Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate the knowledge and attitude of non-medical students, Jouf University toward antibiotic.Methods: Data were collected from male and female ...students using a self-prepared questionnaire then tabulated and analyzed using SPSS program.Results: This study included 1035 students; 573 (55.3%) male and 462 (44.6%) female, aged (21.5±2.2) years. About 533 (51.5%) used antibiotic during the year 2015. 705 (68.12%) of the student display wrong answer regarding the uses of the antibiotic. 53.5% depending on the previous prescription on self-medicated antibiotic (SAM), followed by their experience (14.5%) and pharmacy advice (11.3%). 45.9% did not have any idea about the antibiotic name they used. Majority of the students (62.6%) stop antibiotic once improvement is achieved, whereas (28.1%) complete the course till the end of the last dose. 75.4% of the studied populations saving at least one antibiotic at home while 62.7% sharing antibiotic with others. 35.3% of the studied population did not experienced antibiotic-related side effects, while 19.3% experience nausea. About 57.6% believed that broad spectrum is better than narrow-spectrum antibiotic, 70.4% deny that higher doses enhance recovery, (57.3%) believes that low dose decrease side effect. 51.9% depend on their good medical knowledge for SMA, while 20.3% was to save time, 18.8% dependent on pharmacy expert where only 9% was to save money cost.Conclusion: The majority of the sample had a fair level of knowledge in relation to antibiotics. Initiation of national program and campaigns toward antibiotic uses to raise the public awareness about the hazardous of antibiotic misuse/abuse is essential to decrease the gap between antibiotic use and attitude.
Antimicrobial resistance is a major public health and development concern on a global scale. The increasing resistance of the pathogenic bacteria
to antibiotics necessitates efforts to identify ...potential alternative antibiotics from nature, including insects, which are already recognized as a source of natural antibiotics by the scientific community. This study aimed to determine the potential of components of gut-associated bacteria isolated from
, an Asian giant honeybee, as an antibacterial against
by in vitro and in silico methods as an initial process in the stage of new drug discovery. The identified gut-associated bacteria of
included
and
with 100% identity to referenced bacteria from GenBank. Cell-free culture supernatants (CFCS) of
had a very strong antibacterial activity against
in an in vitro antibacterial testing. Meanwhile, molecular docking revealed that antimicrobial lipopeptides from
(surfactin, fengycin, and iturin A) had a comparable value of binding-free energy (BFE) with the target protein receptor for
, namely penicillin-binding protein (PBP) 1 and PBP2 when compared with the ceftriaxone, cefixime, and doxycycline. The molecular dynamics simulation (MDS) study revealed that the surfactin remains stable at the active site of PBP2 despite the alteration of the H-bond and hydrophobic interactions. According to this finding, surfactin has the greatest antibacterial potential against PBP2 of
.
With extensive production and various applications of silica nanoparticles (SiNPs), there is a controversy regarding the ecotoxicological impacts of SiNPs. Therefore, the current study was aimed to ...assess the acute toxicity of silica nanoparticles in male
after 24 and 96 h. Hematological, serum biochemical, stress biomarker, and immune-antioxidant parameters were addressed. Chemical composition, crystal structure, and the particle shape and morphology of SiNPs were investigated using XRD, FTIR, BET, UV-Vis, and SEM, while TEM was used to estimate the average size distribution of particles. For the exposure experiment, 48 male rats were divided into four groups (12 rat/group) and gavaged daily with different levels of zero (control), 5, 10, and 20 mg of SiNPs corresponding to zero, 31.25, 62.5, and 125 mg per kg of body weight. Sampling was carried out after 24 and 96 h. Relative to the control group, the exposure to SiNPs induced clear behavioral changes such as inactivity, lethargy, aggressiveness, and screaming. In a dose-dependent manner, the behavior scores recorded the highest values. Pairwise comparisons with the control demonstrated a significant (
< 0.05) decrease in hematological and immunological biomarkers lysozymes and alternative complement activity (ACH50) with a concomitant reduction in the antioxidant enzymes catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in all exposed groups to SiNPs. On the contrary, there was a noticeable increase in biochemical parameters (glucose, cortisol, creatinine, urea, low-density lipoproteins (LDL), high-density lipoproteins (HDL), total protein, and albumin) and hepato-renal indicators, including alkaline phosphatase (ALP), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), of all SiNP-exposed groups. It was observed that SiNPs induced acute toxicity, either after 24 h or 96 h, post-exposure of rats to SiNPs evidenced by ethological changes, hepato-renal dysfunction, hyperlipemia, and severe suppression in hematological, protein, stress, and immune-antioxidant biomarkers reflecting an impaired physiological status. The obtained outcomes create a foundation for future research to consider the acute toxicity of nanoparticles to preserve human health and sustain the environment.
Background Data available support that ninety percent of male infertility cases are due to low sperm counts. There is a scarcity of data on the medicinal effects of cannabis on fertility. This study ...evaluated testicular function and sperm quality modulation with cannabis in rats. Methodology Twenty-five male Wistar rats were randomly grouped into five: A, B, C, and D, each group have 5 rats. A (control): 0.2 ml 2% DMSO, B (vitamin C): 90 mg/kg body weight, C, D, and E were administered: 5 mg/kg, 10 mg/kg and 20 mg/kg body weight of ethanolic leaf extract of cannabis (ELEC) respectively. The rats were sacrificed 24 h after the last day of the 60 day oral administrations. Flavonoids were the predominant phytochemical present in the extract while quercetin, kemferol, silyman and gallic acid were identified. Results The results showed a significant improvement (p < 0.05) in sperm quality and a significant increase in the concentrations of follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, triglycerides, cholesterol, and total protein determination compared to the normal control. Similarly, there was a significant increase (p < 0.05) in the activities of acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, and superoxide dismutase compared to the normal control. RAC-alpha serine/threonine-protein kinase (AKT1)-silymarin complexes (-8.30 kcal/mol) and androgen receptor (AR)-quercetin complexes (9.20 kcal/mol) had the highest affinity. Conclusion The antioxidant effects of the flavonoids in the ethanolic extract of cannabis may have protected testicular and sperm cells from oxidative damage. Biochemical processes and histopathological morphology were preserved by cannabis. The docking prediction suggests that the bioactive principle of cannabis may activate the androgenic receptors. The androgenic receptor modulation may be attributed to silymarin and quercetin. Keywords: Cannabis, Antioxidants, Spermatozoa, Signal Transduction, Fertility, Phytochemicals
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•We explored a novel strategy of CTS-SeNps for the treatment of T2DM.•The combined strategy caused immense hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects in T2DM rats.•A remarkable elevation ...of insulin sensitivity was mostly obvious in combined strategy.•CTS-SeNps restored the pro-inflammatory cytokines levels when combined with MET.•Apoptotic and antiapoptotic genes were expressed significantly in the combined strategy.
The present study was carried out to explore a novel strategy with the hypothesis that the combined treatment with standard antidiabetic drug metformin (MET) and chitosan stabilized nanoparticles (CTS-Se-NPs) may have a potential role on insulin level, hepatic damage and apoptosis, and cardiac injury markers of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in rat model. T2DM was induced by a high fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks and a single injection of a low dose streptozotocin (STZ) (35 mg/kg) in Sprague Dawley rats. A total number of one hundred rats were divided into five groups; the first served as a control (non-diabetic) group and the other four groups served as diabetic rats. The treatments were even mono or combined therapy by CTS-Se-NPs and/or MET for 8 weeks. A group was given only MET (500 mg/kg bw/day), another was administered only CTS-Se-NPs at a dose of 2 mg se/kg/day, while the last group was given both of them (co-treated group). Biochemical, molecular and histopathological analyses were conducted to figure out the efficiency of the treatment by the monotherapeutic mode or combination therapy on the insulin level, oxidants/antioxidants status, inflammatory mediators, hepatic and cardiac injury biomarkers and apoptotic/anti-apoptotic gene expressions. Our results indicated that HFD/STZ-induced toxic effects on the serum, hepatic and cardiac tissues including a remarkable elevation of the oxidative and inflammatory mediators, and up-regulation of the apoptotic genes (Bax, Caspase-3, Fas, Fas-L) expression. Histologically, the heart tissue revealed various degenerative, vascular and inflammatory alterations characteristic to murine cardiomyopathy. Besides, livers from HFD-STZ-treated rats showed numerous cytotoxic, circulatory and inflammatory alterations. Combined therapy with MET and CTS-Se-NPs resulted in a better remarkable anti-diabetic effect demonstrated by substantial decreases in fasting blood glucose and insulin levels, and elevated with up-regulation of anti-apoptotic gene (BCL-2) and down-regulation of apoptotic genes after 8 weeks of treatment than that revealed in the monotherapeutic strategy. In addition, it ameliorated the damage of cardiac and hepatic tissues and reduced lipid accumulation, and pro-inflammatory cytokines levels and restored the antioxidant capacity. It could be concluded that, the combined strategy applied in the current study have a potential role to limit the diabetic complications and restore insulin resistance to a higher extent than monotherapeutic strategy and could be considered a promising therapeutic alternative in T2DM rat model.
Ginkgo biloba is an ancient plant species that is thought to provide a variety of health benefits to living organisms and contains plenty of bioactive components, making it a chemically diversified ...plant. G. biloba has been shown to have a variety of medicinal and pharmacological properties, including anticancer, antidementia, antidiabetic, antiobesity, antilipidemic, antimicrobial, antioxidant, antilipid peroxidation, antiplatelet, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, antidepressant, antiaging, immunomodulatory, antihypertensive, and neuroprotective effects and is frequently used to treat neurological, cardiovascular, and respiratory diseases, such as tardive dyskinesia. Therefore, this review described the therapeutic applications of G. biloba. In addition to describing the therapeutic potential, this review also evaluates the chemical constituents, toxicity, adverse effect, synergistic effect, and the clinical studies of this plant which have been utilized for therapeutic benefits but have demonstrated other consequences. The capacity of G. biloba components to act as free radical scavengers is critical, and combining its extract with other plant extracts has been shown to synergistically boost antioxidant properties. G. biloba used long-term or at high doses that resulted in some adverse effects. Severe drug interactions have also been reported in both animals and humans when combined with other medications. The available data established from both preclinical and clinical studies confirm the potential of G. biloba plant extract in various diseases. Besides, the safety and efficacy of G. biloba continue to require verification through additional experimentation to guide medicinal use.
The objective of the current study was to investigate the possible chemopreventive activity of Commiphora molmol resin (myrrh) extract using a rat model of diethylnitrosamine (DEN)/phenobarbital ...(PB)-induced early stage hepatocarcinogenesis. Here, we pointed to the modulatory effect of myrrh on oxidative stress, angiogenesis, inflammation and nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (Nrf2). Hepatocarcinogenesis was induced in Wistar rats using DEN for initiation and PB as a promoting agent. The rats received 125 or 250 mg/kg C. molmol resin extract throughout the experiment. Both doses of myrrh improved liver function marker enzymes and prevented oval cells proliferation and the distortion of hepatic architecture. The pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6, tumor markers, angiogenesis markers, lipid peroxidation and nitric oxide (NO) were significantly increased in DEN/PB-induced rats. In addition, the antioxidant defenses showed marked reduction in the liver of DEN/PB-induced rats. Oral administration of C. molmol extract to DEN/PB-induced rats significantly decreased circulating markers of inflammation, tumor proliferation and angiogenesis, and liver lipid peroxidation and NO. In addition, C. molmol markedly ameliorated the antioxidant defenses and up-regulated Nrf2 and hemeoxygenase (HO)-1 in the liver of DEN/PB-induced rats. In conclusion, these results provide evidence that C. molmol resin has a potent chemopreventive activity, possibly by up-regulating the Nrf2/HO-1 signaling and attenuation of inflammation, angiogenesis and oxidative stress.
•DEN induces oxidative stress, inflammation and angiogenesis.•DEN down-regulates Nrf2 in the liver.•Myrrh prevents hepatocarcinogenesis by up-regulating Nrf2/HO-1signaling.
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