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Background: To assess and contrast the depth of penetration of conventional calcium hydroxide, nanoparticle calcium hydroxide, silver nanoparticles, and combination of nanoparticle calcium hydroxide and silver nanoparticles into dentinal tubules using confocal laser scanning microscope., Materials and Methods: Eighty human single-rooted teeth were decoronated and instrumented up to Protaper Universal F3. Teeth were separated into four groups at random ( n = 20) following chemomechanical preparation. Group 1: Control Conventional Calcium Hydroxide; Group 2: Nanoparticle Calcium Hydroxide; group 3: Silver Nanoparticles; group 4: Combination of Nanoparticle Calcium Hydroxide and Silver Nanoparticles. With the use of lentulo spirals, medications were injected into the canals, stirred up with ultrasound, and then kept at 37°C for 24 hours. A 1 mm thick slice was obtained at 5 mm from the root apex by sectioning the root perpendicular to the long axis of the tooth and then put on a glass slide to measure the depth of penetration using a confocal laser microscope., Statistical Analysis: To quantify the depth of penetration among the four groups, a one-way ANOVA was used and post hoc-Tukey's test was used to compare between groups., Results: All of the groups were statistically significant, with group 4 showing the greatest depth of penetration, followed by group 2 and group 3. In contrast, all other groups in the intergroup comparison were statistically significant ( P value 0.05) aside from the comparison of group 2 to group 3., Conclusion: Silver nanoparticles and nanoparticle calcium hydroxide together demonstrated greater penetration than calcium hydroxide, silver nanoparticles, and nanoparticle calcium hydroxide alone., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright: © 2024 Journal of Pharmacy and Bioallied Sciences.)

Purpose: To compare the surgical outcomes of trabeculectomy with and without anti-metabolites in patients with juvenile open-angle glaucoma (JOAG)., Methods: This retrospective comparative case series included 98 eyes of 66 patients with JOAG who underwent either trabeculectomy without anti-metabolites (group A, n = 53 eyes) or with anti-metabolites (group B, n = 45 eyes) with a minimum of 2 years follow-up. The main outcome measures were intra-ocular pressure (IOP), number of glaucoma medications, visual acuity, additional surgical interventions, surgical complications, and risk factors for failure. Surgical failure was defined as IOP >18 mmHg or failure to reduce IOP by <30% from the baseline value or IOP ≤5 mmHg or re-operation for refractory glaucoma or a complication or loss of light perception vision., Results: The mean post-operative IOP reduced significantly from baseline at all post-operative visits until 6 months and thereafter. The cumulative probability of failure at 2 years was 28.7% in group A [95% confidence interval (CI) = 17.6-44.8%] and 29.1% in group B (95% CI = 17.1-46.7%) (P = 0.78). Surgical complications occurred in 18 eyes (34%) in group A and 19 eyes (42%) in group B. Re-operations for glaucoma or complications were performed in two eyes (3.8%) in group A and two eyes (4.4%) in group B. Cox-hazard regression model revealed male gender (HR = 0.29; P = 0.008), baseline high IOP (HR = 0.95; P = 0.002), and an increased number of pre-operative glaucoma medications (HR = 2.08; P = 0.010) as significant factors associated with failure., Conclusion: : Our study results on trabeculectomy in JOAG revealed a success of 71% in both groups at 2 years follow-up. There was no significant difference in success or failure rates between the two groups. The risk factors for poor surgical outcome in JOAG were male gender, baseline high IOP, and an increased number of glaucoma medications., Competing Interests: None

Extremophiles are organisms that can survive and thrive in conditions termed as "extreme" by human beings. Conventional methods cannot be applied under extreme conditions like temperature and pH fluctuations, high salinity, etc. for a variety of reasons. Extremophiles can function and are adapted to thrive in these environments and are sustainable, cheaper, and efficient, therefore, they serve as better alternatives to the traditional methods. They adapt to these environments with biochemical and physiological changes and produce products like extremolytes, extremozymes, biosurfactants, etc., which are found to be useful in a wide range of industries like sustainable agriculture, food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. These products also play a crucial role in bioremediation, production of biofuels, biorefinery, and astrobiology. This review paper comprehensively lists out the current applications of extremophiles and their products in various industries and explores the prospects of the same. They help us understand the underlying basis of biological mechanisms exploring the boundaries of life and thus help us understand the origin and evolution of life on Earth. This helps us in the research for extra-terrestrial life and space exploration. The structure and biochemical properties of extremophiles along with any possible long-term effects of their applications need to be investigated further., Competing Interests: None of the authors show any kind of conflict of interest., (© 2022 The Author(s).)

Two new caged xanthones, wightiic acid (1) 16-O-methyl wightiic acid (2), along with eight known compounds, gaudichaudic acid E (3), isogaudichaudic acid E (4), ursolic acid (5) stigmasterol (6), lupeol (7), glutinol (8), lupenone (9) and stigmasteryl linoleate (10) were isolated from Garcinia wightii T. Anderson. The structures of the compounds were elucidated by spectroscopic means, including 1D and 2D NMR, HR-ESIMS, and the absolute configuration of the new compounds 1 and 2 were determined by analysis of ECD data. Anti-proliferation activities of the four caged xanthones (1-4) were evaluated by MTT assay on MCF-7 and SKBR-3 human breast cancer cells and A-375 human melanoma cells by MTT assay. All the tested compounds exhibited dose dependent antiproliferative activity. Wightiic acid (1) showed remarkable activity with IC 50 value of 4.7 μM and 5.2 μM respectively in A-375 and MCF-7 cells. The compound isogaudichaudic acid E (4) induced potent antiproliferation against SKBR-3 cells with an IC 50 value of 6.1 μM., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no competing interest., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Choriocarcinoma, a trophoblastic neoplasia, occurs in women as an incidence of abnormal pregnancy. BeWo choriocarcinoma cells derived from the abnormal placentation are a suitable model system to study the factors associated with differentiation, invasion and other cellular events as an alternative to clinical samples. Many protein kinases orchestrate the complex events of cell cycle and in case of malignancy such regulators are found to be mutated. In the present study, BeWo cells treated with forskolin (Fo) and phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) were used to study the role of PKA (protein kinase A) and PKC (protein kinase C), respectively, on the expression pattern of differentiation-related genes, membrane markers, PKC isoforms and cell cycle regulators. The effect of Fo and PMA on the cell proliferation was assessed. Progressive induction of alkaline phosphatase level and formation of multinucleated differentiated cells were observed in the cells treated with Fo. Exposure of cells to Fo and PMA induced the mRNA transcripts of α-hCG, β-hCG and endoglin and down-regulates E-cadherin at mRNA and protein levels. Synergistic levels of both up- and down-regulated genes/proteins were observed when cells were treated with the combination of Fo and PMA. The mRNA levels of cyclin D1, cyclin E1, p21, Rb, p53, caspase-3 and caspase-8 decreased gradually during differentiation. Fo significantly inhibited the protein levels of PCNA, Rb, PKC-α and PMA stimulated mRNA expression of PKC-ε and PKC-δ. Further, failure in the activation of essential components of the cell cycle machinery caused G2/M phase arrest in differentiating BeWo cells.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a type of RNAs, which are responsible for monitoring the gene expression values. Recent research asserts that miRNAs form some clustering on chromosomes. The miRNAs belonging to a particular cluster are highly similar in terms of their activity and they are termed as "coregulated" miRNAs. The current paper presents an approach that simultaneously performs two tasks: i) clustering of miRNAs into different categories based on some similarity measures ii) identification of proper weight values for different time points with respect to which expression values are available. In general, a large number of expression values are available for a given miRNA data set. All these values may not be suitable to be used equally to measure the similarity between two miRNAs. In the current study, the problem of proper selection of weight values for different time points and then determining the proper partitioning from the given miRNA data set utilizing the similarity computed using the new set of weight values is formulated as an optimization problem where several cluster validity indices are optimized as the goodness measures. To that end, a multiobjective differential evolution based optimization technique is utilized. The supremacy of the proposed technique is tested on three miRNA data sets in comparison to some recent approaches in terms of some popular performance measures like Silhouette index and DB-index. The observations are further supported by statistical and biological significance tests. Supplementary information is available at https://www.iitp.ac.in/~sriparna/journals.html.

The production of inflammatory mediators by epithelial cells in inflammatory lung diseases may represent an important target for the anti-inflammatory effects of glucocorticoids. Activator protein-1 is a major activator of inflammatory genes and has been proposed as a target for inhibition by glucocorticoids. We have used human pulmonary type-II A549 cells to examine the effect of dexamethasone on the phorbol ester (PMA)/Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced pro-inflammatory cytokines and AP-1 factors. A549 cells were treated with and without PMA or LPS or dexamethasone and the cell viability and nitric oxide production was measured by MTT assay and Griess reagent respectively. Expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and AP-1 factors mRNA were measured using semi quantitative RT-PCR. The PMA/LPS treated cells show significant 2-3 fold increase in the mRNA levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α), cyclo‑oxygenase-2 (COX-2) and specific AP-1 factors (c-Jun, c-Fos and Jun-D). Whereas, pretreatment of cells with dexamethasone significantly inhibited the LPS induced nitric oxide production and PMA/LPS induced mRNAs expression of above pro-inflammatory cytokines, COX-2 and AP-1 factors. Cells treated with dexamethasone alone at both the concentrations inhibit the mRNAs expression of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α compared to control. Our study reveals that dexamethasone decreased the mRNAs expression of c-Jun and c-Fos available for AP-1 formation suggested that AP-1 is the probable key transcription factor involved in the anti-inflammatory activity of dexamethasone. This may be an important molecular mechanism of steroid action in asthma and other chronic inflammatory lung diseases which may be useful for treatment of lung inflammatory diseases., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Androgen receptor (AR) signaling axis plays a vital role in the development of prostate and critical in the progression of prostate cancer. Androgen withdrawal initially regresses tumors but eventually develops into aggressive castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Activator Protein-1 (AP-1) transcription factors are most likely to be associated with malignant transformation in prostate cancer. Hence, to determine the implication of AR and AP-1 in promoting the transition of prostate cancer to the androgen-independent state, we used AR-positive LNCaP and AR-negative PC-3 cells as an in vitro model system. The effect of dihydrotestosterone or anti-androgen bicalutamide on the cell proliferation and viability was assessed by MTT assay. Expression studies on AR, marker genes-PSA, TMPRSS2, and different AP-1 factors were analyzed by semi-quantitative RT-PCR and expressions of AR and Fra-1 proteins were analyzed by Western blotting. Dihydrotestosterone induced the cell proliferation in LNCaP with no effect on PC-3 cells. Bicalutamide decreased the viability of both LNCaP and PC-3 cells. Dihydrotestosterone induced the expression of AR, PSA, c-Jun, and Fra-1 in LNCaP cells, and it was c-Jun and c-Fos in case of PC-3 cells, while bicalutamide decreased their expression. In addition, constitutive activation and non-regulation of Fra-1 by bicalutamide in PC-3 cells suggested that Fra-1, probably a key component, involved in transition of aggressive androgen-independent PC-3 cells with poor prognosis.

Background: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrinopathy in reproductive age women and is associated with both reproductive and metabolic abnormalities. Recent studies have demonstrated an early onset of abnormal cardiovascular risk profile in women with PCOS. Abnormal lipid profile patterns are common in women with PCOS, and these abnormalities are not uniform in all populations. Anthropometry is a simple and commonly used research tool for assessing metabolic risk in women with PCOS. Therefore, this study examined the correlations between anthropometric parameters and lipid profile in women with PCOS., Objectives: The objectives of the study were (1) To study the anthropometric profile of women with PCOS, (2) To examine the lipid profile pattern of these women with PCOS and (3) To see whether there exists any correlation between these anthropometric parameters and lipid profile., Materials and Methods: This observational cross-sectional study examined anthropometry and lipid profile in 86 married women with PCOS in the age group of 18-35 years and correlated them by using Pearson's correlation coefficient., Results: More than 80% of the women with PCOS demonstrated abnormal anthropometric parameters, and in more than 70% women, lipid abnormalities such as low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and high levels of triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were observed. Significant positive correlations were seen between body mass index (BMI) and triglycerides ( P ≤ 0.001) and waist circumference (WC) and triglycerides ( P ≤ 0.029). Negative correlations were observed between BMI and HDL cholesterol ( P ≤ 0.013)., Conclusion: This study revealed that BMI and WC are the most important anthropometric parameters correlated to dyslipidemia in the south Indian women with PCOS., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest.

Background: There is significant evidence among the general population regarding the impact of physical activity in improving the quality of life; however, evidence regarding the effect of physical activity in improving fertility and the quality of life in infertile women is inadequate. Existing medical literature shows that moderately regular physical activity positively influences ovarian reserve and assisted reproductive technology (ART) outcomes in overweight and obese women. It is not known whether moderate physical activity influences ovarian reserve in normal weight reproductive age women, and whether age has any influence on the physical activity related changes in ovarian reserve., Objectives: The objectives of the study were (1) to study the impact of moderate physical activity on ovarian reserve markers in normal weight reproductive age women and (2) to understand whether age influences the effect of physical activity on ovarian reserve markers in reproductive age women., Methods: This observational, cross-sectional study included 162 married women in the age group of 19-42 years, who were evaluated for ovarian reserve markers antimullerian hormone (AMH), follicular stimulating hormone (FSH), and antral follicle count (AFC) on the days 3-6 of the menstrual cycle. The study participants were divided into two age groups (above and below 30 years) and physically active and inactive groups. Ovarian reserve markers were compared among both the age groups and the physically active and inactive participants by analysis of variance., Results: When the study participants in both the age groups were compared for the effect of moderate exercise on ovarian reserve profile, better ovarian reserve profile was observed in the physically active participants in both the age groups. Significant differences were not seen with respect to FSH level ( P = 0.371) and AFC ( P = 0.483) in both the age groups, but significant difference was observed with respect to AMH level in the below 30 years age group compared to the above 30 years age group ( P ≤ 0.001)., Conclusion: This study demonstrated that moderate physical activity is associated with improved age-specific levels of ovarian reserve markers., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest.

Rhamnolipids are bio surfactants which are extra-cellular glycolipids composed of L-rhamnose and 3-hydroxyalkanoics. Rhamnolipids are produced through fermentation process by using Pseudomonas sp. as the species. An alteration to the traditional procedures in order to achieve increase in the production of biosurfactants, a numerous process technologies have been adopted in fed batch mode. Fed batch mode facilitates the high production of product by avoiding the substrate or product inhibition line of attack. To overcome the controlling parameters which reduce the product yield, optimal control profiles are designed. In order to develop viable control methods for fed-batch fermentation of Rhamnolipid production, multiple substrate feeding strategies were employed and their efficiencies were compared with different substrates concentration of glucose, nitrogen and phosphorous. The product formation depends upon the substrate feeding strategy and so, the fed-batch fermentation was carried out by using P. aeruginosa providing substrates at manifold rates. With the obtained experimental data, using the kinetic models (logistic equation and by Luedeking Piret), the kinetic parameters were estimated. These kinetic parameters were implemented in tabu search algorithm and this programme was executed in Dev-C++, optimal control profiles were generated as a result. These obtained optimal control profiles have shown an increase in productivity of rhamnolipid with a decline in computational time. Through this procedure, the optimal control profiles of substrate feeding strategies of glucose, nitrogen and phosphorous were estimated. In comparison with other algorithms like genetic algorithm, Tabu Search algorithm was able to generate an accurate optimal control profiles with a reduction in their intricacy.

Cadmium (Cd) is one of the well-known highly toxic environmental and industrial pollutants. Cd first accumulates in the nucleus and later interacts with zinc finger proteins of antiapoptotic genes and inhibit the binding of transcriptional factors and transcription. However, the role of Cd in oxidative stress and apoptosis is less understood. Hence, the present study was undertaken to unveil the mechanism of action. A549 cells were treated with or without Cd and cell viability was measured by MTT assay. Treatment of cells with Cd shows reduced viability in a dose-dependent manner with IC 50 of 45 μM concentration. Cd significantly induces the reactive oxygen species (ROS), lipid peroxidation followed by membrane damage with the leakage of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). Cells with continuous exposure of Cd deplete the antioxidant super oxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) enzymes. Further, analysis of the expression of genes involved in apoptosis show that both the extrinsic and intrinsic apoptotic pathways were involved. Death receptor marker tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), executor caspase-8 and pro-apoptotic gene (Bax) were induced, while antiapoptotic gene (Bcl-2) was decreased in Cd-treated cells. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis further confirms the induction of apoptosis in Cd-treated A549 cells.

Steroid hormones and their nuclear receptors play a major role in the development and progression of breast cancer. MCF-7 cells are triple-positive breast cancer cells expressing estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and glucocorticoid receptor (GR). However, interaction and their role in expression pattern of activator protein (AP-1) transcription factors (TFs) are not completely understood. Hence, in our study, MCF-7 cells were used as an in vitro model system to study the interplay between the receptors and hormones. MCF-7 cells were treated with estradiol-17β (E2), progesterone (P4), and dexamethasone (Dex), alone or in combination, to study the proliferation of cells and expression of AP-1 genes. MTT assay results show that E2 or P4 induced the cell proliferation by more than 35 %, and Dex decreased the proliferation by 26 %. E2 and P4 are found to increase ERα by more than twofold and c-Jun, c-Fos, and Fra-1 AP-1 TFs by more than 1.7-fold, while Dex shows opposite effect of E2- or P4-induced effect as well as effect on the expression of nuclear receptors and AP-1 factors. E2 antagonist Fulvestrant (ICI 182,780) found to reduce proliferation and E2-induced expression of AP1-TFs, while P4 or Dex antagonist Mifepristone (RU486) is found to block GR-mediated expression of NRs and AP-1 mRNAs. Results suggest that E2 and P4 act synergistically, and Dex acts as an antagonist of E2 and P4.

Pityriasis rosea is one of the commonly encountered papulo squamous disease in dermatology outpatient department. Its clinical presentations are varied, and it also has many atypical forms. We report a case of a male patient with classical Pityriasis rosea lesions limited to the patches of Hansen's disease. This is probably being reported for the first time in literature.