Risk Perception for Developing Erectile Dysfunction among Malaysian Men with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Risk perception for developing erectile dysfunction (ED) is an appreciation of the susceptibility to having ED and its severity. This study examined this risk perception and its associated factors among 180 men with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), who claimed not to have ED. This cross sectional study was conducted at a public health clinic using a validated self-administered questionnaire, which assessed participant characteristics, perceived susceptibility to developing ED, perceived severity of ED, and knowledge on risk factors for ED. About 71.1% had an inaccurate perception of susceptibility to developing ED and their perception on its severity was moderate (median (IQR) score: 10.0 (6.0); range score: 3–15; midpoint: 9). In multiple linear regression, having ED symptoms (p-value < 0.001) and secondary (p-value = 0.045) or tertiary education (p-value: 0.022) significantly contributed to a higher perception of susceptibility. A higher perception of severity was significantly found in Malays (p-value < 0.001), the employed (p-value = 0.026), and those with better knowledge on risk factors for ED (p-value < 0.001). Risk perception for developing ED among men with T2DM appears poor and it was significantly influenced by sociocultural factors, educational attainment, ED symptoms, and knowledge on risk factors for ED. Thus, to improve their risk perception, they should be provided appropriate counseling and education

CUBE Enterprise / Nurul Afiqah Ismail... [et. al].

This business is based on partnership where it consists of four (4) members. The members consist of the General Manager cum Administration Manager, Marketing Manager, Operational Manager and Financial Manager. The business capital is amounted to RM 50, 602. We also take loan from bank amounted to RM 75,000. CUBE Enterprise is a company related to the sweet corn based product. Our market focus is to introduce a new style of healthy fast-food to the public. The uniqueness of our product is it has variety of flavor, friendly-use container, and been accompanied with several types of toppings. Our business will be expected to commence on January 2013 and our vision is to make our company a well-known producers of healthy fast-food that satisfied our worldwide customer. This will be realized by the full cooperation and efforts among the partners to promote this company. Based on the objectives above, we are venturing into the fast-food industry. Healthy fast-food has the potential of being a profitable business if it's done in modern and unique way that may attract customer at different age or gender. We will expect that our business will become more developed in the near future because the demand for the healthy fast-food is high and yet now this kind of business is started to grow. This will give more advantages for us to make our product more profitable and stabile in the long run

Clinical features and mutational analysis of X-linked agammaglobulinemia patients in Malaysia

BackgroundBruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) is a cytoplasmic protein involved in the B cell development. X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) is caused by mutation in the BTK gene, which results in very low or absent B cells. Affected males have markedly reduced immunoglobulin levels, which render them susceptible to recurrent and severe bacterial infections. Methods: Patients suspected with X-linked agammaglobulinemia were enrolled during the period of 2010-2018. Clinical summary, and immunological profiles of these patients were recorded. Peripheral blood samples were collected for monocyte BTK protein expression detection and BTK genetic analysis. The medical records between January 2020 and June 2023 were reviewed to investigate COVID-19 in XLA.ResultsTwenty-two patients (from 16 unrelated families) were molecularly diagnosed as XLA. Genetic testing revealed fifteen distinct mutations, including four splicing mutations, four missense mutations, three nonsense mutations, three short deletions, and one large indel mutation. These mutations scattered throughout the BTK gene and mostly affected the kinase domain. All mutations including five novel mutations were predicted to be pathogenic or deleterious by in silico prediction tools. Genetic testing confirmed that eleven mothers and seven sisters were carriers for the disease, while three mutations were de novo. Flow cytometric analysis showed that thirteen patients had minimal BTK expression (0-15%) while eight patients had reduced BTK expression (16-64%). One patient was not tested for monocyte BTK expression due to insufficient sample. Pneumonia (n=13) was the most common manifestation, while Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the most frequently isolated pathogen from the patients (n=4). Mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 was reported in four patients.ConclusionThis report provides the first overview of demographic, clinical, immunological and genetic data of XLA in Malaysia. The combination of flow cytometric assessment and BTK genetic analysis provides a definitive diagnosis for XLA patients, especially with atypical clinical presentation. In addition, it may also allow carrier detection and assist in genetic counselling and prenatal diagnosis

Clinical features and mutational analysis of X-linked agammaglobulinemia patients in Malaysia

Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) is a cytoplasmic protein involved in the B cell development. X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) is caused by mutation in the BTK gene, which results in very low or absent B cells. Affected males have markedly reduced immunoglobulin levels, which render them susceptible to recurrent and severe bacterial infections. Methods: Patients suspected with X-linked agammaglobulinemia were enrolled during the period of 2010-2018. Clinical summary, and immunological profiles of these patients were recorded. Peripheral blood samples were collected for monocyte BTK protein expression detection and BTK genetic analysis. The medical records between January 2020 and June 2023 were reviewed to investigate COVID-19 in XLA.Twenty-two patients (from 16 unrelated families) were molecularly diagnosed as XLA. Genetic testing revealed fifteen distinct mutations, including four splicing mutations, four missense mutations, three nonsense mutations, three short deletions, and one large indel mutation. These mutations scattered throughout the BTK gene and mostly affected the kinase domain. All mutations including five novel mutations were predicted to be pathogenic or deleterious by in silico prediction tools. Genetic testing confirmed that eleven mothers and seven sisters were carriers for the disease, while three mutations were de novo. Flow cytometric analysis showed that thirteen patients had minimal BTK expression (0-15%) while eight patients had reduced BTK expression (16-64%). One patient was not tested for monocyte BTK expression due to insufficient sample. Pneumonia (n=13) was the most common manifestation, while Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the most frequently isolated pathogen from the patients (n=4). Mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 was reported in four patients.This report provides the first overview of demographic, clinical, immunological and genetic data of XLA in Malaysia. The combination of flow cytometric assessment and BTK genetic analysis provides a definitive diagnosis for XLA patients, especially with atypical clinical presentation. In addition, it may also allow carrier detection and assist in genetic counselling and prenatal diagnosis

Ensemble-based molecular docking and spectrofluorometric analysis of interaction between cytotoxin and tumor necrosis factor receptor 1

Cytotoxin (CTX) is a three-finger toxin presents predominantly in cobra venom. The functional site of the toxin is located at its three hydrophobic loop tips. Its actual mechanism of cytotoxicity remains inconclusive as few conflicting hypotheses have been proposed in addition to direct cytolytic effects. The present work investigated the interaction between CTX and death receptor families via ensemble-based molecular docking and fluorescence titration analysis. Multiple sequence alignments of different CTX isoforms obtained a conserved CTX sequence. The three-dimensional structure of the conserved CTX was later determined using homology modelling, and its quality was validated. Ensemble-based molecular docking of CTX was performed with different death receptors, such as Fas-ligand and tumor necrosis factor receptor families. Our results showed that tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) was the best receptor interacting with CTX attributed to the interaction of all three functional loops and evinced with low HADDOCK, Z-score and RMSD value. The interaction between CTX and TNFR1 was also supported by a concentration-dependent reduction of fluorescence intensity with increasing binding affinity. The possible intermolecular interactions between CTX and TNFR1 were Van der Waals forces and hydrogen bonding. Our findings suggest a possibility that CTX triggers apoptosis cell death through non-covalent interactions with TNFR1. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.</p

Experimental and computational approaches to reveal the potential of Ficus deltoidea leaves extract as α-amylase inhibitor

Ficus deltoidea leaves extract are known to have good therapeutic properties such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic. We showed that 50% ethanol-water extract of F. deltoidea leaves and its pungent compounds vitexin and isovitexin exhibited significant (p < 0.05) α-amylase inhibition with IC50 (vitexin: 4.6 μM [0.02 μg/mL]; isovitexin: 0.06 μg/mL [13.8 μM] and DPPH scavenging with IC50 (vitexin: 92.5 μM [0.4 μg/mL]; isovitexin: 0.5 μg/mL [115.4 μM]). Additionally, molecular docking analysis confirmed that vitexin has a higher binding affinity (-7.54 kcal/mol) towards α-amylase compared to isovitexin (−5.61 kcal/mol). On the other hand, the molecular dynamics findings showed that vitexin-α-amylase complex is more stable during the simulation of 20 ns when compared to the isovitexin-α-amylase complex. Our results suggest that vitexin is more potent and stable against α-amylase enzyme, thus it could develop as a therapeutic drug for the treatment of diabetes

Study on histological properties of recellularized bioscaffolds from decellularized tissues for vessel regenerative application

The increasing number of arteries and organs needed for cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients with end-stage organ failure and bypass surgery has urge the need for future medical substituents. Transplantation provides an immediate treatment for the patients with end stage of organ failure by replacing tissues or organs with the normally function substitute. However, the need of immunosuppression and shortage of donors limit the impact of transplantation which then propel the evolution of tissue engineering. Recently, sonication decellularization technique is able to to prepare biological decellularized tissue efficiently. It has been established and proven by Azhim et al. and has successfully characterized some properties of the decellularized tissue scaffolds in the previous project (FRGS/1/2015/SG05/UIAM/02/6). However, its remaining research includes recellularized bioscaffolds properties evaluation and in-vitro cell infiltration and proliferation evaluations. It is hypothesized that recellularized bioscaffolds have fully seeded and infiltrated by autologous cells while producing new extracellular matrix (ECM) composition and providing sufficient biomechanical integrity of the ECM before implantation. In previous study, it has demonstrated that the decellularized tissues are able to prepare with lower toxicity level and significantly unchanged biomechanical strength. Henceforth, the objectives of this research are to investigate recellularization rate of the seeded cells onto/ into decellularized bioscaffolds which engineered by sonication decellularization system. The ECM integrity and cell removal of decellularized artery are confirmed by evaluation of histological HE staining, scanning electron microscopy and DNA quantitation. The recellularization of decellularized matrices are evaluated by measuring the coverage of the seeded endothelial cells on the matrices and their capability to infiltrate into the matrices using similar methods as described above. The outcome of this research could give an insight on the potential use of recellularized bioscaffolds in regenerative tissues/organs in future medicine

Interactive association between RhoA transcriptional signaling inhibitor, CCG1423 and human serum albumin: Biophysical and in silico studies

Multiple spectroscopic techniques, such as fluorescence, absorption, and circular dichroism along with in silico studies were used to characterize the binding of a potent inhibitor molecule, CCG1423 to the major transport protein, human serum albumin (HSA). Fluorescence and absorption spectroscopic results confirmed CCG1423–HSA complex formation. A strong binding affinity stabilized the CCG1423–HSA complex, as evident from the values of the binding constant (Ka = 1.35 × 106–5.43 × 105 M−1). The KSV values for CCG1423–HSA system were inversely correlated with temperature, suggesting the involvement of static quenching mechanism. Thermodynamic data anticipated that CCG1423–HSA complexation was mainly driven by hydrophobic and van der Waals forces as well as hydrogen bonds. In silico analysis also supported these results. Three-dimensional fluorescence and circular dichroism spectral analysis suggested microenvironmental perturbations around protein fluorophores and structural (secondary and tertiary) changes in the protein upon CCG1423 binding. CCG1423 binding to HSA also showed some protection against thermal denaturation. Site-specific marker-induced displacement results revealed CCG1423 binding to Sudlow’s site I of HSA, which was also confirmed by the computational results. A few common ions were also found to interfere with the CCG1423–HSA interaction