Endophytic fungi live inside plants or any part of them without creating any visible pathogenic signs. Endophytic fungi are found within medicinal plants and have shown strong biologic activity, such as anticancer and antioxidant activities, as well as producing extracellular enzymes. In this study, different fungal strains were isolated from the leaves of the medicinal plant Ziziphus spina, including Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Cladosporium sp., Rhizopus sp., and Mucor sp. Extracellular enzymes have been quantified using agar plate-based methods in which fungi were grown in specified growth media to detect the enzymes produced. The results showed that A. niger has the highest ability to produce amylase, Cladosporium sp. has the highest ability to produce protease and pectinase, Rhizopus and Mucor sp. have the highest ability to produce cellulase, and A. niger and Cladosporium sp. have the same ability to produce lipase and laccase. The ability of medicinal plant endophytic fungi to produce extracellular enzymes has great therapeutic potential in clinical microbiology. Some of the isolates showed great activity in secreting particular enzymes, indicating that the enzymes of these fungi could be used in a variety of applications.
The main objective of this study is to determine whether the use of He-Ne Laser (632.8 nm wavelength and power 0.5 mW) is an eligible and effective tool to kill or reduce the cell viability of Candida albicans isolated from complete upper dentures. Twenty one swabs were taken from the complete upper dentures. Only six swabs showed positive cultures for C. albicans. The isolate was divided into two groups, group I was not irradiated (control), and group II was irradiated by He-Ne Laser for different periods (10, 15, 20, and 30) min. After irradiation, the results showed a significant reduction in the viable cell count and colonies diameters especially at exposure periods 10 and 15 min. Although the low power He-Ne Laser was not eradicating t
... Show MoreSildenafil, tadalafil, and vardenafil are phosphodiesterase type 5 enzyme (PDE-5) inhibitors used for the treatment of male erectile dysfunction. This present study aims to investigate 55 herbal products indicated for men’s sexual health from the Malaysian market for adulteration of PDE-5 inhibitors and analogues. The screening and identification of 20 PDE-5 inhibitors and analogues in herbal products of various forms (powder, capsules, tablets, and pastels) were conducted using gas chromatography–electron impact-mass spectrometer (GC-EI-MS). The analysis has shown that 19 herbal products were adulterated with PDE-5 inhibitors and analogues. Unique ion fragmentations and the presence of molecular
... Show MoreBiodiesel production process was attracted more attention recently due to the surplus quantity of glycerol (G) as a byproduct from the process. Glycerol Utilization must take in to consideration to fix this issue also, to ensure biodiesel industry sustainability. Highly amount of Glycerol converted to more benefit material Glycerol carbonate (GC) was one of the most allurement compound derived from glycerol by transesterification of glycerol with dimethyl carbonate (DMC). Various parameters have highly impact on transesterification was investigated like catalyst loading (1-5) %wt., molar ratio of DMC: glycerol (5:1 – 1:1), reaction time (30 - 150) min and temperature (40 – 80) ᴼC. The Optimum glycerol carbonate yie
... Show MoreBackground: The interest in herbal extracts as antimicrobial agents has increased over the past few years in endodontic therapy. Nasturtium officinale (watercress) is a promising plant with great medicinal values. This study aimed to investigate the antifungal activity of watercress oil in combination with calcium hydroxide against Candida albicans as intracanal medicament. Materials and Methods: Candida albicans was isolated from patients with necrotic root canal or failed root canal treatment. The sensitivity of Candida albicans to different concentrations of watercress oil extract was determined by using the agar well diffusion method in comparison with calcium hydroxide paste. The agar plate method was used to determine the minimum fung
... Show MoreUropathogenic Escherichia coli is the main cause of urinary tract infections, the ability of this bacteria to cause urinary tract infections is related to a variety of virulence factors that enhance colonization and evade the immune response, one of these virulence factors is cytotoxic necrotizing factor 1 toxin which converts the glutamine residue to glutamic acid to activated GTPase Rho family. The study was meant to find out the prevalence rate of the cnf1 gene in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli isolated from Iraqi patients. Conventional laboratory methods were used for primary bacterial identification and molecular methods were used to confirm bacterial identity and gene detection. Escherichia coli was identified in 89/165 (53.93%) of th
... Show MoreThe number of infections caused by microorganisms is increasing significantly over the last few years. A total of 140 patients admitted to the central teaching hospital of pediatrics from the 1st of Jun 2017 to 31 October 2017. The Clinical samples was processed from culture and sensitivity testing. Antibiotic discs used for gram negative isolates. The most prevalent gram negative isolates included Escherichia coli 63 (45.0 %), Pseudomonas spp. 21 (15.0 %), Klebsiella spp. 19 (13.6 %) predominantly. Escherichia coli were the most prevalent isolates from urine 45 (71.4 %), Klebsiella spp. 11 (57.9 %) and Enterobacter spp. 11 (68.8 %) followed by Escherichia coli 10 (15.9 %) predominant from blood. 68 (48.6 %) of specimens were urine, 47 (33.
... Show MoreThe Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has recently emerged as a human pathogen caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus was first reported from Wuhan, China, on 31 December 2019. Upon study, it has been used molecular docking to binding affinity between COVID-19 protease enzyme and flavonoids with evaluations based on docking scores calculated by AutoDock Vina. Results showed that naringin suppressed COVID-19 protease, as it has the highest binding value than other flavonoids including quercetin, hesperetin, garcina and naringenin. An important finding in this study is that naringin with neighboring poly hydroxyl groups can serve as inhibitors of COVID-19 protease bind to the S pocket of protein, it is shown that residues His163, Glu166, Asn142, His41and
... Show MoreThe study involved 45 male and 45 females of diabetic patients type- ?? aged from 40-69years , and with the same numbers of males and females for control , all the patients and controls were without any periodontal diseases and without any systemic disease. Diabetic patients were divided in to three groups according to the degree of periodontitis , and the inflamed gingiva of all groups of diabetic patients were treated with the dried fruits powder (crude) of medicinal plants Quercus robur , Thuja occidenalis , Terminalia chebula, Anethum graveolens , respectively and mixture. Some immunological and antimicrobial factors (IgA, Lactoferrin , Lysozyme ) , were detected in serum and saliva of diabetic patients and the control
... Show MoreThe current study included, studying the ability of eight genera of plants belong to Brassicaceae family, Brassica tournifortii, Cakile Arabica, Capsella bursa – pastoris,Carrichtera annua, Diplotaxis acris, Diplotaxis haru , Eruca sativa and Erucaria hispanica to accumulate ten heavy metals Cadmium, Chromium , Copper, Mercury, Manganese ,Nickel ,Lead ,and Zinc . Plant leaves samples were collected from Al-Tib area during spring of 2021.The data demonstrated that, the highest conc. of Cd was 2.7 mg/kg in Diplotaxis acris leaves and lower value was 0.3 mg/kg in Cakile Arabica leaves. For Co, the highest conc.was 1.3 mg/kg in Capsella bursa – pastoris leaves, whereas the lower value was 0.5 mg/kg in Cakile arabica leaves. As for Cr ele
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