The Catharanthus roseus plant was extracted and converted to nanoparticles in this work. The Soxhlet method extracted alkaloid compounds from the plant Catharanthus roseus and converted them to the nanoscale. Chitosan polymer was used as a linking material and converted to Chitosan nanoparticles using Sodium TriPolyPhosphate (STPP). The extracted alkaloids were linked with Chitosan nanoparticles CSNPs by maleic anhydride to get the final product (CSNPs- Linker- alkaloids). The synthesized (CSNPs- Linker- alkaloids) was characterized using SEM spectroscopy UV–Vis., Zeta Potential, and HPLC High-Performance Liquid Chromatography. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis shows that the Chitosan nanoparticles (CSNPs) have small dimensions with regular spherical and nanotube shapes of a diameter range of (49 - 70) nm. The final product (CSNPs- Linker- alkaloids) has two shapes (spherical particles and tubes) in nano dimensions and is close to each other compared to normal Chitosan. The absorption peaks for Chitosan (CS), Chitosan nanoparticles (CSNPs), Chitosan nanoparticles (CSNPs), and maleic anhydride revealed that converting Chitosan to Chitosan nanoparticles and mixing it with the plant extract, led to an increase in the absorption value and wavelength range. Also, the appearance of two peaks at 222 nm and 402 nm nano instead of the peak of Chitosan at 289.9 nm. Zeta Potential results of CSNPs- Linker- alkaloids showed that the extract of the nano-alkaloids bound to chitosan nanoparticles carries a positive charge of 54.4 mV. This surface charge is essential in maintaining the colloidal solution's stability in its natural form without changing. High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) was used to estimate qualitative and quantitative plants extracted from Catharanthus roseus. Quantitative HPLC results show that Catharanthus roseus contains a good and acceptable concentration of Vinblastine, Vincristine, Vinorelbine, Vincamine, and Vintafolide (66.75, 242.91, 0.7, 83.77, 42.34) ppm respectively. The qualitative results show a good match for the influential groups of pure standard vincristine and alcoholic extract and dry powder of the Catharanthus roseus plant. The successful synthesis of nanoparticles from the Catharanthus roseus plant can be used in biosensors and biomedical applications.
P. aeruginosa is one of the complex targets for antimicrobial chemotherapy. Also, it is intrinsically resistant to several antibiotics. It produces β-lactamases enzymes that are responsible for the widespread β-lactam antimicrobial resistance. There are three major groups of β-lactamase enzymes, MBLs and ESBLs forming Pseudomonas is a major issue for the treatment of burns victims. Methods: A total of 28 clinical isolates related to P. aeruginosa have been obtained from the burns specimens from patients attending to AL-Imam hospital/Baghdad-Iraq, through the period from October 2015 to March 2016. Also, all isolates have been recognized as P. aeruginosa via utilizing bacteriological assay and confirmed by Vitek 2. In addition, the suscep
... Show MoreIn this work, a local sunflower husk (SFH) was used as a natural surface for removing Basic Green-4 (BG4) dye, as a watersoluble pollutant. The effect of initial concentration, contact time, the mass of surface of the dye with the SFH as well as the medium temperature was studied. The application of Langmuir, Freundlich isotherms on the collected data of the adsorption process found to harmonize to Freundlich equation more than that of Langmuir. However, the adsorbed mass of BG4 dye showed a direct increase with the increase of SFH mass and equilibrium was achieved within a 60min window. The interaction of BG4 with SFH surface was spontaneous and exothermic. The empirical kinetic outcomes at ambient temperatures were applied to pseudo 1st a
... Show MoreIt is well known that petroleum refineries are considered the largest generator of oily sludge which may cause serious threats to the environment if disposed of without treatment. Throughout the present research, it can be said that a hybrid process including ultrasonic treatment coupled with froth floatation has been shown as a green efficient treatment of oily sludge waste from the bottom of crude oil tanks in Al-Daura refinery and able to get high yield of base oil recovery which is 65% at the optimum operating conditions (treatment time = 30 min, ultrasonic wave amplitude = 60 micron, and (solvent: oily sludge) ratio = 4). Experimental results showed that 83% of the solvent used was recovered meanwhile the main water
... Show MoreYeasts are distributed in all environments and have been reported as potential biocontrol agents against various phytopathogenic fungi. To investigate their enzymatic and biological activities, 32 yeasts were isolated from 15 date vinegar samples. Evaluation of the antagonistic activities of isolated yeasts against the plant pathogens Fusarium oxysporium, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and Macrophomina phaseolina indicated that there are two yeasts had the highest inhibitory effect against plant pathogens, these yeasts identified as Kluyveromyces marxianus and Torulaspora delbrueckii using traditional and molecular methods. These yeast isolates were tested for fungal cell wall degrading enzymes (in vitro), and results indicated that the
... Show MoreAbstract Background: Multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDR) often contaminate hospital environment and cause serious illnesses. Quorum Sensing (QS) regulates a variety of downstream cellular processes, including antibiotics resistance mechanisms and biofilm formation, and causes harm to the host. This study investigates antibacterial susceptibility and biofilm formation of pathogenic bacteria in hospital environment. Methods: Hundred bacterial isolates were collected from various environments in the Medical City hospital. The antimicrobial susceptibility technique was evaluated through disk diffusion method. Next, biofilms formation was detected by the microliter plate assay. Finally, PCR was used to analyze the frequency of QS system gene
... Show MoreOur aim was to investigate the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) topics in medical curricula and the perceived need for, feasibility of, and barriers to teaching SRHR. We distributed a survey with questions on SRHR content, and factors regulating SRHR content, to medical universities worldwide using chain referral. Associations between high SRHR content and independent variables were analyzed using unconditional linear regression or χ2 test. Text data were analyzed by thematic analysis. We collected data from 219 respondents, 143 universities and 54 countries. Clinical SRHR topics such as safe pregnancy and childbirth (95.7%) and contraceptive methods
This study aims to characterize traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) neurophysiologically using an intramuscular fine-wire electromyography (EMG) electrode pair. EMG data were collected from an agonist-antagonist pair of tail muscles of Macaca fasicularis, pre- and post-lesion, and for a treatment and control group. The EMG signals were decomposed into multi-resolution subsets using wavelet transforms (WT), then the relative power (RP) was calculated for each individual reconstructed EMG sub-band. Linear mixed models were developed to test three hypotheses: (i) asymmetrical volitional activity of left and right side tail muscles (ii) the effect of the experimental TSCI on the frequency content of the EMG signal, (iii) and the effect
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