Assessment of phytochemical content, polyphenolic composition, antioxidant and antibacterial activities of Leguminosae medicinal plants in Peninsular Malaysia

Background: Many medicinal plants from Leguminosae family can be found easily in Malaysia. These plants have been used as traditional medicines by local ethnic groups, where they are prepared as decoction, pastes for wound infections, and some have been eaten as salad. This paper focused on the assessment of antioxidant potential, antibacterial activity and classes of phytochemicals of nine plants from the Leguminosae family. Methods: Acacia auriculiformis, Bauhinia kockiana, Bauhinia purpurea, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, Calliandra tergemina, Cassia surattensis, Leucaena leucocephala, Peltophorum pterocarpum, and Samanea saman were extracted with aqueous methanol and dichloromethane:methanol mixture to test for antioxidant and antibacterial activities. The Folin-Ciocalteu assay was conducted to quantify the total phenolic content and 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay was used to determine the free radical quenching capacity. Antibacterial activity was assessed using disc diffusion (Kirby-Bauer) assay. Screening for major classes of phytochemical was done using standard chemical tests. Results: B. kockiana flowers and C. pulcherrima leaves contained high total phenolic content (TPC) and strong DPPH radical scavenging ability with TPC of 8280 ± 498 mg GAE/100 g, IC50 of 27.0 ± 5.0 μg/mL and TPC of 5030 ± 602 mg GAE/100 g, IC50 of 50.0 ± 5.0 μg/mL respectively. Positive correlation was observed between TPC and free radical scavenging ability. Most extracts showed antibacterial activity against Gram positive bacteria at 1 mg, while none showed activity against Gram negative bacteria at the same dose. All extracts (except Samanea saman flower) showed antibacterial activity against two strains of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) with MID values ranging between 100 μg/disc and 500 μg/disc. Conclusion: The potential source of antioxidant and antibacterial agents, especially for MRSA infection treatments were found in B. kockiana, C. pulcherrima, C. tergemina and P. pterocarpum. These preliminary results would be a guide in the selection of potential candidates for further pharmacological study and in search of new drug candidate in treating MRSA infections

DHGE: Dual-View Hyper-Relational Knowledge Graph Embedding for Link Prediction and Entity Typing

In the field of representation learning on knowledge graphs (KGs), a hyper-relational fact consists of a main triple and several auxiliary attribute-value descriptions, which is considered more comprehensive and specific than a triple-based fact. However, currently available hyper-relational KG embedding methods in a single view are limited in application because they weaken the hierarchical structure that represents the affiliation between entities. To overcome this limitation, we propose a dual-view hyper-relational KG structure (DH-KG) that contains a hyper-relational instance view for entities and a hyper-relational ontology view for concepts that are abstracted hierarchically from the entities. This paper defines link prediction and entity typing tasks on DH-KG for the first time and constructs two DH-KG datasets, JW44K-6K, extracted from Wikidata, and HTDM based on medical data. Furthermore, we propose DHGE, a DH-KG embedding model based on GRAN encoders, HGNNs, and joint learning. DHGE outperforms baseline models on DH-KG, according to experimental results. Finally, we provide an example of how this technology can be used to treat hypertension. Our model and new datasets are publicly available.Comment: Accepted by AAAI 202

Protective effect of Radix Bupleuri extract against liver cirrhosis in rats

Purpose: To explore the effect of Radix Bupleuri extract (RBE) on diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induced liver cirrhosis in rats.Methods: Rats were injected with DEN once a week for 8 weeks to induce liver cirrhosis. Some DENinduced rats were also treated with RBE, which was obtained by extracting dried Radix Bupleuri in water, for 8 weeks. Afterwards, biochemical indices and oxidative stress markers were assessed.Results: RBE significantly decreased serum concentrations of both alanine transaminase (137.3 ± 4.4 U/L, p < 0.01) and aspartate aminotransaminase (152.1 ± 3.4 U/L, p < 0.01) in DEN-induced rats at week 8. In addition, RBE significantly decreased malondialdehyde (0.13 ± 0.02 umol/L, p < 0.01) and superoxide dismutase (0.73 ± 0.04 U/mg protein, p < 0.01) levels in DEN-induced rats (p < 0.01).Conclusion: RBE exhibits a protective effect against DEN-induced liver cirrhosis in rats. Thus, it may have the potential to be used to treat liver cirrhosis in clinical settings.Keywords: Radix Bupleuri, Liver cirrhosis, Anti-oxidant, Diethylnitrosamine, Alanine transaminase, Aspartate aminotransaminas

Influences of neurotransmission-related genetic polymorphisms on depression, anxiety and stress

Over 10% of the world population suffer from mental disorders. In particular, depression causes about 800,000 suicide cases annually, while anxiety is the most common mental disorder. Stresses from work, life, and health have been identified as the common triggers for the two mental disorders. Eventhough mental disorders are treatable and validated tools are available to diagnose, many individuals are left untreated due to different factors, such as a lack of trained personnel and stigma. Neuroscience research indicates that mental disorders could be hereditary, where genes involved in determining behavioural variants. Disturbance in brain communication, resulting from abnormalities in neurogenesis, neurotransmission, and enzymatic degradation, have led to negative emotional states. This mini-review will highlight some important genes in the neurotransmitter systems and explore the relationship between gene polymorphisms and emotional states (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress). The genes that will be discussed in this mini-review include brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which is involved in neuron development, serotonin-transporter-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) and 5- hydroxytryptamine receptor 1A (5-HT1A) which are involved in serotonin neurotransmitter action potential propagation, and monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), which are involved in neurotransmitter catabolism

Cloning of a novel phytase from an anaerobic rumen bacterium, Mitsuokella jalaludinii, and its expression in Escherichia coli

The full length phytase gene of Mitsuokella jalaludinii was successfully cloned and was found to be 1047 bp in length, with 348 amino acids, and was designated as PHY7 phytase gene. A comparison of the sequence of PHY7 phytase gene of M. jalaludinii with various microbial phytase gene sequences showed that it was not similar to those from other bacteria except Selenomonas ruminatium, thus suggesting that they may both express a new class of phytase. The PHY7 phytase gene was subsequently subcloned into bacterial expression vector, pET32a, for expression in Escherichia coli strain Rosetta-gami. Expression of the recombinant phytase gene was optimized and characterized. The recombinant phytase was estimated to be approximately 55 kDa by SDS-PAGE analysis. The recombinant phytase exhibited optimum activity at 55°C, pH 4.5 and showed good pH stability from pH 3.5 to 5.5 (>78% relative activity). Metal ions such as Ca2+, Mg2+, and K+ were found to exert significant stimulatory effect on the recombinant phytase activity while Cu2+, Fe3+, and Zn2+ greatly inhibited the enzyme activity. The recombinant phytase showed moderate resistance to trypsin proteolysis, but susceptible to pepsin proteolysis. The results of the study showed that several characteristics of recombinant phytase were slightly different from the native enzyme. Unfavourable characteristics such as reduced pH stability and metal ion effects should be taken into consideration during feed enzyme formulation

Preliminary study of pleurotus ostreatus (Jacq.) P. Kumm. spent mushroom compost as nutrient supplement on the shoot induction of fig tissue culture

Spent mushroom compost is identified as waste substrate. As the mushroom agriculture industry is growing rapidly, the production also increases and contributes to large amounts of spent mushroom compost annually. The conversion of spent mushroom compost as waste to wealth is a great concept that can give value to agricultural industry and solid waste management of mushroom cultivation. The use of SMC as nurient supplement may reduce the production cost for in vitro culture of fig plant. This research is to study the use of Pleurotus ostreatus (Jacq.) P. Kumm. spent mushroom compost (SMC) as a nutrient supplement of the media in shoot induction of fig plant. Nodal segment of fig’s stem was cultured in MS media supplemented with different concentrations of SMC. With presence of SMC, 10% SMC have the highest shoot proliferation (2.167 ± 1.169) and length of shoot (0.154 ± 0.060 cm). The study revealed that in presence of 10% of SMC could produce new shoots at a frequency which was comparable to the control (p<0.05; n=3; Tukey’s multiple range test). Among the different media combinations of plant growth regulators with SMC, 15 μM Kinetin with 10% SMC is the most effective treatment which gave maximum number of shoot proliferation (3.00 ± 1.27). 30 μM IAA with 10% SMC media have the highest leaves regenerated which were 1.33 ± 0.84. In conclusion, the SMC added in media for plant tissue culture had positive effect on shoot induction thus highlighted the potential of waste substrate of SMC to act as nutrient supplement for plant tissue culture

Effect of gibberellic acid and eggshell on Hylocereus polyrhizus

Dragon fruit (Hylocereus polyrhizus) is a tropical fruit. Recently, it has gained interest from the public due to its potential beneficial effects on health. The acclimatization of micropropagated Hylocereus polyrhizus depends on the application of gibberellic acid (GA3 ) to increase plant growth. Eggshells are waste materials from industrial sectors, and they are composed of calcium source that is vital for the development of plant shoots and root. The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of different concentrations of GA3 and eggshell either added individually or in combination on the growth of shoot length and shoot diameter of H. polyrhizus. The result showed the shoot length of the H. polyrhizus increased by approximately 54.69%, from 0.64 ± 0.13 cm to 0.99 ± 0.26 cm, as the concentration of GA3 increased from 0 ppm to 10 ppm. Furthermore, this finding also reported that with eggshells, GA3 showed an adverse effect on the development of shoot diameter. The growth of shoot length and shoot diameter with the addition of eggshell was different, perhaps due to the gibberellic acid affecting the shoot length but not the shoot diameter. Generally, the growth of shoot length and shoot diameter with eggshells was higher in comparison with those without eggshells. With that, we can prove that eggshell is a good additive to promote the growth of H. polyrhizus