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.
Drug-induced acute kidney injury is a serious disorder. Oxidative stress has a key role in its initiation and progression. In this study, the possible ameliorative effect of fimasartan against methotrexate-induced nephrotoxicity was investigated in comparison with α-tocopherol in rats. Wistar rats were allocated into six groups and treated as follows: group Ӏ received water on a daily basis for 8 successive days; group ӀӀ received methotrexate (20 mg/kg) on day 1, followed by water for 7 successive days; group ӀӀӀ received fimasartan (3 mg/kg/day) for 7 successive days; group IV received α-tocopherol (1 g/kg/day) for 7 successive days; group V re
... Show MoreIn this paper, construction microwaves induced plasma jet(MIPJ) system. This system was used to produce a non-thermal plasma jet at atmospheric pressure, at standard frequency of 2.45 GHz and microwave power of 800 W. The working gas Argon (Ar) was supplied to flow through the torch with adjustable flow rate by using flow meter, to diagnose microwave plasma optical emission spectroscopy(OES) was used to measure the important plasma parameters such as electron temperature (Te), residence time (Rt), plasma frequency (?pe), collisional skin depth (?), plasma conductivity (?dc), Debye length(?D). Also, the density of the plasma electron is calculated with the use of Stark broadened profiles
Inhaled corticosteroids are the most effective controllers of asthma, although asthmatics vary in their response. FKBP51 is a major component of the glucocorticoid receptor which regulates its responses to corticosteroids. Therefore, the present study aims to identify the role of FKBP5 gene polymorphism in asthma susceptibility and corticosteroid resistance.
DNA was extracted from the blood of 68 asthmatic
For many problems in Physics and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), providing an accurate approximation of derivatives is a challenging task. This paper presents a class of high order numerical schemes for approximating the first derivative. These approximations are derived based on solving a special system of equations with some unknown coefficients. The construction method provides numerous types of schemes with different orders of accuracy. The accuracy of each scheme is analyzed by using Fourier analysis, which illustrates the dispersion and dissipation of the scheme. The polynomial technique is used to verify the order of accuracy of the proposed schemes by obtaining the error terms. Dispersion and dissipation errors are calculated
... Show MoreAn ecological model consisting of prey-predator system involving the prey’s fear is proposed and studied. It is assumed that the predator species consumed the prey according to prey square root type of functional response. The existence, uniqueness and boundedness of the solution are examined. All the possible equilibrium points are determined. The stability analysis of these points is investigated along with the persistence of the system. The local bifurcation analysis is carried out. Finally, this paper is ended with a numerical simulation to understand the global dynamics of the system.
Teachers should have acceptable ratios of multiple intelligences. Knowing their most dominate intelligence, teachers will be capable of understanding and considering the multiple intelligences of their students. Accordingly, they will be able to use Gardner’s theory as an effective approach of teaching for all kinds of learners and not limited to a specific type of students especially those who have high ratios of verbal-linguistic and logic-mathematical intelligences
Microalgae culture is an interesting step in wastewater treatment since it provides a tertiary biotreatment while also producing potentially valuable biomass that may be used for a variety of applications. Microalgae cultures, with their ability to utilize inorganic nitrogen and phosphate for growth, provide an elegant solution to tertiary and quaternary treatments. Scenedesmus quadricauda culture was employed with three different doses, 2g/l, 1g/l, and 0.2g/l, to investigate the impacts of microalgae in wastewater. Standard procedures were used to measure samples for physicochemical parameters such as pH, EC, PO4, NO3, NO2, NH4 and BOD5 every third day for
... Show MoreA major disadvantage of dose reconstruction by means of thermoluminescence (TL) is the fact that during readout of any TL material exposed to ionizing radiation (i.e., during measuring the glow curve), the radiation-induced signal gets lost. Application of the photo-transferred thermoluminescence phenomenon (PTTL) may offer a solution to this problem. In PTTL, the residual signal that is not destroyed by conventional TL readout (because it comes from deeper electron traps) can be readout through simultaneous stimulation by UV light and heating, allowing to obtain information about the absorbed dose in a second run. The present paper describes the application of PTTL for emergency dose assessment. For