Gene Expression Patterns of Dengue Virus-Infected Children from Nicaragua Reveal a Distinct Signature of Increased Metabolism

Dengue is a widespread viral disease for which over 3 billion people are at risk. There are no drug treatments or vaccines available for this disease. It is also difficult for physicians to predict which patients are at highest risk for the severe manifestations known as dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS). We used genome-wide transcriptional profiling analysis to study peripheral blood responses to dengue among patients from Nicaragua. We found that patients with severe manifestations involving shock had very different transcriptional profiles from dengue patients with mild and moderate illness. We then compared our results with other microarray experiments on dengue patients available from public databases and confirmed that dengue is often associated with large changes to the metabolic processes within cells. This approach could identify prognostic markers for severe dengue as well as provide a better understanding of the pathophysiology associated with different grades of disease severity

Gelatinisation characteristics of cassava starch settled in the presence of different chemicals

Addition of chemicals during the extraction of cassava starch for enhancing the settling rate, whiteness and compactness of the settled starch is an accepted commercial practice. The effect of addition of selected chemicals such as acids (sulphuric and hydrochloric acids), bleaching and oxidising agents (sodium metabisulphite and sodium hypochlorite) and alum during settling on the thermal and pasting properties of the cassava starch was examined. Treatment with sulphuric acid produced a noticeable increase in all DSC gelatinisation parameters, viz. onset gelatinisation temperature (T-o), temperature at peak minimum (T-p) and end temperature (T-e), with increasing concentration of acid, while only a marginal shift could be obtained even at higher concentration of hydrochloric acid. However, no major effect resulted from treatment with sodium metabisulphite, sodium hypochlorite and alum. The gelatinisation enthalpy was hardly affected by the treatments. An exception was hydrochloric acid, which brought about a perceptible decrease in enthalpy at higher concentrations indicating that starch crystallinity is influenced to a small extent by hydrochloric acid. Pasting characteristics studied using a Rapid Visco Analyser showed that sulphuric acid, even at the lowest concentration (5 mM), considerably affected the structural characteristics of cassava starch, while hydrochloric acid induced similar effect only at higher concentrations. Alum reduced the paste viscosity while the bleaching agents (sodium metabisulphite and sodium hypochlorite) were not so effective in modifying the starch viscosity characteristics

Colon Specific Delivery of Indomethacin: Effect of Incorporating pH Sensitive Polymers in Xanthan Gum Matrix Bases

In the present study, an attempt has been made to design controlled release colon-specific formulations of indomethacin by employing pH responsive polymers Eudragit (L100 or S100) in matrix bases comprised of xanthan gum. The prepared tablets were found to be of acceptable quality with low-weight variation and uniform drug content. In vitro release studies indicated rapid swelling and release of significant percentage of drug in the initial period from matrix tablets composed of xanthan gum alone. Addition of pH responsive polymers Eudragit (L100 or S100) to xanthan gum matrix resulted in negligible to very low drug release in the initial period in acidic to weakly acidic medium. Furthermore, with increase in pH of the dissolution medium due to dissolution of Eudragit L100/Eudragit S100 that resulted in the formation of a porous matrix, faster but controlled drug release pattern was observed. Thus, a sigmoidal release pattern was observed from the designed formulations suitable for colonic delivery. Drug release mechanism in all cases was found to be of super case II type, indicating erosion to be the primary cause of drug release. Since the drug release from almost all the matrix bases in the initial phase was negligibly low and followed with controlled release for about 14–16 h, it was concluded that a matrix design of this composition could have potential applications as a colon-specific drug delivery device with additional advantage of easy scale-up and avoidance of all-or-none phenomenon associated with coated colon-specific systems