Antibiotic resistance is the major growing threat facing the pharmacological treatment of bacterial infections. Therefore, bioprospecting the medicinal plants could provide potential sources for antimicrobial agents. Mimusops, the biggest and widely distributed plant genus of family Sapotaceae, is used in traditional medicines due to its promising pharmacological activities. This study was conducted to elucidate the antimicrobial effect of three unexplored Mimusops spp. (M. kummel, M. laurifolia and M. zeyheri). Furthermore, the mechanisms underlying such antibacterial activity were studied. The Mimusops leaf extracts revealed significant antibacterial activities against the five tested bacterial strains with a maximum inhibition zone diameter of 22.0 mm against B. subtilis compared with standard antibiotic ciprofloxacin. The minimal inhibitory and bactericidal concentration values against tested Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains ranged from 3.15-12.5 µg/ml. However, weak antifungal effect was recorded against Candida albicans with MIC value ˃25 µg/ml. The 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay showed that M. caffra was the best antioxidant (IC50=14.75±0.028 µg/ml), while M. laurifolia was the least one (IC50=34.22±0.014 µg/ml). The phenolics in plant leaves extracts were identified and quantified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) which revealed the presence of seven phenolic acids and four flavonoids. The abundant phenolic compounds were rutin (5.216±0.067 mg/g dried wt.) and gallic acid (0.296±0.068 mg/g) followed by myricetin (0.317±0.091 mg/g) then kaempferol (0.113±0.049 mg/g) as flavonoids. The antibacterial mechanism of M. laurifolia extract, as a representative species, induces ultrastructural changes in the model bacterium Staphylococcus aureus with cell wall and plasma membrane lysis as revealed by transmission electron microscopy. Overall, Mimusops species (M. laurifolia, M. kummel and M. zeyheri) are promising natural alternative sources for antimicrobial agents.
The pollution producing from textile industries effluents is growing since the years, due to at discharged lots of it in water without treatment. The resulting effluent is colourful, highly toxic, and poses a significant environmental hazard. This problem can be solved by using enzymic biological treatment, where the Congo red dye was used with concentrations (100,200,300,500) mg /L, pH values (3,4,5,6,7,8), and variable temperatures (25,35,45)°C, the best removal of Congo red (CR) dye under optimum conditions for degradation was at concentration of 100 mg/L, at (pH 6, 25 °C) with efficiency of 99.85 % using the peroxidase enzyme extracted from red radish plant, while the removal percentage decreased when increase dye concentration
... Show MoreThis study was conducted on a sample of commercial banks in Iraq, chosen according number of considerations for twenty banks, contained two public banks and eighteen private banks. &
... Show MoreDouble drum dryer is operated for producing pregelatinized maize starches using feed starch slurries of different
solids(7, 10 and13 g/100 g )content . Steam pressure (2,3,and 4 bar), the level of pool between the drums (4,7,and 10
cm) , and speed of drums rotation (3,4,and 6 rpm) are varied together with the feed solids content in a practical range of
values. The response of the dryer is registered by measuring several output variables, i.e. external drum temperature,
product moisture content, mass flow rate.
This study aims to investigate the effect of changing skins material on the strength of sandwich plates with circular hole when subjected to mechanical loads. Theoretical, numerical and experimental analyses are done for sandwich plates with hole and with two face sheet materials. Theoretical analysis is performed by using sandwich plate theory which depends on the first order shear deformation theory for plates subjected to tension and bending separately. Finite element method was used to analyse numerically all cases by ANSYS program.
The sandwich plates were investigated experimentally under bending and buckling load separately. The relationship between stresses and the ratio of hole diameter to plate width (d/b) are built, by
... Show MoreBackground: Reduction in bond strength when bonding was done immediately after intracoronal bleaching procedure has been recognized. The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of antioxidants (10% sodium ascorbate (SA), 0.1M thiourea and7% sodium bicarbonate (SB)) on reversing bonding strength of composite resin to bleached dentin. Materials and method: Sixty upper 1st premolar teeth, were selected, the crowns of the teeth were embedded in acrylic resin blocks exposing a flat dentin from the buccal surface, then divided into 6 groups (10 samples each). Bleaching for the experimental groups was performed using 35% hydrogen peroxide bleaching gel (pola–office).Group A (Negative
... Show MoreThe diesel oil type S-3 specified for diesel engine has limited the suitability for diesel trucks for 8000 km, but didn't clarify its suitability if used in tractor engines.It is known that the work style of farm tractor differs from that of other vehicles where tractors are used for all the activities in sever conditions and under the complete usage of the available power and capability, so there is no sign or indication of the usage period of this oil in tractor's engine. The oil has been used on Cirta C6806 tractors. The manual book of the tractor's engine, Deutz recommends changing the oil every 100 hrs. Therefore the main goal of this research is to give the recommended working hours for S-3 diesel oil when used in farm tractor engines
... Show MoreHuman papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18 cause almost 70% of cervical cancer cases worldwide. Recently, testing for high-risk HPV types have been adopted by clinical practices for the early detection of cervical cancer in conjunction with cytology tests.
Cervical swab samples were collected at the Outpatient Gynecology department of Baghdad Teaching Hospital. These samples consisted of a patient group of 50 samples, and a healthy control group of 10 samples. A papanicolaou test (abbreviated as a Pap test) was also performed for each woman to examine the epithelial cells of both the endocervix and the upper vaginal region. Total DNA (genomic, mitochondrial, and viral) was extracted from cervical swab samples for molecular studie
... Show MoreBackground: Nanotechnology represents a new science that promises to provide a broad range of uses and improved technologies for biological and biomedical applications. One of the reasons behind the intense interest is that nanotechnology permits synthesis of materials that have structure is less than 100 nanometers. The present work revealed the effect of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) on Streptococcus mutans of Human Saliva in comparison to de-ionized water. Materials and methods: Streptococcus mutans were isolated from saliva of forty eight volunteers of both sexes their age range between 18-22 years and then purified and diagnosed according to morphological characteristic and biochemical tests. Different concentrations of ZnO NPs w
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to determine the flexural properties of steel fiber as a metal fiber and polyester resin as a matrix. The steel fibers were added to polyester resin at the various fiber volume fractions of 5, 10, and 15% steel fiber, and with different fiber orientations such as woven steel fiber type (0-45) ° and woven steel fiber type (0-90) ° indicate. Hand layup processes in these experiments were used to produce specimens test with the curing time of 24 hr. for the composite at room temperature. The results show that the flexural strength and flexural modulus values for 15 % vol.of woven steel fiber composite type (0-90) ° are (210MPa) and (2.29GPa( respectively. The results above indicate that the woven steel fiber (0-9
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