Gene, Cell and Tissue
Volume:4 Issue: 1, Jan 2017

Spurge family is a large family of plants that contains more than 300 genera and 800 species of which 5 genera and 72 species are native to Iran. This important family of plants can be used in various disease treatments such as cancer, arthritis, asthma, bacterial infections, and neuralgia. This study investigated the anticancer effects of the alcoholic extract of Euphorbia condylocarpa whose native Iranian Kurdish name is “Shoalehkolah”..
In this study, the cytotoxicity of the methyl extracts of Euphorbia was performed on AGS gastric cancer cell lines using the MTT (3-(4, 5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-Diphenyltetrazolium Bromide) assay. The cytotoxicity of the methyl extract of Euphorbia condylocarpa with dilutions of 10, 20, 100, and 200 μg/mL was considered..
The obtained data showed that the greatest effect was related to the dilution of 200 μg/mL..
The findings suggest that the methyl extract of this plant can be considered for its anticancer effects..

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is an ubiquitous garden weed that has been traditionally used as an antidiabetic and anti-inflammation agent. However, its potential antiproliferative and cytotoxic effects against cancerous cells are still unclear..
This study aimed to evaluate the antitumoral activity of the ethanolic extract of aerial parts of P. oleracea on HeLa cell line..
In this study, HeLa cells were cultured and exposed to various concentrations of P. oleracea ethanolic extract for 24 and 48 hours. Cytotoxicity and cell viability were evaluated, using MTT (3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) and trypan blue, respectively..
P. oleracea ethanolic extract effectively decreased proliferation of HeLa cell (P It is suggested that P. oleracea has antiproliferative effects and could affect cell cycle of HeLa cell line. However, some issues about its optimal dose and time, its efficiency compared to routine cancer therapy medicines and its behavior against normal cells should be clarified before its clinical application as a therapeutic agent..

Leishmaniasis is a worldwide disease prevalent in tropical and sub-tropical countries in the world. Characterization of inflammatory responses produced in cutaneous Leishmaniasis has not yet been completed. The current study aims to assess and compare pro-inflammatory cytokines between burning injuries and Leishmania infection..
the specific primers were designed for 10 proinflammatory genes including CCL4, CCL3, TNF-α, IL-1α, IL-12P35, IL-12P40, CCL5, CCR5, IL-1β, and IFN- γ. Their expressions were assessed and compared using RT-PCR in the lesions caused by either Leishmania or burning in BALB/c mice..
None of the proinflammatory genes were expressed in the healthy tissue and in the lesions caused by Leishmania, except IFN- γ. The other genes were down-regulated by the parasite in untreated mice. In mice treated with Glucantime, the expression of the proinflammatory genes restarted. In contrast, the figure of expression of proinflammatory genes in lesions caused by burning was different. The proinflammatory genes were expressed in untreated lesions and down regulated in cured lesions..
The findings of the current study indicated a role for Leishmania in suppression of proinflammatory genes and a role of proinflammatory genes in healing of burning lesions..

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is one of the fastest growing diseases in the world and may be related to abnormalities in serum lipid levels. The ATP-binding cassette transporterA1 (ABCA1) is a transporter that exports lipids from cells..
The association between polymorphisms rs4149313 and rs2230806 of the ABCA1 gene in patients with T2D in Southeast of Iran was evaluated..
Two hundred and fifty patients with T2D and the same number (250) of healthy control subjects were genotyped for two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using the amplification-refractory mutation system-polymerase chain reaction (ARMS-PCR) method..
AA, AG, and GG genotype frequencies of the rs4149313 polymorphism were, respectively, 60, 20, and 20% in patients with T2D and 68.8, 21.6, and 9.6% in control subjects. The GG genotype and G allele differed significantly as a risk factor for T2D between patients with T2D and control groups (P 0.05). The rs4149313/G-rs2230806/G (GG) haplotype differed significantly as a risk factor for T2D between the T2D and control groups (P = 0.0014, OR = 1.52, 95%CI = 1.18 - 1.96)..
The G allele of the ABCA1 rs4149313 polymorphism was related with a higher risk of T2D, but no relationship existed between the ABCA1 rs2230806 polymorphism and T2D in the study population..

Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) is a heterogeneous condition consisting of three or more consecutive abortions before 20th week of gestation. Despite extensive research on the causative effects of RPL, approximately 50% - 60% of RPLs are still idiopathic. Although an increasing number of prospective studies have been conducted with sufficient power to investigate the association between various thrombophilias and RPL, some controversy still remains toward screening for thrombophilia in women with RPL..
The aim of this study was to investigate the association between recurrent pregnancy loss and polymorphism in factor-XI (A > T) gene in Iranian Azeri women..
This is an association study with a case-control design. The study participants consisted of 320 women with RPL from Iranian Azeri origin. The control group comprised 320 age- and ethnically-matched healthy women in the reproductive age. Genomic DNA was extracted from the whole blood and genotyping was performed using PCR amplification followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis..
The genotype frequencies in the case group were 54/68% AA, 45/31% AT, and 0/9% TT, while the frequencies in the control group were 52/18% AA, 47/32% AT, and 0/6% TT. No significant association was found between factor XI rs3756008 polymorphism and RPL (P > 0.05)..
There is no significant association between factor XI rs3756008 (A > T) polymorphism and RPL among Iranian Azeri women..

Apoptosis protease-activating factor-1 (APAF-1) is an important tumor suppressor gene, which plays a central function in DNA damage-induced apoptosis. The present study aimed to examine the epigenetic regulation of APAF-1 in breast cancer to gain a better understanding of tumor biology..
The promoter methylation of APAF-1 gene was determined by methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MS-PCR) method, using 63 paraffin-embedded breast tumors and their corresponding normal tissues as the control tissue samples. Expression analysis was performed on all tissue samples, using quantitative PCR (qPCR) method..
Significant down-regulation was observed for APAF-1 expression among tumor tissues, compared to the control group (P = 0.011). APAF-1 promoter hypermethylation was more frequent in breast tumors in comparison with normal tissues (57% vs. 21%; P = 0.001) and was correlated with gene mRNA level (P Methylation is an important epigenetic factor which might contribute to the down-regulation of APAF-1 gene in breast tumor tissues..