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ABSTRACT Background Breast cancer is the most predominant and heterogeneous cancer in women. Moreover, breast cancer has a high prevalence to metastasize to distant organs, such as the brain, lungs, and bones. Patients with breast cancer metastasis to the bones have poor overall and relapse‐free survival. Moreover, treatment using chemotherapy and immunotherapy is ineffective in preventing or reducing cancer metastasis. Recent Findings Microorganisms residing in the gut and breast, termed as the resident microbiome, have a significant influence on the formation and progression of breast cancer. Recent studies have identified some microorganisms that induce breast cancer metastasis to the bone. These organisms utilize multiple mechanisms, including induction of epithelial–mesenchymal transition, steroid hormone metabolism, immune modification, bone remodeling, and secretion of microbial products that alter tumor microenvironment, and enhance propensity of breast cancer cells to metastasize. However, their involvement makes these microorganisms suitable as novel therapeutic targets. Thus, studies are underway to prevent and reduce breast cancer metastasis to distant organs, including the bone, using chemotherapeutic or immunotherapeutic drugs, along with probiotics, antibiotics or fecal microbiota transplantation. Conclusions The present review describes association of gut and breast microbiomes with bone metastases. We have elaborated on the mechanisms utilized by breast and gut microbiomes that induce breast cancer metastasis, especially to the bone. The review also highlights the current treatment options that may target both the microbiomes for preventing or reducing breast cancer metastases. Finally, we have specified the necessity of maintaining a diverse gut microbiome to prevent dysbiosis, which otherwise may induce breast carcinogenesis and metastasis especially to the bone. The review may facilitate more detailed investigations of the causal associations between these microbiomes and bone metastases. Moreover, the potential treatment options described in the review may promote discussions and research on the modes to improve survival of patients with breast cancer by targeting the gut and breast microbiomes.

Abstract Background Breast cancer, the leading cancer type in women worldwide, is affected by reproductive and nonreproductive factors. Estrogen and progesterone influence the incidence and progression of breast cancer. The microbiome of the gut, a complex organ that plays a vital role in digestion and homeostasis, enhances availability of estrogen and progesterone in the host. Thus, an altered gut microbiome may influence the hormone‐induced breast cancer incidence. This review describes the current understanding of the roles of gut microbiome in influencing the incidence and progression of breast cancer, with an emphasis on the microbiome‐induced metabolism of estrogen and progesterone. Recent Findings Microbiome has been recognized as a promising hallmark of cancer. Next‐generation sequencing technologies have aided in rapid identification of components of the gut microbiome that are capable of metabolizing estrogen and progesterone. Moreover, studies have indicated a wider role of the gut microbiome in metabolizing chemotherapeutic and hormonal therapy agents and reducing their efficacy in patients with breast cancer, with a predominant effect in postmenopausal women. Conclusion The gut microbiome and variations in its composition significantly alter the incidence and therapy outcomes of patients with breast cancer. Thus, a healthy and diverse microbiome is required for better response to anticancer therapies. Finally, the review emphasizes the requirement of studies to elucidate mechanisms that may aid in improving the gut microbiome composition, and hence, survival outcomes of patients with breast cancer.

This short review provides an overview of some aspects of the current understanding of Mott insulators and Mott metal‐insulator transitions. The development of this field is traced, from earliest classical views to the state‐of‐the‐art picture based on methods of quantum field theory. A quasi‐local view point, characterizing "pure" Mott physics, throughout this article is focused on. Following an extensive discussion on Mott transitions in one‐ and multi‐orbital Hubbard models, progress is reviewed in first‐principles correlation‐based approaches in achieving a quantitative description of insulator‐metal transitions in two celebrated Mott materials. Building thereupon, success of such approaches in providing microscopic justification for the famed Mott criterion, as well as in the attempts to model emerging devices is reviewed briefly. The study is concluded with a discussion of a class of Mott insulators modeled by the Kugel‐Khomskii model, and discuss how progress in the understanding of novel quantum liquid‐crystal‐like order provides an attractive opportunity to gain insight into topologically ordered states and topological‐to‐trivial phase transitions for certain quantum spin models in terms of a dual description in terms of Landau‐like symmetry breaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ayurveda is one of the oldest systems of traditional medicine that provides treatments for a wide range of acute and chronic health problems. It is a common myth amongst people that Ayurvedic drugs have no side effects, whereas the fact is that these drugs can cause adverse effects. Despite their wide use, the safety data of many Ayurvedic formulations are still unavailable. Tapyadi loha is an Ayurvedic formulation traditionally claimed for iron deficiency anemia in pregnant and non-pregnant patients. However, no scientific study has been conducted to evaluate its oral toxicity. Hence, the present study evaluated the acute and subacute oral toxicity of the Tapyadi loha according to the OECD test guidelines 425 and 407, respectively. Tapyadi loha did not cause mortality nor any signs of toxicity when given once orally at a dose of 2000 mg/kg. Subacute toxicity study showed no mortality as well as no behavioral, hematological, biochemical and histopathological abnormalities in rats treated with Tapyadi loha formulation at 250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg for 28 days. It is concluded that the Tapyadi loha is safe at a single dose of 2000 mg/kg and 28 days repeated dose of 1000 mg/kg by oral route in rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetes mellitus is the most widely recognized endocrine disorder which is influencing a bigger populace on the planet. There are various causes of diabetes, such as physical inactivity, obesity, family history, race, and age. Diabetes mellitus is associated with some life-threatening complications, such as neuropathy, nephropathy, various eye diseases or retinopathy, and cardiovascular disorders. Many synthetic antihyperglycemic agents are available in the market for the treatment of diabetes and its complications. But, due to some serious side effects of these synthetic agents, people are opting for herbal remedies and, therefore, they are now becoming popular. Herbal remedies have lesser side effects and higher affordability and therefore can be preferably used over synthetic agents for a long-term disorder like diabetes mellitus. In the present study, scientific research and review studies on the topic were collected from Science Direct, Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, and other relevant sources. The references of all the articles were screened manually for any additional information on popular polyherbal formulations in traditional Ayurvedic, Chinese, and Unani medicinal systems. It is found that these polyherbal formulations are studied for anti-diabetic potential. Furthermore, some are also investigated for mechanism of action of anti-diabetic effects. This review highlights various Ayurvedic, Chinese, and Unani polyherbal formulations commonly utilized in the management of diabetes mellitus along with their pre-clinical and clinical investigations, which will enhance the existing knowledge of the researchers.

Introduction: spinal anaesthesia has emerged as a most popular technique for abdominal and lower abdominal surgeries for its safety, simplicity and effectivity. Adding adjuvants drugs to intrathecal local anaesthetics improves quality and duration of spinal blockade, and prolongs postoperative analgesia. Intrathecal dexmedetomidine with low-dose bupivacaine provides faster onset, prolonged sensory and motor block and reduced rescue analgesic requirement in patient undergoing TURP. Aims and objectives: To assess the Onset of sensory analgesia, onset of motor block, fixation time of sensory block, highest level of sensory block, quality of analgesia. Material and methods: This Prospective - Randomized study was conducted in the Anaesthesia Anaesthesia Department in Government Medical College, Nagpur from December 2018 to November 2020. 60 adult female patients between the age of 18 and 60 years participated in the study. The samples were equally divided into 2 groups, Group D-Case group-30 patients and Group B-Control group-30 patients. Intravenous cannula of 18/20 G was secured and patient was preloaded with 10ml/kg of Ringer lactate solution over 10-30 minutes. Baseline vital signs such blood pressure, pulse rate were recorded. Result: Maximum number of patients in group D and group B i. e 100% and 60% respectively had an excellent quality of analgesia during the procedure. Quality of analgesia was reported as satisfactory in 30% of patients and poor in 10% patients in group B. Quality of analgesia was found to be comparable in the two groups (p= 0.001). Thus, addition of dexmedetomidine only marginally improved quality of surgical analgesia in our study. Conclusion: Intrathecal inj. Dexmedetomidine 5mcg acts synergistically to potentiate intrathecal local anaesthetic bupivacaine with the result that there is relatively faster onset of sensory block and prolongation of both sensory and motor block. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is fundamental to microbial evolution and adaptation. When a gene is horizontally transferred, it may either add itself as a new gene to the recipient genome (possibly displacing nonhomologous genes) or replace an existing homologous gene. Currently, studies do not usually distinguish between "additive" and "replacing" HGTs, and their relative frequencies, integration mechanisms, and specific roles in microbial evolution are poorly understood. In this work, we develop a novel computational framework for large-scale classification of HGTs as either additive or replacing. Our framework leverages recently developed phylogenetic approaches for HGT detection and classifies HGTs inferred between terminal edges based on gene orderings along genomes and phylogenetic relationships between the microbial species under consideration. The resulting method, called DART , is highly customizable and scalable and can classify a large fraction of inferred HGTs with high confidence and statistical support. Our application of DART to a large dataset of thousands of gene families from 103 Aeromonas genomes provides insights into the relative frequencies, functional biases, and integration mechanisms of additive and replacing HGTs. Among other results, we find that (i) the relative frequency of additive HGT increases with increasing phylogenetic distance, (ii) replacing HGT dominates at shorter phylogenetic distances, (iii) additive and replacing HGTs have strikingly different functional profiles, (iv) homologous recombination in flanking regions of a novel gene may be a frequent integration mechanism for additive HGT, and (v) phages and mobile genetic elements likely play an important role in facilitating additive HGT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background We consider two fundamental computational problems that arise when comparing phylogenetic trees, rooted or unrooted, with non-identical leaf sets. The first problem arises when comparing two trees where the leaf set of one tree is a proper subset of the other. The second problem arises when the two trees to be compared have only partially overlapping leaf sets. The traditional approach to handling these problems is to first restrict the two trees to their common leaf set. An alternative approach that has shown promise is to first complete the trees by adding missing leaves, so that the resulting trees have identical leaf sets. This requires the computation of an optimal completion that minimizes the distance between the two resulting trees over all possible completions. Results We provide optimal linear-time algorithms for both completion problems under the widely-used Robinson–Foulds (RF) distance measure. Our algorithm for the first problem improves the time complexity of the current fastest algorithm from quadratic (in the size of the two trees) to linear. No algorithms have yet been proposed for the more general second problem where both trees have missing leaves. We advance the study of this general problem by proposing a useful restricted version of the general problem and providing optimal linear-time algorithms for the restricted version. Our experimental results on biological data sets suggest that completion-based RF distances can be very different compared to traditional RF distances.