC displays and navigates this new data; we have recently included systematic gene screens and whole genome sequencing studies. COSMIC will annotate and display somatic mutation data that will be emerging from the "International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC)":http://www.icgc.org/ and "The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)":http://cancergenome.nih.gov/ projects. New tools are being developed to interpret this genomic data with coding mutation annotations. In addition COSMIC will be expanded to curate and display data from mouse insertional mutagenesis screening and mouse cancer model exome/genome sequencing in the future. The data within COSMIC is freely available without restriction via a website, in datasheets on the "FTP site":ftp://ftp.sanger.ac.uk/pub/CGP/cosmic and through the "COSMIC Biomart":http://www.sanger.ac.uk/genetics/CGP/cosmic/biomart/martview/, available from the "COSMIC homepage":http://www.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic 
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TOpic: rare and special cases, the real "Strange cases"

Introduction: The bladder hernia represents approximately 1-3% of all inguinal hernias, where patients aged more than 50 years have a higher incidence (10%). Many factors contribute to the development of a bladder hernia, including the presence of a urinary outlet obstruction causing chronic bladder distention, the loss of bladder tone, pericystitis, the perivesical bladder fat protrusion and the obesity

Friction and wear properties of smooth diamond films grown in fullerene-argon plasmas

In this study, we describe the growth mechanism and the ultralow friction and wear properties of smooth (20-50 nm rms) diamond films grown in a microwave plasma consisting of Ar and fullerene (the carbon source). The sliding friction coefficients of these films against Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} balls are 0.04 and 0.1 in dry N{sub 2} and air, which are comparable to that of natural diamond sliding against the same pin material, but is lower by factors of 5 to 10 than that afforded by rough diamond films grown in conventional H{sub 2}-CH{sub 4} plasmas. Furthermore, the smooth diamond films produced in this work afforded wear rates to Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} balls that were two to three orders of magnitude lower than those of H{sub 2}-CH{sub 4} grown films. Mechanistically, the ultralow friction and wear properties of the fullerene-derived diamond films correlate well with their initially smooth surface finish and their ability to polish even further during sliding. The wear tracks reach an ultrasmooth (3-6 nm rms) surface finish that results in very little abrasion and ploughing. The nanocrystalline microstructure and exceptionally pure sp{sup 3} bonding in these smooth diamond films were verified by numerous surface and structure analytical methods, including x-ray diffraction, high-resolution AF-S, EELS, NEXAFS, SEM, and TEM. An AFM instrument was used to characterize the topography of the films and rubbing surfaces

COSMIC: mining complete cancer genomes in the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer

COSMIC (http://www.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic) curates comprehensive information on somatic mutations in human cancer. Release v48 (July 2010) describes over 136 000 coding mutations in almost 542 000 tumour samples; of the 18 490 genes documented, 4803 (26%) have one or more mutations. Full scientific literature curations are available on 83 major cancer genes and 49 fusion gene pairs (19 new cancer genes and 30 new fusion pairs this year) and this number is continually increasing. Key amongst these is TP53, now available through a collaboration with the IARC p53 database. In addition to data from the Cancer Genome Project (CGP) at the Sanger Institute, UK, and The Cancer Genome Atlas project (TCGA), large systematic screens are also now curated. Major website upgrades now make these data much more mineable, with many new selection filters and graphics. A Biomart is now available allowing more automated data mining and integration with other biological databases. Annotation of genomic features has become a significant focus; COSMIC has begun curating full-genome resequencing experiments, developing new web pages, export formats and graphics styles. With all genomic information recently updated to GRCh37, COSMIC integrates many diverse types of mutation information and is making much closer links with Ensembl and other data resources

Alveolar soft part sarcoma: clinicopathological findings in a series of 11 cases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alveolar sarcoma of the soft parts (ASPS) represents a very rare entity of soft tissue sarcoma with special features such as young peak age incidence and frequent metastasis to the brain. The aim of this study was a clinicopathological analysis with special reference to treatment and outcome.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>From the database of the BG-University Hospital Bergmannsheil, 1597 soft tissue sarcoma (STS) cases were reviewed and 11 consecutive patients with ASPS were isolated. Data was acquired from patients' charts and contact to patients, their relatives or general practitioners, with special reference to treatment and clinical course. The average follow up time from the time of the definite operation for the primary tumor was 6.5 years. Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate survival.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Patients with localized disease who received complete resection and adjuvant radiation and who did not develop recurrence or metastatic disease within 2 years after surgery had a positive outcome. The size of the tumor, its localization, and the time of untreated growth before treatment did not influence the long-term results. All patients who developed recurrent disease also suffered from distant metastasis, reflecting the aggressive biology of the tumor. All patients with distant metastasis had the lungs and the brain affected.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Due to the limited number of patients with ASPS, prospective studies would have to span decades to gather a significant collective of patients; therefore, it is not possible to comment meaningfully on a possible benefit of neoadjuvant or adjuvant therapy.</p> <p>We recommend wide surgical excision and, in the absence of data telling otherwise, adjuvant radiation. In cases with recurrent disease or metastasis, the prognosis is bad and further treatment will be restricted to palliation in most cases.</p