Biolmpacts
Volume:5 Issue: 1, Mar 2015

BioImpacts was launched in March 2011 as a peerreviewed, open-access journal. Now it is the leading scientific journal of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUOMS) targeting the international scientific community. With several excellent review and research papers published in recent issues, it has secured a reputable status among similar journals printed in the Middle East and worldwide. In the last year alone, onethird of its contributing authors were from universities outside of Iran. Its editorial and review boards are similarly diverse. Starting in January 2015, production of BioImpacts has increased to six volumes per year, while maintaining the journal’s high quality.

Acute treatment with metformin has a cardio-protective effects by suppression of inflammatory responses during myocardial infarction (MI) through activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). Neutrophils have a pivotal role during MI-induced inflammatory responses. Some anti-inflammatory treatments have decreased cardiac injury and infarct size in MI. Here we evaluated the effects of chronic pretreatment with metformin on myocardial remodeling and neutrophil recruitment after isoproterenol-induced MI. Male wistar rats were randomly assigned into 6 groups (n=6) of untreated control, sham, isoproterenol (Iso), and pre-treated orally with 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg of metformin, twice daily, for 14 days. Isoproterenol was injected subcutaneously (sc) at 13th and 14th days for induction of acute MI. Histopathological examinations were done on the harvested hearts. Number of neutrophils in peripheral blood and their infiltration to myocardium were evaluated by Gimsa staining and myeloperoxidase (MPO) assay, respectively. Histopathological analysis showed a significant attenuation of isoproterenol induced cardiomyocyte necrosis and fibrosis by all three doses of metformin. The heart to body weight ratio was also decreased with all doses of metformin. Pre-treatment with metformin in comparison to Iso (MI) group reduced peripheral neutrophils (p<0.05, p<0.01, and p 0.001 at 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg; respectively) as well as MPO activity (p<0.05 and p<0.01 at 50 and 100 mg/ kg, respectively). Pre-treatment with metformin decreased post-MI myocardial injuries by reducing cardiac remodeling and myocardial neutrophil activity. The results could be explained as a new mechanism for cardio-protective effect of metformin.

Body sensor network is a key technology that is used for supervising the physiological information from a long distance that enables physicians to predict and diagnose effectively the different conditions. These networks include small sensors with the ability of sensing where there are some limitations in calculating and energy. In the present research, a new compression method based on the analysis of principal components and wavelet transform is used to increase the coherence. In the present method, the first analysis of the main principles is to find the principal components of the data in order to increase the coherence for increasing the similarity between the data and compression rate. Then, according to the ability of wavelet transform, data are decomposed to different scales. In restoration process of data only special parts are restored and some parts of the data that include noise are omitted. By noise omission, the quality of the sent data increases and good compression could be obtained. Pilates practices were executed among twelve patients with various dysfunctions. The results showed 0.7210, 0.8898, 0.6548, 0.6765, 0.6009, 0.7435, 0.7651, 0.7623, 0.7736, 0.8596, 0.8856 and 0.7102 compression ratios in proposed method and 0.8256, 0.9315, 0.9340, 0.9509, 0.8998, 0.9556, 0.9732, 0.9580, 0.8046, 0.9448, 0.9573 and 0.9440 compression ratios in previous method (Tseng algorithm). Comparing compression rates and prediction errors with the available results show the exactness of the proposed method.

Chronic hepatitis is specified as inflammatory disease of the liver lasting for more than six months. Role of noninvasive fibrosis markers as prognostication factors of the presence or absence of significant fibrosis on liver biopsy of patients with chronic hepatitis is the aim of this study. Two hundred twenty-one patients with chronic hepatitis involved in the study between 2011 and 2013. Routine biochemical indices and serum fibrosis markers such as aspartate aminotransferase (AST) to alanine aminotransferase (ALT) ratio (AAR), AST to platelet ratio index (APRI) and Fibrosis 4 score (FIB-4) were evaluated, and the histological grade and stage of the liver biopsy specimens were scored according to the Ishak scoring system. Diagnostic accuracies of these markers for prediction of significant fibrosis were assessed by Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Contemporaneous laboratory indices for imputing AAR, APRI, and FIB-4 were identified with liver biopsies. From all, 135 males (61.1%) and 86 females (38.9%), with mean age of 39.6±14.4 were studied. Significant correlation between stages of fibrosis and FIB-4, APRI and AAR were detected, with a correlation coefficient higher than that of other markers in the patients with Hepatitis B (r = 0.46), C (r = 0.58) and autoimmune hepatitis (r = 0.28). FIB-4 (AUROC = 0.84) and APRI (AUROC = 0.78) were superior to AAR at distinguishing severe fibrosis from mild tomoderate fibrosis and gave the highest diagnostic accuracy. Application of these markers was good at distinguishing significant fibrosis and decreased the need for staging liver biopsy specimens among patients with chronic hepatitis.

A growing interest in apoptosis, programmed cell death, in the last years is observed and leads to better understanding of molecular mechanisms during cell–cell signaling, cell-environment interaction and screening of drugs. This in turn results in emerging of new assays and development of more accurate kits for fast and early detection of apoptosis. However, their sensitivity and reliability have often been scrutinized. Here we introduce a rapid and improved method of DNA ladder apoptosis assay for evaluating apoptosis in mammalian cells. NIH-3T3 cell line was used in this study. After treatment of cells with apoptotic agent, 500 μM H2O2 at 48 hours, DNA was extracted. Then an update protocol of DNA ladder assay was applied for detection of apoptosis. Flow cytometry and DAPI staining were performed to verify apoptosis. Primary and late apoptosis in the H2O2-treated cells was determined by flow cytometry analysis. DAPI Staining used to show DNA damage and DNA ladder assay using 1.5% gel electrophoresis showed fragmentation in the DNA of treated cells. In this research we aimed to improve DNA ladder assay to the high quality detection of apoptosis in mammalian cells. In our strategy, employing a practical DNA extraction protocol, DNA ladder assay could be applied as an easy/fast method for apoptosis detection. This improved method is able to detect apoptosis in a cost effective/timely manner without need for commercial kits and special equipment.

Pathological features of disease appear to be quite different. Despite this diversity, the common feature of various disorders underlies physicochemical and biochemical factors such as surface tension. Human biological fluids comprise various proteins and phospholipids which are capable of adsorption at fluid interfaces and play a vital role in the physiological function of human organs. Surface tension of body fluids correlates directly to the development of pathological states. In this review, the variety of human diseases mediated by the surface tension changes of biological phenomena and the failure of biological fluids to remain in their native state are discussed. Dynamic surface tension measurements of human biological fluids depend on various parameters such as sex, age and changes during pregnancy or certain disease. It is expected that studies of surface tension behavior of human biological fluids will provide additional information and might become useful in medical practice. Theoretical background on surface tension measurement and surface tension values of reference fluids obtained from healthy and sick patients are depicted. It is well accepted that no single biomarker will be effective in clinical diagnosis. The surface tension measurement combined with routine lab tests may be a novel non invasive method which can not only facilitate the discovery of diagnostic models for various diseases and its severity, but also be a useful tool for monitoring treatment efficacy. We therefore expect that studies of surface tension behavior of human biological fluids will provide additional useful information in medical practice.

The advent of calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs), as the leading immunosuppressive agents, not only has revolutionized the transplant medicine but also made it a better therapeutic intervention that guarantees the graft outcome and improves the survival rate of patients. However, genetic polymorphism(s) in the CNIs metabolic substrates genes (CYP3A4, CYP3A5) and their transporter such as P-glycoprotein (P-gp) can influence the CNIs metabolism and elicit some possible systemic and intra-renal exposures to drugs and/or metabolites with differential risk of nephrotoxicity, jeopardizing the transplantation. In the current study, we review the recent literatures to evaluate the effects of genetic polymorphisms of the genes involved in development of chronic calcineurin nephrotoxicity and progression of chronic allograft dysfunction (CAD) providing an extensive overview on their clinical impacts. Identifying the inherited genetic basis for the inter-individual differences in terms of drug responses and determining the risk of calcineurin-mediated nephrotoxicity and CAD allow optimized personalized administration of these agents whith minimal adverse effects. Pharmacogenetics characteristics of CYP isoforms (CYP3A) and efflux transporters (P-gp and MRP), involved in metabolism and extracellular transportation of the immunosuppressive CNIs, can be of pivotal information in the pharmacotherapy of the renaltransplant recipient patients. Such information can be used for the successes clinical interventions to attain an improved drug administration strategy with reduced rates of rejection and toxicity.

Granulation, the process of particle enlargement by agglomeration technique, is one of the most significant unit operations in the production of pharmaceutical dosage forms, mostly tablets and capsules. Granulation process transforms fine powders into free-flowing, dustfree granules that are easy to compress. Nevertheless, granulation poses numerous challenges due to high quality requirement of the formed granules in terms of content uniformity and physicochemical properties such as granule size, bulk density, porosity, hardness, moisture, compressibility, etc. together with physical and chemical stability of the drug. Granulation process can be divided into two types: wet granulation that utilize a liquid in the process and dry granulation that requires no liquid. The type of process selection requires thorough knowledge of physicochemical properties of the drug, excipients, required flow and release properties, to name a few. Among currently available technologies, spray drying, roller compaction, high shear mixing, and fluid bed granulation are worth of note. Like any other scientific field, pharmaceutical granulation technology also continues to change, and arrival of novel and innovative technologies are inevitable. This review focuses on the recent progress in the granulation techniques and technologies such as pneumatic dry granulation, reverse wet granulation, steam granulation, moisture activated dry granulation, thermal adhesion granulation, freeze granulation, and foamed binder or foam granulation. This review gives an overview of these with a short description about each development along with its significance and limitations.