Exploring state-of-the-art advances in targeted nanomedicines for managing acute and chronic inflammatory lung diseases

Diagnosis and treatment of lung diseases pose serious challenges. Currently, diagnostic as well as therapeutic methods show poor efficacy toward drug-resistant bacterial infections, while chemotherapy causes toxicity and nonspecific delivery of drugs. Advanced treatment methods that cure lung-related diseases, by enabling drug bioavailability via nasal passages during mucosal formation, which interferes with drug penetration to targeted sites, are in demand. Nanotechnology confers several advantages. Currently, different nanoparticles, or their combinations, are being used to enhance targeted drug delivery. Nanomedicine, a combination of nanoparticles and therapeutic agents, that delivers drugs to targeted sites increases the bioavailability of drugs at these sites. Thus, nanotechnology is superior to conventional chemotherapeutic strategies. Here, the authors review the latest advancements in nanomedicine-based drug-delivery methods for managing acute and chronic inflammatory lung diseases

Common variants in CLDN2 and MORC4 genes confer disease susceptibility in patients with chronic pancreatitis

A recent Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS) identified association with variants in X-linked CLDN2 and MORC4 and PRSS1-PRSS2 loci with Chronic Pancreatitis (CP) in North American patients of European ancestry. We selected 9 variants from the reported GWAS and replicated the association with CP in Indian patients by genotyping 1807 unrelated Indians of Indo-European ethnicity, including 519 patients with CP and 1288 controls. The etiology of CP was idiopathic in 83.62% and alcoholic in 16.38% of 519 patients. Our study confirmed a significant association of 2 variants in CLDN2 gene (rs4409525—OR 1.71, P = 1.38 x 10-09; rs12008279—OR 1.56, P = 1.53 x 10-04) and 2 variants in MORC4 gene (rs12688220—OR 1.72, P = 9.20 x 10-09; rs6622126—OR 1.75, P = 4.04x10-05) in Indian patients with CP. We also found significant association at PRSS1-PRSS2 locus (OR 0.60; P = 9.92 x 10-06) and SAMD12-TNFRSF11B (OR 0.49, 95% CI [0.31–0.78], P = 0.0027). A variant in the gene MORC4 (rs12688220) showed significant interaction with alcohol (OR for homozygous and heterozygous risk allele -14.62 and 1.51 respectively, P = 0.0068) suggesting gene-environment interaction. A combined analysis of the genes CLDN2 and MORC4 based on an effective risk allele score revealed a higher percentage of individuals homozygous for the risk allele in CP cases with 5.09 fold enhanced risk in individuals with 7 or more effective risk alleles compared with individuals with 3 or less risk alleles (P = 1.88 x 10-14). Genetic variants in CLDN2 and MORC4 genes were associated with CP in Indian patients

Approaches in biotechnological applications of natural polymers

Natural polymers, such as gums and mucilage, are biocompatible, cheap, easily available and non-toxic materials of native origin. These polymers are increasingly preferred over synthetic materials for industrial applications due to their intrinsic properties, as well as they are considered alternative sources of raw materials since they present characteristics of sustainability, biodegradability and biosafety. As definition, gums and mucilages are polysaccharides or complex carbohydrates consisting of one or more monosaccharides or their derivatives linked in bewildering variety of linkages and structures. Natural gums are considered polysaccharides naturally occurring in varieties of plant seeds and exudates, tree or shrub exudates, seaweed extracts, fungi, bacteria, and animal sources. Water-soluble gums, also known as hydrocolloids, are considered exudates and are pathological products; therefore, they do not form a part of cell wall. On the other hand, mucilages are part of cell and physiological products. It is important to highlight that gums represent the largest amounts of polymer materials derived from plants. Gums have enormously large and broad applications in both food and non-food industries, being commonly used as thickening, binding, emulsifying, suspending, stabilizing agents and matrices for drug release in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the food industry, their gelling properties and the ability to mold edible films and coatings are extensively studied. The use of gums depends on the intrinsic properties that they provide, often at costs below those of synthetic polymers. For upgrading the value of gums, they are being processed into various forms, including the most recent nanomaterials, for various biotechnological applications. Thus, the main natural polymers including galactomannans, cellulose, chitin, agar, carrageenan, alginate, cashew gum, pectin and starch, in addition to the current researches about them are reviewed in this article.. }To the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfíico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for fellowships (LCBBC and MGCC) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nvíel Superior (CAPES) (PBSA). This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) (JAT)

Apple pectin supported superparamagnetic (γ-Fe2O3) maghemite nanoparticles with antimicrobial potency

Magnetic nanoparticles are themselves a fascinating world due to their various applications in different fields mainly biomedical, catalysis, storage devices and many more. Till now magnetites have been explored extensively through different routes whereas another oxide of iron that is maghemite needs attention and yet to be discovered in different aspects. Here we show the simple, facile and less time consuming method to synthesize superparamagnetic maghemite nanoparticles. The highlights and novelty of the synthesis are marked by the use of sodium borohydride to obtain small sized iron oxide nanoparticles starting from a transition metal complex and further stabilizing them with a polysaccharide that is apple pectin. The maghemite nanoparticles thus synthesized, are characterized by SEM, TEM and XRD whereas, pectin binding with nanoparticles is confirmed by FTIR. The size of nanoparticles obtained is between 2 and 6 nm. The phase clarity of maghemites has been derived using Mossbauer spectra. Along with this, their antimicrobial behavior has also been studied using four different bacterial strains P. aerugenosa, S. aureus B. cereus and S. typhii. The nanoparticles were found to inhibit the growth of bacteria. The present work proposes green synthesis of maghemite nanoparticles in water as solvent and supports waste management by using polysaccharide obtained from apple peel. Keywords: Pectin, Iron oxide, Nanoparticles, Superparamagnetic, Antimicrobial activit

CloudPick: a framework for QoS-aware and ontology-based service deployment across clouds

The cloud computing paradigm allows on-demand access to computing and storage services over the Internet. Multiple providers are offering a variety of software solutions in the form of virtual appliances and computing units in the form of virtual machines with different pricing and QoS in the market. Thus, it is important to exploit the benefit of hosting virtual appliances on multiple providers to not only reduce the cost and provide better QoS but also achieve failure-resistant deployment. This paper presents a framework called CloudPick to simplify cross-cloud deployment and particularly focuses on QoS modeling and deployment optimization. For QoS modeling, cloud services have been automatically enriched with semantic descriptions using our translator component to increase precision and recall in discovery and benefit from descriptive QoS from multiple domains. In addition, an optimization approach for deploying networks of appliances is required to guarantee minimum cost, low latency, and high reliability. We propose and compare two different deployment optimization approaches: genetic-based and forward-checking-based backtracking. They take into account QoS criteria such as reliability, data communication cost, and latency between multiple clouds to select the most appropriate combination of virtual machines and appliances. We evaluate our approach using a real case study and different request types. Experimental results suggest that both algorithms reach near-optimal solution. Further, we investigate the effects of factors such as latency, reliability requirements, and data communication between appliances on the performance of the algorithms and placement of appliances across multiple clouds. The results show the efficiency of optimization algorithms depends on the data transfer rate between appliances

Epigenetic Regulation in Cancer and Cancer Therapies

It has been believed that identification of alterations in epigenetic profiles can be used to distinguish not only between various types of malignancies but also between different phases of cancer progression. As a result, epigenetic factors have a lot of potential to become more accurate diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for many malignancies. Although DNA methylation is the most researched aspect of epigenetics, only a few methylation markers are routinely used in clinical practice. DNA methylation biomarkers, on the other hand, are expected to play a significant role in the near future. To summarize, epigenetic regulation plays a critical role in cancer development, and epigenetic biomarker analysis has a lot of potential to become clinically useful. More research is needed to further develop and evaluate epigenetic biomarkers\u27 therapeutic use

Acute pain management after kidney transplantation: A current review of literature

Acute postoperative pain management after kidney transplantation is essential for early recovery and good patient satisfaction, but no formal review or guideline is available in the literature. The aim of this review is to make recommendations based on available studies to select the best suitable strategy for pain management. Databases from search engines (PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Cochrane Library) were thoroughly searched using keywords kidney transplant and pain management or similar. Randomized control trials and retrospective studies with pain scores as primary outcome were included in this review. Out of 1595 articles from electronic database, total 15 articles (prospective studies = 13, retrospective studies, n = 2) were included after deletion of duplicate records, screening of abstracts/titles, and excluding records based on different exclusion criteria. Based on current evidence, intrathecal morphine, epidural analgesia, and fascial plane blocks are suitable options. Paracetamol should be added as a multimodal approach for analgesia. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are best avoided due to the associated risk of renal injury