EVALUATION OF ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIMICROBIAL POTENTIAL OF TWO ENDANGERED PLANT SPECIES ATROPA BELLADONNA AND MATRICARIA CHAMOMILLA

Background: Plants are the natural source of antioxidants as well as antimicrobial compounds that has great potentials in pharmaceutical industry. In the present study, two medicinal plants Atropa belladonna and Matricaria chamomilla were collected from Northern areas of Pakistan. Materials and Methods: The extracts of the collected plants were obtained by microwave assisted extraction (MAE) with changing parameters, power level and time; methanol and ethanol were solvents used during extraction. The extracts of plants were tested against different bacterial strains. Results: It was observed that ethanolic extracts of Atropa belladonna has more significant antimicrobial activity against S.aureus than E.coli. In parallel, methanolic extract of Matricaria chamomilla showed greater significant antibacterial activity against S.aureus when compared with E.coli. In comparison, ethanolic extracts of Matricaria chamomilla has shown more significant results against S. aureus than E.coli (p≤0.05). Both plants had no antibacterial activity against S.typhi. The free radical scavenging activity observed by DPPH assay, indicate that both plants have antioxidant activity at all levels of concentrations in solvent tested during the present work. However, methanolic extracts had greater antioxidant activity when compared with ethanolic extracts. Conclusion: Present study is thus helpful in highlighting present potentials for antioxidant and antimicrobial properties in the selected plants

Biomarkers of Metabolic Syndrome in Cardiomyopathy: A Leading Cause of Heart Failure

Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle, which makes the muscles harder to pump blood to the rest of the body leading to heart failure. The main types of cardiomyopathies include dilated cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, ischemic cardiomyopathy, arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, restrictive cardiomyopathy, and Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. On the other hand, Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is the clustering of different medical conditions, which requires at least three of the five following diseases. These diseases are high blood sugar, high blood pressure, high serum triglycerides, low serum high-density lipoprotein, and central obesity. The risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease associated with metabolic syndrome. In MetS, many different biomarkers are used in the early detection and risk stratification of MetS patients. It includes adiponectin, leptin, interleukin 6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, uric acid, interleukin 10, ghrelin, adiponectin, paraoxonase, oxidized low-density lipoprotein, and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1. This chapter provides an overview and focuses on the basic role of major biomarkers of metabolic syndrome in the pathogenesis of different types of cardiomyopathies, which mainly highlights recent pathophysiological aspects in the development and progress of cardiomyopathy which is the leading cause of heart failure. In conclusion, biomarkers of metabolic syndrome play a significant role in the development and progress of cardiomyopathy which is the leading cause of heart failure

Rapid RNA Extraction from Eucalyptus tree and its down processing for cloning of dehydrin genes

Background: RNA extraction from tree species like Eucalyptus is very tedious and difficult task. In this study a very short and efficient method of RNA extraction from Eucalyptus has been described.Methods: A very short and efficient protocol of two steps RNA extraction has been optimized for obtaining high quality and pure RNA from different tissue types of Eucalyptus tree. In first step whole nucleic acid was extracted from plant tissues and in second step RNA was purified from nucleic acid mixture. The newly optimized rapid CTAB RNA extraction method was compared with trizol extraction method for efficiency and quality of extracted RNA.Results: The newly optimized rapid CTAB RNA extraction method was found highly efficient and suitable over the trizol method. Three Eucalyptus dehydrin genes the dehydrin-10 (DHN-10), dehydrin-1 (DHN-1), and dehydrin-2 (DHN-2) were successfully amplified, TA cloned into pTZ57/RT vector, and transformed into Top10F’ strain of E.coli. These three Eucalyptus dehydrin genes have been reported for conferring abiotic stress tolerance to the Eucalyptus plant yet have not been reported to be cloned. These cloned genes would be further manipulated for developing abiotic stress tolerance in plants of interest.Conclusion: Rapid CTAB RNA extraction method is a brief and reproducible methodology for a hard job of RNA extraction from tree plants with high phenolic contents. Keywords: Dehydrin proteins, Eucalyptus abiotic stress tolerance proteins, cloning of dehydrin genes, DHN-1, DHN-2, DHN-1

Evaluation of Two Wheat Varieties for Phytotoxic Effect of Mercury on Seed Germination and Seedling Growth

Two varieties of wheat (Triticum aestivum var. Blue Silver and T. aestivum var. Punjab 85) were tested for the phytotoxic eff ect of mercury on seed germination and seedling growth. Seed were treated with 25, 50, 75 and 100 ppm of HgCl2 solution. Both varieties showed enhanced seed germination at all levels of mercury compared to untreated control. However, shoot, root, and seedling length was signifi cantly (P<0.05) reduced in both wheat varieties at all the levels of mercury treatments particularly at 100 ppm of mercury. Th e highest reduction was observed in root length rather than shoot and seedling length. Th e tolerance indices for both varieties showed that that var. Blue Silver was more tolerant to mercury toxicity than var. Punjab 85

Association patterns of Atrial Fibrillation with symptoms of metabolic syndrome

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the common cardiac arrhythmia in which heart beats irregularly usually greater than 100 beats per minutes. AF is well-documented public health problem causing substantial mortality and morbidity. Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a collection of metabolic risk factors like diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity and impaired glucose level that exists in one person. The aim of the present study is to find the relation between AF and MS.Methods: 100 patients of AF were sampled from Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Lahore from December, 2014 to June 2015. These patients were divided into two AF groups, 50 without MS and 50 with MS. 25 healthy subjects were also included for the comparison. Lipid profile was assessed by chemistry analyzer and serum insulin was measured by ELISA.Results: In our population, there was significantly high levels of insulin resistance (IR) and obesity in AF groups (without MS and with MS) as compared with healthy subjects (P<0.05). Highly significant differences was observed in relation with other parameters e.g. hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, HDL-C among the studied groups (P<0.05). Significant positive correlation was observed between insulin and lipid profile (TC, TG, LDL) while inverse with HDL.Conclusion: The indictors of metabolic syndrome were significantly correlated with AF in the studied subjects, while IR was found significantly higher in MS group.

Thyroid hormone dependent gene expression

The presented work is destined to review the advances that had been made to study the role of thyroid hormone and thyroid hormone nuclear receptors in regulating the gene expression. Triiodothyronine (T3) and tetraiodothyronine (thyroxine or T4) are most important thyroid hormones. The thyroid hormones bind to their specific nuclear hormone receptors, as ligand, and play important role in gene expression and transcriptional gene regulation in human and higher animals. Thyroid hormone receptors form heterodimers by making combination with retinoid X receptors. The capability of heterodimerization of thyroid hormones generates novel complexes which allow altered specificity and higher affinity for DNA-receptor binding. Thyroid hormone receptors work as ligand activated transcription factor and play with transcriptional gene expression process. The consensus structural features of thyroid hormone receptors are N-terminal regulatory domain that contains activation function, the domain for strong gene expression and the domain for binding to DNA. The structures for individual domains have been extensively and reviewed through several latest and successful techniques.

Prevalences of giardia lamblia and cryptosporidium parvum infection in adults presenting with chronic diarrhoea

iardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium parvum are both waterborne pathogens associated with diarrhoea in developing countries. In a recent study based at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, 334 adults aged 16–83 years (178 patients with chronic diarrhoea and 156 diarrhoea-free volunteers who acted as controls) were checked for infection with these parasites, using stool microscopy and/or PCR. Overall, 21 (6.3%) and 29 (8.7%) of the subjects were found positive for G. lamblia by microscopy and PCR, respectively, while the corresponding values for C. parvum were 13 (3.9%) and 14 (4.2%). Although, compared with the diarrhoea-free controls, the patients with diarrhoea were not significantly more likely to be found infected with Giardia, either by microscopy [15 (8.4%) v. six (3.8%); P=0.085] or PCR [19 (10.7%) v. 10 (6.4%); P=0.167], they were significantly more likely to be found infected with C. parvum, both by microscopy [11 (6.2%) v. two (1.3%); P=0.024] and by PCR [12 (6.7%) v. two (1.3%); P=0.014]. The 19 patients found PCR-positive for Giardia comprised 10 (67%) of the 15 found smear-positive for the same parasite but only nine (5%) of the 163 found smear-negative (k=0.545; PCryptosporidium comprised all 11 (100%) patients found smear-positive for the same parasite but only one (0.6%) of the 167 found smear-negative (k=0.954; P\u3c0.001). Although C. parvum was associated with chronic diarrhoea in the present study, the carriage of G. lamblia often appeared asymptomatic

Irritable bowel syndrome: is it associated with genotypes of Blastocystis hominis.

Blastocystis hominis is the most common intestinal parasite in humans. An extensive genetic variability has been described recently in B. hominis isolates. The aim of this study was to analyze genotypes of B. hominis isolates obtained from the healthy individuals and patients with irritable bowel syndrome-diarrhea (IBS-D). The patients with IBS-D were enrolled from gastroenterology outpatient department at the Aga Khan University Hospital. History and physical examination was done. Stool microscopy, culture, and polymerase chain reaction for B. hominis genotyping were carried out. The study included 158 patients with IBS-D, mean age 41 +/- 15, age range 16-83 years, and male/female ratio of 109:49. One hundred fifty-seven (49.8%) were taken as healthy control. The dominant B. hominis genotypes were genotype 1 in 87 (65%) and type 3 in 49 (37%). In IBS-D, genotype 1 was present in 75 (86%; P \u3c 0.001) compared to 12 (14%) in controls while type 3 was present in 23 (47%) compared to 26 (53%) in controls (P \u3c 0.001), respectively. Infection with single genotype of B. hominis was present in 70 (73%) with IBS-D and in 26 (27%) in control group while with multiple genotypes in 25 (64%) in IBS-D and 14 (36%) in control group (P = 0.30), respectively. Majority of our patients had typeable B. hominis infection. The genotype of B. hominis in IBS-D was type 1 while in control genotype 3 was predominant