Apitoxin alleviates methyl mercury-induced peripheral neurotoxicity in male rats by regulating dorsal root ganglia neuronal degeneration and oxidative stress.

Methylmercury (MeHg) toxicity is associated with extensive neuronal degeneration of dorsal root ganglia (DRG). This study aimed to assess the ameliorative effect of bee venom (BV) on methyl mercury chloride (MeHgCl)-induced peripheral neurotoxicity using DRGs in rats. Forty-eight adult male Sprague Dawley rats were allocated into four equal groups: G I: control (gavaged MilliQ water 1 ml/rat), G II: subcutaneously injected with BV (0.5 mg/kg b.wt), G III: gavaged MeHgCl (6.7 mg/kg b.wt), and G IV: received MeHgCl+BV. Dosing was done five times/week for 2 weeks. Ataxic behavior and visual impairments were significantly increased, whereas the movement behavior and motility gait were suppressed in the MeHgCl group. MeHgCl significantly decreased total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in DRG and significantly decreased the serum levels of glutathione (GSH), catalase (CAT), and superoxide dismutase (SOD). Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 1ß (IL-1ß) levels were significantly elevated, whereas interleukin 10 (IL-10) levels were significantly decreased in the MeHgCl group compared with the control group. DRGs of the MeHgCl-exposed rats showed pyknotic shrunken neurons with perineural vacuolations, demyelination of nerve axons, and proliferation of the satellite cells. MeHgCl significantly induced a higher positive index ratio of Iba-1, SOX10, neurofilament, pan-neuron, and vimentin immunostaining in the DRG. BV administration significantly mitigated the MeHgCl-induced alterations in oxidative stress-related indices. BV modified the immunostaining of Iba-1, SOX10, neurofilament, pan-neuron, and vimentin-positive index ratio in the DRG of the MeHgCl group. Our findings acknowledged that BV could enhance in vivo neuroprotective effects against MeHgCl-induced DRGs damage in male rats.

Diagnostic and Prognostic Role of Serum Omentin and NGAL Levels in Egyptian Breast Cancer Patients.

Background: Breast cancer (BC) is globally the main cause of cancer-related deaths in women. Tumor biomarkers have significant role in diagnosis and predicting the prognosis and decide the specific therapy to each patient. Aim: In this study, we investigated whether omentin and NGAL levels were altered in patients with breast cancer and the relationship between these markers and their clinicopathological parameters. Subjects and Methods. This study included 120 patients with breast cancer and 30 healthy individuals served as controls. We measured the serum level of omentin and NGAL by ELISA technique. Results: Our results showed that there were statistically significant differences in serum omentin and NGAL levels between two groups. Also, in breast cancer patients, there was significant difference between omentin level, the same results with NGAL level and patient's age, tumor size, lymph node, and metastasis. No significant relationship was found between omentin level and tumor grade, ER, PR, and HER2. The cutoff value for the prediction of breast cancer was determined at >113.2 ng/ml for omentin and >145.3 ng/ml for NGAL with a sensitivity of 91.7% and 100%, specificity of 100% and 80%, positive predictive value of 100% and 90.9%, negative predictive value of 85.7% and 100%, and accuracy of 94.4% and 93.3%, respectively. In conclusion, serum omentin and NGAL can be used as strong diagnostic markers for breast cancer.

Effect of a 24-week weight management program on serum leptin level in correlation to anthropometric measures in obese female: A randomized controlled clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Obesity is a major contributor to preventable disease and death across the globe. Obesity is complex. Although its risk factors are myriad and compounding, there is an urgent need for a deeper understanding of the way risk factors interact with each other. Leptin is a peptide regulates food intake and body weight. However, the notion of leptin as an anti-obesity hormone was called into question because obesity is typically associated with high leptin levels and not leptin deficiency thus, we aimed to measure leptin levels in obese female in correlation to anthropometric measures and to evaluate the impact of weight loss on its level and metabolic parameters. SUBJECT AND METHODS: case-control study enrolled 40 control groups, 50 obese women. We measured anthropometric measures BMI, Waist/hip ratio (WHR). Fat mass index (FMI%) and free fat mass index (FFMI%) were assessed by dual energy X-Ray absorptiometry (DEXA) The serum levels of leptin were measured by ELISA. RESULTS: Our results revealed that serum leptin levels were higher in obese women compared to controls. Moreover, it was positively correlated to anthropometric measures, glycemic and lipid profile. Linear regression analysis revealed that BMI was the main independent studied parameters associated with serum leptin level among other clinical and laboratory biomarkers. Interestingly, after 12 weeks of following the Mediterranean diet (MD)-based weight loss program, serum leptin levels were decreased. Logistic regression analysis was performed to detect the main predictors' biomarkers associated with weight loss among obese women. We found that serum leptin and FMI% were an independent predictor of response with odds ratios of 1.69 and 1.64 respectively (P < 0.001), Receiver operating characteristic analyses revealed that the AUC of serum leptin in discriminating obese women from lean ones was 0.893 (95% CI = 0.815-0.917) with sensitivity = 90%, specificity = 96%, and the cutoff values was 36.32 ng/ml. CONCLUSION: Serum leptin could be a valuable diagnostic marker of obesity and its comorbidities. Moreover, significant weight loss leads to decrease serum leptin levels and improvement of glycemic and lipid profiles.

Time domain adjoint sensitivity analysis of electromagnetic problems with nonlinear media.

In this paper, we propose a theory for wideband adjoint sensitivity analysis of problems with nonlinear media. We show that the sensitivities of the desired response with respect to all shape and material parameters are obtained through one extra adjoint simulation. Unlike linear problems, the system matrices of this adjoint simulation are time varying. Their values are determined during the original simulation. The proposed theory exploits the time-domain transmission line modeling (TLM) and provides an efficient AVM approach for sensitivity analysis of general time domain objective functions. The theory has been illustrated through a number of examples.

Realizing vertical light coupling and splitting in nano-plasmonic multilevel circuits.

We present a novel technique for vertical coupling of light guided by nanoscale plasmonic slot waveguides (PSWs). A triangularly-shaped plasmonic slot waveguide rotator is exploited to attain such coupling with a good efficiency over a wide bandwidth. Using this approach, light propagating in a horizontal direction is efficiently coupled to propagate in the vertical direction and vice versa. We also propose a power divider configuration to evenly split a vertically coupled light wave to two horizontal channels. A detailed parametric study of the triangular rotator is demonstrated with multiple configurations analyzed. This structure is suitable for efficient coupling in multilevel nano circuit environment.

Polarization-controlled excitation of multilevel plasmonic nano-circuits using single silicon nanowire.

We propose a surface plasmon polarization-controlled beam splitter based on plasmonic slot waveguides (PSWs). It couples light of different polarizations from a silicon nanowire into multilevel plasmonic networks. Two orthogonal PSWs are utilized as the guiding waveguides for each polarization. The proposed structure overcomes inherent polarization limitation in plasmonic structures by providing multilevel optical signal processing. This ability of controlling polarization can be exploited to achieve 3-D multilevel plasmonic circuits and polarization controlled chip to chip channel. Our device is of a compact size and a wide band operation. The device utilizes both quasi-TE and quasi-TM polarizations to allow for increased optical processing capability. The crosstalk is minimal between the two polarizations propagating in two different levels. We achieve good transmission efficiency at a wavelength of 1.55 µm for different polarizations. We analyze and simulate the structure using the FDTD method. The proposed device can be utilized in integrated chips for optical signal processing and optical computations.

Antiarrhythmic, serotonin antagonist and antianxiety activities of novel substituted thiophene derivatives synthesized from 2-amino-4,5,6,7-tetrahydro-N-phenylbenzo[b]thiophene-3-carboxamide.

A series of novel thiophene derivatives 3-17 were synthesized by initial reactions of 2-amino-4,5,6,7-tetrahydro-N-phenylbenzo[b]thiophene-3-carboxamide 1 and 2-amino-4,5,6,7-tetrahydro-benzo[b]thiophene-3-carbonitrile 7 with different organic reagents. The structures of newly synthesized compounds were confirmed by IR, 1H NMR, MS spectral data and elemental analysis. Initially the acute toxicity of the compounds was assayed via the determination of their LD50. All the compounds were screened for their antiarrhythmic, serotonin antagonist and antianexiety activities and they showed high activity compared with procaine amide, lidocaine, diazepam and buspirone as positive controls. The detailed synthesis, spectroscopic data, LD50 and pharmacological activities of the synthesized compounds were reported.