Search

Epilepsy is one of the most known neurological diseases of therapeutic challenge. Medical marijuana/medicinal cannabis is a cannabinoid phytochemical derivative of the cannabis plant used for medical purposes in treating seizures and has increased sharply in current years. Cannabis plants contain over 100 cannabinoids, and evidence supports its practice in the treatment of a few childhood epilepsies. The active and major cannabinoids such as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) exist in the cannabis plant and are the topic of the present study. Cannabinoids' biological activities are facilitated by their interaction with two similar receptors, cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1) and type 2 (CB2), as well as a wide range of other receptors and targets implicated in the effects of these compounds. The review will focus on the effectiveness and challenges of cannabinoids in treating epilepsy.

Medical marijuana or cannabis is a psychedelic drug composed of highly lipophilic tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) components derived from the plant C. sativa and C. indica. Parkinson's disease (PD), in which interactivity of biochemical and cellular signaling pathways induces endogenous cannabinoid system, a neuromodulatory system, transmits specific physiological effects when coupled with G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) via type 1 cannabinoid receptor (CB1) and type 2 cannabinoid receptor (CB2). Much recent research indicates that interactions between the cannabis system and dopamine in the basal ganglia area diminish levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID) and other symptoms. Due to the limited number of pharmacological treatment options presently available for PD, in-depth research with clinical trials are crucial in the search for molecules with therapeutic potential studies in a wide range of epidemiological work for PD to increase neural transmission. This chapter reviews the mode of action of cannabinoids in PD.

Food safety is everybody’s concern, and ensuring food safety is becoming increasingly important in the context of changing food habits, popularization of mass catering establishments, and the globalization of the food supply. The consumption of food contaminated by microbial pathogens, toxic chemicals, or radioactive materials leads to foodborne diseases (FBDs). High-throughput DNA sequencing methodology has rapidly evolved and new methods are continually being commercialized. This review highlights the recent DNA sequencing-based rapid detection methods to trace contamination routes, link isolates to outbreaks, and analyze microbial populations in novel ways. The application of these methods in the molecular diagnostics of foodborne pathogens (FBPs) focusing on viruses, bacteria, and fungi along with the advantages, limitations, and future perspectives to improve food safety are discussed. The most important difference between both approaches lies in the difference of target used; i.e., for whole-genome sequencing, the nucleic acids are obtained from a pure culture isolate, and in metagenomics, total nucleic acids are retrieved directly from the microbiota present in the environment under investigation.

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are pathogens that threaten human health. Several CoVs are maintained in nature, recombine, mutate, evolve, and emerge as novel CoVs to cause new zoonotic diseases. CoVs infection displays immense interindividual clinical variability, varying from asymptomatic to severe. Risk factors, such as older age, underlying health conditions, and the human genome could address the disease’s variable symptoms. The possible association between disease severity and DNA polymorphisms in the virus-host factors presents a unique opportunity to reveal human genetic determinants in infection and disease susceptibility. This chapter emphasizes the history, taxonomy, naming, genetic diversity of CoVs, the genome of CoVs, and potential genes for diseases’ pathogenesis. This information can help to prepare countermeasures against future spillover and pathogenic infections in humans with novel CoVs.

Discharge of heavy metals from industrial, municipal, agricultural, and domestic wastewater has become a serious threat for the ecosystem. Various pollutants are released to wastewater, including heavy metal ions, organics, bacteria, viruses, and so on, which are very detrimental to human health. Discharge of heavy metals from these sources is one of the major environmental problems, posing serious threat to living organisms. Among different water pollutants, heavy metal ions, such as Pb2+, Cd2+, Zn2+, Ni2+ Cr(VI), and Hg2+, have high toxic and nonbiodegradable properties and can cause severe health problems in animals and human beings. With the development of nanotechnology, nanoparticles are used as the adsorbents in wastewater treatment. Several researches have proved that nanoparticles are the effective sorbents widely used for the removal of heavy metal ions at low concentrations from wastewater due to their unique structure properties like high selectivity and adsorption capacity. Herein, the possible adsorption mechanism of heavy metal ions and the modification of adsorbents in efficient removal of heavy metal ions are discussed. This chapter intends to bring together all the recent research works on nanoparticle synthesis and its advantages as adsorbents in the treatment of heavy metal-polluted wastewater that have so far been undertaken.

Applying the single-cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay, we show that the widely used organophosphorus pesticide malathion is cytotoxic, genotoxic, and induces oxidative stress in human lymphocytes.

Background Malathion is the most widely used organophosphate pesticide in agriculture. Increasing cancer incidence in agricultural workers and their children links to the exposure of malathion. Identification of genes involved in the process of carcinogenesis is essential for exploring the role of malathion. The alteration in gene expression by malathion in human lymphocytes has not been explored yet, although hematological malignancies are rampant in humans. Objective This study investigates the malathion induced expression of cancer associated genes in human lymphocytes. Methods Human lymphocyte viability and colony-forming ability were analyzed in malathion treated and control groups. Gene expression profile in control and malathion treated human lymphocytes were performed using a microarray platform. The genes which have significant functions and those involved in different pathways were analyzed using the DAVID database. Differential gene expression upon malathion exposure was validated by quantitative real-time (qRT)-PCR. Results Malathion caused a concentration-dependent reduction in human lymphocyte viability. At low concentration (50 μg/mL) of malathion treatment, human lymphocytes were viable indicating that low concentration of malathion is not cytotoxic and induces the colony formation. Total of 659 genes (15%) were up regulated and 3729 genes (85%) were down regulated in malathion treated human lymphocytes. About 57 cancer associated genes related to the growth and differentiation of B and T cells, immunoglobulin production, haematopoiesis, tumor suppression, oncogenes and signal transduction pathways like MAPK and RAS were induced by malathion. Conclusion This study evidences the carcinogenic nature of malathion. Low concentration of this pesticide is not cytotoxic and induces differentially regulated genes in human lymphocytes, which are involved in the initiation, progression, and pathogenesis of cancer.

The present study involves the development of genetically engineered tobacco plants with annexin gene. The plasmid DNA of pUC 19 vector having the desired Annexin gene (3Kbp) and the plasmid DNA of the binary vector pGPTV (13 Kbp) were isolated from E.coli (DH5α strain) by alkaline lysis method. The purified pUC 19/Annexin and pGPTV plasmid were restriction digested using the restriction enzymes EcoRI and XbaI as a linearised band was eluted from the gel. The digested plasmid shown in the band pattern in the gel were cut by gel elution technique and purified from other reaction mixture. Then the dot spot test was done to calculate the concentration of pGPTV and Annexin gene. The recombinant PGPTV plasmid with the annexin gene in Agrobacterium tumefaciens MTCC 431 was mobilized and transferred to plant system through the mobilization helper plasmid pRK2013. The kanamycin resistance gene (NPT II) was used as a selective marker. The calli used for isolating the genomic DNA which was then amplified for confirmation of annexin gene. The nptII gene of 800 bp serves as a selectable marker system in plants and its amplification confirmed the presence of annexin gene in transgenic plants by PCR method.