Effect of aerobic exercise on inflammatory markers in polycystic ovary syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: Chronic low-grade inflammation has emerged as a key contributor to the pathogenesis of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). In this regard, the present study examined the potential effects of aerobic exercise on interleukin-6 (IL6), tumor necrosis factor (TNF), and C-reactive protein (CRP) in PCOS women. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a randomized clinical trial that included 40 females aged 25-35 years diagnosed with PCOS. The participants were divided into two groups equal in number: the aerobic exercise group (AEM), and the metformin group (M). The AEM group performed aerobic exercise three times a week for 12 weeks in addition to metformin treatment. The M group received metformin only. Participants were assessed for IL-6, TNF-α, and CRP at baseline and after 12 weeks of intervention. RESULTS: The findings showed a significant reduction in IL-6, TNF-α, and CRP values in both AEM and M groups (p=0.001, p=0.01, respectively) after the end of the 12 weeks of the intervention. However, the participants who received aerobic exercise plus metformin, group AEM, showed a greater reduction in IL-6, TNF-α, and CRP (p=0.01, p = 0.01 and p=0.001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Aerobic exercise is effective in lowering IL-6, TNF-α, and CRP in polycystic ovarian women. Further clinical trials are recommended to assess the potential effects of aerobic exercise on PCOS-associated risk factors.

Synthesis of biogenic Ag@Pd Core-shell nanoparticles having anti-cancer/anti-microbial functions.

Biogenic Ag@Pd core-shell nanoparticles were greenly synthesized within two plant extracts aiming at enhanced anticancer/bactericidal functions. These functions were verified for the two Pd@Ag biogenic core-shell nanoparticles (BCSnp) with constant Pd to several Ag contents. BCSnp were synthesized within two extracts of Almond nuts and Black Berry fruits, four samples each, through simple, low cost and echo friendly microwave route. The BCSnp Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) was detected via UV/visible spectrophotometer. Their morphology was assessed using High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope supplemented with EDAX. Particle size/zeta potential of the achieved nanoparticles was measured. The active reducing groups were depicted by FTIR while XRD assessed nanoparticles crystallinity. The enhanced particle size distribution as proved by UV and band gap energies, imparted better functionality by the Almond extract compared to the berry one due to its protein content. Cytotoxicity against human breast cancer (MCF7) and liver cancer (HEPG2) cell lines were followed and compared to the normal Wish cells. The antimicrobial impact against gram-negative (G-veo) E. coli, gram-positive (G+ve) S. aureus bacteria and mycotic strain C. albicans species were verified and compared to antibiotics. A significant inhibition of cancer cell growth of MCF 7 and HEPG2 compared to Wish normal cells and doxorubicin is assessed. A discriminative effect was recorded for G-ve compared to G+ve, along with Mycotic strain C. albicans is achieved. The obtained BCSnp are proposed for cancer therapy and bactericidal applications with improved efficiency applying the nanomedicine approach. Tailorable properties can be obtained by tuning the individual structures.

Oxidative Stress -a Phenotypic Hallmark of Fanconi Anemia and Down Syndrome: The Effect of Antioxidants.

BACKGROUND: Oxidative stress plays a major role in the pathogenesis of leukemia-prone diseases such as Fanconi anemia (FA) and Down syndrome (DS). AIM: To explore the oxidative stress state in children with DS and FA by estimating the levels of antioxidants (e.g., malondialdehyde [MDA], total antioxidant capacity, and superoxide dismutase [SOD] activity) and DNA damage, and to evaluate of the effect of antioxidant treatment on these patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: The study included 32 children clinically diagnosed with (15 patients) and FA (17 patients) in addition to 17 controls matched for age and sex. MDA, total antioxidant capacity, SOD activity, and DNA damage were measured. Antioxidants including Vitamin A, E, and C were given to the patients according to the recommended daily allowance for 6 months. Clinical follow-up and re-evaluation were conducted for all patients. Laboratory tests including complete blood count, karyotyping, DNA damage, and oxidative stress were re-evaluated. Statistical analysis was performed using statistical computer program Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 14.0. RESULTS: Children with FA and DS had elevated levels of oxidative stress and more DNA damage than controls. Oxidative stress parameters and DNA damage improved in FA and DS patients after antioxidant administration. CONCLUSION: Early administration of antioxidants to FA and DS patients is recommended for slowing of the disease course with symptoms amelioration and improvement of general health.

Detection of cytogenetics abnormalities in chronic lymphocytic leukemia using FISH technique and their prognostic impact.

INTRODUCTION: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a clonal lymphoproliferative disorder characterized by progressive accumulation of morphologically and immunophenotypically mature lymphocytes. Characterization of genomic aberrations may help to understand the pathogenesis of CLL and may give prognostic information independent from conventional clinical markers for a risk-adapted management of CLL patients. AIM: The aim of the present study is to determine the most common cytogenetics abnormalities between patients with CLL and its prognostic impact. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The present study was carried out on 20 adult patients presented with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The patients were diagnosed on the basis of standard clinical (lymph node involvement and/or hepatosplenomegaly), hematological and immunophenotypic criteria for diagnosis of B-CLL. All cases were studied at the time of their diagnosis. FISH technique was successfully performed on PB samples using CLL LSI probes for ATM (11q22) / GLI (12q13) and 13q14/ p53 (17p13). RESULTS: For comparative statistical studies, the patients were divided into group I (patients with favorable outcome) and group II (patients with unfavorable outcome). All patients showed one or more cytogenetic abnormality with the prevalence of p53 in 16 patients out of 20 that perfectly correlated with the poor outcome of the patients. This is followed by deletion in the 13q14 and to a lesser extent deletion in ATM gene, but no one has exhibited amplification in the 12q13 locus. CONCLUSION: p53 deletion as a sole abnormality has a higher prognostic power than other cytogenetics abnormalities. The cytogenetics study using FISH panel for CLL patients in a complementary fashion to the other clinical and laboratory findings may overcome the pitfalls in the diagnosis and may also assess the assignment of therapeutic protocols for CLL patients according to the results of their cytogenetic analysis at the time of diagnosis. KEYWORDS: FISH, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, CLL, p53, cytogenetics, Egypt.

Holoprosencephaly spectrum among Egyptian patients: clinical and cytogenetic study.

We report 24 patients with holoprosencephaly (HPE) spectrum screened for Del 7q36 and subtelomere 13q. They were divided according to the type of HPE into: 6 alobar, 15 semilobar, 1 lobar and 2 middle interhemispheric variant (MIH). All patients presented with global developmental delay. Microcephaly was in 83.3% and midfacial developmental defects were in the form of; cyclopia, arrhinia and agnathia in 2 patients (8.3%), premaxillary agenesis in 2 patients (8.3%), cleft lip and palate in 7 patients (29.2%), hypotelorism in 8 patients (33.3%) and hypertelorism in 9 patients (37.5%). The neurological deficits were as follows: abnormal tone and spasticity were present in all of them with exceptional of a single patient with MIH who presented with hypotonia and was able to walk independently at the age of 3 years, athetoid and/or dystonic movements of limbs in 22 patients, seizures in twelve patients (50%) and abnormal EEG in 15 patients (62.5%). Poor temperature regulation was found in 50% of patients and diabetes insipidus was documented in 3 patients (12.5%). The MRI showed complete or partial fusion of basal ganglia and thalami in 21 patients (87.5%) and 19 patients (79.2%) respectively, fused mesencephalon in 8 patients (33.3%), incomplete separation of mesencephalon from diencephalon in 4 patients (16.7%), dorsal cyst in 10 patients (41.7%), abnormal gyral pattern anteriorly in 15 patients (62.5%), anterior located sylvian fissures in 22 patients (99.7%), complete or partial agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) in all patients and Dandy-Walker malformation (DWM) in three patients (12.5%). A small occipital cephalocele was detected clinically and radiological as atretic type in MIH patient. Karyotype analysis demonstrated 47, XY+13 in a patient with alobar holoprosencephaly, 46, XY,t(12;13) (q13q24.1;q14q33) in a semilobar case associated with DWM, 46, XY, del(13)(q34) in one semilobar case and three cases had del 7q36 using FISH technique in two semilobar cases and one lobar case. Conclusion: This study highlights the clinical spectrum in patients with HPE and report a case of HPE and DWM associated with t(12;13). Neuroimaging delineated the pathogenesis underlying developmental defects in HPE. Accurate molecular diagnosis is crucial for further understanding of the pathogenesis of HPE.

Clinical significance of telomerase genes (hTERC and hTERT) amplification in patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

UNLABELLED: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) describes a heterogenous group of hematological disorders. Cytogenetic and molecular assays have allowed patients' follow up aiming for detection of minimal residual disease, prediction of patients' outcome, in addition to providing the rationale for designing novel molecular-targeted therapeutic strategies. Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), encoded by the hTERT gene and the telomerase RNA component (hTERC) genes are frequently amplified in human tumors, which may indicate that the hTERT and the hTERC genes may be target for amplification during the transformation of human malignancies including hematological malignancies. This genetic event has implications in diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutics of cancer. To evaluate the hTERC and hTERT genes as a prognostic marker in patients with AML, hTERC and hTERT gene amplification was studied in 20 adult AML patients using a commercial FISH probes (Kreatech) designated to detect the copy numbers of the genes. They were 12 males and 8 females. Their ages ranged from 16 to 67 years. The patients were further divided into two groups; group I (12 patients) includes newly diagnosed AML patients and group II (8 patients) includes patients taken at 28th day of chemotherapy. The hTERC amplification was detected in 19/21 cases (90.5%). The copy number of the gene ranged from 2-5 copies per interphase cell. For the hTERT gene, the amplification was found in the same percent of the patients. The copy number of the gene ranged from 2-9 copies per interphase cell. On comparing the group I with group II there was a highly statistical significant difference regarding the percent of amplification of both genes. The percent of amplification of hTERT gene was found to be higher among patients with poor outcome of the disease than in patients with good outcome. On the contrary the hTERC gene amplification did not exhibit such a correlation. In conclusion, hTERT and hTERC genes amplification were detected in patients with AML; therefore telomerase can be a good cancer marker which may be involved in carcinogenesis of leukemia. Higher amplification was found in de novo cases than cases in remission which emphasize its role in clinical analysis, disease monitoring and detection of minimal residual disease. KEYWORDS: Acute Myeloid leukemia, telomerase amplification, hTERC gene, hTERT gene.

Clinical significance of hTERC and C-Myc genes amplification in a group of Egyptian patients with cancer cervix.

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide after breast cancer. Cervical cancer is a preventable disease. The implementation of cervical cancer screening programs has greatly decreased the morbidity and mortality, as precancerous lesions and early invasive cervical cancer could be detected and treated effectively. The detection of hTERC gene amplification was suggested as a possible diagnostic marker for use in routine cytological screening. OBJECTIVES: The present study was designed to detect genomic gains of the hTERC and C-MYC genes using FISH technique and to investigate the relationship between genes amplification and the clinical data of the patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The current study was carried out on twelve cases with cervical cancer at different grades (three cases were grade I, six cases were grade II and three cases were grade III). Interphase FISH analysis using LSI probe, Cervical Cancer probe hTERC (3q26) & C-MYC (8q24), was successfully performed on 12 patients with cancer cervix. RESULTS: Interphase FISH analysis revealed positive hTERC gene amplification in all cases of cancer cervix (100%). However C-MYC gene amplification was detected in four cases only (33.3%). Statistical analysis of the data revealed significant correlation between hTERC amplification and grading. Also, there was significant correlation between C-MYC amplification and grading and highly significant correlation between C-MYC amplification and hTERC amplification. On the other hand hTERC and C-MYC genes amplification showed an inverse correlation with the ages of the patients. CONCLUSION: The present study highlights the importance of using hTERC and C-MYC genes FISH probes for cases with cancer cervix or pre-malignant lesions as a sensitive technique. This method provides an easy and effective applicable approach which helps in the diagnosis and prognosis, as an increased copy number is associated with a more advanced grade that could be detected in the early stages of the disease.

Screening for diabetes in Kuwait and evaluation of risk scores.

This study aimed to develop a simple risk score to identify individuals at high risk for undiagnosed diabetes in the Kuwaiti adult population and to assess the performance of previously published diabetes risk scores. A cross-sectional survey with a sample of 562 Kuwaiti public sector employees was carried out in 2007. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire and a blood glucose test. The overall prevalence of diabetes using American Diabetes Association 2003 criteria was 21.4% (4.1% newly detected). The proposed score had 87% sensitivity and 64% specificity in predicting undetected diabetes using only 4 questions (age, waist circumference, use of blood pressure medication and diabetes in a sibling). Most previously published risk scores were not applicable to this population.

Cerebroretinal microangiopathy with calcifications and cysts (CRMCC).

Extensive intracranial calcifications and leukoencephalopathy are seen in both Coats plus and leukoencephalopathy with calcifications and cysts (LCC; Labrune syndrome). Coats plus syndrome is additionally characterized by the presence of bilateral retinal telangiectasia and exudates while LCC shows the progressive formation of parenchymal brain cysts. Despite these apparently distinguishing features, recent evidence suggests that Coats plus and LCC represent the same clinical entity with a common primary pathogenesis involving a small vessel obliterative microangiopathy. Here, we describe eight previously unreported cases, and present an update on one of the original Coats plus patients to highlight the emerging core clinical features of the "cerebroretinal microangiopathy with calcification and cysts" (CRMCC) phenotype.

Properties of the coat protein of a new tobacco mosaic virus coat protein ts-mutant.

Amino acid substitutions in a majority of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) coat protein (CP) ts-mutants have previously been mapped to the same region of the CP molecule tertiary structure, located at a distance of about 70 A from TMV virion axis. In the present work some properties of a new TMV CP ts-mutant ts21-66 (two substitutions I21=>T and D66=>G, both in the 70-A region) were studied. Thermal inactivation characteristics, sedimentation properties, circular dichroism spectra, and modification by a lysine-specific reagent, trinitrobenzensulfonic acid, of ts21-66 CP were compared with those of wild-type (U1) TMV CP. It is concluded that the 70-A region represents the most labile portion of the TMV CP molecule. Partial disordering of this region in the mutant CP at permissive temperatures leads to loss of the capacity to form two-layer aggregates of the cylindrical type, while further disordering induced by mild heating results also in the loss of the ability to form ordered helical aggregates.

Conductometric determination of some pharmaceutically important thiol compounds in dosage forms.

A direct semimicro conductometric method is described for the determination of five pharmaceutically-important thiol compounds, namely: N-acetylcysteine, captopril, D-penicillamine, 6-mercaptopurine and thioguanine, in bulk and in dosage forms. The method involves the use of lead nitrate as a titrant in aqueous medium with conductometric detection of the end point. The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of the studied compounds and the results obtained were found to agree with those given using the official methods. The proposed method is simple, accurate and precise.

A histopathological study of different clinical forms of cutaneous leishmaniasis.

Biopsy specimens for histopathological study were taken from 15 parasitologically proven cases with different clinical forms of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) including two patients with disseminated CL in the form of subcutaneous nodules and satellite papules. The clinical picture of these patients was also reported. The study revealed that the histopathological manifestations were variable, ranging from a diffuse infiltrate in the acute stage to a tuberculoid architecture in the chronic stage. One patient had perineural inflammatory cell infiltrate consisting of lymphocytes, plasma cells and macrophages.

Plasma beta-endorphin level in cases of luteal phase defect.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate beta-endorphin secretion in euprolactinemic cases of luteal phase defect (LPD). DESIGN: Serial blood samples from the 18th to the 26th day of the menstrual cycle were assayed for beta-endorphin, progesterone (P), estradiol (E2), and prolactin (PRL) in cases of LPD and controls. Diagnosis of LPD was based on determinations of serum P and premenstrual endometrial biopsy. SETTING: From Cairo University Hospitals. PATIENT, PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-six women with LPD and 8 normal fertile women (controls) were chosen. INTERVENTIONS: None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: beta-Endorphin, P, E2, and PRL concentrations were determined by the corresponding 125I radioimmunoassay. RESULTS: Plasma beta-endorphin level in cases of LPD varied from 2.58 to 9.14 pmol/L, whereas the level of controls varied from 2.41 to 5.57 pmol/L. The mean value of plasma beta-endorphin in cases of LPD was significantly higher than that of controls by 146% (P less than 0.0005). In spite of the significant decrease of serum P in cases of LPD, serum E2 level did not differ significantly from that of controls. CONCLUSION: The possible sources of beta-endorphin rise and its implication in the etiology of LPD are explained.