Tetracera Scandens as a Medicinal Plant: Secretory Structures, Histochemistry, and Antibacterial Activity

Tetrascera scandens, a member of Dilleniaceae, is used for traditional medicine; the stem is utilized by the Anak Dalam tribe of Jambi Province, Sumatera island, Indonesia, to treat diarrhea symptoms. The aims of this study were to identify the secretory structures, histochemical aspects, and the antibacterial potency of T. scandens stem. Histological study of the secretory structures of T. scandens stem was carried out. The species has idioblast cells and trichomes as its secretory structures. Histochemical analysis indicated the substance secreted by T. scandens idioblast cells mainly contains alkaloids, terpenoids, and phenols. Trichomes of T. scandens only contain flavonoids. The antibacterial activity of methanol extracts was tested against Staphyllococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Different concentration of extracts was tested using the well diffusion method. According to the results, 100 mg/mL T. scandens extract showed the best inhibitory activity with a maximum inhibition zone of 17.7 mm against S. aureus and of 12.5 mm against E. coli. This study provides scientific evidence that the stem of T. scandens has antibacterial activity and justifies its use by the local community

Geographical Classification of Java Tea (Orthosiphon Stamineus) From Java Island by FTIR Spectroscopy Combined with Canonical Variate Analysis

FTIR spectroscopy combined with canonical variate analysis was used for differentiation of java tea (Orthosiphon stamineus) according to their geographical origin. FTIR spectra of all java tea samples were acquired in the mid infrared region (wavenumber range 4000-400 cm-1). Preprocessing signal of FTIR spectra has been carried out prior to canonical variate analysis by standard normal variate. Combination of FTIR spectra in the region 1800-900 cm-1with canonical variate analysis has the power to differentiate java tea samples in terms of geographical origin. The developed method could be used for identification of geographical origin of java tea based on the samples used in this study

FTIR-based metabolomics for characterization of antioxidant activity of different parts of Sesbania grandiflora plant

Sesbania grandiflora, one of the flowering plants with great potential as a source of natural antioxidants because it contains chemicals such as tannin, phenolics, and flavonoids. However, there has been no extensive investigation on the antioxidant activity of isolated from different parts of this plant. This study aims to investigate the correlation between antioxidant activity and secondary metabolites extracted from three different parts (leaves, stem barks, and roots) of S. grandiflora plant using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) based metabolomics approach. The FTIR is a very useful technique for identifying the functional groups present in the mixtures, while antioxidant assay provides the base to select the part of the plant as the most potential source of antioxidant. The antioxidant properties were determined using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2’-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS), and potassium ferricyanide reduction method. The multivariate data - analyses using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Partial Least Square (PLS) were conducted to compare the distribution of metabolites extracted from different parts of the S. grandiflora plant investigated. The PLS was performed to evaluate the relationship between the components of the extracts obtained from different parts of the plant and their antioxidant activities. The results exhibited that antioxidant activities of the extract of the stem barks, and roots are higher than that of the extract of the leaves. Also, the PLS model indicated that the functional group absorption data were significantly correlated with the IC50 values of antioxidant activity. Subsequently, based on the results of PLS analysis displayed that C=C, C=O, and along with C-O functional groups are proposed as the main contributors to the antioxidant activity of the extracts tested. The extracts of different parts were grouped using PCA analysis with a total of principal components (PC) of 94%

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

Aktivitas Antioksidan Dan Tabir Surya Ekstrak Daun Gyrinops Versteegii (Antioxidant Activity and Sunscreen of Gyrinops Versteegii Leaf Extract)

The aim of this study was to determine the yield and phytochemicals, antioxidant activity, and sunscreen of the Gyrinops versteegii leaf extracts. The leaf simplicia was extracted using soxhletation method with multilevel polarities of solvent (n-hexane, ethyl acetate, and metanol). The analysis of phytochemical extracts has been carried out the qualitatively and quantitatively. The antioxidant activity testing was performed in vitro through the effective concentration (EC50) extract in capturing DPPH radicals. Sunscreen activity has been done through testing sun protection factor (SPF). The result showed that the yield of n-hexane extract, ethyl acetate, and methanol extracts were 7.83, 5.46, and 6.77% respectively. The phytochemical analysis showed that the ethyl acetate and methanol extracts were strongly detected containing antioxidant compounds such as p-hydroquinone, flavonoid, and tannins with the total phenol of the ethyl acetate and methanol extracts were 3.40 and 4.27% respectively. The n-hexane extract detected contains weakly the antioxidant compounds with the total phenol was 0.45%. The methanol extract is the highest antioxidant activity (EC50 14.46 μg ml-1) and has ultra sunscreen activity (SPF>15)