Metal Binding Antimicrobial Peptides in Nanoparticle Bio-functionalization: New Heights in Drug Delivery and Therapy

Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins - Peptides are considered very important due to the diversity expressed through their amino acid sequence, structure variation, large spectrum, and their...     

Glutathione Encapsulation in Core-Shell Drug Nanocarriers (Polymersomes and Niosomes) Prevents Advanced Glycation End-products Toxicities

International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics - The clinical application of some natural molecules in therapy is usually limited due to the lack of feasible delivery systems....     

Some peculiarities of the population biology of the ghost shrimp Nihonotrypaea petalura (Stimpson, 1860) (Decapoda: Callianassidae) in coastal waters of Vostok bay, the Sea of Japan

In June 2012, some features of the population biology of the ghost shrimp Nihonotrypaea petalura were studied first for the Russian waters in sublittoral populations of the Vostok Bay (Peter the Great Bay, Sea of Japan). It was found that N. petalura formed aggregations of an average density of 9–19 ind./m² at the depth of 0.2–3 m on rocky and mixed bottoms. The biomass of the aggregations was 15–27 g/m² or 1–33% of the average total biomass of macrozoobenthos, which included animals of 48 taxa. The maximum depth of the shrimp burrows was 52 cm. The populations consisted of animals with body lengths of 17–63 mm. In the size-frequency distribution, two peaks in the number, attributed to the shrimps of 24–29 and 39–48 mm size groups, were observed. The ratio of males to females almost did not vary with size and remained in general close to 1: 0.9 for the surveyed shrimp populations. The local differences in the studied parameters of N. petalura from the Vostok Bay, as well as from other areas of the range, are discussed in relation to features of the habitation of these animals that living in different biotopes.     

Effects of curcumin on bleomycin-induced apoptosis in human malignant testicular germ cells

Testicular cancer is the most common cancer among young men of reproductive age. Bleomycin is a frequently used drug for the treatment of several malignancies and is part of the chemotherapy protocols in testicular cancer. Bleomycin causes an increase in oxidative stress which has been shown to induce apoptosis in cancer cells. Curcumin (diferuloylmethane), an active component of the spice turmeric, has attracted interest because of its anti-inflammatory and chemopreventive activities. However, no study has been carried out so far to elucidate its interaction with bleomycin in testicular cancer cells. In this study, we investigated the effects of curcumin and bleomycin on apoptosis signalling pathways and compared the effects of bleomycin with H₂O₂ which directly produces reactive oxygen species. We measured apoptosis markers such as caspase-3, caspase-8, and caspase-9 activities and Bcl-2, Bax, and Cyt-c levels in NCCIT cells incubated with curcumin (5 μM), bleomycin (120 μg/ml), bleomycin + curcumin, H₂O₂ (35 μM), and H₂O₂ + curcumin for 72 h. Curcumin, bleomycin, and H₂O₂ caused apoptosis indicated as increases in caspase-3, caspase-8, and caspase-9 activities and Bax and cytoplasmic Cyt-c levels and a decrease in Bcl-2 level. Concurrent use of curcumin with bleomycin decreased caspase activities and Bax and Cyt-c levels compared to their separate effects in NCCIT cells. Our findings suggest that concurrent use of curcumin during chemotherapy in testis cancer should be avoided due to the inhibitory effect of curcumin on bleomycin-induced apoptosis.     

An initial survey on the occurrence of staphylococcal infections in Turkish marine aquaculture (2013–1014)

A tentative survey on selected marine fish farms was undertaken to delineate the extent to which infections with Staphylococcus species occur in Turkish aquaculture systems. To determine the presence and the distribution of fish pathogenic staphylococci, representative farm types such as marine cages as well as inland pond farms working with saline-ground water and a large hatchery were selected. Field sampling was performed in a total of 13 commercial fish farms that are located in the most-popular aquaculture sites of Turkey. Samples were taken between October 2013 and August 2014. Almost all size classes of the most commonly marine cultured fish species in Turkey were investigated, including Dicentrarchus labrax, Sparus aurata, Argyrosomus regius, Diplodus puntazzo, Dentex dentex, Onchorhynchus mykiss and Salmo labrax. After a visual check, specimens with various clinical signs were sampled for bacteriological and histopathological investigations. Mixed infections of staphylococci along with Vibrio and Aeromonas representatives were detected in Dicentrarchus labrax, Sparus aurata and Diplodus puntazzo samples obtained from 7 farms. The following pathogens were identified: Staphylococcus. epidermidis, S. aureus, S. capitis subsp. capitis, S. lentus, S. hominis subsp. hominis and S. sciuri subsp. sciuri. Main clinical and histopathological effects of the infections in fishes were revealed. The pathogenicity of some isolates was confirmed with in vivo pathogenicity assay and SDS-PAGE analysis.     

Calcium hypochlorite on mouse embryonic fibroblast cells (NIH3T3) in vitro cytotoxicity and genotoxicity: MTT and comet assay

Molecular Biology Reports - Antimicrobial irrigation solutions are widely used under clinical settings. Their effect on dental tissue is a subject of recent research, which aims for a safer...     

The effect of ellagic acid on caspase-3/bcl-2/Nrf-2/NF-kB/TNF-α /COX-2 gene expression product apoptosis pathway: a new approach for muscle damage therapy

Molecular Biology Reports - The goal of this study was to determine the protective role of ellagic acid (EA) against CCl4-induced muscle injury in rats. In this study, 36 Wistar albino rats...     

Gas adsorption and diffusion in a highly CO2 selective metal–organic framework: molecular simulations

Grand canonical Monte Carlo and equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations were used to assess the performance of an rht-type metal–organic framework (MOF), Cu-TDPAT, in adsorption-based and membrane-based separation of CH₄/H₂, CO₂/CH₄ and CO₂/H₂ mixtures. Adsorption isotherms and self-diffusivities of pure gases and binary gas mixtures in Cu-TDPAT were computed using detailed molecular simulations. Several properties of Cu-TDPAT such as adsorption selectivity, working capacity, diffusion selectivity, gas permeability and permeation selectivity were computed and compared with well-known zeolites and MOFs. Results showed that Cu-TDPAT is a very promising adsorbent and membrane material especially for separation of CO₂ and it can outperform traditional zeolites and MOFs such as DDR, MFI, CuBTC, IRMOF-1 in adsorption-based CO₂/CH₄ and CO₂/H₂ separations.     

Homology in Trivaline Complex Formation with dsDNA and ssRNA

Abstract

It has been shown by the equilibrium dialysis that at a polyU concentration above the “critical” one, the complete polymer saturation with trivaline reaches approximately 0.7 trivaline molecules per one phosphate group. i.e. at these conditions peptide dimer occupies on polyU a site of three bases (phosphates) in length. The trivaline complex with polyU at a concentration lower than the “critical” one does not reveal any noticeable fluorescence, but has rather significant positive linear dichroism at 265 and 330 nm. The trivaline-nucleic acids complex has a significant fluorescence at any dsDNA concentration while with polyU it is only so at a concentration above the “critical” one. Electron microscopy has shown that at a rather high concentration of dsDNA molecules in solution a “biduplex” structure undergoes an additional stage of compaction, during which the extended particles more than 30 nm in diameter are formed.

Schematic models for the trivaline complexes and compact structures with dsDNA and ssRNA are propose     

N‐acetyl‐L‐cysteine inhibits bleomycin induced apoptosis in malignant testicular germ cell tumors

Antioxidants may prevent apoptosis of cancer cells via inhibiting reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, to date no study has been carried out to elucidate the effects of strong antioxidant N‐acetylcysteine (NAC) on Bleomycin induced apoptosis in human testicular cancer (NTERA‐2, NT2) cells. For this reason, we studied the effects of Bleomycin and NAC alone and in combination on apoptotic signaling pathways in NT2 cell line. We determined the cytotoxic effect of bleomycin on NT2 cells and measured apoptosis markers such as Caspase‐3, ‐8, ‐9 activities and Bcl‐2, Bax, Cyt‐c, Annexin V‐FTIC and PI levels in NT2 cells incubated with different agents for 24 h. Early apoptosis was determined using FACS assay. We found half of the lethal dose (LD₅₀) of Bleomycin on NT2 cell viability as 400, 100, and 20 µg/ml after incubations for 24, 48, and 72 h, respectively. Incubation with bleomycin (LD₅₀) and H₂O₂ for 24 h increased Caspase‐3, ‐8, ‐9 activities, Cyt‐c and Bax levels and decreased Bcl‐2 levels. The concurrent incubation of NT2 cells with bleomycin/H₂O₂ and NAC (5 mM) for 24 h abolished bleomycin/H₂O₂‐dependent increases in Caspase‐3, ‐8, ‐9 activities, Bax and Cyt‐c levels and bleomycin/H₂O₂‐dependent decrease in Bcl‐2 level. Our results indicate that bleomycin/H₂O₂ induce apoptosis in NT2 cells by activating mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis, while NAC diminishes bleomycin/H₂O₂ induced apoptosis. We conclude that NAC has antagonistic effects on Bleomycin‐induced apoptosis in NT2 cells and causes resistance to apoptosis which is not a desired effect in eliminating cancer cells. J. Cell. Biochem. 114: 1685–1694, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.