Investigating the Effects of Aqueous and Alcoholic Extracts of Allium Hirtifolium and Allium Jesdianum on Keratinase Activity of Trichophyton Mentagrophytes

Background: Trichophyton spp., as pathogenic species to humans and animals, cause different forms of dermatophytosis through the production of particular enzymes, playing an essential role in tissue invasion. Among these, herein, keratinase was investigated, for the specific case of Trichophyton mentagrophytes, as a target of the effects of Allium hirtifolium and Allium jesdianum extracts, thus pharmacological potential of these plants was studied against keratinase activity. Methodology: Sampling was carried out on 20 bald patients from medical diagnostic laboratories and mycology centers, with suspected dermatophytosis of scalp. For confirming the presence of Trichophyton mentagrophytes in the specimens, different laboratory procedures were applied. Trichophyton mentagrophytes isolates were cultured on a screening medium containing keratin to verify production of the keratinase enzyme. The best enzyme-producing isolate was selected by measuring diameter of transparent halo around colony to be used in subsequent stages. Afterwards, the optimized conditions maximizing enzyme production and activity were determined. Finally, the inhibitory effect of different dilutions of aqueous and alcoholic extracts of Allium jesdianum and Allium hirtifolium on extracellular keratinase activity was studied. Results : Sixteen out of 20 fungal isolates were identified as the Trichophyton mentagrophytes. The most desirable reduction on keratinase activity was reported for dilution values of 50 and 100 mg/ml of both aqueous and ethanolic extracts of A.jesdianum, though much more significant decrease belonged to the latter, and for dilution values of 25 and 100 mg/ ml of both aqueous and ethanolic extracts of A.hirtifolium. Conclusion : Concerning our results, it is suggested that paying special attention to these natural compounds for the treatment of dermatophytosis could be remarkably effective, considering significant production of keratinase observed in T. mentagrophytes, and they are beneficial, as they have no side effects and offer an alternative to currently available medications, which are under the restriction of drug resistance.

The dot-probe attention bias task as a method to assess psychological wellbeing after anesthesia: A study with adult female long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

Understanding the impact routine research and laboratory procedures have on animals is crucial to improving their wellbeing and to the success and reproducibility of the research they are involved in. Cognitive measures of welfare offer insight into animals’ internal psychological state, but require validation. Attention bias - the tendency to attend to one type of information over another – is a cognitive phenomenon documented in humans and animals that is known to be modulated by affective state (i.e., emotions). Hence, changes in attention bias may offer researchers a deeper perspective of their animals’ psychological wellbeing. The dot-probe task is an established method for quantifying attention bias in humans (by measuring reaction time to a dot-probe replacing pairs of stimuli), but has yet to be validated in animals. We developed a dot-probe task for long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) to determine if the task can detect changes in attention bias following anesthesia, a context known to modulate attention and trigger physiological arousal in macaques. Our task included the following features: stimulus pairs of threatening and neutral facial expressions of conspecifics and their scrambled counterparts, two stimuli durations (100 and 1000 ms), and counterbalancing of the dot-probe’s position on the touchscreen (left, right) and location relative to the threatening stimulus. We tested eight group-housed adult females on different days relative to being anesthetized (baseline and one-, three-, seven-, and 14-days after). At baseline, monkeys were vigilant to threatening content when stimulus pairs were presented for 100 ms, but not 1000 ms. On the day immediately following anesthesia, we found evidence that attention bias changed to an avoidance of threatening content. Attention bias returned to threat vigilance by the third day post-anesthesia and remained so up to the last day of testing (14 days after anesthesia). We also found that attention bias was independent of the type of stimuli pair (i.e., whole face vs. scrambled counterparts), suggesting that the scrambled stimuli retained aspects of the original stimuli. Nevertheless, whole faces were more salient to the monkeys as responses to these trials were generally slower than to scrambled stimulus pairs. Overall, our study suggests it is feasible to detect changes in attention bias following anesthesia using the dot-probe task in non-human primates. Our results also reveal important aspects of stimulus preparation and experimental design.

ELaPro, a LOINC-Mapped Core Dataset for Top Laboratory Procedures of Eligibility Screening for Clinical Trials

Background Screening for eligible patients continues to pose a great challenge for many clinical trials. This has led to a rapidly growing interest in standardizing computable representations of eligibility criteria (EC) in order to develop tools that leverage data from electronic health record (EHR) systems. Although laboratory procedures (LP) represent a common entity of EC that is readily available and retrievable from EHR systems, there is a lack of interoperable data models for this entity of EC. A public, specialized data model that utilizes international, widely-adopted terminology for LP, e.g. LOINC, is much needed to support automated screening tools. Objective The aim of this study is to establish a core dataset for LP most frequently requested to recruit patients for clinical trials using LOINC terminology. Employing such a core dataset could enhance the interface between study feasibility platforms and EHR systems and significantly improve automatic patient recruitment. Methods We used a semi-automated approach to analyze 10516 UMLS-annotated screening forms from the Medical Data Models (MDM) portal’s data repository. An automated semantic analysis based on concept frequency is followed by a manual expert review performed by physicians to analyze complex recruitment-relevant concepts not amenable to automatic approach. Results Based on analysis of 138225 EC from 10516 screening forms, 55 laboratory procedures represented 77.87% of all UMLS laboratory concept occurrences identified in the selected EC forms. We identified 26413 unique UMLS concepts from 118 UMLS semantic types and covered the vast majority of MeSH disease domains. Conclusions Only a small set of LP cover the majority of laboratory concepts in screening EC. The results prove the feasibility of establishing a core dataset for a group of LP common to most EC forms. We present ELaPro (Eligibility Laboratory Procedures), a novel, LOINC-mapped, core dataset for the most frequent 55 LP requested in screening for clinical trials in multiple machine-readable data formats.

Conditional Freezing, Flight and Darting?

Fear conditioning is one of the most frequently used laboratory procedures for modeling learning and memory generally, and anxiety disorders in particular. The conditional response (CR) used in the majority of fear conditioning studies in rodents is freezing. Recently, it has been reported that under certain conditions, running, jumping or darting replaces freezing as the dominant CR. These findings raise both a critical methodological problem and an important theoretical issue. If only freezing is measured but rodents express their learning with a different response, then significant instances of learning, memory, or fear may be missed. In terms of theory, whatever conditions lead to these different behaviors may be a key to how animals transition between different defensive responses and different emotional states. We replicated these past results but along with several novel control conditions. Contrary to the prior conclusions, running and darting were entirely a result of nonassociative processes and were actually suppressed by associative learning. Darting and flight were taken to be analogous to nonassociative startle or alpha responses that are potentiated by fear. On the other hand, freezing was the purest reflection of associative learning. We also uncovered a rule that describes when these movements replace freezing: When afraid, freeze until there is a sudden novel change in stimulation, then burst into vigorous flight attempts. This rule may also govern the change from fear to panic.

Two modified natural in vitro fertilisation (IVF) protocols compared to conventional IVF treatment: Retrospective data from one Danish Fertility Centre

Aim of study: Over the last decade, laboratory procedures in in vitro fertilisation (IVF) have improved. Hyperstimulated ovaries cause an overload of surplus embryos. The present study was designed to evaluate the efficiency of two different modified IVF cycle protocols trying to reduce the load of medication used for IVF: simple IVF (S-IVF), Tamoxifen 40 mg daily from day 2 in the cycle to ovulation induction) and mild IVF (M-IVF), Tamoxifen 40 mg daily and every secondary 150 IU Gonal F until ovulation induction. The study aims to evaluate their efficiency compared with our conventional IVF (C-IVF) using a short antagonist protocol. Methods: A retrospective cohort study including all patients admitted to IVF for unexplained infertility, tubal factor, and male factor. In all stimulated cycles patients aimed at having fresh embryos transferred and surplus good embryos cryopreserved. All patients were recruited in the same period and allocated to the different treatments on their own request. The study was conducted between June 2019 and February 2021. Results: In total the study included 976 IVF cycles. 651 cycles from C-IVF, 145 cycles from S-IVF and 180 cycles from M-IVF. Mean age in the groups were comparable. Mean number of eggs retrieved was 6.1 (C-IVF), 1.2 (S-IVF) and 3.0 (M-IVF). Pregnancy rate per fresh transfer was found to be 29% for C-IVF, 26% in the S-IVF group and for the M-IVF 20%. Conclusion: Modified IVF stimulation protocols may be an important step towards a simpler assisted reproductive technology (ART) approach. More tolerable for women, easier and cheaper for patients and society they maintain acceptable clinical pregnancy rates. Large prospective studies need to be performed in the future.

Next Generation Oilfield on-Site Trace Chemicals Analysis by SERS

Accurate and precise monitoring of chemical additives in oilfield brine is an important aspect of oil and gas operations towards corrosion control and flow assurance. Many operators are required to monitor the residual concentrations of chemical additives in production systems at specific locations to monitor and troubleshoot factors affecting chemical deliverability and performance. However, residual measurements are extremely problematic due to many factors, including the surface active nature of the chemicals and high ionic strength of the brine. The error on residual measurements can often be over 100%. Residual measurement typically requires the collection of a water sample, which often needs to be transported to a centralized analytical laboratory. Analytical techniques used to measure residuals are based on several combinations of separation (e.g. chromatography, liquid-liquid extraction, etc.) and detection (e.g. various forms of spectroscopy). However, most of these methods lack portability and require tedious laboratory procedures located off-site. The current paper describes a nanotechnology-enabled Raman spectroscopy method developed and tested for monitoring chemical inhibitor residuals. Development of this technology with handheld instrumentation provides better detection and quantification of chemical additives in the field and reduces time and cost compared to sending samples to off-site laboratories for data collection.

Bacteria and Parasites Pathogens Associated with the Houseflies (Musca domestica) in Lafia Metropolis of Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Houseflies (Musa domestica) are common insects of the families muscidae, order Dipthera. They are synanthropic insects that are widely distributed worldwide. They enter several places, including contaminated premises due to their own biological habit of feeding. This study identifies the pathogenic parasites and bacteria associated with the houseflies in Lafia, Nigeria. A total of 215 flies were collected from 5 locations (New market, Neigbourhood market, Kasuwan Turmatur, Kasuwan Karo and Yanlemu market) within the Lafia metropolis, from September, 2019 to March 2020. The fly specimens were analyzed for the presence of pathogenic parasites and bacteria using standard laboratory procedures. The results showed that the parasites: Entamoeba hietolytic was most prevalence with (22.11%) Ascaris lumbricoides being (15.05%), Taenia species (14.70%) schistosoma mansoni (14.70%), Hookworm and Trichnris trichura recorded least prevalence accounting for (1.12%) respectively, pathogenic bacteria isolated and identify from the houseflies are; Staplyloccus sp (36.36%), Bacillus species (19.48%), Klebsiella sp (19.75%), Escherichia sp (6.49%), Protens sp (7.41%), Salmonella sp (6.49%) and Moraxella sp (2.47%). The result showed significant variation (P<0.05) for both the parasites sp abundance and housefly abundance across the sampled location; however, there was no significant difference (P>0.05) associated with the frequency of occurrence of bacteria species. It can be concluded that Musca domestica in Lafia harbor parasites and bacteria on their external and internal parts. The housefly have mechanical potential to transmit pathogens to man. Measures most be taken to control the fly population to avoid both present and future outbreaks of diseases condition emanating from the flies activities.