Aqueous Extract of Origanum majorana at Low Temperature (0°C) Promotes Mitochondrial Fusion and Contributes to Induced Apoptosis in Human Breast Cancer Cells

Objective:Marjoram plants have varied pharmacological properties because they contain antioxidants. In the present study, the effect of Origanum majorana, gathered from Abha, Saudi Arabia, was evaluated on the growth of MCF7 breast cancer cells. Methods:Fresh aerial parts from Origanum majorana were extracted at a low temperature (0 ^OC/6 hours). MCF7 human breast cancer cells were then treated with 4 separate fluctuated concentrations of 0, 50, 150, 200 and 350 µg/mL for 24 and 48 hours. Results:The findings showed that Origanum majorana aqueous extract contained absolute phenolic content (TPC) of 58.24 mg equivalent/g DW, and the complete flavonoid content (TFC) of 35.31 mg GAE equivalent/g DW. The endurance of MCF7 cells after incubation with aqueous extract diminished, indicating that Origanum majorana is tumour cell selective. Origanum majorana extract increased the mRNA expression of apoptotic genes in MCF7. The majorana aqueous extract expanded the activity of Caspase-7 action specifically at higher concentrations of 150, 200, and 350 µg/ml. Our findings indicate that Origanum majorana could induce apoptosis of human breast cancer cells. Conclusion:The aqueous Origanum majorana extracted at low temperature (0 °C/6 hours) can be as a anti-cancer treatment agent if further studies wanrents support our result.Key Words: Origanum majorana, human breast cancer cells, MCF7, aqueous extract at low temperature (0°C/6 hours)     

Donor moieties with D–π–a framing modulated electronic and nonlinear optical properties for non-fullerene-based chromophores

Herein, a series of non-fullerene-based substantial chromophores (FHD1–FHD6) with a D–π–A framework was designed from a synthesized non-fullerene compound (FH) via structural tailoring with various donor moieties. The FH and its designed derivatives were optimized with frequency analysis at the M06/6-311G (d,p) level to confirm their true minima on potential energy surfaces. These optimized geometries were utilized to perform further analyses, such as absorption, natural bonding orbital (NBO), frontier molecular orbital (FMO), and nonlinear orbital (NLO) analyses at the aforesaid level. Quantum chemical study revealed that all the designed chromophores exhibited a lower band gap than that of the parent molecule with the exception of FHD3. Furthermore, density of states (DOS) analysis supported the findings from the FMO study, and this agreement revealed that the efficient charge was transferred from the HOMO to the LUMO. The NBO investigations disclosed that all the compounds comprised donor moieties with positive charges and acceptors having negative charges. Interestingly, π-conjugated linkers were also found with positive charges, showing an effective donating property. These NBO findings explicated that FHD1–FHD6 exhibited an efficient push–pull mechanism. The λ_max values of the designed chromophores were observed to be greater than the reference compound. The average polarizability 〈α〉, first hyperpolarizability (β_tot), and second hyperpolarizability 〈γ〉 values of FHD2 were found to be 2.170 × 10⁻²², 3.150 × 10⁻²⁷, and 4.275 × 10⁻³² esu, respectively, while all the other derivatives had been reported in the relevant range. Efficient NLO data revealed that FH-based derivatives may contribute significantly toward NLO technology.

Herein, a series of non-fullerene-based substantial chromophores (FHD1–FHD6) with a D–π–A framework was designed from a synthesized non-fullerene compound (FH) via structural tailoring with various donor moieties.     

The effect of prone position on respiratory mechanics during spinal surgery

OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of prone position on respiratory mechanics during spine surgery. DESIGN: Prospective study. SETTING: Elective spine surgery at a university hospital. PATIENTS: 12 ASA physical I & II with no coexisting cardiorespiratory disease undergoing cervical or lumbar laminectomy under general anesthesia in prone position. MEASUREMENTS: Ten min after induction of general anesthesia and endotracheal intubation, while patients were in supine position, the following measurements were taken using anesthesia delivery unit (Datex Ohmeda type A_Elec, Promma, Sweden): peak airway pressure (Ppeak), peak plataeu pressure (Pplat), peak mean pressure (Pmean) and dynamic lung compliance (DLC). The same measurements were recorded 10 min after placing patients into prone position. At the end of surgery and 5 min after turning the patients supine and before tracheal extubation, the same measurements were again recorded. The results expressed as means +/- sd. One way ANOVA was used for analysis of differences in the data before, during prone position and after turning patients supine at the end of the procedure. For all comparisons p < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: During prone position there was significant reduction in DLC and significant increase in airway pressures. CONCLUSION: We conclude that turning the patients form supine to prone position during anesthesia for spine surgery caused significant decrease of DLC and significant increase of airway pressure.     

Assessment of the stroke-specific quality-of-life scale in KFHU,Khobar: A prospective cross-sectional study

Objectives:To assess the overall and domain-specific quality of life (QOL) in post-stroke patients using the stroke-specific quality of life (SS-QOL) scale and to identify variables that may affect the QOL after stroke.Methods:A prospective cross-sectional study, included 80 stroke patients, was conducted in the Neurology department at King Fahad Hospital of the University (KFHU), Khobar, Saudi Arabia, from December 2019 to February 2020. Stroke patients were interviewed using the Arabic version of the SS-QOL questionnaire and modified Rankin scale (mRS).Results:The overall quality of life in the surveyed participants was at the level of 3.72 points, which is above the average recognized in the middle of the scale that ranges from 1 to 5. The overall quality of life was not significantly correlated with sex, age, type of stroke, recurrence of stroke, and time since stroke (p>0.05). Hypertension and atrial fibrillation were the only comorbidities that were determined to be significantly associated with the overall quality of life at the level of (3.53), and (2.97) respectively (p<0.05). There was a statistically significant correlation between the mRS score and the overall quality of life (p<0.05).Conclusion:Performing a comprehensive assessment of the overall QOL in post-stroke patients will result in better health outcomes, particularly in terms of quality of functioning in psycho-social aspects.

Stroke is a disease that is known by its focal neurologic deficit.¹ It occurs when there is a disruption of the blood flow to the brain either by a clot, causing ischemic stroke or by a rupture of the blood vessels, causing hemorrhagic stroke.² It is experienced by approximately 15 million people worldwide and it is considered to be the second cause of mortality. Among these people, 5 million die and another 5 million live with lifelong disability, which creates a major economic and social burden. The number of cases of stroke in Saudi Arabia is increasing and becoming a debilitating reason for death and disability. Research on the incidence and prevalence of stroke in Saudi Arabia is still lacking. There is only one study conducted in Saudi Arabia in the last 10 years, which states that stroke’s prevalence is 29 per 100,000 each year.^2,3Stroke affects the quality of life (QOL) of patients owing to its related cognitive, physical and functional consequences, such as restrictions in mobility, language impairment and depression.^4,5 Although stroke causes extensive functional impairment, the objective methods of evaluation usually fail to assess the subjective impact of these impairments.⁶ The Health-related QOL (HR-QOL) is a term used to evaluate a person’s wellbeing including physical, psychological, functional, and social aspects.⁷ There are various instruments to assess HR-QOL, most of which are based on subjective self-administered questionnaires. Among these instruments is the stroke-specific QOL (SS-QOL) scale, which was established as a multi-dimensional tool for various effects in post-stroke patients.⁸Up to date, there have been 4 studies conducted in Saudi Arabia on the assessment of QOL in post-stroke patients.^9-12 Two of them were conducted in Jeddah; in these studies, the researchers studied QOL among stroke patients using the HR-QOL scale.^9,10 The other 2 studies were conducted in Al Khobar; the first study studied the psychometric properties of an Arabic version of the fatigue severity scale (FSS),¹¹ while the second study measured QOL using SS-QOL and compared its variables such as socio-demographic factors, type of stroke, time passed since the stroke, affected body side, and the living status of stroke patients.¹² However, QOL in post-stroke patients evaluated using SS-QOL has not been studied yet in terms of other variables such as recurrence of stroke, degree of physical disability, comorbidities, and risk factors. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess the overall and domain-specific QOL in post-stroke patients using the SS-QOL scale and to identify variables that may affect the quality of life after stroke. The quality of life in post-stroke patients has a statistically significant relationship with the type of stroke, duration since the last event, patient demographics, comorbidities, and degree of physical disability.     

A Hybrid CNN-LSTM Model for Psychopathic Class Detection from Tweeter Users

In today’s digital era, the use of online social media networks, such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, permits people to generate a massive amount of textual content. The textual content that is produced by people reveals essential information regarding their personality, with psychopathy being among these distinct personality types. This work was aimed at classifying input texts according to the traits of psychopaths and non-psychopaths. Several studies based on traditional techniques, such as the SRPIII technique, using small-sized datasets have been conducted for the detection of psychopathic behavior. However, the purpose of the current study was to build an effective computational model for the detection of psychopaths in the domain of text analytics and computational intelligence. This study was aimed at developing a technique based on a convolutional neural network + long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM) model by using a deep learning approach to detect psychopaths. A convolutional neural network was used to extract local information from a text, while the long short-term memory was used to extract the contextual dependencies of the text. By combining the advantages of convolutional neural network and long short-term memory, the proposed hybrid CNN-LSTM was able to yield a good classification accuracy of 91.67%. Additionally, a large-sized benchmark dataset was acquired for the effective classification of the given input text into psychopath vs. non-psychopath classes, thereby enabling persons with such personality traits to be identified.

     

Comparative efficacy of Gum Arabic (Acacia senegal) and Tribulus terrestris on male fertility

In this study the effect of Gum arabic (Acacia Senegal) was systemically targeted at male fertility with two experiments, the first comparing the effectiveness of Gum arabic (GA) and Tribulus terrestris (TT). For the first experiment, 27 adult mice Balb / c (18 females, 9 males) were divided into 3 in each group, one male and two females, group one had the usual tap water as power, group two had 5% (w / v) GA and group three had 5% (w / v) of TT for 21 days. The results showed, the number of offspring was more with GA treated when compared to TT treated. Blood measurements of testosterone showed significant increase in the GA group as compared to other groups, also Histopathological analysis showed the dose dependent 5% GA had normal seminiferous tubules with increase spermatogenesis. In this study the enhanced fertility in GA-treated mice Balb/c was observed and the experimental studies also show that GA fertility was increased.     

Effect of different remineralizing agents on the initial carious lesions – A comparative study

ObjectivesThis study aimed to assess and compare the effectiveness of three different remineralizing agents (Tricalcium phosphate paste, Fluoride varnish, and Nano-hydroxyapatite gel) using the DIAGNOdent device.Material and MethodsThe present clinical study was carried out on 90 initial carious lesions detected by ICDAS caries diagnostic criteria and then take the baseline record by DIAGNOdent device. The selected initial carious lesions were randomly classified into three groups according to treatment modalities (30 lesions in each group) according to remineralizing agents: group A (TCP), group B (fluoride varnish) and group C (nano-hydroxyapatite gel). The remineralizing agents were applied for four minutes once weekly for four weeks. At the fifth week, the DIAGNOdent scores of initial carious lesions were recorded to evaluate the effect of remineralizing agents. A paired t-test was used to compare between baseline date and follow up of DIAGNOdent scores. A one-way ANOVA test was used to compare DIAGNOdent scores among the three groups. Post- Hoc Tukey test was used to determine the significant difference between every two groups.ResultsThere were statistically significant differences among the three groups at follow up (p = 0.001). Within each group, there was a significant difference between baseline and follow up scores (p = 0.000 for the three groups). Multiple comparisons between every two groups showed a highly statistically significant difference at follow up records between nano-hydroxyapatite versus TCP and fluoride varnish on pit and fissure caries (p = 0.039 and p = 0.007 respectively) and the nano-hydroxyapatite was the best of them.ConclusionThe present study concluded that the three remineralizing agents were effective in the treatment of initial carious lesion and the most effective remineralizing agent was nano-hydroxyapatite.     

Breast Implant-associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma

Breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) is an uncommon lymphoproliferative disorder, mainly associated with textured implants. The average time from the breast implants to the development of BIA-ALCL is about 7 to 10 years, and the median age at the time of diagnosis is in the mid-50s. The exact incidence and prevalence of BIA-ALCL are not known. The pathogenesis of BIA-ALCL remains unclear. Different theories have been postulated, including immune response to textured implants, subclinical bacterial infection, and genetic predisposition. However, none of those theories have yet been proven to be causal in the pathogenesis of BIA-ALCL. BIA-ALCL is histologically similar to but clinically distinct from other CD30-positive T-cell lymphomas such as anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive, anaplastic lymphoma kinase-negative, and primary cutaneous ALCL. The revised World Health Organization classification of lymphoid neoplasm in 2016 recognized BIA-ALCL as a provisional entity. Suspected cases need proper evaluation and workup to confirm the diagnosis. Surgical resection should be considered for all the cases. However, adjuvant radiotherapy and anthracycline-based chemotherapy are warranted for locally advanced and advanced cases.