Impact of hemostatic gene single point mutations in patients with non-diabetic coronary artery disease

Single point mutations in the genes coding for hemostatic factors were shown to be major inherited predisposing factors for venous thromboembolism. However, their contribution in the development of non-diabetic coronary artery disease [nDCAD] remains controversial. Angiographically demonstrated nDCAD patients (n = 86) and healthy controls (n = 90) were included in the study. Genotype analysis of hemostatic gene polymorphisms were assessed by using CVD strip assay, based on allele specific oligonucleotide probes. The carrier frequency of factor V (FV) H1299R, prothrombin G20210A, glycoprotein (Gp) IIIa L33P, plasminogen activator inhibitor-I (PAI-1) 4G/5G, 4G/4G, 5G/5G, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) A1298C and β-fibrinogen −455 G > A were similar between patients and controls. In contrast, frequency of FV Leiden was significantly higher among patients (12.5%) than controls (5%, OR: 7.94; 95%CI: 1.9–49.6) and FXIII V34L was significantly lower among patients (23.7%) than controls (40%, OR: 0.24; 95%CI: 0.1–0.89). In addition, the frequency of the MTHFR C677T polymorphism was 32.5% among patients compared with 42.5% in controls, of which the T/T genotype was significantly lower among patients (5%) than controls (17.5%, OR: 0.06; 95%CI: 0.01–0.58). No difference was observed in prevalence of prothrombin G20210A, FV H1299R, Gp IIIa L33P, PAI-1 4G5G, MTHFR A1298C, β fibrinogen 455 G > A mutations between patients and controls. However, lower frequency of FXIII Val34Leu and MTHFR C677T polymorphisms may decrease, while FV Leiden polymorphism may increase development of nDCAD.     

Does Hypothermic Treatment Provide an Advantage After Spinal Cord Injury Until Surgery? An Experimental Study

We compared the effects of early and late stage hypothermia treatment after spinal cord injury. Five groups each consisting of seven rats were included in this study. In Group 1a (Clip applied-non-treatment group) and Group 1b (Clip applied-treated group) the spinal cords were harvested 1 h after the injury. In Group 2a (clip applied, non-treated group) and Group 2b (clip applied-treated group) the injured segments were harvested 24 h after injury. Group 3 was designed as the sham-operated group. The significantly lower levels of TBARS and GSH-Px in Group 2a, as compared with Group 1b suggests that the hypothermia was effective in the early stage of treatment (P < 0.05). In contrast, TBARS and GSH-Px levels were significantly increased at the 24 h timepoint following treatment (P < 0.05).Short-term systemic hypothermia reduces lipid peroxidation in the early stages after spinal cord injury. This beneficial effect disappears 24 h following systemic hypothermic treatment.     

Effects of Selenium and L-Carnitine on Oxidative Stress in Blood of Rat Induced by 2.45-GHz Radiation from Wireless Devices

The levels of blood lipid peroxidation, glutathione peroxidase, reduced glutathione, and vitamin C were used to follow the level of oxidative damage caused by 2.45 GHz electromagnetic radiation in rats. The possible protective effects of selenium and L-carnitine were also tested and compared to untreated controls. Thirty male Wistar Albino rats were equally divided into five groups, namely Groups A₁ and A₂: controls and sham controls, respectively; Group B: EMR; Group C: EMR + selenium, Group D: EMR + L-carnitine. Groups B–D were exposed to 2.45 GHz electromagnetic radiation during 60 min/day for 28 days. The lipid peroxidation levels in plasma and erythrocytes were significantly higher in group B than in groups A₁ and A₂ (p?<?0.05), although the reduced glutathione and glutathione peroxidase values were slightly lower in erythrocytes of group B compared to groups A₁ and A₂. The plasma lipid peroxidation level in group A₂ was significantly lower than in group B (p?<?0.05). Erythrocyte reduced glutathione levels (p?<?0.01) in group B; erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase activity in group A₂ (p?<?0.05), group B (p?<?0.001), and group C (p?<?0.05) were found to be lower than in group D. In conclusion, 2.45 GHz electromagnetic radiation caused oxidative stress in blood of rat. L-carnitine seems to have protective effects on the 2.45-GHz-induced blood toxicity by inhibiting free radical supporting antioxidant redox system although selenium has no effect on the investigated values.     

Phenolic Glycosides with antiproteasomal activity from Centaurea urvillei DC. subsp. urvillei

A new flavanone glycoside, naringenin-7-O-β-d-glucuronopyranoside, and a new flavonol glycoside, 6-hydroxykaempferol-7-O-β-d-glucuronopyranoside were isolated together with 12 known compounds, 5 flavone glycoside; hispidulin-7-O-β-d-glucuronopyranoside, apigenin-7-O-β-d-methylglucuronopyranoside, hispidulin-7-O-β-d-methylglucuronopyranoside, hispidulin-7-O-β-d-glucopyranoside, apigenin-7-O-β-d-glucopyranoside, a flavonol; kaempferol, two flavone; apigenin, and luteolin, a flavanone glycoside; eriodictyol-7-O-β-d-glucuronopyranoside, and three phenol glycoside; arbutin, salidroside, and 3,5-dihydroxyphenethyl alcohol-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside from Centaurea urvillei subsp. urvillei. The structure elucidation of the new compounds was achieved by a combination of one- (¹H and ¹³C) and two-dimensional NMR techniques (G-COSY, G-HMQC, and G-HMBC) and LC-ESI-MS. The isolated compounds were tested for their antiproteasomal activity. The results indicated that kaempferol, a well known and widely distributed flavonoid in the plant kingdom, was the most active antiproteasomal agent, followed by apigenin, eriodictyol-7-O-β-d-glucuronopyranoside, 3,5-dihydroxyphenethyl alcohol-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside, and salidroside, respectively.     

N-acetylcysteine modulates doxorubicin-induced oxidative stress and antioxidant vitamin concentrations in liver of rats

Doxorubicin (DOX) is a chemotherapeutic agent, and is widely used in cancer treatment. The most common side effect of DOX was indicated on cardiovascular system by experimental studies. There are some studies suggesting oxidative stress-induced toxic changes on liver related to DOX administration. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) relieves oxidative stress in DOX- induced liver injury in rat. Twenty-four male rats were equally divided into three groups. First group was used as a control. Second group received single dose of DOX. NAC for 10 days was given to constituting the third group after giving one dose of DOX. After 10 days of the experiment, liver tissues were taken from all animals. Lipid peroxidation (LP) levels were higher in the DOX group than in control whereas LP levels were lower in the DOX+NAC group than in control. Vitamin C and vitamin E levels were lower in the DOX group than in control whereas vitamin C and vitamin E levels were higher in the DOX+NAC group than in the DOX group. Reduced glutathione levels were higher in the DOX+NAC group than in control and DOX group. Glutathione peroxidase, vitamin A and β-carotene values were not changed in the three groups by DOX and NAC administrations. In histopathological evaluation of DOX group, there were mononuclear cell infiltrations, vacuolar degeneration, hepatocytes with basophilic nucleus and sinusoidal dilatations. The findings were totally recovered by NAC administration. In conclusion, N-acetylcysteine induced modulator effects on the doxorubicin-induced hepatoxicity by inhibiting free radical production and supporting the antioxidant vitamin levels.     

Lambing rates and litter size following carazolol administration prior to insemination in Kivircik ewes

The effect of carazolol on the ease of penetrating the cervix during artificial insemination, lambing rate and litter size was studied using 1.5–4.0-year old Kivircik ewes in an incomplete 3 × 2 × 2 experimental design. All of the ewes in this study were synchronized for oestrus by insertion of a progesterone impregnated vaginal sponge for 12 days and administration of 400 IU PMSG at sponge withdrawal. Three methods of service were compared: natural service, artificial insemination (AI) with fresh semen, or AI with frozen semen. Two times of insemination (fixed time AI versus AI at observed oestrus) were compared on the fresh and frozen AI treatments. The absence (control) or use of carazolol (carazolol; 0.5 mg/ewe i.m. 30 min before mating) was the third factor in the design and penetration of the cervix by the insemination pipette was assessed as shallow (<10 mm), middle (10–20 mm) or deep (>20 mm). Natural service ewes were only mated at observed oestrus. Consequently, the factorial design was incomplete and there were a total of 10 treatments each represented by 30 ewes. Natural service resulted in a significantly (P < 0.05) higher lambing rate and litter size (86%; 2.0 ± 0.05 lambs/ewe) than AI using fresh (65%; 1.6 ± 0.1 lambs/ewe) or frozen (40%; 1.4 ± 0.14 lambs/ewe) semen. For AI animals the lambing rate and litter size were not significantly different when service was at a fixed time (50%; 1.5 ± 0.12 lambs/ewe) or at observed oestrus (56%; 1.5 ± 0.12 lambs/ewe). Carazolol did not permit complete cervical penetration in any ewe. Deep penetration of the cervix at AI was achieved in 33% of untreated (control) and 48% of carazolol treated ewes (P < 0.05). However, the proportion of ewes in which penetration of the cervix and semen deposition was greater than shallow was similar for control (82%) and carazolol (85%), and lambing rate and litter size were similar for both treatments. Over the three service methods, the lambing rate was 56% for control and 63% for carazolol (NS) and litter size was similar for both treatments. It was concluded that the carazolol treatment used prior to natural mating or AI in this experiment did not improve lambing rate or litter size in Kivircik ewes.     

Machine learning-based risk factor analysis and prevalence prediction of intestinal parasitic infections using epidemiological survey data

BackgroundPrevious epidemiological studies have examined the prevalence and risk factors for a variety of parasitic illnesses, including protozoan and soil-transmitted helminth (STH, e.g., hookworms and roundworms) infections. Despite advancements in machine learning for data analysis, the majority of these studies use traditional logistic regression to identify significant risk factors.MethodsIn this study, we used data from a survey of 54 risk factors for intestinal parasitosis in 954 Ethiopian school children. We investigated whether machine learning approaches can supplement traditional logistic regression in identifying intestinal parasite infection risk factors. We used feature selection methods such as InfoGain (IG), ReliefF (ReF), Joint Mutual Information (JMI), and Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance (MRMR). Additionally, we predicted children’s parasitic infection status using classifiers such as Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Random Forests (RF) and XGBoost (XGB), and compared their accuracy and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) scores. For optimal model training, we performed tenfold cross-validation and tuned the classifier hyperparameters. We balanced our dataset using the Synthetic Minority Oversampling (SMOTE) method. Additionally, we used association rule learning to establish a link between risk factors and parasitic infections.Key findingsOur study demonstrated that machine learning could be used in conjunction with logistic regression. Using machine learning, we developed models that accurately predicted four parasitic infections: any parasitic infection at 79.9% accuracy, helminth infection at 84.9%, any STH infection at 95.9%, and protozoan infection at 94.2%. The Random Forests (RF) and Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifiers achieved the highest accuracy when top 20 risk factors were considered using Joint Mutual Information (JMI) or all features were used. The best predictors of infection were socioeconomic, demographic, and hematological characteristics.ConclusionsWe demonstrated that feature selection and association rule learning are useful strategies for detecting risk factors for parasite infection. Additionally, we showed that advanced classifiers might be utilized to predict children’s parasitic infection status. When combined with standard logistic regression models, machine learning techniques can identify novel risk factors and predict infection risk.     

ArrayExpress--a public repository for microarray gene expression data at the EBI

ArrayExpress is a new public database of microarray gene expression data at the EBI, which is a generic gene expression database designed to hold data from all microarray platforms. ArrayExpress uses the annotation standard Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) and the associated XML data exchange format Microarray Gene Expression Markup Language (MAGE-ML) and it is designed to store well annotated data in a structured way. The ArrayExpress infrastructure consists of the database itself, data submissions in MAGE-ML format or via an online submission tool MIAMExpress, online database query interface, and the Expression Profiler online analysis tool. ArrayExpress accepts three types of submission, arrays, experiments and protocols, each of these is assigned an accession number. Help on data submission and annotation is provided by the curation team. The database can be queried on parameters such as author, laboratory, organism, experiment or array types. With an increasing number of organisations adopting MAGE-ML standard, the volume of submissions to ArrayExpress is increasing rapidly. The database can be accessed at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress.