Anti-inflammatory and anti-nociceptive effects of extract contains and without Glycyrrhizic acid of Glycyrrhiza glabra rhizome in male mice

Background and aims: Glycyrrhiza glabra L. (licorice) is a very sweet and soothing herb with anti-inflammatory property and hormonal effects, and in the high importance to the pharmaceutical and food industries. The aim of this study was to investigate the Anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of extract containing and without Glycyrrhizic acid of licorice rhizome on small laboratory mice. Methods: In this experimental study, 126 male NMRI mice randomly divided into 18 groups (n=7). Xylene and Formalin Tests used for demonstrating anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive effects. The normal saline control group and the positive control group in the inflammation test were injected dexamethasone, and morphine was injected in the pain test. Experimental groups received extract with and without Glycyrrhizic acid of licorice rhizome at doses of 20, 40, 60, 90 and 120 mg/kg. Statistical analysis was performed using Graph pad Prism software, one and two way ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc tests (P<0.05). Results: The results of inflammation test showed that all doses of extract with glycyrrhizin contain anti-inflammatory effect in inhibiting the xelen-induced inflammation compared with the control group. Results of formalin test showed that the extract with glycyrrhizin has more analgesic effect than without glycyrrhizin extract. Analgesic effects of two extracts in both acute and chronic pain were observed which the pain score dropped significantly in chronic pain. Conclusion: Findings of this study showed that licorice root extract has analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects so that major part of these effects is probably related to Glycyrrhizic acid

In Utero and Lactational Effects of Aqueous Foeniculum Vulgare (Fennel) Seed Extract on Puberty Timing, Estrus Cycle and Sexual Behavior in Mice

Abstract Background: Several studies have shown that developmental exposure to phytoestrogens causes adverse effects on the reproductive functions. Fennel as a phytoestrogen plant has a rich history in household use and traditional medicine.So, the current study was designed to investigate the effects of in utero and neonatal exposure with fennel on the puberty onset, estrus cycle, reproductive organs and sexual behavior of their offspring. Materials and Methods: BALB/c mice were injected intraperitoneally with 0 (control), 100, 200 and 400 (mg/kg bw) aqueous fennel seed extract (AFSE), daily from day 7 of gestation to postnatal day (PND) 7. Results: Vaginal opening (sign of puberty onset) was advanced in 200 (p<0.01) and 400 AFSE (p<0.001) treated females. A 30 days vaginal smear check indicated that 200 or 400 AFSE treated mice showed a prolonged estrus with decreased proestrus, estrus and metestrus stages and increased and diestrus stage and index. The ovary weight, number of corpora lutea and LH concentration decreased and uterus weight and estradiol concentration increased in the 200 or 400 treated mice in PND 70. 400 AFSE (p<0.01) treated females showed lordosis with a low lordosis quotient (LQ) when compared to the control group. Conclusion: These results suggest that developmental exposure to AFSE, due to its estrogenic compounds, it may cause the precocious puberty, disrupted estrus cycle, altered weight of reproductive organs, hormonal imbalance and low lordosis behavior

Impact of morphine dependency and detoxification by methadone on male’s rat reproductive system

Background: One of the problems that addicts suffer from is decreased libido. Erectile dysfunction has been reported in men using opioids for treatment of heroin addiction. Objective: The study was performed to investigate the effects of morphine and detoxification with methadone as causes of sexual dysfunction in addiction. Methods and Methods: A total of 40 adult male rats (Wistar) were used. Animals were divided in to 4 groups. Control groups received saline for 30 days. Other 2 groups received 10 mg/kg morphine on day 1 and the morphine doses increased daily by 2 mg/kg increments per day until in day 30 a maximum of 68 mg/kg twice daily was achieved. Withdrawal syndrome sings were evaluated. At the end of period, one group of 2 morphine dependent groups was treated with methadone during 14 days. Animals in group 4 (saline solution+ methadone) received saline for 30 consecutive days and then detoxified with methadone during 14 days. Partial weights of seminal vesicles, testes, prostates, seminal vesicles content, concentrations of luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, and testosterone in serum were determined. Results: In the dependent group serum levels of testosterone (p<0.001), folicle stimulating hormone (p=0.0097) and luteinizing hormone (p=0.0031) as well as the weights of testes (p=0.0051), partial weights of prostates, seminal vesicles and seminal vesicles contents (p<0.001) were reduced as compared with control group. In the morphine dependent animals detoxified with methadone, testosterone concentrations and seminal vesicles contents remained lower than levels in the control group (p<0.001). Conclusion: The results suggest that morphine dependence may impair the reproductive function in male rats

The Effects of Ethanolic Extract of Dill (Anethum graveolens)) on Morphine Withdrawal Symptoms in Addicted Male NMRI Rats

Background & aim: Medicinal herbs with natural materials can be effective and have fewer side effects than drugs with chemical composition in reducing withdrawal symptoms and are more effective in treating addiction. In recent years, anti-inflammatory, analgesic and anti-anxiety effects of Dill has been reported. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of Dill ethanol extract on some withdrawal syndrome behaviors such as jumping, standing, climbing in male mice addicted to morphine. Methods: The present experimental study was conducted on 21 male NMRI mice with weighting 25 to 30 gr. Animals were divided into three groups: Group 1 received saline + naloxone (SN),&nbsp; group 2 received morphine + saline + naloxone (MSN) and the third group received&nbsp;&nbsp; morphine + ethanol extract of dill (500 mg kg ip) + naloxone (MDN) respectively. Simultaneous with the injection of morphine, the dill extract was injected at the same time. In order to induce the development of morphine dependence, the mice received increasing doses of morphine (10, 20, 30, and 40 mg) during four days for ten times, respectively. To induce the withdrawal symptom, two hours after the last injection of morphine, naloxone at a dose of 5 mg kg was injected intraperitoneally. Two hours after the last injection of morphine, naloxone at a dose of 5 mg/kg was injected intraperitoneally. Jumping, standing on both feet and climbing the walls were counted during 30 minutes. The data were analyzed using the software Graph Pad prism. Results: The results showed that the ethanol extract of plant significantly reduces the number of jumping due to naloxone injection in the addicted rats (p <0.001), but in the rearing behaviors and climb the walls of the container, a significant difference was observed with morphine. Conclusions: The findings suggested that the Dill Ethanolic extract can decrease the jumping number due to Naloxone-induced effect.&nbsp; Therefore, Dill Ethanolic extract may have an impact in reducing of withdrawal induction by morphine

Effects of Chronic Exposure to Sodium Arsenate on Kidney of Rats

Background: In the present study, histopathological effects of chronic exposure to sodium arsenate in drinkable water were studied on a quantity of organs of rat. Methods: Rats were divided into two groups, group I; served as control group, were main-tained on deionized drinkable water for 2 months, and group II; the study group were given 60 g/ml of sodium arsenate in deionized drinkable water for 2 months. Blood and urine samples from two groups of animals were collected under anesthesia and the animals were sacrificed under deep anesthesia (a-chloralose, 100 mg/kg, I.P). Their kidney, liver, aorta, and heart were dissected out and cleaned of surrounding connective tissue. The organs were kept in formaldehyde (10%) for histopathologic examination. Serum and urine samples from two groups were collected and analyzed for arsenic level. Total quantity of arsenic in serum and urine of animal was measured through graphic furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GF-AAS). Results:Examination with light microscopy did not show any visible structural changes in the aorta, myocardium, and liver of chronic arsenic treated animals.However, a significant effect was observed in the kidneys of chronic arsenic treated rats showing distinct changes in proxi-mal tubular cells. There was high concentration of arsenic in serum and urine of arsenic ex-posed animals (group II) significantly (P<0.001). Conclusion:Swollen tubular cells in histopathologic study of kidney may suggest toxic effects of arsenic in the body

Chemo- and bio-informatics insight into anti-cholinesterase potentials of berries and leaves of Myrtus communis L., Myrtaceae: an in vitro/in silico study

Abstract Background Myrtus communis L. (MC) has been used in Mesopotamian medicine. Here, the cholinesterase (ChE) inhibitory potential of its methyl alcohol extracts has been investigated and computationally dissected. Method The ChE inhibition has been measured based on usual Ellman’s colorimetric method compared to a canonical ChE inhibitor, eserine. Through a deep text mining, the structures of phytocompounds (= ligands) of MC were curated from ChemSpider, PubChem, and ZINC databases and docked into protein targets, AChE (PDB 1EVE) and BChE (PDB 1P0I) after initial in silico preparedness and binding affinity (BA; kcal/mol) reported as an endpoint. The calculation of ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity) features of phytocompounds were retrieved from SwissADME ( http://www.swissadme.ch/ ) and admetSAR software to predict the drug-likeness or lead-likeness fitness. The Toxtree v2.5.1, software platforms ( http://toxtree.sourceforge.net/ ) have been used to predict the class of toxicity of phytocompounds. The STITCH platform ( http://stitch.embl.de ) has been employed to predict ChE-chemicals interactions. Results The possible inhibitory activities of AChE of extracts of leaves and berries were 37.33 and 70.00%, respectively as compared to that of eserine while inhibitory BChE activities of extracts of leaves and berries of MC were 19.00 and 50.67%, respectively as compared to that of eserine. Phytochemicals of MC had BA towards AChE ranging from -7.1 (carvacrol) to -9.9 (ellagic acid) kcal/mol. In this regard, alpha-bulnesene, (Z)-gamma-Bisabolene, and beta-bourbonene were top-listed low toxic binders of AChE, and (Z)-gamma-bisabolene was a more specific AChE binder. Alpha-cadinol, estragole, humulene epoxide II, (a)esculin, ellagic acid, patuletin, juniper camphor, linalyl anthranilate, and spathulenol were high class (Class III) toxic substances which among others, patuletin and alpha-cadinol were more specific AChE binders. Among intermediate class (Class II) toxic substances, beta-chamigrene was a more specific AChE binder while semimyrtucommulone and myrtucommulone A were more specific BChE binders. Conclusion In sum, the AChE binders derived from MC were categorized mostly as antiinsectants (e.g., patuletin and alpha-cardinal) due to their predicted toxic classes. It seems that structural amendment and stereoselective synthesis like adding sulphonate or sulphamate groups to these phytocompounds may make them more suitable candidates for considering in preclinical investigations of Alzheimer’s disease

The Effect of Morphine Dependency on Serum Levels of Trace Elements (Copper, Zinc, and Manganese) in Male Rats

Background & aim: In some studies, changes in trace elements of abuse of addictive substances have been mentioned. Due to the effects of trace elements on the immune system and their effects on susceptibility to infectious agents, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect(s) of morphine dependency on the concentration of trace elements (copper, zinc and manganese) levels in serum of rats. Methods: In the present study, twenty-four adult male Wistar rats were randomly divided into two groups of receiving morphine (experimental) and control one. In the experimental group, morphine were injected subcutaneously twice daily for thirty days. Morphine dose on the first day was 10 mg/ml/kg daily and increased 2 mg/kg daily until it reached a maximum of 68 mg/kg. Instead of morphine, the control group received 1 ml/kg of normal saline for 30 days. Withdrawal syndrome in morphine-dependent groups and the control group were injected with 4 mg/kg naloxone in four animals from each group and then evaluated. Serum concentrations of zinc, copper and manganese were determined by spectrometer coupled plasma optical emission detector. Data were analyzed by Student's t test. Results: Serum concentrations of manganese in morphine-dependent group compared with the control group was significantly lower (p<0.05), whereas serum zinc and copper concentrations were significantly higher than the control group (p<0.05). Results showed a significant increase in serum copper and zinc concentrations and decrease in serum manganese level in morphine dependent rats. Conclusion: Dependence to morphine may be affecting the status of trace elements in serum of male rats

Automatic bug localization using a combination of deep learning and model transformation through node classification

Bug localization is the task of automatically locating suspicious commands in the source code. Many automated bug localization approaches have been proposed for reducing costs and speeding up the bug localization process. These approaches allow developers to focus on critical commands. In this paper, we propose to treat the bug localization problem as a node classification problem. As in the existing training sets, where whole graphs are labeled as buggy and bug-free, it is required first to label all nodes in each graph. To do this, we use the Gumtree algorithm, which labels the nodes by comparing the buggy graphs with their corresponding fixed graphs. In classification, we propose to use a type of graph neural networks (GNNs), GraphSAGE. The used dataset for training and testing is JavaScript buggy code and their corresponding fixed code. The results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other related methods

The enhancing effects of alcoholic extract of Nigella sativa seed on fertility potential, plasma gonadotropins and testosterone in male rats

Background: The task force on plants for fertility regulation in men continued with its program to identify novel prototypes in plants alleged to have fertility regulating properties. Nigella Sativa seeds are frequently used in folk medicine in the Middle East and some Asian countries for the promotion of good health and treatment of many ailments.Objective: To evaluated the role of alcoholic extract of Nigella sativa on fertility potential, Pituitary-testicular axis hormones and Testosterone in male rats.Materials and Methods: 24 male rats were randomly divided into 3 groups; control, group A and group B, each group comprising of 8 rats. Animals in control group received 1 ml of normal saline and treatment groups (A and B) received (gavage) graded doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight of alcoholic extract of Nigella sativa seeds on a daily basis for 60 days. At the end of treatment period, fertility parameters such as body and reproductive organs weight, sperm motility, viability and count, epididymal sperm reserve (ESR), daily sperm production (DSP), blood testosterone concentration, Gonadotropins levels and fertility index were measured.Results: There was a significant difference in testes and epididymidis weight, sperm count, ESR, DSP, blood testosterone concentration, LH and fertility index in both the lower dose group and the higher group as compared to the control group.Conclusion: The results of this study showed that alcoholic extract of Nigella sativa seed especially in higher doses could increase fertility potential, LH and testosterone concentration in male rats