Redox-modulation, Suppression of “Oncogenic” Superoxide and Induction of Apoptosis in Burkitt’s Lymphoma Cells Using Geum urbanum L. Extracts

Burkitt’s lymphoma is a highly aggressive type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, linked to the Epstein-Barr virus, which induces oxidative stress and DNA damage in the infected cells. We investigated the cytotoxicity and redox-modulating ability of ethyl acetate (EtOAc) and n-butanol (n-BuOH) extracts from Geum urbanum L. roots and aerial parts on Burkitt`s lymphoma cells (BLC), to elucidate their impact on oxidative stress and cell survival. BLC Raji was treated with EtOAc and n-BuOH extracts to analyze: cell viability; induction of apoptosis; hydroperoxides and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) by 2’,7’-dichlorodihydrofluorescein assay; superoxide by dihydroethidium assay; total antioxidant capacity by TAC assay. All extracts suppressed cell growth and induce apoptosis. n-BuOH extracts possessed higher cytotoxicity and pro-apoptotic activity compared to EtOAc. The fractions decreased the hydroperoxides and RNS levels. There was no correlation between the DCF fluorescence in the treated cells and their viability (R = -0.3722; p > 0.05). Root extracts decreased the superoxide level, while the leaf extracts did not. There was a good correlation between the dihydroethidium fluorescence in the treated cells and their viability (R = 0.9843; p < 0.01). All extracts increased the TAC of BLC. G. urbanum extracts serve as redox-modulators and anti-inflammatory compounds, decreasing the intracellular level of “oncogenic” superoxide and cell proliferation.

The Effect of 5-hydroxytryptamine on Smooth Muscles is Impacted by Broadband UV and LED UV and Blue Light

Due to their effects, similar to low-intensity therapy light sources such as light-emitting diodes (LED) and broadband spectrum lamps have recently become commonly used in the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative pathologies, cancer, as well as ageing. Despite the proven positive effects of such therapies, deeper understanding of the light therapies’ biological effects remains unclear. Even more, the molecular mechanisms through which different neurotransmitters, namely serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT), mediate the organism’s response to radiation are yet indistinct. In this paper, we present the design and development of a specialized system for irradiation of biological objects, which is composed of LED 365 nm and LED 470 nm and a broadband lamp source of UVA/B (350 nm) with intensity, power density and direction, which can be optimized experimentally. The system, named a “water organ bath (wob)”, is used in the current work to irradiate smooth muscle stomach strips of rats. The obtained results prove that the modulation of the spontaneous contractile smooth muscle activity and the potentiation of the effects of major neurotransmitters are executed by the emitted light. The probable explanation for the neurotransmitters photoactivation is that it is the resultant effect of electromagnetic radiation on intracellular enzymes signaling systems.

Design of Laparoscopic Executive Instruments for Robots

The main objective of this work is focused on improving some technical deficiencies of existing laparoscopic executive instruments to robots. For this reason two main problems have been overtaken: i) to perform a kinematic-structural analysis of existing executive instruments by structural and kinematic criteria, to estimate their engineering characteristics, motivating the need to develop new ones and ii) to develop functionally operating model of an executive tool, with simplified kinematics of actuation of end-effectors, with higher reliability and easier support of the sterility of the instrument. In contrast to daVinchi robot system which includes structures with three orthogonal rotations this study describes other decision with combination of perpendicular and parallel rotations. The design is simplified, no additional transmission mechanisms of the executive links are required, which in turn facilitates the process of control of the device and proved higher reliability.

Model for Prediction of the Weight and Height Measurements of Patients with Disabilities for Diagnosis and Therapy

Background: Accurate measurement of a patient’s height and weight is an essential part of diagnosis and therapy, but there is some controversy as to how to calculate the height and weight of patients with disabilities. Objective: This study aims to use anthropometric measurements (arm span, length of leg, chest circumference, and waist circumference) to find a model (alternatives) that can allow the calculation of the height and the body weight of patients with disabilities. Additionally, a model for the prediction of weight and height measurements of patients with disabilities was established. Method: Four hander patients aged 20-80 years were enrolled in this study and divided into two groups, 210 (52.5%) male and 190 (47.5%) female. Result: A significant correlation was noted between body height and arm span, as well as between body height and length of leg in all study groups. The body weight and the ratio of arm span or leg length to the sum of chest and waist circumferences were found to have a negative significant correlation. Model equations were derived to estimate the height and body weight according to anthropometric measurements. Conclusion: Anthropometric measurements can be used to create a model for calculating the body height and body weight of patients with disabilities and which can be considered an alternative to measurements that can be made on otherwise healthy subjects.

Molecular Docking Study of the Potential Relevance of the Natural Compounds Isoflavone and Myricetin to COVID-19

The 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread rapidly from its origin in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, to the rest of the world. The efficacy of herbal treatment in the control of contagious disease was demonstrated during the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Natural compound used for this study were isoflavone and myricetin. Molecular docking was performed to analyze binding mode of the compounds towards 12 proteins related to COVID-19. The prediction shows that isoflavone and myricetin have moderate probability of antiviral activity. All of the docked compounds occupied the active sites of the proteins related to COVID-19. Based on QSAR and molecular docking, interactions were predicted with 10 out of 12 potential COVID-19 proteins for myricetin and with 9 out of 12 proteins interactions for isoflavone. A potential disease alleviating action is suggested for isoflavone and myricetin in the context of COVID-19 infection.

Immunomodulatory Effect of Pinus Armandi Franch Seed Oil

Pinus armandi franch is a special local plant in China and its seed oil is a nice resource of linoleic acid (LA) and linolenic acid. This study investigated the effects of enriching the mouse diet with the ω-6 and ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), LA (18:2 ω-6) and α-linolenic acid (18:3 ω-3) different ratios (ω-6/ω-3) on total lipids in Pinus armandi franch seed oil (PAFO), and immune evaluation indexes in plasma, lymph nodes, and spleen from isolated immune cells. Kunming mice were fed a commercial chow. PAFO with a certain ratio (ω-6/ω-3) could promote the proliferation of spleen lymphocytes induced by ConA in mice and the optimal ratio was 4 or 6. PAFO with different ratios (ω-6/ω-3) could increase the spleen index and thymus index and there were significant differences between PAFO group and control group (p < 0.01). The results indicate that the ratio of ω-6 PUFA: ω-3 PUFA is 4 or 6 improve some of the indices of the mice immune status and that a moderate increase in the level of ω-6 PUFA in the mice diet does not suppress the immune system.

Numerical Investigation of Interaction between Saccular Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms and Arterial Bifurcations

In order to fully understand the interaction between the Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms (AAAs) and the arterial bifurcations interface it is important to attain more detailed information on blood hemodynamics stresses by using an accurate and real model of the vascular system of the human. In this study, a computer simulation, which integrates dinically acquired of 73-year-old male patient with saccular AAA MR angiograms image is considered. The numerical predictions for 2D of two models (with and without saccular AAA) – axisymmetric, rigid wall Newtonian and non-Newtonian Carreau blood model are presented. The finite volume method performed by ANSYS-Fluent Package was used to model this problem. The blood hemodynamics is considered as steady state condition in two values of Reynolds numbers of laminar flow condition. Blood hemodynamics is calculated for an improved set of dimensionless values pointer parameters include the pressure dimensionless, dimensionless Wall Shear Stress (WSS) and flow velocity. The results show that at the turbulent flow, velocity is with highest fluctuation profile and generate some vortices near the inner wall of AAA. The highest WSS levels are obtained downstream of AAA and at bifurcation apex. The presence of AAA in flow path will increase blood velocity of the distal by 35% for laminar and about 42% for turbulent. Finally, the velocity profile was compared with previous literature and give good agreement at the same computational condition.

Comparison of Several Filtering Approaches on Water Treatment Processes

This paper addresses the state estimation problem of a bioreactor in wastewater treatment processes. The state variables of this process are the concentrations of the organic pollutants and of the bacteria inside the bioreactor. A specific growth rate function is used to describe the variation of the bacteria concentration when the amount of pollutants increases. This rate can also represent the speed of the biological degradation of the pollutants. Most research work in this field uses only deterministic models that do not conveniently account for uncertainties. These models are often obtained using several simplifications during the modeling procedure such as neglecting the measurement noises. In this paper, we consider stochastic models and study the state estimation problem using three approaches: the Extended Kalman filter, the Unscented Kalman filter and the Particle filter. These methods are adapted to the models in study and compared to understand which is the most adequate for this type of processes considering their slow evolution, discrete time measurements and high-intensity noises. Further, we also apply a Multiple Model Adaptive method which adapts the filters to the correct growth rate type. This method is also used to automatically choose the most efficient estimation method for this type of biological processes.

Parallel Distributed Framework for State Space Adaptive Filter for Removal of PLI from Cardiac Signals

Cardiac signals are often corrupted by artefacts like power line interference (PLI) which may mislead the cardiologists to correctly diagnose the critical cardiac diseases. The cardiac signals like high resolution electrocardiogram (HRECG), ultra-high frequency ECG (UHF-ECG) and intracardiac electrograms are the specialized techniques in which higher frequency component of interest up to 1 KHz are observed. Therefore, a state space recursive least square (SSRLS) adaptive algorithm is applied for the removal of PLI and its harmonics. The SSRLS algorithm is an effective approach which extracts the desired cardiac signals from the observed signal without any need of reference signal. However, SSRLS is inherited computational heavy algorithm; therefore, filtration of increased number of PLI harmonics bestow an adverse impact on the execution time of the algorithm. In this paper, a parallel distributed SSRLS (PD-SSRLS) algorithm is introduced which runs the computationally expensive SSRLS adaptive algorithm parallely. The proposed architecture efficiently removes the PLI along with its harmonics even the time alignment among the contributing nodes is not the same. Furthermore, the proposed PD-SSRLS scheme provides less computational cost as compared to sequentially operated SSRLS algorithm. A comparison has been drawn between the proposed PD-SSRLS algorithm and sequentially operated SSRLS algorithm in term of qualitative and quantitative performances. The simulation results show that the proposed PD-SSRLS architecture provides almost same qualitative and quantitative performances than that of sequentially operated SSRLS algorithm with less computational cost.

Development of a Protocol for Virtual Screening of PPARγ Weak Partial Agonists and Their Metabolites: Case Study on Naturally-derived Oleanane Triterpenoids

Triterpenoids are well known metabolic syndrome (MetS) modulators. One of the suggested molecular mechanisms of action involves peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) activation. In this study we aimed to: (i) develop a virtual screening (VS) protocol for PPARγ weak partial agonists, (ii) predict potential metabolic transformations of naturally-derived triterpenoids, and (iii) perform VS of the triterpenoids and their metabolites. The NIH PubMed system was searched for publications about naturally-derived oleanane triterpenoids which are agonists or up-regulators of PPARγ. Structure- and ligand-based methods were combined in the development of the VS protocol. Metabolites were predicted using Meteor Nexus expert system (Lhasa Limited). Two in-house virtual libraries of PPARγ weak partial agonists and naturally-derived triterpenoids with their predicted metabolites were compiled. The pharmacophore-based docking protocol was applied for VS of the collected triterpenoids. Most of the docking poses reproduced the binding mode of caulophyllogenin (a weak partial agonist) in a complex with PPARγ (PDB ID 5F9B). Our results contribute to the mechanistic explanation of the effects of triterpenoids suggesting possible weak partial agonistic activity toward PPARγ. This research can direct further studies on triterpenoids’ role in MetS modulation. The developed protocol can be applied for VS of any PPARγ weak partial agonists.