Effect of purslane seed supplementation on inflammatory cytokines,oxidative stress and muscle damage in response to high-intensity intermittent exercise in national athlete runners

Sport Sciences for Health - Purslane supplementation has anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, skeletal muscle-relaxant activities. However, it is unknown if the ingestion of purslane will affect the...     

The development of an artificial neural network – genetic algorithm model (ANN-GA) for the adsorption and photocatalysis of methylene blue on a novel sulfur–nitrogen co-doped Fe2O3 nanostructure surface

In this study, a new sulfur–nitrogen co-doped Fe₂O₃ nanostructure was synthesized via a simple and efficient method and characterized via UV-Vis spectrophotometry, X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area analysis. The as-synthesized nanoparticles showed high efficiency for the removal of methylene blue. The experimental conditions including the dose of the nanoparticle, the concentration of the dye, pH and the light dose were studied and optimized. The removal percentage was approximately 95% in a short time (5 min). A three-layer artificial neural network (ANN) model was proposed for predicting the efficiency of the dye removal. The network was trained using the obtained experimental data at optimum values. Some training functions were tested and their ability to predict different numbers of neurons was evaluated. The coefficient of determination (R-squared) and the mean squared error (MSE) were measured for comparison. In order to improve the accuracy of the prediction and to remove its dependency on the number of neurons, the ANN parameters were optimized using the genetic algorithm (GA). The final model results showed an acceptable agreement with experimental data. Furthermore, the relative importance of the dose of the nanoparticle, the concentration of the dye, and pH on the efficiency were obtained as 39%, 46%, and 15%, respectively. Moreover, interestingly, the obtained results showed that this newly synthesized nanoparticle has some photocatalytic properties with a band gap of 1.65 eV and therefore, it can be proposed as a low-cost visible light-driven photocatalyst for engineering applications.

In this research an S-N doped Fe₂O₃ nanostructure is synthesized and its adsorption ability and photocatalytic activity were evaluated. The optimum experimental conditions were obtained and an ANN-GA model was proposed for predicting experimental values.     

Rosmarinus plants: Key farm concepts towards food applications

Rosmarinus species are aromatic plants that mainly grow in the Mediterranean region. They are widely used in folk medicine, food, and flavor industries and represent a valuable source of biologically active compounds (e.g., terpenoids, flavonoids, and phenolic acids). The extraction of rosemary essential oil is being done using three main methods: carbon dioxide supercritical extraction, steam distillation, and hydrodistillation. Furthermore, interesting antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, antileishmanial, anthelmintic, anticancer, anti‐inflammatory, antidepressant, and antiamnesic effects have also been broadly recognized for rosemary plant extracts. Thus the present review summarized data on economically important Rosmarinus officinalis species, including isolation, extraction techniques, chemical composition, pharmaceutical, and food applications.     

A label-free electrochemical biosensor based on 3D cubic Eu3+/Cu2O nanostructures with clover-like faces for the determination of anticancer drug cytarabine

The present research utilized a simplified procedure for developing a novel electro-chemical DNA biosensor based on a carbon paste electrode (CPE) modified with three-dimensional (3D) cubic Eu³⁺/Cu₂O nanostructures with clover-like faces (Eu³⁺/Cu₂O CLFNs). The modified electrode was applied to monitor electro-chemical interactions between dsDNA and cytarabine for the first time. Then, the decreased oxidation signal of guanine following the interactions between cytarabine and dsDNA was utilized as an indicator for selectively determining cytarabine using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). According to the findings, the oxidation peak current of guanine was linearly proportionate with the cytarabine concentration in the range between 0.01 and 90 μM. Additionally, the limit of quantification (LOQ) and the limit of detection (LOD) respectively equaled 9.4 nM and 2.8 nM. In addition, the repeatability, applicability and reproducibility of this analysis to drug dosage forms and human serum samples were investigated. Furthermore, UV-vis spectroscopy, DPV, docking and viscosity measurements were applied to elucidate the interaction mechanism of dsDNA with cytarabine. It was found that this DNA biosensor may be utilized to sensitively, accurately and rapidly determine cytarabine.

Electrochemical biosensor based on three-dimensional (3D) cubic of Eu³⁺/Cu₂O with clover-like face nano-structures and ds-DNA modified carbon paste electrode for detecting cytarabine was fabricated.     

Contribution of Fc fragment of monoclonal antibodies to tetanus toxin neutralization

Neurotoxicity Research - Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against neurotoxin of Clostridium tetani are considered as a novel source of immunoglobulins for passive immunotherapy of tetanus. Toxin...     

Neutrophil/platelet to lymphocyte ratio in monitoring of response to TNF‐α inhibitors in psoriatic patients

Neutrophil or platelet to lymphocyte ratio (NLR and PLR) has been proposed to be used as prognostic purposes in a variety of diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of these ratios in monitoring of response to TNF‐α‐inhibitors in psoriatic patients. Eighty psoriatic patients were included and treated with TNF‐α‐inhibitors for 12 months based on drug protocol. Hematologic indices, including NLR and PLR values were assessed before and after treatment. Data on psoriasis area and severity index (PASI), smoking behavior, alcohol intake habit, nail abnormality, body mass index (BMI), joint involvement, and disease duration were also recorded. PASI scores were improved significantly after one‐year treatment (P = .000). Furthermore, this type of treatment significantly reduced the NLR and PLR (P = .000). These changes were in accordance with PASI scores. Patients with BMI greater than 24.9 had higher, but non‐significant NLR and PLR than normal or lean individuals. Cigarette smokers and alcohol consumers had lower NLR and PLR values than other individuals (P < .05). There was no significant association between NLR and PLR and joint or nail involvement. Although NLR and PLR will not be helpful in primary diagnosis of inflammatory diseases, they could be accounted as monitoring tools in management of psoriasis or globally indicators of inflammation.