Biologically active natural compounds are molecules produced by plants or plant-related microbes, such as endophytes. Many of these metabolites have a wide range of antimicrobial activities and other pharmaceutical properties. This study aimed to evaluate (in vitro) the antifungal activities of the secondary metabolites obtained from Paecilomyces sp. against the pathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani. The endophytic fungus Paecilomyces was isolated from Moringa oleifera leaves and cultured on potato dextrose broth for the production of the fungal metabolites. The activity of Paecilomyces filtrate against the radial growth of Rhizoctonia solani was tested by mixing the filtrate with potato dextrose agar medium at concentrations of 15%,

This research was aimed to the purification and characterization of cytosine deaminase as a medically important enzyme from locally isolated Escherichia coli; then studying its cytotoxic anticancer effects against colon cancer cell line. Cytosine deaminase was subjected to three purification steps including precipitation with 90% ammonium sulfate saturation, ion exchange chromatography on DEAE-cellulose column, and gel filtration chromatography throughout Sephadex G-200 column. Specific activity of the purified enzyme was increased up to 9 U/mg with 12.85 folds of purification and 30.85% enzyme recovery. Characterization study of purified enzyme revealed that the molecular weight of cytosine deaminase produced by E. coli was about 48 KDa,

Prodigiosin is a ‘natural red pigment produced by Serratia marcescens which exhibits immunosuppressive and anticancer properties in addition to antimicrobial activities. This work presents an attempt to maximize the production of prodigiosin by two different strategies: one factor at time (OFAT) and statistical optimization. The result of OFAT revealed that sucrose and peptone were the best carbon and nitrogen sources for pigment production with concentration of prodigiosin of about 135 mg/ L. This value was increased to 331.6mg/ L with an optimized ratio of C/N (60:40) and reached 356.8 with pH 6 and 2% inoculum size at end of classical optimization. Statistical experimental design based on Response surface methodology was co

In humans, Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the second most frequent gram negative nosocomial pathogen in hospitals and has the highest case-fatality rate of all hospital-acquired bacteremia because of the hardy resistance of these bacteria to mechanical cleansing as well as to disinfectant, and many antibiotics. The susceptibility of bacteria against the antibiotics is modulated by several local factors such as temperature which modified drug efficacy, so this study was carried out to evaluate the effect of different temperature (20,42,45)Ċon the susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of the antimicrobial agents before and after irradiation. The samples collected from 150 persons suffering from

Phthalates are ubiquitous environmental contaminants widely used as plasticizers in poly vinyl chloride products, and growing evidence implicates them in metabolic activity reduction and epigenetic dysregulation. However, their direct effects on non-transformed human cells remain incompletely characterized. The present in vitro study evaluated the reduction in cell viability and DNA methylation–modulating effects of three widely distributed phthalates, di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP), and di-isononyl phthalate (DINP), on normal human fibroblast (NHF) cells. Cells were exposed to serial concentrations (31.25–1000 μg/mL) for 72 h, and the viability was assessed by MTT assay, followed by IC50 determinati

Serine Palmitoyltransferase SPT is the key enzyme in the de novo sphingolipids biosynthesis pathway in eukaryotes, including the intracellular parasite Leishmania. Previous studies showed that this enzyme SPT is expressed only in divided promastigote forms and it is non-essential in the amastigotes form of Leishmania major, which is known as the old world leishmaniasis. In this study we have studied the viability of new world lesihamniasis, Leishmania mexicana. Cytotoxicity test used to determine the effect of the SPT inhibitor myriocin which did not significantly affect the viability of the two forms of the in vitro cultures of the parasite p<0.05, procyclic promastigotes and amastigotes, in which cell viability for miltefosine trea

Background: The Titanium and its alloys are suitable for dental implant and medical applications. Biocompatibility of the materials is a major factor in determining the success of the implant and has a great impact on their rate of osseointegration. The aim of this study was to evaluate the biocompatibility and cytotoxicity of Ti2AlC in comparison to CPTi & Ti6Al7Nb in rabbits. Materials and Methods: 10 male New Zealand White rabbits, weighing (2-2.5 kg), aged (10-12 months) were used in this study. Cylindrical implants were prepared from the study materials (CPTi, Ti6Al7Nb and Ti2AlC) with (8mm) height and (3mm) diameter for the evaluation of tissue response and disc specimens were prepared with (6 mm) diameter and (2 mm) thickness for ev

Four local hemolysin producer bacterial isolates were selected, tow of them gram negative bacteria (Escherichia coli ,Pseudomonas aeruginosa ) and the other two were gram positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus , Bacillus cereus ). Minimum inhibitory concentration of the aqueous and alcoholic extracts of Punica granatum L. pericarp were determined towards the four bacterial isolates ,results obtaind showed that MICs of the aqueous extract were 200 mg/ml for E .coli and P. aeruginosa isolates while were 5 mg/ml and 2 mg/ml for B. cereus, S. aureus , respectively The MICs for the ethanolic extract were 50 mg/ml , 20 mg/ml ,1 mg/ml ,0.5 mg/ml for E. coli ,P. aeruginosa ,B. cereus ,S. aureus , respectively. The effect of Sub-MICs o

Labrotary experiment was conducted to study the effect of different levels of nematode population densities of Meloidogyne spp on seed germination percentage and seedling characteristics of Vigna sinensis, Ahelmoschus esculentus, Cicer arietinum, Helianthus annuus and Rap-hanus sativus. Four different levels of nematode populat-ion densities ranged from 1 to 4 prepared from radish in-fected roots and used as inoculating agent to infect all seed types in the experiment Seed germination percentage of Vigna sinensis and Ablemoschus eseulentus were highly reduced (at 0.01 level of significance) with increased nematode population level from 1 to 4. Seedling length of the remaining seed types were significantly reduced (at 0.01 level of signif