Biolmpacts
Volume:4 Issue: 4, Dec 2014

Climate change is having considerable impact on biological systems. Eras of ice ages and warming shaped the contemporary earth and origin of creatures including humans. Warming forces stress conditions on cells. Therefore, cells evolved elaborate defense mechanisms, such as creation of heat shock proteins, to combat heat stress. Global warming is becoming a crisis and this process would yield an undefined increasing rate of neurodegenerative disorders in future decades. Since heat stress is known to have a degenerative effects on neurons and, conversely, cold conditions have protective effect on these cells, we hypothesize that persistent heat stress forced by global warming might play a crucial role in increasing neurodegenerative disorders.

The experience of work in BioImpacts and direct involvement in whole the process of publication inspired us to tackle here the dimensions which we recognize as problematic areas in publication, namely, scientific setbacks, language and technical issues. Authors besides readers as competent future authors are urged not to neglect the significance of well-writing either through considering the language-associated issues or attending the technical matters besides enriching the scientific content. The article offers a scope for the authors to manifest themselves, hence we suggest how to best appear in this play.

Peptide dendrimers build up from amino acids and they simulate to artificial proteins with globular architecture. These characteristics furnish dendrimers with best biodegradability and biocompatibility in drug delivery systems. A barbell-like dendrimer from glutamic acid dimethyl ester-poly (ethylene glycol)-glutamic acid dimethyl ester as ABA-type triblock copolymer PG-PEG-PG) was prepared with liquid-phase peptide synthesis via a divergent approach. PEG 600 diacid (PEG-A) and glutamic acid dimethyl ester were as the core and the monomeric building blocks, respectively. Linear-dendritic copolymer was prepared in the presence of DCC in pyridine. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) was used for measuring the size of first generation (G1-COOH) and second generation (G2-COOH) of dendrimer compounds. Thermal behavior of the synthesized dendrimers was investigated using DSC. The desired generations G1-COOH, G2-COOH and G3-COOH were prepared by divergent method using PEG diacid 600 as a core compound. The size range of the resulted particles was found to be 20-100 nm for various generations. The isolated dendrimer was examined as the drug-delivery agent and the controlled release was carried out for drug molecule in pH 7.4. Based on the obtained results, the synthesized biocompatible dendrimers could potentially be utilized as a drug carrier agent.

Murdannia loriformis (hassk) Rolla Roa et Kammathy, family Commelinaceae, is used by Chinese practitioners as a remedy for cancer in an early stage, and also for treating other diseases including colds, throat infections, pneumonia, diabetes mellitus, flu and inflammation. Although anticancer as well as other pharmacological effects of M. loriformis have been reported, its anti-inflammatory and other activities related to inflammation are still limited.\ The anti-inflammatory activity was evaluated using carrageenan- and arachidonic acid-induced paw edema in rats, and cotton pelletinduced granuloma formation in rats. The analgesic and antipyretic activities were determined by formalin test in mice and yeast-induced hyperthermia in rats, respectively. The ethanol extract of the aerial part of M. loriformis exhibited anti-inflammatory activity on the rat paw edema induced by carrageenan and arachidonic acid. It also showed an inhibitory effect on the granuloma and the transudative formation of the rat implanted with cotton pellets as well as lowered the elevated serum alkaline phosphatase activity to normal level. It exerted potent analgesic effect on both the early and late phase of formalin test as well as the antipyretic effect on yeast-induced hyperthermic rats. The oral single high dose of the extract of 5,000 mg/Kg did not produce death or any abnormalities or changes of the internal organs of rats during 14 days of the observed period. The results obtained from this study support the use of the plant in traditional medicine for inflammatory ailments

Dorema glabrum (Apiaceae) is a rare and monocarpic species distributed in Transcaucasia and North West of Iran. We aimed to explore anticancer potency of bioactive compounds from the seeds of Dorma glabrum. Methanol extract was subjected to phytochemical investigation using normal phase Sep-pak and reversed-phase HPLC, and cytotoxic effect of isolated compounds on CAOV-4 cell line was evaluated. Furthermore, Annexin V/PI staining and comet assay were used to study genotoxicity of compounds. Diglucosyl caffeoyl ester (1), Glucopyranosylcaffeic acid (2) and skimmin (3), were identified. MTT cytotoxicity assay showed growth inhibition of CAOV-4 cells due to treatment with compunds (1), (2) and (3) with an IC50 of 99.7, 87.3 and 70.03 µg/ml at 48 h, respectively. Annexin V-FITC/PI staining showed occurrence of early/late apoptosis in the (1)-treated cells, while (2)-and (3)-treated cells necrosis/late apoptosis was dominant event. Single/double strands DNA breakages were observed by comet assay in all treatments. This work provides sufficient information about anti-cancer properties of the diglucosyl caffeoyl ester from the seeds of D. glabrum.

Among cardiovascular diseases, arterials stenosis is recognized more commonly than the others. Hemodynamic characteristics of blood play a key role in the incidence of stenosis. This paper numerically investigates the pulsatile blood flow in a coronary bifurcation with a non-planar branch. To create a more realistic analysis, the wall is assumed to be compliant. Furthermore, the flow is considered to be threedimensional, incompressible, and laminar. The effects of non-Newtonian blood, compliant walls and different angles of bifurcation on hemodynamic characteristics of flow were evaluated. Shear thinning of blood was simulated with the Carreau-Yasuda model. The current research was mainly focused on the flow characteristics in bifurcations since atherosclerosis occurs mostly in bifurcations. Moreover, as the areas with low shear stresses are prone to stenosis, these areas were identified. Our findings indicated that the compliant model of the wall, bifurcation’s angle, and other physical properties of flow have an impact on hemodynamics of blood flow. Lower wall shear stress was observed in the compliant wall than that in the rigid wall. The outer wall of bifurcation in all models had lower wall shear stress. In bifurcations with larger angles, wall shear stress was higher in outer walls, and lower in inner walls. The non-Newtonian blood vessels and different angles of bifurcation on hemodynamic characteristics of flow evaluation confirmed a lower wall shear stress in the compliant wall than that in the rigid wall, while the wall shear stress was higher in outer walls but lower in inner walls in the bifurcation regions with larger angles.

Nanoscaled aptamers (Aps), as short single-stranded DNA or RNA oligonucleotides, are able to bind to their specific targets with high affinity, upon which they are considered as powerful diagnostic and analytical sensing tools (the so-called “aptasensors”). Aptamers are selected from a random pool of oligonucleotides through a procedure known as “systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment”. In this work, the most recent studies in the field of aptasensors are reviewed and discussed with a main focus on the potential of aptasensors for the multi-analyte detection(s). Due to the specific folding capability of aptamers in the presence of analyte, aptasensors have substantially successfully been exploited for the detection of a wide range of small and large molecules (e.g., drugs and their metabolites, toxins, and associated biomarkers in various diseases) at very low concentrations in the biological fluids/samples even in presence of interfering species. Biological samples are generally considered as complexes in the real biological media. Hence, the development of aptasensors with capability to determine various targets simultaneously within a biological matrix seems to be our main challenge. To this end, integration of various key scientific dominions such as bioengineering and systems biology with biomedical researches are inevitable.