Periodontitis is one of the most prevalent bacterial diseases affecting man with up to 90% of the global population affected. Its severe form can lead to the tooth loss in 10-15% of the population worldwide. The disease is caused by a dysbiosis of the local microbiota and one organism that contributes to this alteration in the bacterial population is Prophyromonas gingivalis. This organism possesses a range of virulence factors that appear to contribute to its growth and survival at a periodontal site amongst which is its ability to invade oral epithelial cells. Such an invasion strategy provides a means of evasion of host defence mechanisms, persistence at a site and the opportunity for dissemination to other sites in the mouth. However, previous studies have demonstrated that invasion of the mammalian cells in a population by P. gingivalis is heterogenous, with some cells becoming heavily invaded while others harbour no or only a few bacteria. An understanding of this heterogeneity may throw light on the mechanisms involved and we hypothesised that the phase of the host cell cycle may explain this phenomenon. In an attempt to study the factors influencing P. gingivalis invasion and the cell response to that invasion, a standard antibiotic protection assay was employed and an oral keratinocyte cell line, H357. The results showed that P. gingivalis NCTC 11834 invasion was significantly increased with increasing time of exposure to the cells and the cell density. This may reflect an increased host cell surface area available for bacterial attachment. No effect on invasion of P. gingivalis invasion was observed by the bacterial growth phase, H357 cell passage number or whether cells were pre-incubated with P. gingivalis lipopolysaccharide. Epithelial cells did, however, respond to the presence of P. gingivalis in a number of ways. For example, the mRNA expression of endothelin-1 and urokinase receptor were upregulated with increasing P. gingivalis infection time, suggesting that these proteins could act as inflammatory mediators and possibly as useful markers of the severity of periodontal disease or in the diagnosis and treatment of periodontitis. iii Secondly, in an attempt to investigate the reason for the observed heterogeneous P. gingivalis invasion of H357 cell populations, the effect of cell cycle phase on P. gingivalis invasion was investigated. H357 cells were synchronized by serum starvation. On re-introduction of serum, characterisation of cell cycle phase distribution was performed by flow cytometry following staining with propidium idodide (PI) or by immunofluorescence using bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU), which specifically identifies cells in S-phase. The effect of cell cycle phases on P. gingivalis invasion was measured using the antibiotic protection assay, immunofluorescence and flow cytometry and these were correlated with gene and surface expression of the urokinase receptor and the α5-integrin subunit, which is thought to mediate P. gingivalis invasion. Results showed that the percentage invasion was enhanced with increasing serum re-introduction time, and positively correlated with the number of cells in S-phase. In addition, flow cytometry data showed that the highest association of fluorescent P. gingivalis was with PI positive S-phase cells. Moreover, BrdU positive S-phase cells were 3 times more likely to be invaded and contained 10 times more P. gingivalis than cells in other phases. Also, α5-integrin was more highly expressed in cells in S-phase than other phases, which could explain the mechanism underlying this enhanced invasion. Data presented here have suggested that P. gingivalis targeting of cells in S- phase could, in vivo, allow preferential invasion of the junctional epithelial cells which turns over rapidly. The data presented in this thesis suggest that P. gingivalis invasion is greatly dependent on several factors attributed to the host, the bacteria itself, and to the environment which the bacteria reside in. The invasion occurs within a population of host cells in a heterogeneous fashion, and is dependent on the cell cycle phase, specifically S-phase. This novel finding, in addition to the previously reported mechanisms of P. gingivalis invasion, increases our understanding of this virulence trait and suggests that such a strategy is a highly organised process which the bacteria can follow to ensure its survival within the host. Furthermore, knowledge of these mechanisms could provide novel approaches to treatment of periodontal diseases.
This study describe the effect of temperature on the optical
properties of nickel(ii) phthalocyanine tetrasulfonic acid tetrasodium
salt (NiPcTs) organic thin films which are prepared by spin coating
on indium tin oxide (ITO-glass). The optical absorption spectra of
these thin films are measured. Present studies reveal that the optical
band gap energies of NiPcTs thin films are dependent on the
annealing temperatures. The optical band gap decreases with increase
in annealing temperature, then increased when the temperature rising
to 473K. To enhance the results of Uv-Vis measurements and get
more accurate values of optical energy gaps; the Photoluminescence
spectra of as-deposited and annealed NiPcTs thin fi
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The Jeribe reservoir in the Jambour Oil Field is a complex and heterogeneous carbonate reservoir characterized by a wide range of permeability variations. Due to limited availability of core plugs in most wells, it becomes crucial to establish correlations between cored wells and apply them to uncored wells for predicting permeability. In recent years, the Flow Zone Indicator (FZI) approach has gained significant applicability for predicting hydraulic flow units (HFUs) and identifying rock types within the reservoir units.
This paper aims to develop a permeability model based on the principles of the Flow Zone Indicator. Analysis of core permeability versus core porosity plot and Reservoir Quality Index (RQI) - Normalized por
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Formation of Au–Ag–Cu ternary alloy nanoparticles (NPs) is of particular interest because this trimetallic system have miscible (Au–Ag and Au–Cu) and immiscible (Ag– Cu) system. So there is a possibility of phase segregation in this ternary system. At this challenge it was present attempts synthetic technique to generate such trimetallic alloy nanoparticles by exploding wire technique. The importance of preparing nanoparticles alloys in distilled water and in this technique makes the possibility of obtaining nanoparticles free of any additional chemical substance and makes it possible to be used in the treatment of cancer or diseases resulting from bacterial or virus with least toxic. In this work, three metals alloys Au-Ag-Cu
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Phytophagous stink bugs (Hemiptera, Pentatomidae) are economically important insect pests of fruit, vegetable, nut and field crops. This study was carried out during the season of 2013 in orchards within Erbil city, to follow the stink bug Mustha spinulosa (Lefebvre, 1831) seasonal fluctuation on some fruit trees: olive, plum, apricot, pear, apple and almond.
The stink bug reaches its maximum abundance throughout the second week of August (38.2/tree) coinciding with mean temperature and relative humidity of 33.40C and 28.14% respectively, and the highest total mean of the number of the insect was recorded on the olive trees (181.8/tree). The study reveals that the stink bug attacked 22 trees (fruit and forest) while it has not atta
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Extract from cell culture of medicinal plant like Nigella sativa have been assessed for its cytotoxic properties. Thymol is likely responsible for the theraputic effects of Nigella sativa leaf callus extract. In this short study the inhibitory effect of Nigella sativa leaf callus extract (Thymol) has been studied on Human Lorgnx Epidrmoid Carcinoma (Hep-2) cell line during different exposure period of time (24, 48 and 72 hrs.) using different concentration of the extract (1000, 500, 400, 300, 200 and 100 µg/ml). The optical density of the Hep-2 cells has been readed on 492 nm wave length. Thymol –induced cytotoxicity was (500 µg/ml) which inhibit cell growing compared to the control and this
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The investigation of machine learning techniques for addressing missing well-log data has garnered considerable interest recently, especially as the oil and gas sector pursues novel approaches to improve data interpretation and reservoir characterization. Conversely, for wells that have been in operation for several years, conventional measurement techniques frequently encounter challenges related to availability, including the lack of well-log data, cost considerations, and precision issues. This study's objective is to enhance reservoir characterization by automating well-log creation using machine-learning techniques. Among the methods are multi-resolution graph-based clustering and the similarity threshold method. By using cutti
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Flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (FAAS) was used in this study to determine the concentrations of heavy metals such as Ca, Fe, Mn, Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, Cu, Pb and Zn in some food additives of Iraq. The order of metal contents in food additives was found to be Ca ˃ Mn ˃ Fe ˃ Cu ˃ Zn ˃ Pb ˃ Cr ˃ Ni ˃ Co ˃ Cd. The concentration level of each metal was compared with that recommended by food agriculture organisation (FAO) and world health organisation (WHO). Calibration curves were linear for all standard solutions of heavy metals in the range starting from 0.02-0.4 mg/kg for Cd to 11-100 mg/kg for Ca. The correlation coefficients values (R2) of calibrations were investigated and ranged from 0.9971 for Cr to 0.9999 for Ca. Th
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