In vitro antioxidant analysis of Achillea tenuifolia

Achillea tenuifolia (AT) is one of the most herbs are being used by people as a traditional medicinal remedy. Antioxidant activity of AT different extracts and total flavonoid and phenol levels in the extracts were investigated in this study. Plant extracts were prepared by maceration method using ethyl acetate, methanol and methanol-water (1:1). Folin Ciocalteu reagent in terms of gallic acid equivalent achieved the total phenol's content. AlCl3 was used as a reagent for flavonoid determination. Flavonoid content of the plant extracts obtained in terms of quercetin equivalent. DPPH radical scavenging effect of the extracts was determined by UV spectroscopy. Also in order to determine lipid peroxidation inhibition of the extracts of A. tenuifolia, ferric thiocyanate method with BHT, a synthetic reference standard, was carried out in this study. Phenol contents were 43.97 ± 0.034, 74.16 ± 0.55 and 106 ± 0.693 mg g-1 in theethyl acetate, methanol and methanol-water extracts, respectively. Flavonoid amount obtained in the ethyl acetate, methanol and methanol-water extracts were 10.6 ± 1.85, 23.1 ± 0.5 and 190 ± 1.3 mg g-1, respectively. The percentage of DPPH radical scavenged by the most active extract (methanol-water) of A. tenuifolia was 92% at a concentration of 1 mgml-1 greater than 94% of BHT at 2 mgml-1. IC50 of methanol-water extract and BHT were 0.015 and 0.053 mgml-1, respectively. Lipid peroxidation inhibition was observed by the most polar extract of AT about 91.84%. Phenol and flavonoids content confirm theexistence of more polar hydroxyl containing chemical structures in the plant. The potency of radical scavenging effect of methanol-water extract was about 3.5 times greater than synthetic antioxidant BHT. The inhibitory activity of the extracts on the lipid peroxidation of linoleic acid in ferric thiocyanate test was also significant (> 90%). In this study we concluded that there is a direct relation between phenol and flavonoid content of plant extracts and the antioxidant activity. So that the greater amountof phenolic compounds leads to more potent radical scavenging and lipid peroxidation inhibition activities as it was observed in A. tenuifolia polar extract in the present study

How Does Cryotherapy Effect Ankle Proprioception in Healthy Individuals?

Objectives: To investigate how a 15 minute Cryotherapy intervention effects proprioception by measuring Joint positional Sense (JPS) and static single legged balance. Design: Repeated measures design. Setting: Laboratory. Participants: Eighteen healthy university sports team students (11 males, 7 females) aged between 20-21 years. Main Outcome Measures: Participants were treated with 15 minutes Aircast Cryo-cuff. The subject’s skin temperature was measured before and immediately after 15 minutes Cryotherapy treatment. Ankle active joint positional sense (A-JPS) and passive joint positional sense (P-JPS) was measured at pre-test, immediately post-test and 5 minutes post-test. Static balance was measured by Centre of Pressure (CoP) mean path length, medial-lateral (ML) CoP mean Deviation and anterior-posterior (AP) CoP mean Deviation and mean time-to-boundary (TtB) Minima for AP and ML directions. Results: No significant differences found for the variables of JPS and static single balance testing after 15 minutes Cryotherapy treatment. However, mean differences for CoP mean path length and ML mean deviation were shown to improve following Cryotherapy treatment, results not previously found in the literature. Conclusion: Results suggest that 15 minute Cryo-cuff treatment doesn’t significantly affect proprioception. Although the effect of Cryotherapy on proprioception depends on cooling modality used, time frame applied and joint applied to

Protection against LPS-induced cartilage inflammation and degradation provided by a biological extract of Mentha spicata

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A variety of mint [<it>Mentha spicata</it>] has been bred which over-expresses Rosmarinic acid (RA) by approximately 20-fold. RA has demonstrated significant anti-inflammatory activity <it>in vitro </it>and in small rodents; thus it was hypothesized that this plant would demonstrate significant anti-inflammatory activity <it>in vitro</it>. The objectives of this study were: a) to develop an <it>in vitro </it>extraction procedure which mimics digestion and hepatic metabolism, b) to compare anti-inflammatory properties of High-Rosmarinic-Acid <it>Mentha spicata </it>(HRAM) with wild-type control <it>M. spicata </it>(CM), and c) to quantify the relative contributions of RA and three of its hepatic metabolites [ferulic acid (FA), caffeic acid (CA), coumaric acid (CO)] to anti-inflammatory activity of HRAM.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>HRAM and CM were incubated in simulated gastric and intestinal fluid, liver microsomes (from male rat) and NADPH. Concentrations of RA, CA, CO, and FA in simulated digest of HRAM (HRAM_sim) and CM (CM_sim) were determined (HPLC) and compared with concentrations in aqueous extracts of HRAM and CM. Cartilage explants (porcine) were cultured with LPS (0 or 3 μg/mL) and test article [HRAM_sim(0, 8, 40, 80, 240, or 400 μg/mL), or CM_sim(0, 1, 5 or 10 mg/mL), or RA (0.640 μg/mL), or CA (0.384 μg/mL), or CO (0.057 μg/mL) or FA (0.038 μg/mL)] for 96 h. Media samples were analyzed for prostaglandin E₂(PGE₂), interleukin 1β (IL-1), glycosaminoglycan (GAG), nitric oxide (NO) and cell viability (differential live-dead cell staining).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>RA concentration of HRAM_simand CM_simwas 49.3 and 0.4 μg/mL, respectively. CA, FA and CO were identified in HRAM_simbut not in aqueous extract of HRAM. HRAM_sim(≥ 8 μg/mL) inhibited LPS-induced PGE₂and NO; HRAM_sim(≥ 80 μg/mL) inhibited LPS-induced GAG release. RA inhibited LPS-induced GAG release. No anti-inflammatory or chondroprotective effects of RA metabolites on cartilage explants were identified.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our biological extraction procedure produces a substance which is similar in composition to post-hepatic products. HRAM_simis an effective inhibitor of LPS-induced inflammation in cartilage explants, and effects are primarily independent of RA. Further research is needed to identify bioactive phytochemical(s) in HRAM_sim.</p

Identification of Hub Genes Related to the Recovery Phase of Irradiation Injury by Microarray and Integrated Gene Network Analysis

BACKGROUND: Irradiation commonly causes long-term bone marrow injury charactertized by defective HSC self-renewal and a decrease in HSC reserve. However, the effect of high-dose IR on global gene expression during bone marrow recovery remains unknown. METHODOLOGY: Microarray analysis was used to identify differentially expressed genes that are likely to be critical for bone marrow recovery. Multiple bioinformatics analyses were conducted to identify key hub genes, pathways and biological processes. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: 1) We identified 1302 differentially expressed genes in murine bone marrow at 3, 7, 11 and 21 days after irradiation. Eleven of these genes are known to be HSC self-renewal associated genes, including Adipoq, Ccl3, Ccnd1, Ccnd2, Cdkn1a, Cxcl12, Junb, Pten, Tal1, Thy1 and Tnf; 2) These 1302 differentially expressed genes function in multiple biological processes of immunity, including hematopoiesis and response to stimuli, and cellular processes including cell proliferation, differentiation, adhesion and signaling; 3) Dynamic Gene Network analysis identified a subgroup of 25 core genes that participate in immune response, regulation of transcription and nucleosome assembly; 4) A comparison of our data with known irradiation-related genes extracted from literature showed 42 genes that matched the results of our microarray analysis, thus demonstrated consistency between studies; 5) Protein-protein interaction network and pathway analyses indicated several essential protein-protein interactions and signaling pathways, including focal adhesion and several immune-related signaling pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Comparisons to other gene array datasets indicate that global gene expression profiles of irradiation damaged bone marrow show significant differences between injury and recovery phases. Our data suggest that immune response (including hematopoiesis) can be considered as a critical biological process in bone marrow recovery. Several critical hub genes that are key members of significant pathways or gene networks were identified by our comprehensive analysis

Multilevel Multiscale Method for Embedded Discrete Fracture Modeling Approach (F-MLMS)

Accurate numerical simulations of multiphase flow in fractured porous media require high resolution grids to explicitly capture the effect of fractures on the flow field without using excessively up-scaled quantities (e.g., modified rock permeabilities). For field-scale applications, as the consequence of large-scale domains and many explicit fractures, the size of the (non)linear systems becomes out of the scope of the classical numerical methods. Thus, various advanced numerical methods have been introduced to reduce this computational challenge. The Embedded Discrete Fracture Model (EDFM) which employs sets of independent grids for the rock matrix and the fractures (represented as lower dimensional domains). By employing two separate grids, coupled by a transfer function, EDFM allows to avoid adapting the matrix grid to accommodate the presence of fractures. Therefore, computational complexities with respect to the fracture geometries are significantly reduced. Even after employing EDFM, the size of the systems for real-field applications is still too large to be solved accurately with classical solvers. This challenge motivates the development of Multiscale Finite Volume (MSFV) method, which is the focus of this work, as well. The MSFV method efficiently solves the pressure (flow) equations by solving it at a coarser resolution, while honoring the fine-scale heterogeneous data. Recently, an efficient MSFV method for EDFM approach (F-AMS) was developed and tested for many cases of practical interests. Even though the F-AMS was found efficient for many scenarios, its applicability is limited to only the use of 2 levels of grids (fine and coarse). For real-field applications, where there exist several millions (or billions) degrees of freedom, the construction of only 1 level of coarse grid resolution may not be sufficient. Of high interest to the community is the development of a multiscale method which allows for arbitrary number of accurate coarse resolutions. In this work, for the first time in the multiscale community, a novel multilevel multiscale finite volume method for fractured porous media (F-MLMS) is developed. F-MLMS is successfully applied to a set of synthetic 2D test cases and its performance is carefully studied. Employing a multilevel strategy becomes crucial for field-scale applications, where a single level of coarsening is not enough to reduce significantly the size of the linear systems to be solved. The use of two independent grids allows to employ different coarsening strategies for the two media. Consequently, F-MLMS represents an important step forward for the application of multiscale methods to naturally and induced fractured reservoirs, with complex fracture networks.Civil Engineering and GeosciencesGeoscience & EngineeringPetroleum Engineering and Geo-science