Reversible myocarditis following Black widow spider (Latrodectus spp.) bite in Egypt: A case report

Black widow spiders (BWSs) are poisonous spiders of the Arthropoda phylum that live in the Mediterranean region. The effects of BWS bites ranges from local damage to systemic manifestations including paresthesia, stiffness, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, headache, anxiety, hypertension, and tachycardia. However, cardiac involvement following a BWS bite is uncommon. We report a 35-year-old man who developed acute pulmonary edema with electrocardiogram changes that showed ST elevation in leads I, aVL with reciprocal ST segment depression in infero-lateral leads with elevated cardiac biomarkers. Echocardiography showed regional wall motion abnormalities with an impaired ejection fraction of 40%. The condition was reversible after one week of supportive treatment, and the patient was discharged from the hospital with normal electrocardiogram, ejection fraction, and negative cardiac markers. A routine cardiac evaluation, serial ECG, serial cardiac markers, and echocardiography follow-up should be considered for any patient exposed to a BWS bite for detection of any potentially fatal cardiac abnormalities. Keywords: Black widow spider; Egypt; Spider bites; Myocarditis; Heart failure; Kounis syndrome; Acute coronary syndrome

Effectiveness of Aromatherapy in Early Palliative Care for Oncology Patients: Blind Controlled Study

Background: Palliative care is the active holistic treatment of people of all ages who have serious health-related suffering as a result of severe illness, and especially of those who are close to the end of life. Palliative care is provided to cancer patients who experience serious suffering that cannot be relieved without professional intervention and that compromises physical, social, spiritual, and emotional functioning. A straightforward, low-risk, and affordable palliative care approach may be provided through aromatherapy, a type of complementary and alternative medicine. The study objective is to assess the comparative effectiveness of massage, aromatherapy massage, and massage combined with aromatherapy inhalation on cancer patients receiving palliative care. Methods: A total of 100 participants who were divided into four groups at random. The first group, designated as the control group, received standard hospital nursing care, the second group received massage only (using the odorless almond carrier oil), the third group received massage with lavender oil, and the fourth group received combined (inhalation and massage) aromatherapy. The Rotterdam Symptom Checklist (RSCL), given two weeks after aromatherapy, was used to examine participants’ perspectives of care. Results: On the RSCL, combined aromatherapy performed best. In terms of reported physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, and activities, there were statistically significant differences between the scores of the control group and each of the experimental groups. Nonetheless, the total quality of life score showed no significant difference between the control group and the massage only group (t = 0.529, p = 0.60). Conclusions: When paired with aromatherapy inhalation, massage has a positive effect on physical, psychological symptoms, activities, and overall quality of life for cancer patients receiving early palliative care. Nurses and other healthcare providers are recommended to support programs that provide message therapy to reduce reported bodily symptoms, psychological problems, and limited activities among cancer patients.Funding Statement This study was supported via funding from Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University project number (PSAU/2023/R/1444)

Remediation of wastewater by biosynthesized manganese oxide nanoparticles and its effects on development of wheat seedlings

IntroductionNanoparticles play a vital role in environmental remediation on a global scale. In recent years, there has been an increasing demand to utilize nanoparticles in wastewater treatment due to their remarkable physiochemical properties.MethodsIn the current study, manganese oxide nanoparticles (MnO-NPs) were synthesized from the Bacillus flexus strain and characterized by UV/Vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.ResultsThe objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of biosynthesized MnO-NPs to treat wastewater. Results showed the photocatalytic degradation and adsorption potential of MnO-NPs for chemical oxygen demand, sulfate, and phosphate were 79%, 64%, and 64.5%, respectively, depicting the potential of MnO-NPs to effectively reduce pollutants in wastewater. The treated wastewater was further utilized for the cultivation of wheat seedlings through a pot experiment. It was observed that the application of treated wastewater showed a significant increase in growth, physiological, and antioxidant attributes. However, the application of treated wastewater led to a significant decrease in oxidative stress by 40%.DiscussionIt can be concluded that the application of MnO-NPs is a promising choice to treat wastewater as it has the potential to enhance the growth, physiological, and antioxidant activities of wheat seedlings

A source of resistance against yellow mosaic disease in soybeans correlates with a novel mutation in a resistance gene

Yellow mosaic disease (YMD) is one of the major devastating constraints to soybean production in Pakistan. In the present study, we report the identification of resistant soybean germplasm and a novel mutation linked with disease susceptibility. Diverse soybean germplasm were screened to identify YMD-resistant lines under natural field conditions during 2016-2020. The severity of YMD was recorded based on symptoms and was grouped according to the disease rating scale, which ranges from 0 to 5, and named as highly resistant (HR), moderately resistant (MR), resistant (R), susceptible (S), moderately susceptible (MS), and highly susceptible (HS), respectively. A HR plant named “NBG-SG Soybean” was identified, which showed stable resistance for 5 years (2016-2020) at the experimental field of the National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan, a location that is a hot spot area for virus infection. HS soybean germplasm were also identified as NBG-47 (PI628963), NBG-117 (PI548655), SPS-C1 (PI553045), SPS-C9 (PI639187), and cv. NARC-2021. The YMD adversely affected the yield and a significant difference was found in the potential yield of NBG-SG-soybean (3.46 ± 0.13a t/ha) with HS soybean germplasm NARC-2021 (0.44 ± 0.01c t/ha) and NBG-117 (1.12 ± 0.01d t/ha), respectively. The YMD incidence was also measured each year (2016-2020) and data showed a significant difference in the percent disease incidence in the year 2016 and 2018 and a decrease after 2019 when resistant lines were planted. The resistance in NBG-SG soybean was further confirmed by testing for an already known mutation (SNP at 149th position) for YMD in the Glyma.18G025100 gene of soybean. The susceptible soybean germplasm in the field was found positive for the said mutation. Moreover, an ortholog of the CYR-1 viral resistance gene from black gram was identified in soybean as Glyma.13G194500, which has a novel deletion (28bp/90bp) in the 5`UTR of susceptible germplasm. The characterized soybean lines from this study will assist in starting soybean breeding programs for YMD resistance. This is the first study regarding screening and molecular analysis of soybean germplasm for YMD resistance

4-Aminoantipyrine derived cationic surfactants: Synthesis, characterization, surface activity and screening for potential antimicrobial activities

A series of cationic surfactants were synthesized from chemical modification of 4-aminoantipyrine. The chemical structures were confirmed using infrared (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy. The surface activities of the surfactants in their solutions were determined by surface tension measurements. Increasing the hydrophobic chain length increased the surface activity of the surfactants in solutions. Measurements of interfacial tension between surfactants solutions and light paraffin oil showed that the interfacial tension values were decreased with increasing the alkyl chain length. The emulsion stability measurements showed the applicability of these surfactants as emulsifying agents. The foaming power measurements showed the synthesized surfactants have low ability for foam formation. Thermodynamic properties of adsorption and micellization processes showed their tendency towards adsorption at solution interface and micellization in their solutions. Results showed reasonable surface activities compared to conventional cationic surfactants. The antimicrobial activity of the synthesized surfactants against Gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis and Staphyl. aureus, Gram-negative bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa and E. coli.) and Fungi (Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger) was evaluated. The efficiency of these compounds as antimicrobial agents) was increased with the hydrophobicity and carbon chain length. Keywords: Antipyrine, Cationic surfactants, Surface, Adsorption, Antimicrobial Activity and CTAB (cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide

Antioxidant System Response and cDNA-SCoT Marker Profiling in Phoenix dactylifera L. Plant under Salinity Stress

Many Phoenix dactylifera (date palm) cultivars are grown in the arid and semiarid regions of the world, including Saudi Arabia. P. dactylifera is highly tolerant to salinity stress. To investigate the response of Khalas cultivar of P. dactylifera, two-month-old plants were treated with sodium chloride (50, 100, and 150 mM NaCl) for three months. Our result showed that proline content was higher in all treated plants compared to control plants. Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were increased at 100 and 150 mM NaCl treatments; however, the result was found nonsignificant between control and plants treated at 50 mM NaCl. Similarly, enzyme activities of catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were 0.805 and 0.722 U/mg protein/min, respectively, and were greater at 100 and 150 mM NaCl treatments compared to the control plants. Total chlorophyll content and fresh weight of shoots and roots decreased substantially with the increase of salinity. A cDNA start codon-targeted (cDNA-SCoT) marker showed a variation in different gene expressions profiling between treated and untreated plants under various NaCl concentrations

Exploitation of mangliculous marine fungi, Amarenographium solium, for the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles and their activity against multiple drug-resistant bacteria

The green synthesis pathway for silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) used in bacterial treatment is regarded as crucial because of its cost-effectiveness, nontoxicity, and eco-friendliness. During the present work, the mangliculous marine fungi Amarenographium solium isolated from the Arabian Gulf Coast of Saudi Arabia were utilized for the synthesis of AgNP, through the bio-reduction of aqueous silver nitrate (AgNO3) solution. The success in AgNP synthesis was visually identified by the development of dark brown color in the cell-free filtrate and was further confirmed by ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, which showed a peak at 425 nm. The AgNPs produced were further characterized using X-ray diffraction data analysis that proved the bioreduction of silver to 20 nm, and transmission electron microscopy revealed the formation of well-dispersed spherical nanoparticles with an average mean size of 12 nm. The optimization reaction parameters of temperature, pH, and metal salt concentration were carried out and resulted in a combination of 30°C, 7 and 1.5 mM, respectively, for rapid and maximum yield production. The antibacterial activity of the produced nanoparticles was evaluated using the two-fold microdilution method and showed a minimum inhibitory concentration of 9.375 μg/mL of AgNP against multiple drug-resistant bacterial strains