In vivo and in silico investigation of selected herbal compounds as anti-tubercular agents

Purpose: To investigate whether some herbal compounds, namely, arctiin, NSC333050, cnicin, and arctigenin, can be used as anti-tubercular agents using in vivo and in silico techniques.Methods: A set of structurally diverse herbal compounds were screened for anti-tubercular activity against the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) H37v strain by determining their microbial inhibitory concentration (MIC) and cytotoxicity. The compounds were also screened using in silico techniques, such as molecular docking and absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) prediction.Results: The in vivo methods, such as determination of MIC and cytotoxicity assay, revealed that some of the herbal compounds showed superior anti-tubercular activity. In silico approaches involving molecular docking simulations for the mycobacterial enzymes Mtb DNA gyrase, Mtb betalactamase, Mtb diaminopelargonic acid synthase, and Mtb cytidine 5'-triphosphate synthase (CTP) confirmed that the inhibitory activities of the herbal compounds occurred at the active sites of these enzyme. In silico ADME prediction also confirmed the pharmacokinetic safety of these herbal compounds.Conclusion: Arctiin, NSC333050, cnicin, and arctigenin, are suitable candidates for clinical evaluation for the treatment of respiratory infections caused by Mtb.Keywords: Tuberculosis, Microbial inhibitory concentration, Arctiin, Cnicin, Arctigenin, In silico, Respiratory infectio

Probing GeV-scale MSSM neutralino dark matter in collider and direct detection experiments

Given the recent constraints from the dark matter (DM) direct detections, we examine a light GeV-scale (2-30 GeV) neutralino DM in the alignment limit of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). In this limit without decoupling, the heavy CP-even scalar $H$ plays the role of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson while the other scalar $h$ can be rather light so that the DM can annihilate through the $h$ resonance or into a pair of $h$ to achieve the observed relic density. With the current collider and cosmological constraints, we find that such a light neutralino DM above 6 GeV can be excluded by the XENON-1T (2017) limits while the survivied parameter space below 6 GeV can be fully covered by the future germanium-based light dark matter detections (such as CDEX), by the Higgs coupling precison measurements or by the production process $e^+e^- \to hA$ at an electron-positron collider (Higgs factory).Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures. Discussions and references added, version accepted by PL

Développement d'une méthode des caractéristiques tridimensionnelle et application aux calculs de supercellules d'un réacteur CANDU

Mécanisme de base -- Différentes variantes -- Performance et technique d'accélération -- Méthode des caractéristiques -- Discrétisation des variables -- Résolution sur une ligne d'intégration -- Conversation des neutrons et résolution dans un domaine physique -- Conservation des neutrons et conditions aux limites -- Solution multigroupe -- Méthodes d'accélération -- Comparaison des techniques d'accélération utilisées dans le code DRAGON -- Techniques d'accélération pour la méthode des caractéristiques -- Fusionnement des lignes -- Équivalence entre la méthode des caractéristiques et la méthode des probabilités de collision -- Accélération de Self-Collision rebalancing -- Parallélisation -- Conception de la parallélisation par lignes -- Conception de la parallélisation par macrobandes -- Utilitaires parrallèles dans la libraire GANLIB -- Résultats numériques -- Barres de compensation -- Barres liquides G2 -- Coefficient de Doppler

The relation of H2CO, 12CO, and 13CO in molecular clouds

Aims. We seek to understand how the 4.8 GHz formaldehyde absorption line is distributed in the MON R2, S156, DR17/L906, and M17/M18 regions. More specifically, we look for the relationship among the H2CO, 12CO, and 13CO spectral lines. Methods. The four regions of MON R2 (60'x90'), S156 (5'0x70'), DR17/L906 (40'x60'), and M17 /M18 (70'x80')were observed for H2CO (beam 10'), H110a recombination (beam 10'), 6 cm continuum (beam 10'), 12CO (beam 1'), and 13CO (beam 1'). We compared the H2CO,12CO,13CO, and continuum distributions, and also the spectra line parameters of H2CO,12CO, and 13CO. Column densities of H2CO,13CO, and H2 were also estimated. Results. We found out that the H2CO distribution is similar to the 12CO and the 13CO distributions on a large scale. The correlation between the 13 CO and the H2CO distributions is better than between the 12CO and H2CO distributions. The H2CO and the 13CO tracers systematically provide consistent views of the dense regions. T heir maps have similar shapes, sizes, peak positions, and molecular spectra and present similar centr al velocities and line widths. Such good agreement indicates that the H2CO and the 13CO arise from similar regions.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures published, 201

Identification of Colitis and Cancer in Colon Biopsies by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

Cancer is a disease that does great harms to the health of human beings. FT-IR spectroscopy could identify variability at the molecular level in biological specimens. It is a rapid and noninvasive method, which could be used intraoperatively to modify surgical procedures. The aim of this paper is to identify and separate cancer from colitis in endoscopic colon biopsies through the use of FT-IR spectroscopy. A total of 88 endoscopic colon samples, including 41 cases of colitis and 47 cases of colon cancer, were obtained. Specimens were placed on an ATR accessory linked to FT-IR spectrometer with a MCT detector for greater stability and sensitivity. Later, specimens were sent for the histological examination as the reference in the spectral analysis. 41 colitis and 47 cancer specimens were compared. Spectra preprocessed with smoothing and normalization were used for discrimination analysis. PCA was processed to simplify the spectrum data set. Naive Bayes classifier model was constructed for diagnostic classification. Leave-one-out cross-validation method was utilized to assess the discrimination results. The sensitivity of FT-IR detection for cancer achieves 97.6%. The results showed that colon cancer could be distinguished from colitis with high accuracy using FT-IR spectroscopy and chemometrics