Immunomodulatory effects of phytogenics in chickens and pigs — A review

Environmental stressors like pathogens and toxins may depress the animal immune system through invasion of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) tract, where they may impair performance and production, as well as lead to increased mortality rates. Therefore, protection of the GIT tract and improving animal health are top priorities in animal production. Being natural-sourced materials, phytochemicals are potential feed additives possessing multiple functions, including: anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, anti-viral and antioxidative properties. This paper focuses on immunity-related physiological parameters regulated by phytochemicals, such as carvacrol, cinnamaldehyde, curcumin, and thymol; many studies have proven that these phytochemicals can improve animal performance and production. On the molecular level, the impact of inflammatory gene expression on underlying mechanisms was also examined, as were the effects of environmental stimuli and phytochemicals in initiating nuclear factor kappa B and mitogen-activated protein kinases signaling pathways and improving health conditions

Phosphorylation of Icariin Can Alleviate the Oxidative Stress Caused by the Duck Hepatitis Virus A through Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases Signaling Pathways

The duck virus hepatitis (DVH) caused by the duck hepatitis virus A (DHAV) has produced extensive economic losses to the duck industry. The currently licensed commercial vaccine has shown some defects and does not completely prevent the DVH. Accordingly, a new alternative treatment for this disease is urgently needed. Previous studies have shown that icariin (ICA) and its phosphorylated derivative (pICA) possessed good anti-DHAV effects through direct and indirect antiviral pathways, such as antioxidative stress. But the antioxidant activity showed some differences between ICA and pICA. The aim of this study is to prove that ICA and pICA attenuate oxidative stress caused by DHAV in vitro and in vivo, and to investigate their mechanism of action to explain their differences in antioxidant activities. In vivo, the dynamic deaths, oxidative evaluation indexes and hepatic pathological change scores were detected. When was added the hinokitiol which showed the pro-oxidative effect as an intervention method, pICA still possessed more treatment effect than ICA. The strong correlation between mortality and oxidative stress proves that ICA and pICA alleviate oxidative stress caused by DHAV. This was also demonstrated by the addition of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as an intervention method in vitro. pICA can be more effective than ICA to improve duck embryonic hepatocytes (DEHs) viability and reduce the virulence of DHAV. The strong correlation between TCID50 and oxidative stress demonstrates that ICA and pICA can achieve anti-DHAV effects by inhibiting oxidative stress. In addition, the superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) of ICA and pICA showed significant difference. pICA could significantly inhibit the phosphorylation of p38, extra cellular signal regulated Kinase (ERK 1/2) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), which were related to mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) signaling pathways. Ultimately, compared to ICA, pICA exhibited more antioxidant activity that could regulate oxidative stress-related indicators, and inhibited the phosphorylation of MAPKs signaling pathway

The ACE2/Apelin Signaling, MicroRNAs, and Hypertension

The renin-angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS) plays a pivotal role in the development of hypertension. Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which primarily metabolises angiotensin (Ang) II to generate the beneficial heptapeptide Ang-(1-7), serves as a negative regulator of the RAAS. Apelin is a second catalytic substrate for ACE2 and functions as an inotropic and cardiovascular protective peptide. The physiological effects of Apelin are exerted through binding to its receptor APJ, a seven-transmembrane G protein-coupled receptor that shares significant homology with the Ang II type 1 receptor (AT1R). The deregulation of microRNAs, a class of short and small noncoding RNAs, has been shown to involve cardiovascular remodeling and pathogenesis of hypertension via the activation of the Ang II/AT1R pathway. MicroRNAs are linked with modulation of the ACE2/Apelin signaling, which exhibits beneficial effects in the cardiovascular system and hypertension. The ACE2-coupled crosstalk among the RAAS, the Apelin system, and microRNAs provides an important mechanistic insight into hypertension. This paper focuses on what is known about the ACE2/Apelin signaling and its biological roles, paying particular attention to interactions and crosstalk among the ACE2/Apelin signaling, microRNAs, and hypertension, aiming to facilitate the exploitation of new therapeutic medicine to control hypertension

Impact of dibenzocyclooctadiene lignans from Schisandra chinensis on the redox status and activation of human innate immune system cells

Peer reviewe

Additional Pathogenic Pathways in RBCK1 Deficiency

RBCK1 deficiency is a rare congenital autoinflammatory disease that causes inflammatory disruption on the molecular level. This deficiency has three major clinical manifestations: increased sensitivity to bacterial infections, autoinflammation syndrome, and the accumulation of amylopectin in skeletal muscle. The amylopectinosis causes myopathy and cardiomyopathy. The pathogenesis of the disease is poorly investigated and may include unnoticed relationships. We performed gene expression analysis on patients with RBCK1 deficiency and three other autoinflammatory diseases. The identification of differentially expressed genes revealed a large number of downregulated genes that are involved in the activation of essential metabolic and immune pathways, including NF-kB and Pi3k-Akt-mTOR. Signaling pathways were analysed using the KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) and Gene Ontology resource. Predicted protein-protein interactions were retrieved from the STRING (Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting proteins database). Besides the primary involvement of RBCK1 in disease pathology, several downregulated pathways aggravate symptoms of myopathy, cardiomyopathy, and bacterial disease. The studied pathways may serve as new targets for the development of compensatory therapies for patients with RBCK1 deficiency. © 2022, Mathematical Biology and Bioinformatics. All rights reserved

Role of Indole Scaffolds as Pharmacophores in the Development of Anti-Lung Cancer Agents

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death in men and women worldwide, affecting millions of people. Between the two types of lung cancers, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is more common than small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Besides surgery and radiotherapy, chemotherapy is the most important method of treatment for lung cancer. Indole scaffold is considered one of the most privileged scaffolds in heterocyclic chemistry. Indole may serve as an effective probe for the development of new drug candidates against challenging diseases, including lung cancer. In this review, we will focus on discussing the existing indole based pharmacophores in the clinical and pre-clinical stages of development against lung cancer, along with the synthesis of some of the selected anti-lung cancer drugs. Moreover, the basic mechanism of action underlying indole based anti-lung cancer treatment, such as protein kinase inhibition, histone deacetylase inhibition, DNA topoisomerase inhibition, and tubulin inhibition will also be discussed

Phenolic Compounds

Phenolic compounds represent a group of molecules and its functions in the growth and development with a defense mechanism in plant. It includes pigments, signaling molecules, and flavors which will protect the plant against insects, fungi, bacteria, and viruses and plays a role to attract or repulse them. This current chapter includes different aspect of phenolic compounds were discussed such as the definition, chemical properties, classification, the biosynthesis process of phenolic compounds, extraction technologies in plants also includes the shikimate, pentose phosphate and phenylpropanoid pathways. They were having many health benefits like UV screens, attractants, signal compounds, and other response chemicals from different types. As per the human physiology, they are vital in protection and plays an important role in prevention and treatment of many chronic diseases. It also acts as antioxidant, antiseptic, anti-proliferative activities, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory and anti-aging. They are useful to eat such plant foods that contains high antioxidant content, which can hamper the incidence of certain chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancers, through the management of oxidative stress. Overall the phenolic compounds are a gift of god in our day to day lives

Edible Flowers: Antioxidant Compounds and Their Functional Properties

Edible flowers have been widely consumed for ages until now. The attractive colors and shapes, exotic aroma, and delightful taste make edible flowers very easy to attain. Moreover, they also provide health benefits for consumers due to the unique composition and concentration of antioxidant compounds in the matrices. Knowing the bioactive compounds and their functional properties from edible flowers is necessary to diversify the usage and reach broader consumers. Therefore, this reported review could be useful for functional product development, engaging the discussed edible flowers. We present a comprehensive review of edible flower composition and the functional properties of their antioxidant compounds, mainly phenolics

Nano-engineered polymers in drug delivery: Potential approaches for attenuation of secondary injury after spinal cord trauma

Secondary injury elicits a complex series of pathophysiological events after the primary spinal cord trauma and even after its implantation treatment for neural functional recovery. These secondary injuries include an up-regulation of glial cells associated reactive oxygen species, nitrogen species, and reactive astrogliosis, and they can result in various levels of cellular and tissue damage. The inhibition of them has been proved to lead to functional recovery of the spinal cord. In this study, we concentrated on developing polymers and nano-techniques based drug delivery strategies to eliminate these secondary injuries. ^ To maintain and improve the performance of the implants during treatment, we exploited the polypyrrole as a suitable material to carry and locally release the drug at the injured spinal cord based on its conductive characteristics. We focused on the geometric modulation of implants materials on a nano-size scale and developed a polypyrrole nanowire platform that can served as a high capacity drug reservoir and can release drugs in a relatively longer time. Most importantly, we introduced the electromagnetic responsive feature of polypyrrole for drug delivery. This valuable technique can help us to achieve a non-invasive and remotely controlled drug release in deep tissues and avoid the physical contacts commonly required during traditional electrical stimulation. We used dexamethasone as a drug cargo, since this drug is commonly used for anti-inflammation treatment and has been successfully delivered from polypyrrole using conventional electrical stimulation methods in earlier studies. According to the results, we showed successful and long lasting polypyrrole mediated drug release under electromagnetic stimulation and the released drugs remained bioactivity and can be used for the treatment of secondary injury. ^ We also introduced a gene silencing strategies by delivering siRNA conjugated chitosan nanoparticles to the spinal cord lesion. These siRNAs can specifically knockdown inducible nitric oxide synthase and subsequently eliminate nitric oxide induced secondary injury. This drug delivery system were designed to discriminate different macrophages which have divergent effects to spinal cord recovery and to target the specific pro-inflammatory macrophages (M1 macrophages) instead of anti-inflammatory macrophages (M2 macrophages). The targeting effect allowed us more efficiently destruct the negatively impacted mRNA in targeted cells to improve therapeutic effects after spinal cord injury

Some aspects of the cell biology of lipid S-nitrosothiols.

Nitric Oxide is an important messenger and mediator in biological systems. Due to its short half life, S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs) have been suggested to be one of the important biomolecules for the storage and transport of NO. RSNOs also exhibit NO-like bioactivities. In the present study, we focus on the study of some aspects of cell biology of lipid S-nitrosothiols. In the first part of the study, we focus on the comparison of the cellular uptake of native LDL and chemically modified (homocysteinylation and S-nitrosation) LDL by Normal Human Fibroblasts (NHFs). Here, S-nitroso homocysteinylated LDL (LDL-SNO) was synthesized through the reaction of homocysteinylated LDL (LDL-SH) and S-nitrosocysteine. In the second part of the study, we focus on the comparison of the role of lipid S-nitrosothiols in apoptosis under light and dark conditions. Here, S-nitroso-octadecanethiol, a novel and lipophilic S-nitrosothiol, was synthesized to explore its apoptotic role in the SK-MEL-28 human melanoma cells under dark and light conditions. The present study demonstrated that S-nitroso-octadecanethiol could induce apoptosis in SK-MEL-28 human melanoma cells. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2005 .W363. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, page: 1371. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005