Formononetin Treatment in Type 2 Diabetic Rats Reduces Insulin Resistance and Hyperglycemia

Type 2 diabetic mellitus is a multifactorial metabolic disorder affecting huge population around the world. This indicates that there is an urgent unmet need of cost effective, new treatment strategies for type 2 diabetes mellitus with no or less side effects. Phenolic compounds including isoflavones are known for their beneficial effect in metabolic disorders. The present work was intended to find out efficacy of formononetin, an isoflavone treatment in experimental model of type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes mellitus was induced by feeding high fat diet for 2 weeks prior to streptozotocin administration in Sprague Dawley rats. Diabetic animals were treated with formononetin for 28 days at three dose level, i.e., 10, 20, and 40 mg/kg body weight orally. The effect of formononetin treatment on various parameters such as plasma glucose, glucose tolerance, insulin, HOMA-IR, lipid profile, hepatic glycogen content, glycohaemoglobin and SIRT1 expression in pancreatic tissue was measured. Histopathological changes in pancreatic tissue were also studied. Results of the study demonstrate that formononetin treatment reduces blood glucose level significantly (p < 0.001) at all the three dose level. It also improved glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity and lipid profile along with reduction in glycohaemoglobin content in blood. Formononetin treatment also improved hepatic glycogen level profoundly in diabetic rats. Determination of SIRT1 expression in pancreatic tissue by immunohistochemical analysis showed that formononetin treatment increases the expression of SIRT1 in pancreatic tissue. Histopathological study showed that treatment with formononetin protects pancreatic beta cells from necro-degeneration and atrophic effect. It can be concluded that formononetin treatment reduces insulin resistance and attenuate hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes which may be due to increasing expression of SIRT1 in pancreatic tissues

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

A novel contribution to quality standards of Trifolium pretense L., A dietary supplement

Trifolium pratense L. is an important medicinal plant distributed in Europe, United States, India and Australia. Flowering tops are used as dietary supplement for the relief of postmenopausal symptoms because of its isoflavone content. The present work was designed to study quality control parameters such as morphological, microscopical parameters, physicochemical along with fluorescence analysis, preliminary phytochemical analysis and HPTLC analysis of root, stem, leaf and flower of T. pratense. Morphological and microscopical evaluation of leaves, stem and flowers indicated the presence of long tricellular trichomes and prisms of calcium oxalate. Microscopy of root showed the presence of starch grains and abundant thin straight walled fibres. Preliminary phytochemical analysis showed the presence of alkaloid, flavonoids, tannins, phenolics and steroids as major phytochemicals of the plant while saponins were found to be present in flower. HPTLC fingerprinting was carried out using formononetin and biochanin A as a marker compound for an extract of root, stem, leaf and flower. All the extracts were found to contain both the isoflavone in different concentration. The results of the present study would serve as a source of valuable information for standardization and quality control of root, stem, leaf and flower of T. pratense

A novel contribution to quality standards of Trifolium pretense L., A dietary supplement

311-330Trifolium pratense L. is an important medicinal plant distributed in Europe, United States, India and Australia. Flowering tops are used as dietary supplement for the relief of postmenopausal symptoms because of its isoflavone content. The present work was designed to study quality control parameters such as morphological, microscopical parameters, physicochemical along with fluorescence analysis, preliminary phytochemical analysis and HPTLC analysis of root, stem, leaf and flower of T. pratense. Morphological and microscopical evaluation of leaves, stem and flowers indicated the presence of long tricellular trichomes and prisms of calcium oxalate. Microscopy of root showed the presence of starch grains and abundant thin straight walled fibres. Preliminary phytochemical analysis showed the presence of alkaloid, flavonoids, tannins, phenolics and steroids as major phytochemicals of the plant while saponins were found to be present in flower. HPTLC fingerprinting was carried out using formononetin and biochanin A as a marker compound for an extract of root, stem, leaf and flower. All the extracts were found to contain both the isoflavone in different concentration. The results of the present study would serve as a source of valuable information for standardization and quality control of root, stem, leaf and flower of T. pratense

Metagenomic data of DNA viruses of poultry affected with respiratory tract infection

The incidence and severity of respiratory diseases in commercial broiler chicken flocks have increased recently in India because of intensification of the broiler industry. Viral population are predominant in respiratory tract infections and they pose continuous economic burden to poultry industry by causing severe economic losses through decreased productivity [1, 2]. To understand viral metagenome of poultry associated with respiratory infections, we performed DNA virome sequencing and data analysis of broilers from 8 districts of Gujarat State in India. We report high quality sequencing reads and highly abundant DNA viral population present in the infected broiler birds. The raw sequencing data used to perform metagenomic analysis is available in the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) under the BioProject No. PRJNA322592 and Accession No. MAUZ00000000, MAVA00000000, MAVB00000000, MAVC00000000, MAVD00000000, MAVE00000000, MAVF00000000, MAVG00000000 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/?term=PRJNA322592). Keywords: DNA Virome, Metagenomics, Next generation sequencin