Trends in Pharmaceutical Sciences
Volume:3 Issue: 1, Mar 2017

Cystatin C as a novel marker of kidney function may have some drawbacks in clinical practice. The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of glucocorticoid therapy and hematological malignancies on serum cystatin C level in patients receiving amphotericin B. Forty five adult patients with no history of acute or chronic kidney injury planned to receive conventional amphotericin B for an anticipated duration of at least 1 week for any indication were included. Serum cystatin C as well as creatinine levels were measured at three time points during amphotericin B treatment including days 0, 7, and 14. There was no statistically significant association between hematological malignancies and elevated serum Cys C at days 0 (P = 0.0705), 7 (P = 0.679), and 14 (P = 1). The mean ± SD serum Cys C levels at three time points were comparable between patients received glucocorticoids and those not given glucocorticoids. Our findings suggested that glucocorticoid treatment and hematological malignancies appear to have no significant effect on the serum cystatin C level in patients under amphotericin B treatment.

True myrrh is produced by wounding the plant Commiphora myrrha (Nees) Engl. A number of oleo-gum-resins are produced from various species of Commiphora. Many of these gummy substances resemble myrrh; and sometimes are used as an adulteration of Myrrh. Generally, a complicating factor in the study and use of myrrh is the fact that most samples are obtained from the market where the plant source cannot be identified and there is often adulteration in the commercial myrrh. Myrrh oleo-gum-resin is composed of about 2-8% yellow or yellowish green, rather thick essential oil. Current study analyzed the chemical composition of six myrrh samples from Tehran and Fars (Shiraz and Larestan) in Iran as well as United Arab Emirates. The essential oil samples were yielded and subjected to Gas chromatography/ Mass spectroscopy (GC/MS) to analyze the constituents. Although there was a considerable difference in yields of essential oil extracted from studied gums, all samples represented Furanoeudesma-1, 3-diene as major constituent which was in line with previous studies. In addition, Curzerene and Lindestrene were also revealed as other main ingredients.

Omeprazole (OMP) and ketoconazole (KTZ) have been shown to activate the AHR signaling pathway in spite of the fact that they bind to the receptor with low or no affinity. The aim of this study was to investigate whether KTZ and OMP can act as indirect activator of AHR. In order to evaluate the effects of KTZ and OMP on AHR signaling, we measured cytochromes p450 (CYP1A1) enzyme activity by ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) assay as endpoint. FICZ, at 1nM concentration, caused a transient elevation in the catalytic activity of CYP 1A1. KTZ and OMP were found to be inducer of CYP1A1 at concentrations above 50 µM. At early time of incubation (3hr), a dose-dependent inhibition of FICZ-induced EROD activity was seen. When OMP or KTZ were added together with FICZ, a prolonged activation of CYP1A1 was observed at later time of incubation (24h). Taken together, our findings support the earlier observation that we shown that CYP 1A1 inhibitors can act as an AHR activator though inhibition of metabolic degradation of FICZ.

Bacteriophages (phages) are natural particles to deal with bacteria. The resistance of bacteria to various antibiotics has accelerated in recent years and phages can be used for each particular strain. The best way to deal with superficial infections is topical application of the drug. One of the best way is the use of water-based gels such as hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC). In addition to sustain drug release properties of the gel base, HPMC itself has healing properties. The final composition of the gel should has property lasting right time on the woundwhile release a number of the appropriate phages per unit of time. After Isolation and purification of phage, it has been trapped into HPMC gel. Gels with different concentrationsused to create plaques and show the release rate of the phage gel. Finally, it was shown that the 2% HPMC has most appropriate pharmaceutical features In terms of the release and durability on the site of infection.

Increasing trend in the development of antibiotic resistance is one the major concerns of health care systems throughout the world. Several factors are responsible of the emergence of this problem of which frequent inappropriate uses of antimicrobial agents plays an important role. Therefore, in the study we aimed to assess the appropriateness of the usage of meropenem, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, in a teaching affiliated hospital.This study is an observational prospective research on drug utilization. All patients admitted to Masih Daneshvari hospital that had received meropenem during Jun to July 2011 were enrolled in the study. To evaluate the appropriate use of meropenem, an institutional standard guideline was designed by pharmacy and therapeutic committee using evidence-based guidelines. Prescriptions were considered appropriate if they were compliant with the guideline.  The total number of meropenem vials used during this period was 2153 vials. Most prescriptions started empirically (85.9%). Of these, 16.9% of prescriptions continued according to lab results whereas 69% of meropenem courses remained empirical. Our results showed that meropenem was started appropriately in 64.8% of patients whereas just 74.3% of patients received the drug for an adequate duration.In conclusion, our study and several other surveys detected various areas of inappropriate use of broad-spectrum antiobiotics such as meropenem. With regard to the important role of these drugs in the treatment of serious nosocomial infections, a combination of both restrictive and educational measures appears to be necessary to improve rational antibiotic usage as well as to decrease in the frequency of antibiotic resistant.

Proper docking protocols were presented for three known enzyme structures, human betasecretase (BACE1), Aromatase and pyruvate dehydogenase kinase (PDHK) using Autodock4.2 and Vina softwares. The validity of docking protocols was verified using a set of known active ligands and decoys for all three enzymes. Different energy minimization algorithms were performed prior to docking of each ligand in order to find out by which method a more reasonable correlation between binding energy and corresponding experimental activity of the compounds was obtained. The highest ROCAUC value was 0.916, 0.914 and 0. 833 when MM+-PM3 methods were applied as minimization method, whereas without minimization it was 0.127, 0.187, and 0.51 for PDHK, BACE-1 and aromatase, respectively. So a combination of molecular mechanics (MM+) and a semi-empirical method (PM3 or AM1) could promote the docking protocol in case of all targets. Protein ligand interaction studies using self-organizing map (SOM) were also conducted in order to reveal the validity of docking protocol and to evaluate its predictive ability in terms of distinguishing between ligands and decoys.

Phages are the most important natural antimicrobial agents. They have some important advantages in comparison with other chemical antibiotics. Escherichia coli (E. coli) as a Gram-negative bacteria belongs to the Enterobacteriaceae family. E. coli O157 as the most well-known member of this family is the cause of some diseases and food poisonings. Symptoms of infection with these bacteria are mild to severe bloody diarrhea and even death. Researches in recent years prove the existence of multidrug resistant strains of bacteria. Phages can be an alternative antibiotic agent for treatment against resistant bacteria that can cause serious problems. The most difficult step in the development of phage drugs for the purpose of treatment is isolation and purification of strong phages. In this article we tried to isolate coliphages from environmental samples like waste water and simple and manure enriched soil. Phage isolation and purification steps of environmental samples and wastewater were performed according to plaque and spot assay methods. Eventually we isolated a phage belongs to the siphoviridae family that specificly destroys E. coli O157. It can be used be an agent for treatment E. coli O157 infections with nearly no side effects.

A reproducible, sensitive, accurate and selective high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method with ultraviolet absorbance detection has been developed and validated to quantitate 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU), an antimetabolite chemotherapeutic agent used in treatment of colorectal cancer as a drug of choice. Chromatographic separations were performed on a C18 column (Eurosphar 100-5, 150 mm × 4.6 mm) as the reversed stationary phase, eluted with a mobile phase composed of deionized water and methanol (95:5) with the flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The UV wavelength was set at 261nm. The method produced linear responses throughout 5-fluorouracil range of 25-500 ng/ml with a correlation coefficient of 0.998. A limit of quantitation (LOQ) was established at 25 ng/ml. The within-day and between-day precision and accuracy were both in acceptable ranges. The outcomes of these tests indicate a proper separation efficacy as well as accuracy and sensivity of method which is a potential tool in many pharmaceutical studies such as drug delivery of this anti-cancer agent.