Protective effect of Acorus calamus on kidney and liver functions in healthy mice

Acorus calamus (AC), is an herbal medicine commonly used as traditional practice in pharmacological applications. Present study initiated was evident to proof the hepatoprotective and nephroprotective activity with supporting histopathological status of kidneys and liver. Investigation done with the 5% (w/v) of AC dissolved in tap water (50 g/l) given for 15 days compared with control tap water to 5-7 week old C57Bl/6 mice both sexes. Renal function, liver function, biochemical and complete blood count was evaluated. AC significantly reduced food intake, body weight, also plasma concentration of electrolytes such as Na⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺, were reduced as the excretion of electrolytes were increased in urine, significantly increased Fluid Intake, with Urinary urea, Urinary creatinine, Glomerular Filtration Rate, creatinine clearance, High-density lipoproteins, Mean Corpuscular Volume. The biochemical findings showed the hepatoprotective and histopathological changes showed the nephroprotective nature of AC by normal structure with no necrosis.     

Two New Records of Genus Lepiota (Agaricaceae) from Pakistan

Biology Bulletin - In our ongoing efforts to inventory the lepiotaceous fungi of Pakistan, we here report on two species, new to Pakistan: Lepiota cingulum is also new to Asia, and L. oreadiformis....     

Perspectives of nervonic acid production by Yarrowia lipolytica

Biotechnology Letters - Nervonic acid (cis-15-tetracosenoic acid, 24:1Δ15) is a long chain monounsaturated fatty acid, mainly exists in white matt er of the human brains. It plays an important...     

VEB4: Early zygotic mRNA expressed asymmetrically along the animal-vegetal axis of the sea urchin embryo

We have analyzed a gene, designated VEB4 , that is expressed transiently in very early blastulae of the sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus . Sequence analysis of the complete open reading frame shows that VEB4 encodes an unusual, highly charged protein with a pl of 9.55. We show here that VEB4 mRNA accumulate in a spatial pattern that is indistinguishable from that of two other recently described genes encoding metallo-endoproteases, SpAN , related to astacin and SpHE , the hatching enzyme (Reynolds et al . 1992). VEB4 and other members of this gene set encode the earliest strictly zygotic gene products that have been identified. The asymmetric accumulation of VEB4 mRNA in non-vegetal blastomeres of the 16 cell embryo and their descendants reflects the animal-vegetal maternal developmental axis.