BENTHAM SCIENCE FREE TRIAL IN BALIKESIR UNIVERSITY CENTRAL LIBRARY, TURKEY!

The roots of Balikesir University date back to Karesi Teacher Training School, which was established in 1910. Balikesir State Engineering Academy, Balikesir Management and Tourism Vocational School and Balikesir Vocational School started educational facilities in 1975-1976 and this marked an important step for the establishment of the university. These establishments changed their names and status and they were made to continue their educational facilities under the name of Uludag University in 1982 with the decree law numbered 41. Necati Education Institute became a four-year “High Teacher Training School” in 1981 and then in 1982, this institution was renamed Necatibey Education Faculty.

MOST ACCESSED ARTICLE – Papain Loaded Solid Lipid Nanoparticles for Colorectal Cancer Therapy – Current Cancer Therapy Reviews

Journal: Current Cancer Therapy Reviews

Author(s): Suriyakala P. Chandran, Kannika P. Nachinmuthu, Satheesh B. Natarajan*, Mohammad G. Inamdar, Masliza S.B.M. Shahimi

Graphical Abstract:

 

Abstract:

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) also known as bowl cancer is still one of the leading causes of cancer related mortality worldwide. Generally tumor cells are protecting themselves by fibrin coat and it is resistant to fibrinolytic degradation. Such a coated tumor appears as ‘self’ to the immune system, and thus is not detected as a tumor by the immune system (i.e. natural killer cells). Hence, a potent proteolytic enzyme has to propose/ identify to dissolve the protective fibrin layer, exposing the tumor cell surface to chemotherapy and immune attack. In this research papain was considered to be the potential proteolytic agent, can break down the fibrin coat of cancer cell wall and ultimately the cancer cells are exposed to immune attack and help against the cancer. Secondly, the cytotoxic compound(s) directly deliver to cancer site without harm to normal cells.

Methods: The attempt made to attain this objective, we were designed to fabricate the Papain loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) by melt dispersion-ultrasonication technique, and investigate the various formulation parameters. The papain loaded SLN was characterized by particle size analysis, zeta potential analysis, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), drug encapsulation efficiency, in vitro drug release, and in vitro cytotoxicity studies on HT-29 colorectal cancer cells.

Results: The successful outcome of this research was that, the cetyl alcohol based SLN of papain were successfully prepared by using melt dispersion- ultrasonication method with maximum encapsulation efficiency with desired particle size. The release profile of the produced SLN was investigated in phosphate buffer media, and it showed prolonged release during 24 h. The drug release behaviour from the SLNs exhibited a biphasic pattern with the burst release at the initial stage and sustained release subsequently. Future perspective of this research is that need to investigate the SLN for the lymphatic uptake to produce local action on metastatic colorectal cancer. In vitro cell viability for P-SLNs was tested on colorectal Adenocarcinoma HT-29 cells by MTT assay. The results revealed that the in vitro cell viability against different concentrations of papain was 99% and 31 % which were treated with 5µg/ml and 80µg/ml concentration respectively. The cell viability of HT-29 cells was decreased signicantly from 94 % to 17 % treated with P-SLN at 5 µg/ml and 80 µg/ml concentration respectively. Therefore, the papain loaded SLNs exhibits a better performance on getting lower cell viability (or) equivalent high cytotoxicity than that of pure papain. Therefore, the SLNs delivery system plays a significant role in enhancing the cytotoxic efficacy of papain enzyme against colorectal cancer cells.

Conclusion: In this research, we successfully formulated the P-SLN for the treatment of colorectal cancer therapy. We investigate the various formulation parameters, drug release profile and cytotoxic efficacy of P-SLN. Upon successful completion of this work, P-SLNs delivery system is predictable to produce enhanced cytotoxic efficacy against HT-29 colorectal cancer cells. The papain loaded SLNs can potentially be utilized as a drug delivery system for the treatment of colorectal cancer. In future, we will explore further to investigate the mechanism of anticancer activity and clinical investigation of P-SLN.

Read more here: http://www.eurekaselect.com/155999/article

 

Thought of the Day

PRESS RELEASE – Asthma management: Allocating duties

The article by Dr. Giuseppe Madonia and Dr. Ursula Madonia is published in Current Respiratory Medicine Reviews

IMAGE: BETTER AND SYSTEMATIC STRATEGIES IN DIAGNOSIS, PHENOTYPING AND THERAPY ARE AVAILABLE IN A SPECIALISTIC DEDICATED SETTING AND CAN HELP IN ASTHMA MANAGEMENT. view more 

CREDIT: DR. GIUSEPPE MADONIA, DR. URSULA MADONIA AND BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS

 

The privilege to operate in a specialist asthma clinic allows for a light to be shed on the persistence of the many pitfalls in the management of this condition, which continue despite the recommendations of the numerous authoritative guidelines produced and spread in the last decades. Asthma heterogeneity and variability make it extremely difficult to be optimally managed, also in a specialist environment.

Many factors contribute to overcomplicate things: correct diagnosis and, if necessary, a differential one (e.g. COPD, vocal cord disfunction, congestive heart failure, emotional dyspnea, for example); characterization and education of the so-called poor perceiver; creation of a partnership with the patient; etc…

In other words, it is necessary to spend time on every single patient and his/her particular form of asthma and to formulate a more or less stringent plan of follow-up. That being said, it appears clear how the role of physicians is particularly challenging in managing comfortably this complexity and the burden produced by it. Overcoming these obstacles will be the result of knowledge, dedication, constancy and acquired experience. A recent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline suggests the best practice in asthma management directly to general practitioners assuming however that “putting recommendations into practice can take time”.

Almost all patients with a suspect of asthma will have their first evaluation in a primary care setting. But a single general practitioner physician will not regularly observe, in his daily practice, such a patient. Concurrently, it is unclear how many spirometry tests he will do in a month: possibly not enough to guarantee an acceptable level of expertise in such a key role test. It will likely be very difficult to acquire the optimal background level appropriate to smoothly manage asthma condition – especially in such a busy, diverse and eclectic environment .

The few considerations just briefly exposed make it reasonable to assume that, paradoxically, it could be better, in future guidelines on the topic, to typify when a respiratory physician – taking into account the local health system – can refer an asthmatic patient to the primary care colleague (and not vice versa).

For further information on the research study, please visit: http://www.eurekaselect.com/160581

New Issue :: Recent Patents on Endocrine, Metabolic & Immune Drug Discovery 11, Issue 1

Recent Patents on Endocrine, Metabolic & Immune Drug Discovery publishes review and research articles, and guest edited thematic issues on recent patents in the field of endocrine, metabolic and immune drug discovery e.g. on novel bioactive compounds, analogs & targets. A selection of important and recent patents in the field is also included in the journal. The journal is essential reading for all researchers involved in endocrine, metabolic and immune drug design and discovery. The journal also covers recent research (where patents have been registered) in fast emerging therapeutic areas/targets & therapeutic agents related to endocrine, metabolic and immune drug discovery.

Articles from the journal Recent Patents on Endocrine, Metabolic & Immune Drug Discovery Volume 11, Issue 1:

• Biological Activities of Red Propolis: A Review
• Clinical Use and Patentability of Cord Blood
• Evaluation and Management of Children with Thyrotoxicosis
• Microdialysis-Assessed Adipose Tissue Metabolism in Critically Ill Patients
• Iodine Prophylaxis in the Lights of the Last Recommendation of WHO on Reduction of Daily Salt Intake
• Iodine Prophylaxis in the Case of Nuclear Accident
• The Enriched Proanthocyanidin Extract of Ligaria cuneifolia Shows a Marked Hypocholesterolemic Effect in Rats Fed with Cholesterol- Enriched Diet

For details on the articles, please visit this link: https://bit.ly/2JxvhZX

WISHING A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY DR. FERNANDO ALBERICIO!

DR. FERNANDO ALBERICIO

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: CURRENT CHEMICAL BIOLOGY

Department of Organic Chemistry
University of Barcelona
Barcelona
Spain

New Issue :: Current Biomarkers 7, Issue 1

Current Biomarkers publishes reviews, research articles, guest edited thematic issues, and reviews on biomarkers. The coverage includes novel biomarkers in basic, medical, environmental, and pharmaceutical research. . A selection of important and recent patents on biomarkers is also included in the journal. The journal is essential reading for all researchers involved in biomarker research and discovery. The journal also covers current research in fast emerging biomarker applications; discovery and validation for drug discovery, clinical development and molecular diagnostics.

Articles from the journal Current Biomarkers Volume 7, Issue 1:

• Biomarkers Insights in Psoriasis – Regulatory Cytokines
• An Insight into Biomarkers for Canine Parvovirus Diagnosis: A Minireview
• The Patenting and Technological Trends in Cervical Cancer Therapy
• CCL17/Thymus and Activation-Related Chemokine: A biomarker for Churg-Strauss Syndrome?
• Evidence of Association between Epstein Barr Virus Serum Antibodies with HAs and RI as Biomarkers of Active Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Development of New Set of EST-SSR Markers for Evaluating Genetic Diversity and Fingerprinting Local Celery (Apium graveolens L.) Cultivars

For details on the articles, please visit this link :: https://bit.ly/2sx3GOJ

 

EDITOR’S CHOICE – ECPIRM, a Potential Therapeutic Agent for Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma, Inhibits Cell Proliferation and Promotes Apoptosis via a JAK/STAT Pathway

Journal: Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemistry

Author(s): Hua Yang, Pengcheng Ma*, Yuping Cao, Mengli Zhang, Lingjun Li, Jun Wei, Lei Tao, Kun Qian

Graphical Abstract:

 

Abstract:

Background: Retinoids are important agents for the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphomas (CTCL). But side effects and drug resistance caused by activation of RAR/RXR limited their clinical application. Therefore, it is urgent to develop new agents to fight against CTCL. ECPIRM, a 13-cis retinoic acid derivative, was reported that it inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis of SCL-1 cells.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the biological activities and mechanisms of ECPIEM.

Methods: The effect of ECPIRM on cell proliferation was determined by MTT assay and Trypan blue exclusion assay while FACS analysis was used to detect changes in cell cycle and apoptosis in HUT78 cells. The influence of ECPIRM on RAR/RXR and JAK/STAT signaling was evaluated by western blot analysis.

Results: ECPIRM, better than other agents (all-trans retinoic acid,13-cis-retinoic acid or bexarotene), inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis significantly in HUT78 cells, but with little cytotoxicity on normal lymphocytes. Then ECPIRM induced G0/G1 phase arrest by decreasing the expression of cyclinD1, cyclinE, CDK2 and CDK4 while increasing p21. Furthermore, the unaffected expression of RAR and RXR members suggested that ECPIRM acted independently of RAR/RXR pathway in HUT78 cells. But decreased phosphorylation of JAK1, STAT3, STAT5 and downregulated Bcl-xL, Cyclin D1 and c-Myc indicated that ECPIRM inhibited the activation of JAK/STAT signaling.

Conclusion: ECPIRM inhibited proliferation, induced apoptosis and G0/G1 phase arrest in HUT78 cells through inhibiting JAK/STAT pathway but not RAR/RXR pathway, which presented ECPIRM as a promising candidate for the treatment of CTCL patients.

Read more here: http://www.eurekaselect.com/151116/article

 

 

PRESS RELEASE – Zinc oxide-graphene solar cells could provide new opportunities

The article by Dr. Hieu P. T. Nguyen et al. is published in Current Nanomaterials, 2018

Researchers from NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology, New Jersey, USA) in collaboration with researchers from CSIR-CECRI (Central Scientific Industrial Research Institute – Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Tamil Nadu, India) have fabricated a new kind of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) based on zinc oxide-graphene (ZnO-G) composites, having a flake like morphology. The polyol approach used for synthesis of the composite material can be envisioned for future low-cost, transparent and flexible solar cells that will be installed on surfaces including windows, roofs in the near future.

The novel technique for the fabrication has been developed by a 3rd year Ph.D. student Moab Rajan Philip and Dr. Hieu P Nguyen, Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of NJIT and is reported in Current Nanomaterials-Bentham Science Publishers. The paper is co-authored by Rupesh K Babu, V. Krishnakumar and T. Bui who are researchers in CSIR-CECRI and NJIT respectively.

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) is a multifunctional semiconductor material that can be fabricated at low temperatures. The wide energy bandgap, radiation resistance, high chemical stability, and high excitation binding energy leads to ZnO offering huge potential in applications involving sensors, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), piezoelectric devices, solar cells, short wavelength lasers and transistors. In addition, ZnO offers superior electrical and optical properties that include high electron mobility in the order of 1500 cm2V-1s-1 at room temperature, a wide band gap energy of 3.3 eV and a high exciton (electron-hole) binding energy of 60 meV. Graphene, which is one of the most exciting 2D materials known to man, exhibits superior properties such as ultrahigh electron mobility, large surface area, high chemical and thermal stability, excellent electrical and optical properties. The ZnO-G composites exhibited in the study significantly enhanced photoluminescence which was around 8 times stronger than that of ZnO samples, attributed to the contribution of plasmonic effect of graphene in ZnO-G. It has been reported that the drawback of poor catalytic activity in ZnO due to its photoelectron recombination is known can be overwhelmed by the incorporation of graphene into ZnO matrix thereby improving its photodegradation efficiency and reducing photoelectron recombination. The latter reasons along with the ZnO-G composite’s photosensitivity, electron transport capability, chemical stability and better light adsorption make it an interesting material for the future era electronic devices.

“We’ve demonstrated that devices based on ZnO-G have an excellent conversion efficiency compared to ZnO”- Moab and Prof. Nguyen (lead authors of the paper) says. The conversion efficiency of ZnO-G DSSCs is greatly increased compared to that of the bare ZnO devices which are 0.438% and 0.067%, respectively. Moreover the authors add that the low-cost polyol process, in addition to being simple and facile, do have the benefits of being environmentally friendly along with large scale production. The team studied the fabricated samples via characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), laser raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) and dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) studies. Moab adds “The initial work is promising and excellent and might pave the way for future investigations into similar material oxide material systems will help us to reach potential long term real applications.” Prof. Hieu comments that “The high surface area hexagonal wurtzite ZnO particles thus fabricated by inexpensive and environmentally friendly polyol route can ultimately lead to being used as a suitable anode material in DSSCs as well as an excellent catalyst/adsorbent.”

For more information on this research study, please visit: http://www.eurekaselect.com/161876

New Issue :: Letters in Drug Design & Discovery 15, Issue 7

Letters in Drug Design & Discovery publishes letters, mini-reviews, highlights and guest edited thematic issues in all areas of rational drug design and discovery including medicinal chemistry, in-silico drug design, combinatorial chemistry, high-throughput screening, drug targets, and structure-activity relationships. The emphasis is on publishing quality papers very rapidly by taking full advantage of latest Internet technology for both submission and review of manuscripts. The online journal is an essential reading to all pharmaceutical scientists involved in research in drug design and discovery.

Articles from the journal Letters in Drug Design & Discovery Volume 15, Issue 7:

• Synthesis and in vitro Evaluation of 1,2,3-triazole-4-chloromethylcoumarins with Antioxidant Activity
• Synthesis and Biological Activity of New Schiff Bases of Benzylideneamine Bearing Thiophene, 1,2,4-triazolone, 1,3,4-oxadiazole, Morpholine Moieties
• Efficient Synthesis of Ibandronate in the Presence of an Ionic Liquid
• 3D QSAR Studies of Tricyclic Compounds as Porcupine Inhibitors for Wnt Pathway Inhibitory Activity
• Synthesis, Characterization and Antibacterial Evaluation of some New 1,2,4-triazolo[3,4-b][1,3,4]thiadiazines as Potential Antibacterial Agents
• Synthesis of New Thiazolyl-Pyrazoline Derivatives and Evaluation of Their Antimicrobial, Cytotoxic and Genotoxic Effects
• Novel Hybrid Molecules of Quinazoline Chalcone Derivatives: Synthesis and Study of in vitro Cytotoxic Activities
• Synthesis, Aqueous Solubility, Metabolic Stability and Pharmacological Profile of Simplified Urea Derivatives
• Synthesis, Pharmacological Evaluation and Docking Study of a New Modulator of Microtubule Polymerization
• Enhancement Antimicrobial Activity of Clarithromycin by Amine Functionalized Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery System

For details on the articles, please visit this link :: https://bit.ly/2xzSMg2