DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF CONTROLLED-RELEASE OCULAR INSERTS OF BRIMONIDINE-TARTRATE AND TIMOLOL MALEATE

Objective: The current work was attempted to formulate and evaluate a controlled-release matrix-type ocular inserts containing a combination of brimonidine tartrate and timolol maleate, with a view to sustain the drug release in the cul-de-sac of the eye.Methods: Initially, the infrared studies were done to determine the drug–polymer interactions. Sodium alginate-loaded ocuserts were prepared by solvent casting technique. Varying the concentrations of polymer—sodium alginate, plasticizer—glycerine, and cross-linking agent—calcium chloride by keeping the drug concentration constant, made a total of nine formulations. These formulations were evaluated for its appearance, drug content, weight uniformity, thickness uniformity, percentage moisture loss, percentage moisture absorption, and in vitro release profile of the ocuserts. Finally, accelerated stability studies and the release kinetics were performed on the optimised formulation.Results: It was perceived that polymer, plasticizer, and calcium chloride had a significant influence on the drug release. The data obtained from the formulations showed that formulation—F9 was the optimised formulation, which exhibited better drug release. The release data of the optimised formulation tested on the kinetic models revealed that it exhibited first-order release kinetics. Conclusion: It can be concluded that a natural bioadhesive hydrophilic polymer such as sodium alginate can be used as a film former to load water soluble and hydrophilic drugs like brimonidine tartrate and timolol maleate. Among all formulations, F9 with 400 mg sodium alginate, 2% calcium chloride and 60 mg glycerin were found to be the most suitable insert in terms of appearance, ease of handling, thickness, in vitro drug release and stability

FORMULATION OF FAST-DISSOLVING TABLETS OF DOXAZOSIN MESYLATE DRUG BY DIRECT COMPRESSION METHOD

Objective: The rationale of the current research work was to formulate and evaluate fast-dissolving tablets of doxazosin mesylate with minimum disintegration time and improved dissolution efficiency using solid dispersion method.Methods: Solid dispersions of doxazosin mesylate and polyethylene glycol 8000 in different ratios were prepared using the kneading method. The prepared solid dispersions were subjected to drug interaction and dissolution studies to select the effective solid dispersion for the formulation of fast-dissolving tablets. Fast dissolving tablets containing drug-polyethylene glycol 8000 solid dispersion (1:3) were prepared using various super-disintegrants such as crospovidone, croscarmellose sodium, mixture and coprocessed crospovidone and croscarmellose sodium in concentration range of 2% and 5% by direct compression technique. The prepared formulations (F1–F16) were evaluated for post compression parameters; hardness, thickness, friability, wetting time, disintegration time, and in–vitro drug release.Results: Drug doxazosin mesylate showed enhanced aqueous solubility of 13.3µg/ml in the presence of polyethylene glycol 8000. Differential scanning calorimetery and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies confirmed no interaction between drug and polyethylene glycol 8000and, drug-polyethylene glycol 8000 solid dispersion showed cumulative drug release of 44.48% in 60 min. Formulated FDT of drug-polyethylene glycol 8000 solid dispersion, containing coprocessed mixture of crospovidone and croscarmellose sodium (5%) exhibited disintegration time of 14.5s with percentage cumulative release of 92.46% in 60 min.Conclusion: The work reasonably concludes that for the formulated doxazosin mesylate-fast dissolving tablets, disintegration time was effectively reduced by the presence of coprocessed mixture of crospovidone and croscarmellose sodium and dissolution efficiency was improved by preparation of solid dispersion with polyethylene glycol 8000

Preparation and evaluation of poly herbal hair oil

In Ayurvedic medicine, herbs are used as an integral part of health care system. Besides healthcare, herbs are also used for beautification of the body and for preparation of various cosmetics and colours. The aim of present study involves preparation of poly herbal hair oil using fresh leaves of various plants. The prepared herbal oils were subjected to phytochemical screening, General characterization, Physical and Biological evaluation.The aim of present study involves preparation of poly herbal hair oil using fresh leaves of Sphaeranthus indicus, Wrightia tinctoria, Eclipta alba, Hibiscus Rosa sinensis. The oil was prepared according to Ayurvedic pharmacopeia. The evaluation of prepared poly herbal hair oil was carried out by various parameters such as organoleptic, phytochemical, specific gravity, pH, viscosity, acid value, saponification value, refractive index and stability studies. Antimicrobial activity of the poly herbal hair oil was studied by the zone of inhibition method. The Antioxidant activity of the oil was studied by DPPH radical scavenging test. The prepared formulations are assessed for primary skin irritation test on our forearm. Above parameters were found to be good and within the standards and among three concentrations of prepared poly herbal hair oil, third concentration showed better results than other two concentrations. All the values in the evaluation of finished product showed that they are within the acceptable limits. Hence, it is concluded that the oil is beneficial in maintaining good growth of hairs, turning grey hairs to black, providing protection from dandruff, and results in lustrous looking hairs. Keywords: Hair, Herbal formulations, Hair oil, Stability studies

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

Novel MicroRNA Candidates and miRNA-mRNA Pairs in Embryonic Stem (ES) Cells

MicroRNAS (miRNAS: a class of short non-coding RNAs) are emerging as important agents of post transcriptional gene regulation and integral components of gene networks. MiRNAs have been strongly linked to stem cells, which have a remarkable dual role in development. They can either continuously replenish themselves (self-renewal), or differentiate into cells that execute a limited number of specific actions (pluripotence).In order to identify novel miRNAs from narrow windows of development we carried out an in silico search for micro-conserved elements (MCE) in adult tissue progenitor transcript sequences. A plethora of previously unknown miRNA candidates were revealed including 545 small RNAs that are enriched in embryonic stem (ES) cells over adult cells. Approximately 20% of these novel candidates are down-regulated in ES (Dicer(-/-)) ES cells that are impaired in miRNA maturation. The ES-enriched miRNA candidates exhibit distinct and opposite expression trends from mmu-mirs (an abundant class in adult tissues) during retinoic acid (RA)-induced ES cell differentiation. Significant perturbation of trends is found in both miRNAs and novel candidates in ES (GCNF(-/-)) cells, which display loss of repression of pluripotence genes upon differentiation.Combining expression profile information with miRNA target prediction, we identified miRNA-mRNA pairs that correlate with ES cell pluripotence and differentiation. Perturbation of these pairs in the ES (GCNF(-/-)) mutant suggests a role for miRNAs in the core regulatory networks underlying ES cell self-renewal, pluripotence and differentiation