Therapeutic approaches for chronic hepatitis C: a concise review.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a significant global health concern, prompting the need for effective treatment strategies. This in-depth review critically assesses the landscape of HCV treatment, drawing parallels between traditional interferon/ribavirin therapy historically pivotal in HCV management and herbal approaches rooted in traditional and complementary medicine. Advancements in therapeutic development and enhanced clinical outcomes axis on a comprehensive understanding of the diverse HCV genome, its natural variations, pathogenesis, and the impact of dietary, social, environmental, and economic factors. A thorough analysis was conducted through reputable sources such as Science Direct, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, books, and dissertations. This review primarily focuses on the intricate nature of HCV genomes and explores the potential of botanical drugs in both preventing and treating HCV infections.

Vitamin D3 Nutritional Status Affects Gut Health of Salmonella-Challenged Laying Hens.

Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (SE) is one of the most common pathogens associated with poultry health and foodborne Salmonellosis worldwide. The gut plays a pivotal role in inhibiting SE transintestinal transmission and contaminating poultry products. The nutritional status of vitamin D (VD) is involved in gut health apart from bone health. However, the impact of VD3 nutritional status on the gut health of Salmonella-challenged hens is rarely investigated. This study investigated the impact and possible mechanisms of VD3 nutritional status on the gut health of hens challenged with SE. Hens were fed basal diets with either 0 (deficient) or 3000 IU (sufficient) VD3/kg of diet, respectively. After 10 weeks of feeding, half of the hens were orally inoculated with either SE (1 × 109 CFU /bird). Results indicated that VD3 sufficiency reversed the disruptive effects on the laying performance of hens caused by Salmonella challenge or VD3 insufficiency by promoting VD3 metabolism. In addition, VD3 sufficiency ameliorated gut injury induced by either Salmonella or VD3 deficiency, shown by reducing Salmonella load and histopathological scores, suppressing TLR4-mediated inflammatory responses, and increasing expression of TJs along with decreasing pro-apoptotic protein expression and the number of TUNEL-positive cells in the jejunum. Besides, VD3 enriched the abundance of probiotics, such as Lactobacillus and Bacilli, and restored the balance of gut microflora. Collectively, dietary VD3 sufficient supplementation could alleviate Salmonella or VD3 deficiency-induced intestinal damage of hens via modulating intestinal immune, barrier function, apoptosis along with gut microbiota composition, revealing that VD3 could act as a novel nutritional strategy defending Salmonella invasion in hens.

The impact of different plant extracts on population suppression of Helicoverpa armigera (Hub.) and tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) yield under field conditions.

Helicoverpa armigera (Hub.) is a destructive pest of the tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) crop in Pakistan. Although insecticides are the primary management strategy used to control H. armigera, most of them are not effective due to considerable toxic residual effects on the fruits. Nonetheless, H. armigera is rapidly evolving resistance against the available pesticides for its management. This situation calls upon the need of alternative management options against the pest. Different plant extracts have been suggested as a viable, environment-friendly option for plant protection with minimal side effects. Furthermore, the plant extracts could also manage the insect species evolving resistance against pesticides. This study evaluated the efficacy of different plant extracts (i.e., Neem seed, turmeric, garlic and marsh pepper) against H. armigera. Furthermore, the impact of the plant extracts on growth and yield of tomato crop was also tested under field conditions. The results revealed that all plant extracts resulted in higher mortality of H. armigera compared to control. Similarly, the highest plant height was observed for the plants treated with the plant extracts compared to untreated plants. Moreover, the highest tomato yield was observed in plants treated with plant extracts, especially with neem seed (21.013 kg/plot) followed by pepper extract (19.25 kg/plot), and garlic extract 18.4 kg/plot) compared to the untreated plants (8.9 kg/plot). It is concluded that plant extracts can be used as eco-friendly approaches for improving tomato yield and resistance management of H. armigera.

Yeast ß-Glucan Altered Intestinal Microbiome and Metabolome in Older Hens.

The prebiotics- and probiotics-mediated positive modulation of the gut microbiota composition is considered a useful approach to improve gut health and food safety in chickens. This study explored the effects of yeast ß-glucan (YG) supplementation on intestinal microbiome and metabolites profiles as well as mucosal immunity in older hens. A total of 256 43-week-old hens were randomly assigned to two treatments, with 0 and 200 mg/kg of YG. Results revealed YG-induced downregulation of toll-like receptors (TLRs) and cytokine gene expression in the ileum without any effect on the intestinal barrier. 16S rRNA analysis claimed that YG altered α- and ß-diversity and enriched the relative abundance of class Bacilli, orders Lactobacillales and Enterobacteriales, families Lactobacillaceae and Enterobacteriaceae, genera Lactobacillus and Escherichia-Shigella, and species uncultured bacterium-Lactobacillus. Significant downregulation of cutin and suberin, wax biosynthesis, atrazine degradation, vitamin B6 metabolism, phosphotransferase system (PTS), steroid degradation, biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids, aminobenzoate degradation and quorum sensing and upregulation of ascorbate and aldarate metabolism, C5-branched dibasic acid metabolism, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, pentose and glucuronate interconversions, steroid biosynthesis, carotenoid biosynthesis, porphyrin and chlorophyll metabolism, sesquiterpenoid and triterpenoid biosynthesis, lysine degradation, and ubiquinone and other terpenoid-quinone biosyntheses were observed in YG-treated hens, as substantiated by the findings of untargeted metabolomics analysis. Overall, YG manifests prebiotic properties by altering gut microbiome and metabolite profiles and can downregulate the intestinal mucosal immune response of breeder hens.

Dietary yeast ß-glucan supplementation improves eggshell color and fertile eggs hatchability as well as enhances immune functions in breeder laying hens.

The study was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary yeast ß-glucan (YG) on performance and immune functions in breeder hens in a non-challenged setting. A total of 512 43-week-old Hy-Line Brown breeder hens were assigned into four treatments, and fed a basal diet with YG at 0, 50, 100 and 200 mg /kg for 8 weeks, respectively. Results showed that supplementation of YG did not affect production performance, but linearly increased hatchability (P < 0.05). Compared with the control, hens fed with 200 mg/kg YG had improved eggshell color and reduced mortality. Moreover, feeding 200 mg/kg YG significantly (P < 0.05) enhanced lymphocyte proliferation response to LPS, increased the percentage of peripheral blood CD3+ T cells and phytohemagglutinin (PHA) skin response; remarkably down-regulated splenic TLR4, IL-6 and TGF-ß mRNA levels while upregulated TLR6 and IFN-γ mRNA levels (P < 0.05). In addition, inclusion of YG at 200 mg/kg considerably promoted the production of serum cytokines, total IgA, and specific antibody titers against BSA, AIV and NDV vaccine (P < 0.05). These results suggested that dietary inclusion of 200 mg/kg YG could improve eggshell color and fertile eggs hatchability and enhance cellular and humoral immune function of breeder hens in a nonchallenged setting without disturbing immune homeostasis.

FBCSP-based Multi-class Motor Imagery Classification using BP and TDP features.

Use of Motor Imagery in EEG signals is gaining importance to develop Brain Computer Interface (BCI) applications in various fields ranging from bio-medical to entertainment. Filter Bank Common Spatial Pattern (FBCSP) algorithm is a promising feature extraction technique to deal with subject-specific behavior in Motor Imagery classification. Using FBCSP on EEG we have developed an accurate but less computationally expensive approach by making use of Time Domain Parameters (TDP) and Band Power (BP) features to form a combined feature set. The novelty of our approach is also the use of optimal time segmentation to overcome non-stationary state behavior of Event-Related Desynchronization (ERD) and Event-Related Synchronization (ERS) over time. We analyzed the impact of parameter variations on classification accuracy and achieved 0.59 mean kappa value for Dataset 2a BCI competition IV, the highest reported for FBCSP approaches, along with the lowest inter-subject variation.

DeepMI: Deep Learning for Multiclass Motor Imagery Classification.

In Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Research,Electroencephalography (EEG) has obtained great attention for biomedical applications. In BCI system, feature representation and classification are important tasks as the accuracy of classification highly depends on these stages. In this paper, we propose a model in which Common Spatial Pattern (CSP) is used to discriminate inter-class data using co-variance maximization and Fast Fourier Transform Energy Map (FFTEM) is used for feature selection and mapping of 1D data into 2D data (energy maps). Convolutional Neural Network is used for classification of multi-class Motor Imagery (MI) signals. Further, this paper investigates near-optimal parameter selection for feature mapping, frequency bands selection, and temporal segmentation. It is shown that our proposed method outperformed the reported methods by achieving 0.61 mean kappa value.