A comparison between the effects of flaxseed oil and fish oil supplementation on cardiovascular health in type 2 diabetic patients with coronary heart disease: A randomized,double‐blinded,placebo‐controlled trial

This study compared the effects of flaxseed and fish oil supplementation on cardiovascular risk parameters in diabetic patients with coronary heart disease. Participants were randomly allocated into three intervention groups to receive either 1,000 mg of omega‐3 fatty acids from fish oil or 1,000 mg of omega‐3 fatty acids from flaxseed oil or placebo (n = 30 each group) twice a day for 12 weeks. A significant reduction in insulin levels (.04) was observed following flaxseed oil and fish oil supplementation compared with the placebo. In addition, a significant reduction in high‐sensitivity C‐reactive protein (.02) was seen after flaxseed oil supplementation compared with the placebo and a significant increase in total nitrite (.001) was seen after flaxseed oil and fish oil intake compared with placebo. Additionally, a significant increase in total antioxidant capacity (p < .001) after consuming flaxseed oil and fish oil compared with placebo and glutathione levels (.001) after consuming fish oil compared with flaxseed oil and placebo was observed. Overall, our study revealed the beneficial effects of flaxseed oil and fish oil supplementation on few metabolic profiles. This study suggests that the effect of flaxseed oil in reducing insulin and increasing total nitrite and total antioxidant capacity is similar to fish oil.     

Superior Performance of Magnetic Nanoparticles for Entrapment and Fixation of Bovine Serum Albumin In-Vitro

Background:In recent years, extensive studies have been performed on magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) and their applications, which have shown the current project to be one of the major applications by laboratory results.Methods:The nanoparticles synthesized in this project were deposited by the co-precipitation method, which structure was identified by analyzers such as SEM, FT-IR, and EDX. The aim of this project is the adsorption and fixation of biomolecule (BSA (bovine serum albumin) protein on the surface of magnetic nanoparticles.Results:The adsorption results by electrophoresis and spectrophotometric analyzers showed an absorption rate above 55% ie; 55% of the protein is fixed on the MNPs nanoparticles. This absorption is due to the high level of functionality of magnetic nanoparticles for adsorption of protein. The results of the EDX analysis also show the possible electrostatic bonding between the nanoparticles and the protein, this is derived from –OH with –NH₂ groups of the nanobiocompound (MNPs /protein). After bonding, the two are easily separated.Conclusion:In this project, the Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles was synthesized and identified by SEM, FT-IR, and EDX analyzers and finally reacted with the BSA protein (for the absorption of protein on MNPs) under experimental conditions at a standard temperature of 25° C. The results showed that about 55% of the protein was fixed on magnetic nanoparticles.     

Autochthonous Transmission of West Nile Virus by a New Vector in Iran,Vector-Host Interaction Modeling and Virulence Gene Determinants

Using molecular techniques and bioinformatics tools, we studied the vector-host interactions and the molecular epidemiology of West Nile virus (WNV) in western Iran. Mosquitoes were collected during 2017 and 2018. DNA typing assays were used to study vector-host interactions. Mosquitoes were screened by RT-PCR for the genomes of five virus families. WNV-positive samples were fully sequenced and evolutionary tree and molecular architecture were constructed by Geneious software and SWISS-MODEL workspace, respectively. A total of 5028 mosquito specimens were collected and identified. The most prevalent species was Culex (Cx.) pipiens complex (57.3%). Analysis of the blood-feeding preferences of blood-fed mosquitoes revealed six mammalian and one bird species as hosts. One mosquito pool containing non-blood-fed Cx. theileri and one blood-fed Culex pipiens pipiens (Cpp.) biotype pipiens were positive for WNV. A phylogram indicated that the obtained WNV sequences belonged to lineage 2, subclade 2 g. Several amino acid substitutions suspected as virulence markers were observed in the Iranian WNV strains. The three-dimensional structural homology model of the E-protein identified hot spot domains known to facilitate virus invasion and neurotropism. The recent detection of WNV lineage 2 in mosquitoes from several regions of Iran in consecutive years suggests that the virus is established in the country.     

Bardet‐Biedl syndrome type 3 in an Iranian family: Clinical study and confirmation of disease localization

Bardet‐Biedl syndrome (BBS) is a group of autosomal recessive MCA/MR syndromes characterized by pigmentary retinopathy, postaxial polydactyly, hypogenitalism, obesity, and mental retardation. Five BBS loci have been identified; among them, BBS type 1 (BBS1) and type 3 (BBS3) are most common and most rare, respectively. We encountered an Iranian family that had seven affected members. All patients had a history of mild to severe obesity, but it was reversible in some patients by caloric restriction and exercise. All patients had pigmentary retinopathy, beginning as night blindness in early childhood and progressing toward severe impairment of vision by the end of the second decade. Polydactyly varied in limb distribution, ranging from four‐limb involvement to random involvement or even to nonaffectedness. Six of the seven patients were not mentally retarded. Although kidney anomaly or an adrenal mass was pres‐ ent in two patients, the fact that one patient had seven children rules out reproductive dysfunction. Linkage analysis with microsatellite markers showed that the disease in the family was assigned to a region around marker loci at 3p13‐p12 (maximum LOD score = 4.15 and recombination fraction θ = 0, at D3S1603 microsatellite marker), to which the BBS3 locus has been mapped. Haplotype analysis did not reduce the extent of the previously reported critical region of BBS3. A comparison of clinical manifestations of our patients with those of previously reported BBS3 patients did not support any type‐specific phenotypes, though manifestations in our patients are similar to those in BBS3 patients of a family in Newfoundland. Am. J. Med. Genet. 94:433–437, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

In Silico Evaluation of Paxlovid’s Pharmacometrics for SARS-CoV-2: A Multiscale Approach

Paxlovid is a promising, orally bioavailable novel drug for SARS-CoV-2 with excellent safety profiles. Our main goal here is to explore the pharmacometric features of this new antiviral. To provide a detailed assessment of Paxlovid, we propose a hybrid multiscale mathematical approach. We demonstrate that the results of the present in silico evaluation match the clinical expectations remarkably well: on the one hand, our computations successfully replicate the outcome of an actual in vitro experiment; on the other hand, we verify both the sufficiency and the necessity of Paxlovid’s two main components (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir) for a simplified in vivo case. Moreover, in the simulated context of our computational framework, we visualize the importance of early interventions and identify the time window where a unit-length delay causes the highest level of tissue damage. Finally, the results’ sensitivity to the diffusion coefficient of the virus is explored in detail.     

Heterometallic antenna?reactor complexes for photocatalysis

Metallic nanoparticles with strong optically resonant properties behave as nanoscale optical antennas, and have recently shown extraordinary promise as light-driven catalysts. Traditionally, however, heterogeneous catalysis has relied upon weakly light-absorbing metals such as Pd, Pt, Ru, or Rh to lower the activation energy for chemical reactions. Here we show that coupling a plasmonic nanoantenna directly to catalytic nanoparticles enables the light-induced generation of hot carriers within the catalyst nanoparticles, transforming the entire complex into an efficient light-controlled reactive catalyst. In Pd-decorated Al nanocrystals, photocatalytic hydrogen desorption closely follows the antenna-induced local absorption cross-section of the Pd islands, and a supralinear power dependence strongly suggests that hot-carrier-induced desorption occurs at the Pd island surface. When acetylene is present along with hydrogen, the selectivity for photocatalytic ethylene production relative to ethane is strongly enhanced, approaching 40:1. These observations indicate that antenna−reactor complexes may greatly expand possibilities for developing designer photocatalytic substrates.Industrial processes depend extensively on heterogeneous catalysts for chemical production and mitigation of environmental pollutants. These processes often rely on metal nanoparticles dispersed into high surface area support materials to both maximize catalytically active surface area and for the most cost-effective use of expensive catalysts such as Pd, Pt, Ru, or Rh (1, 2). However, catalytic processes utilizing transition metal nanoparticles are often energy-intensive, relying on high temperatures and pressures to maximize catalytic activity. A transition from extreme, high-temperature conditions to low-temperature activation of catalytically active transition metal nanoparticles could have widespread impact, substantially reducing the current energy demands of heterogeneous catalysis.Light-driven chemical transformations offer an attractive and ultimately sustainable alternative to traditional high-temperature catalytic reactions. Metallic plasmonic nanostructures are a new paradigm in photoactive heterogeneous catalysts (3–6). Plasmonic nanoparticles uniquely couple electron density with electromagnetic radiation, leading to a collective oscillation of the conduction electrons in resonance with the frequency of incident light, known as a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). These resonances lead to enhanced light absorption in an area much larger than the physical cross-section of the nanoparticle, and such optical antenna effects result in strongly enhanced electromagnetic fields near the nanoparticle surface. An LSPR can be damped through radiative reemission of a photon, or nonradiative Landau damping with the creation of energetic “hot” carriers: electrons above the Fermi energy of the metal and/or holes below the Fermi energy. In this context, “hot” refers to carriers of an energy that is a significant fraction of the plasmon energy that would not be generated thermally at ambient temperature. Plasmonic metal nanoparticles have been shown to induce chemical transformations directly on their surfaces, through either phonon-driven or charge-carrier-driven mechanisms in Au (7–10), Ag (11, 12), Cu (13, 14), and, recently, Al (15) nanoparticles. Although these “good” plasmonic metals show initial promise for plasmon-induced photocatalytic chemistry, in general they are not universally good catalytic materials despite finding niche applications in a few industrial processes.In comparison, noncoinage transition metals have historical precedence as excellent catalysts, yet are generally considered poor plasmonic metals, because they suffer from large nonradiative damping, which results in broad spectral features and weak absorption across the visible region of the spectrum (16–18). Many catalytic transition metal nanoparticles (Pt, Pd, Rh, Ru, etc.) possess LSPRs in the UV, but this is disadvantageous for photocatalysis because of poor overlap with conventional laser sources or, alternatively, with the solar spectrum. Increasing transition metal nanoparticle size redshifts optical absorption, but it increases cost and reduces surface area, and therefore catalytic activity. Recently, it has been shown that plasmonic nanoparticles can be used to increase optical absorption in adjacent nanoparticles (19–22), for instance, enabling hydrogen detection (23, 24).Previous reports of photocatalytic transformation in plasmonic metal nanoparticle systems rely on the metal to double as both the light-harvesting antenna and the catalytic surface. Here we show that the optical antenna effects of plasmonic metal nanoparticles can be used to directly enhance light absorption and modify the catalytic activity of directly adjacent reactive metal nanoparticle surfaces. This “antenna−reactor” complex, with the antenna and reactor composed of two distinct materials, is illustrated schematically in Fig. 1A. We note that the experimental antenna−reactor complexes designed for this work are separated by 2- to 4-nm dielectric aluminum oxide interfacial layers rather than complete separation as illustrated in Fig. 1A. Here we show that antenna−reactor complexes, focusing on Al as the antenna and Pd as the reactor, can be used to photoactively drive catalytic reactions under mild, ambient temperature and pressure conditions. Such modular, heterometallic complexes offer greatly increased degrees of freedom in the design of photocatalytic complexes, expanding the possible materials that can be used as light-driven catalysts. Manipulating the materials used for both the plasmonic antenna and catalytic reactor can theoretically lead to numerous possibilities for controlling plasmon-assisted absorption enhancements and specific reactivities (SI Appendix, Figs. S1 and S2).Open in a separate windowFig. 1.Absorption enhancements in heterometallic antenna−reactor systems. (A) Generalized schematic of a simple system containing a plasmonic antenna coupled through localized near-field enhancements to a catalytic reactor metal nanoparticle. (B) A simplified Pd−AlNC antenna−reactor model, consisting of a 20-nm Pd island on a 110-nm-diameter AlNC nanosphere. (C) Near-field enhancement in the Pd island for this antenna−reactor geometry. (D) Schematic of a comparative geometry, a Pd island on a 110-nm-diameter dielectric Al₂O₃ nanosphere. (E) The near-field enhancement in this geometry is substantially reduced relative to C. (F) Absorption of Pd on Al₂O₃ (black) and an antenna−reactor geometry using FDTD (red solid curve) and isolated absorption multiplied by field enhancement (red dashed curve). Near-field enhancement in the Al₂O₃ layer of the AlNC is shown in blue.     

Serine/threonine protein phosphatases have no role in the inhibitory effects of low-frequency stimulation in perforant path kindling acquisition in rats

The use of low-frequency stimulation (LFS) as a therapy for epilepsy is currently being studied in experimental animals and patients with epilepsy. In the present study, the role of serine/threonine protein phosphatases in the inhibitory effects of LFS on perforant path kindling acquisition was investigated in rats. Animals were kindled by stimulation of perforant path in a stimulation using rapid kindling procedure (six stimulations per day). LFS (1 Hz) was applied immediately after termination of each kindling stimulation. FK506 (1 μM; i.c.v.), a serine/threonine protein phosphatase PP2B inhibitor and okadaic acid (1 μM; i.c.v.), a serine/threonine protein phosphatases PP1/2A inhibitor, were daily microinjected into the left ventricle 10 min before starting the stimulation protocol. Application of LFS retarded the kindling acquisition and delayed the expression of different kindled seizure stages significantly. In addition, LFS reduced the increment of daily afterdischarge duration during kindling development. Neither FK506 nor okadaic acid microinjection interfere with the antiepileptogenic effect of LFS on kindling parameters. Obtained results showed that activation of PP1/2A and PP2B, which play a critical role in LFS induced down-regulation of synaptic strength, had no role in mediating the inhibitory effects of LFS on perforant path kindling acquisition.     

Effect of capsular tension ring implantation on predicted refractive error after cataract surgery in patients with pseudoexfoliation syndrome

AIM: To investigate the effect of capsular tension ring(CTR) implantation on predicted refractive error after cataract surgery in patients with pseudoexfoliation(PEX) syndrome.METHODS: This double-blind randomized clinical trial was conducted on 60 patients with PEX syndrome referring to Imam Khomeini Hospital affiliated to Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran, for undergoing cataract surgery. The study population was divided into two groups, namely CTR group(n=30) and non-CTR group(control group;n=30). The refractive error and anterior chamber depth(ACD) were measured 1 wk, 1 mo, and 3 mo after phacoemulsification(PE) surgery.RESULTS: The results indicated no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of predicted refractive error(obtained by subtracting preoperative predicted refractive error from actual postoperative refractive error) 1 wk(P=0.47), 1 mo(P=0.30), and 3 mo(P=0.06) after the PE surgery. Regarding the CTR group, the changes of ACD was statistically significant 1 and 3 mo after the PE surgery, compared to those obtained 1 wk post-surgery(P=0.005).CONCLUSION: The CTR implantation in PEX cataractous patients without zonulysis has no statistically significant effect on the predicted refraction and ACD changes after PE. The predicted refraction error has a hyperopic shift in both groups. The results reveal the unnecessary of calculating modified IOL in CTR implantation.