The Effect of the Hydroalcoholic Extract of Persian shallot(Allium Hirtifolium boiss) on Albumin Glycation

زمینه و هدف: هیپرگلیسمی دیابتی باعث قندی شدن پروتئین‌های بدن و به نوبه خود موجب تغییر در ساختمان و عملکرد آن ها می‌گردد. برخی از عوارض بیماری دیابت از جمله نفروپاتی و رتینوپاتی به دلیل واکنش قندی شدن غیر آنزیمی پروتئین‌ها است. یکی از راه‌های درمانی برای مهار این واکنش، شکستن پیوند قند-پروتئین با استفاده از ترکیبات موجود در گیاهان دارویی می باشد. بنابراین مطالعه حاضر با هدف بررسی اثر عصاره هیدروالکلی موسیر ایرانی (Allium hirtifolium) بر مهار واکنش قند دار شدن آلبومین و توانایی شکستن پیوند آلبومین و گلوکز انجام شده است. روش بررسی: در این مطالعه آزمایشگاهی تأثیر غلظت‌های 1/0، 2/0، 5/0، 1 گرم بر دسی لیتر از عصاره موسیر ایرانی در دو حالت مختلف:الف) مهار واکنش قندی شدن آلبومین ب) تاثیر آن بر شکستن پیوند آلبومین و گلوکز در زمان‌های 72،48،24 و 144 ساعت بررسی گردید. میزان قندی شدن با روش تیوباربیتوریک اسید سنجیده شد. جهت تجزیه و تحلیل داده‌ها از آزمون آنالیز واریانس یک طرفه و سپس آزمون توکی استفاده گردید. 05/0P < نمایان گر اختلاف معنی دار بود. یافته‌ها: عصاره هیدروالکلی موسیر ایرانی در غلظت‌های 1/0 و 2/0 باعث مهار واکنش قندی شدن آلبومین شد. به عبارت دیگر تمامی غلظت‌های مورد استفاده، پیوند آلبومین و گلوکز را شکستند که بیش‌ترین تأثیر، در زمان‌های 72 و 144 ساعت پس ازتیمار با عصاره موسیر در غلظت 5/0 گرم بر دسی لیتر مشاهده شد .میزان شکستن پیوند، ارتباط مستقیم با زمان تیمار داشت. نتیجه‌گیری: نتایج نشان داد که موسیر ایرانی مانع از قندی شدن آلبومین شده و پیوند بین آلبومین و گلوکز را می‌شکند.بنابراین پیشنهاد می شود که تحقیقات بالینی بیشتر جهت ارزیابی اثر موسیر ایرانی بر کاهش قندی شدن آلبومین انجام شود

Anthropogenic and natural fragmentations shape the spatial distribution and genetic diversity of roe deer in the marginal area of its geographic range

Habitat destruction and fragmentation are major factors in the destruction of genetic diversity and affect the movement behavior of the Roe deer population in the remaining habitats. Here, we study the population and landscape genetics of Capreolus capreolus (roe deer) in northern and northwestern Iran using twelve polymorphism microsatellite markers. From 111 total specimens, 63 had successful extraction (6 feces, 35 tissues, 9 bones, and 13 antlers). We considered 30 microsatellite polymorphic loci, of which only 12 were amplified for our further analysis. For genetic diversity analysis, the Weir-Cockerham method was applied to measure the inbreeding coefficient (FIS) and fixation index (FST) for each locus as well as for each population. For landscape genetics, the susceptibility patterns of genetic variations were assessed using three hypotheses including isolation by distance (IBD), isolation by environment (IBE), isolation by resistance (IBR), and individual landscape genetic analysis. A habitat suitability map as an indicator of landscape resistance was constructed from several species distribution models (SDMs) algorithms including Generalized Boosting Models (GBM), Maximum Entropy (Maxent), Random Forest (RF), Generalized Linear Model (GLM), Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) and artificial neural networks (ANN) and an ensemble model. Our estimated FIs index showed that the Golestan, Arasbaran, and Guilan populations had the highest and lowest genetic diversity among roe deer populations. According to the Fst criterion, our results showed that Golestan and East Azarbaijan (Arasbaran) had the highest and Mazandaran had the lowest genetic distance patterns. Our results do not suggest that there is high genetic differentiation for roe deer in the region, with high levels of gene flow between study areas. We found that geographic distance has no significant relationship with genetic distance and that there is no significant relationship between the ecological niche non-similarity matrix and the genetic distance matrix. The most influential factors affecting gene flow in roe deer were aspect and elevation variables. The analysis suggests that the landscape has no significant influence on the structuring of the studied population and shows little genetic differentiation

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Morpho- Physiological Changes of Hempseed (Cannabis sativa L.) Traits as Affected by Seed Priming with Folic Acid and Hydrogen Peroxide

To evaluate the effects of seed priming of hempseed with folic acid and hydrogen peroxide on some morphological and physiological traits a factorial greenhouse experiment based on randomized complete design with four replications was conducted at Islamic Azad University, Mahabad Branch. Treatments consisted of hydrogen peroxide at five levels (0, 7.5, 15, 22.5, 30 mm/liter) as the first factor and the four leveld of folic acid (5, 10, 20, 27 mm/liter) as the second factor.Seeds, to be primed, were immersed into solution of folic acid for 24 hours and hydrogen peroxide for 6 hours. The characteristics like chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, total chlorophyll content, relative water content, plant height, root length, allometric coefficient, plant fresh and dry weights, were measured. Result of analysis of variance showed that the effects of folic acid and hydrogen peroxide on all characters were significant, but the interaction between the two treatments were only significant on relative water content and allometric coefficient. In this study, seed priming with 15 mm/liter of hydrogen peroxide and 5mm folic acid resulted in highest chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, total chlorophyll contents, plant height, root length, fresh and dry weights. Increasing hydrogen peroxide level above 15mm/liter affected traits negatively. Combinated treatments of 15 mm/liter of hydrogen peroxide and 5 and 10 mm of folic acid resulted in highest relative water content and allometric coefficient, respectively. Based on the results obtained it can be concluded that priming seeds with 15 mm/liter of hydrogen peroxide and 5mm folic acid is recommended to produce proper morphological and physiological traits

Quality of life among Iranian patients with beta-thalassemia major using the SF-36 questionnaire

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE Patients with beta-thalassemia major (β-TM) experience physical, psychological and social problems that lead to decreased quality of life (QoL). The aim here was to measure health-related QoL and its determinants among patients with β-TM, using the Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire. DESIGN AND SETTING Cross-sectional study at the Hematology Research Center of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, in southern Iran. METHODS One hundred and one patients with β-TM were randomly selected. After the participants' demographics and disease characteristics had been recorded, they were asked to fill out the SF-36 questionnaire. The correlations of clinical and demographic factors with the QoL score were evaluated. RESULTS There were 44 men and 57 women of mean age 19.52 ± 4.3 years (range 12-38). On two scales, pain (P = 0.041) and emotional role (P = 0.009), the women showed significantly lower scores than the men. Lower income, poor compliance with iron-chelating therapy and presence of comorbidities were significantly correlated with lower SF-36 scores. These factors were also found to be determinants of worse SF-36 scores in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS We showed that the presence of disease complications, poor compliance with iron-chelating therapy and poor economic status were predictors of worse QoL among patients with β-TM. Prevention and proper management of disease-related complications, increased knowledge among patients regarding the importance of managing comorbidities and greater compliance with iron-chelating therapy, along with psychosocial and financial support, could help these patients to cope better with this chronic disease state

Anthropogenic and natural fragmentations shape the spatial distribution and genetic diversity of roe deer in the marginal area of its geographic range

Habitat destruction and fragmentation are major factors in the destruction of genetic diversity and affect the movement behavior of the Roe deer population in the remaining habitats. Here, we study the population and landscape genetics of Capreolus capreolus (roe deer) in northern and northwestern Iran using twelve polymorphism microsatellite markers. From 111 total specimens, 63 had successful extraction (6 feces, 35 tissues, 9 bones, and 13 antlers). We considered 30 microsatellite polymorphic loci, of which only 12 were amplified for our further analysis. For genetic diversity analysis, the Weir-Cockerham method was applied to measure the inbreeding coefficient (FIS) and fixation index (FST) for each locus as well as for each population. For landscape genetics, the susceptibility patterns of genetic variations were assessed using three hypotheses including isolation by distance (IBD), isolation by environment (IBE), isolation by resistance (IBR), and individual landscape genetic analysis. A habitat suitability map as an indicator of landscape resistance was constructed from several species distribution models (SDMs) algorithms including Generalized Boosting Models (GBM), Maximum Entropy (Maxent), Random Forest (RF), Generalized Linear Model (GLM), Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) and artificial neural networks (ANN) and an ensemble model. Our estimated FIs index showed that the Golestan, Arasbaran, and Guilan populations had the highest and lowest genetic diversity among roe deer populations. According to the Fst criterion, our results showed that Golestan and East Azarbaijan (Arasbaran) had the highest and Mazandaran had the lowest genetic distance patterns. Our results do not suggest that there is high genetic differentiation for roe deer in the region, with high levels of gene flow between study areas. We found that geographic distance has no significant relationship with genetic distance and that there is no significant relationship between the ecological niche non-similarity matrix and the genetic distance matrix. The most influential factors affecting gene flow in roe deer were aspect and elevation variables. The analysis suggests that the landscape has no significant influence on the structuring of the studied population and shows little genetic differentiation

Surveying the Effect of Hydroalcoholic Extract of Allium hirtifolium on Glycated Hemoglobin Formation in In-vitro Condition

Background & Objectives: Non enzymatic glycation is a reaction that occurs between reducing sugars and amino groups of proteins. Advanced Glycation End-products (AGE) have been accounted for principal biological processes like aging and pathogenesis of some diseases. Accumulation of AGE during hyperglycemia can cause structural and functional changes of long-lived proteins. Therefore, it will be effective to inhibit protein glycation formation in order to reduce or to improve diabetes complications. The aim of this study is to determine the effects of hydroalcoholic extract of Allium Hirtifolium on the formation of glycated hemoglobin.  Materials & Methods: In this experimental study, the effects of the various concentrations of 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 gr/dl of hydroalcoholic extract of Allium Hirtifolium on the inhibition of hemoglobin glycation were examined. Hemoglobin A1c formation was assayed by ion exchange chromatography. The P-value < 0.05 was considered as the significant level.  Results: 10 and 14 days after incubation, at the concentration of 40 millimollar glucose, hemoglobin A1c formation decreased significantly by using 0.5 gr/dl of hydroalcoholic extract of Allium Hirtifolium.  Conclusion: The results revealed that Allium Hirtifolium can inhibit hemoglobin A1c formation in hyperglycemic condition. Therefore, it is suggested that Allium Hirtifolium can be useful for preventing the complications of diabetes

The current and future potential geographical distribution of Nepeta crispa Willd., an endemic, rare and threatened aromatic plant of Iran: Implications for ecological conservation and restoration

International audienceNepeta crispa Willd. is a very rare medicinal plant that grows in a very limited habitat in western Iran. In recent years, due to climate change, many plants have become endangered, which poses a very serious threat to very rare species such as N. crispa Willd. In the present study, we aimed to model the current and future potential geographical distributions and identify the most relevant environmental factors influencing the distribution of N. crispa Willd. an endemic plant species in west of Iran. The species distribution was modeled with the maximum entropy model by using presence data (160 sampling points) and a total of 15 climatic and environmental variables. To predict possible shifts in the geographical distribution due to climate change, we used the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 and RCP 8.5 for 2050 and 2070 for two Global Climate Models (GCMs). The jackknifing method was used to evaluate the contribution of the environmental variables to the model. We found that elevation, annual mean temperature, geology and precipitation of the driest quarter were the most important variables in determining the habitat of N. crispa. The species habitat suitability maps and models were efficient in predicting the habitat suitability distribution for N. crispa in the current conditions with an Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) of 0.983. Our modeling approach also demonstrated that climate change would expand the habitat range of N. crispa in the Alvand mountain areas in Iran towards higher elevation (above 2000 m.a.s.l). Conservation measures should therefore predominantly concentrate on the elevation range between 2000 and 3500 m.a.s.l. Knowledge of current distribution of the N. crispa and predicting its potential future geographical distribution under different climate change scenarios provide useful information for conservation actions in Iran