In vitro evaluation of antioxidant and antibacterial activities of Eucheuma cottonii extract and its in vivo evaluation of the wound-healing activity in mice.

BACKGROUND: Eucheuma Cottonii is a type of red algae obtained from Sabah with main active component, sulfated polysaccharide or k-carrageenan. AIMS: The objective of this research was to evaluate the antioxidant, antibacterial and potential wound-healing properties in aqueous extraction of E cottonii in order to meet the increasing demand for halal and natural cosmeceutical products. METHODS AND RESULTS: Aqueous extract of E cottonii was investigated for active compounds by phytochemical screening and IR spectroscopy. Antioxidant activity was carried out using DPPH method, and the IC50 value was 1.99 mg/mL. Antibacterial activity was examined against Staphylococcus Aureus using Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method and showed 10.03 ± 0.06 mm zone of inhibition, achieved by 200 mg/mL of extracts. A wound was made by skin excision of area around 100 mm2 on each mouse. Test group was treated with aqueous extract gel (10% w/w); meanwhile, the mice that were treated with honey acted as the positive control group and the untreated mice as negative control group. Results showed that the wound contraction rate inclined to aqueous extracts as compared to untreated group (P < .05). Percentage of wound healing for aqueous extracts and untreated group were 87.7% ± 2.0% and 57.6% ± 5.3%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Aqueous extract was found to be comparable to the honey in wound healing.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Pharmacy Education in Malaysia and Indonesia.

The pandemic has affected all walks of life and businesses, including education at all levels. Movement controls have forced the schools and universities to migrate the teaching and learning to be fully online. Some universities in large cities in Malyasia had already implemented blended learning and thus, were better prepared to adjust to the current situation. However, the universities, which practiced mainly traditional didactic courses, were struggling to suddenly change the mode of delivery. Many relied on the creativity of the lecturers and students.

Medication Therapy and Ramadan Fasting.

Every year millions of Muslims observe fasting during the month of Ramadan. Abstaining from drink and food for a long period may affect the physiology of the body, pathology of diseases, and pharmacokinetics/ pharmacodynamics of medicines. Health professionals should assess the suitability of patients to observe fasting without compromising their health. Pharmacists can contribute by recommending alternative medicine, dosage form, route of administration, dosing regimen, educating patients on balanced diets and proper use of their medicines, as well as monitoring of the clinical outcomes. This article aims to familiarize the readers with the practice of Ramadan fasting and various aspects regarding drug therapy and Ramadan fasting.

Contribution of the Hair Follicular Pathway to Total Skin Permeation of Topically Applied and Exposed Chemicals.

Generally, the blood and skin concentration profiles and steady-state skin concentration of topically applied or exposed chemicals can be calculated from the in vitro skin permeation profile. However, these calculation methods are particularly applicable to chemicals for which the main pathway is via the stratum corneum. If the contribution of hair follicles to the total skin permeation of chemicals can be obtained in detail, their blood and skin concentrations can be more precisely predicted. In the present study, the contribution of the hair follicle pathway to the skin permeation of topically applied or exposed chemicals was calculated from the difference between their permeability coefficients through skin with and without hair follicle plugging, using an in vitro skin permeation experiment. The obtained results reveal that the contribution of the hair follicle pathway can be predicted by using the chemicals' lipophilicity. For hydrophilic chemicals (logarithm of n-octanol/water partition coefficient (log Ko/w) < 0), a greater reduction of permeation due to hair follicle plugging was observed than for lipophilic chemicals (log Ko/w ≥ 0). In addition, the ratio of this reduction was decreased with an increase in log Ko/w. This consideration of the hair follicle pathway would be helpful to investigate the efficacy and safety of chemicals after topical application or exposure to them because skin permeation and disposition should vary among skins in different body sites due to differences in the density of hair follicles.

SOAX: a software for quantification of 3D biopolymer networks.

Filamentous biopolymer networks in cells and tissues are routinely imaged by confocal microscopy. Image analysis methods enable quantitative study of the properties of these curvilinear networks. However, software tools to quantify the geometry and topology of these often dense 3D networks and to localize network junctions are scarce. To fill this gap, we developed a new software tool called "SOAX", which can accurately extract the centerlines of 3D biopolymer networks and identify network junctions using Stretching Open Active Contours (SOACs). It provides an open-source, user-friendly platform for network centerline extraction, 2D/3D visualization, manual editing and quantitative analysis. We propose a method to quantify the performance of SOAX, which helps determine the optimal extraction parameter values. We quantify several different types of biopolymer networks to demonstrate SOAX's potential to help answer key questions in cell biology and biophysics from a quantitative viewpoint.

A systems-biology approach to yeast actin cables.

We focus on actin cables in yeast as a model system for understanding cytoskeletal organization and the workings of actin itself. In particular, we highlight quantitative approaches on the kinetics of actin-cable assembly and methods of measuring their morphology by image analysis. Actin cables described by these studies can span greater lengths than a thousand end-to-end actin-monomers. Because of this difference in length scales, control of the actin-cable system constitutes a junction between short-range interactions - among actin-monomers and nucleating, polymerization-facilitating, side-binding, severing, and cross-linking proteins - and the emergence of cell-scale physical form as embodied by the actin cables themselves.

Segmentation and tracking of cytoskeletal filaments using open active contours.

We use open active contours to quantify cytoskeletal structures imaged by fluorescence microscopy in two and three dimensions. We developed an interactive software tool for segmentation, tracking, and visualization of individual fibers. Open active contours are parametric curves that deform to minimize the sum of an external energy derived from the image and an internal bending and stretching energy. The external energy generates (i) forces that attract the contour toward the central bright line of a filament in the image, and (ii) forces that stretch the active contour toward the ends of bright ridges. Images of simulated semiflexible polymers with known bending and torsional rigidity are analyzed to validate the method. We apply our methods to quantify the conformations and dynamics of actin in two examples: actin filaments imaged by TIRF microscopy in vitro, and actin cables in fission yeast imaged by spinning disk confocal microscopy.

Vertex corrections and the Korringa ratio in strongly correlated electron materials.

We show that the Korringa ratio, associated with nuclear magnetic resonance in metals, is unity if vertex corrections to the dynamic spin susceptibility are negligible, the hyperfine coupling is momentum independent, and there exists an energy scale below which the density of states is constant. In the absence of vertex corrections we also find a Korringa behaviour for T(1), the nuclear spin relaxation rate, i.e., [Formula: see text], and a temperature independent Knight shift. These results are independent of the form and magnitude of the self-energy (so far as is consistent with neglecting vertex corrections) and of the dimensionality of the system.