Science and Nature Volume 2 Number 1 January 2013 Published by ZolCat Academic House

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Science and Nature

ISSN 2324-7290

Volume 2 Number 1 January 2013 [ PDF ]

Quarterly.

Limited Open Access. (10 years)

Single Issue Price $150USD

Editor-in-chief: Y Julia

Editors: C Abb, M Sophia, AT Tilla

Reviewer: Bjoerk, C Cempel, C Jianguo, EC Chirwa, Juliet T Gopinath, L Shengxiong, L Bo, M Pantic

Staff: L Hao, L Kimberly, W Yuanyuan

Impact Factor 0 (2012)

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Contents

Pages	Titles/Authors/Abstracts	Free Access
1-4	Ø Antibiogram and Occurence Rate of Bacteria Recovered from Pateints Attending a Fertility Clinic in Abeokuta, Nigeria	PDF
	Ogiogwa I O, Motayo B O, Nwanze J C, Onoh C C, Adeniji F O, Okerentugba PO, Okonko I O
	ABSTRACT Infertility is a growing problem in Sub-Saharan Africa with its attendant Medical and social problems. Our study is designed to examine the Microbial pattern of Urogenital specimen of patients attending a fertility clinic in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. Three hundred and six patients attending the Federal Medical Center Abeokuta, fertility clinic were recruited for the study, comprising 108 males and 198 females. Samples collected were semen samples from male patients and Endocervical swab samples from female patients, pregnant female patients were excluded from the study. All samples were processed following standard Microbiological protocols and antibiotic susceptibility was done by disc diffusion following the Kirby-Bauer technique. Semen samples were assessed for Morphology and sperm concentration following standard protocols. An overall isolation rate of (17.8%) was obtained for all samples processed. A total of 306 subjects were recruited consisting of 108(35.3%) male subjects and 198(64.7%) female subjects, with an isolation rate of 48(56.5%) for bacteria and 37(43.5%) for fungi (Candida albicans). Male subjects gave an isolation rate of 15(17.6%) and females 33(68.8%) for bacteria and 37(100.0%) for Candida albicans. It showed that Candida albicans (43.5%) was the only fungal isolates recovered in this study. The isolation rate of various bacteria species showed that Escherichia coli 22(45.8%) was the most predominant, followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae 12(25.0%), Staphylococcus aureus 7(14.6%), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa 5(10.4%). Proteus mirabilis 1(2.1%) and Enterococcus feacalis 1(2.1%) was least prevalent. Isolation rate of isolates by pus cell size was 68(80.0%) for normal pus cell size and 17(20.0%) for large pus cell size. Enterococcus feacalis was not isolated from sperm with normal pus cell size. Proteus mirabilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa was not isolated from sperm with large pus cell size. Azoospermia constituted 46.3% of male subjects tested, Oligozoospermia recorded 13.9% and 39.8% of subjects had normal sperm count. Bacteria isolations were highest in Azoospermic subjects with a rate of 59.3% and lowest in Oligozoospermic subjects with 6.7%. Antibiotic susceptibility showed a high activity for Ofloxacin 74.7% and Ciprofloxacin 72.7%, Tetracycline also displayed a high level of activity 72.3%, there was high level of resistance to Cefuroxime, and others showed average susceptibility. Our study shows a high bacteria isolation rate in patients attending fertility clinic at Abeokuta and a broad diversity of organisms in urogenital specimen, therefore better attention needs to be paid to detection and treatment of all forms of urogenital infections in couples attending fertility clinics in our environment.
5-10	Ø Diagnostic Role of Serum Glypican-3 as a Tumor Marker for Hepatocellular Carcinoma	PDF
	Soha Z El-Shenawy, Maha M El Sabawi, Nashwa Sheble, Mona Abd El-Raof, Maha M Allam, Samar K Fath Allah
	ABSTRACT Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major health problem. It has been increasing in Egypt with a doubling in the incidence rate in the past 10 years. It represents the most common primary malignant tumor of the liver and is one of the major causes of death among patients with cirrhosis. Current diagnosis of HCC relies on clinical information, liver imaging and measurement of serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). The reported sensitivity and specificity of AFP are not sufficient for early diagnosis, and so additional marker is needed. The development of effective marker for the diagnosis of HCC could have an impact on HCC-related cancer mortality and significant public health implications worldwide. In the adult, Glypican-3 (GPC3) can only be detected in a limited number of tissues, including the lung, ovaries, mammary epithelium, and mesothelium. It is expressed in fetal livers but not in adult livers. The soluble form of GPC3 was identified in the serum of patients with hepatocellular carcinomas, and can be used as a serological test for the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. It was reported that the frequency of GPC3 expression in AFP-negative HCC patients is as high as 90%, suggesting that it can be used in diagnostic of HCC. The aim of the current study was to detect the value of serum GPC3 in HCC Egyptian patients as a more specific, sensitive and accurate biomarker by comparing it with an established biomarker as AFP. Subjects and methods: The patients were selected from the Department of Hepatology, National Liver Institute, Minoufiya University. There were three groups (HCC group, Liver cirrhosis group and control group). The serum estimation of AFP and GPC-3 were done to all subjects. Results: When analysis of variance was done between the three groups, a highly statistical significant difference was found between these groups regarding the mean serum levels of both AFP and GPC-3 where the highest increase of both markers were found in the HCC group. Results of the ROC curves analysis showed that the optimal cut-off of GPC-3 to differentiate between cirrhotic patients from healthy subjects is 0.5 ng/ml with 90% sensitivity & 80% specificity and 19 ng/ml with sensitivity and the specificity 63.5% and 70% respectively to differentiate HCC patients from liver cirrhotic patients. Conclusion: GPC-3 could be a sensitive, specific and accurate serum marker for early diagnosis of HCC. Further studies in larger groups of patients are needed to confirm this finding.
11-17	Ø Isolation and Characterization of Protease Producing Marine Eubacteria.	PDF
	Singh K, Bose H, Richa K, Karthik L, Gaurav K, KV BhaskaraRao
	ABSTRACT Twenty five bacterial isolates from soil samples collected from coast of Andhra Pradesh were screened for protease production, among which 8 strains showed proteolytic activity and one isolate (N2) was selected for further study. The proteolytic bacteria was identified as Bacterium VITKHRB based on morphological, biochemical tests and 16s rDNA sequencing. Enzyme was produced, purified up to 1.20 fold and its specific activity was found to be 1.83 IU/mg. Therelative molecular mass of enzyme was measured 36 kDa by SDS-PAGE. The best enzyme activity was observed at pH 8 and temperature 35°C, 6.5% NaCl concentration, xylose as carbon source and yeast extract as nitrogen source. This enzyme is expected to be a good industrial application as it was found to digest egg white and remove blood stain efficiently. This is the first report on protease production from marine eubacteria inhabiting coast of Bay of Bengal near Andhra Pradesh.
18-21	Ø An Assessment of Dietary Intake Associated with the Coronary Heart Disease among Adults in Yerevan, Armenia	PDF
	Ezatollah Fazeli Moghadam, Artashes Tadevosyan, Masood Kimiagar, Maryam Chamari
	ABSTRACT Epidemiologic studies have demonstrated the relationship between the dietary intake and coronary heart disease (CHD) in various countries. Extreme changes have occurred in lifestyles as well as dietary patterns in industrialized countries. Also, no study has been done to address the association between CHD and food consumption in these populations. This case-control study was conducted to assess the dietary intake in individuals with and without CHD during 2010 and 2011; we randomly selected 320 patients with CHD and 320 subjects without CHD (≥ 30 years old) from the hospitals, polyclinics and center of preventive cardiology in Yerevan. Dietary intakes with 135 food items over the previous 12 months were evaluated using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. We observed an inversely significant association between fruits, vegetables (not potatoes), whole grain, and plant food consumption and CHD. In a logistic regression, after adjusting for confounder risk factors, each 100 g increase in fruit or vegetables decreased 63% odds of CHD. The odds ratio for those with intake of sweet and dessert in the highest quartile was 2.64 (95% CI 1.65-4.21). 85% of cases and 81.3% of controls, consumed fish and seafood less than 200 g/wk (P>0.05), also, low intake of whole grain (below 100 g/d) was most common both in cases (95.9%) and controls (93.4%).This pioneering study indicates which fruit, vegetable intakes, whole grain and plant food independently associated with the CHD risk in the population under investigation.
22-25	Ø Outline of the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake (Mw 9.0) — Earthquake Early Earning and Observed Seismic Intensity	PDF
	Mitsuyuki Hoshiba, Kazuhiro Iwakiri, Naoki Hayashimoto, Toshihiro Shimoyama, Kazuyuki Hirano, Yasuyuki Yamada, Yuzo Ishigaki, Haruyuki Kikuta
	ABSTRACT The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake (Mw 9.0) that occurred on March 11, 2011, caused strong ground motion around northeastern Japan. Before the strong ground motion hit cities, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) announcements to the general public of the Tohoku district and then the warning was automatically broadcast through TV, radios and cellular phone mails. The EEW was earlier than the S wave arrival and more than 15 s earlier than the strong ground motion (intensity 5-lower or greater on the JMA scale) everywhere in the district. Seismic intensity 7 was observed for only the second time since JMA introduced instrument-based observation for intensity measurements in 1996. Intensities of 6-upper and 6-lower were widely observed at many stations in the Tohoku and Kanto districts, over an area of approximately 400 km × 100 km. The duration of strong ground motions was quite long. For the Tokyo region, JMA EEW expected intensities of 4, which was an underestimation of the observed intensity (5-upper). This underestimation can probably be attributed to the large extent of the fault rupture.
26-31	Ø Lipidomics: A New Window to Biomedical Frontiers	PDF
	Matej Orešič, Virve A. Hӓnninen, Antonio Vidal-Puig
	ABSTRACT Lipids are a highly diverse class of molecules with crucial roles in cellular energy storage, structure and signaling. Lipid homeostasis is fundamental to maintain health, and lipid defects are central to the pathogenesis of important and devastating diseases. Newly emerging advances have facilitated the development of so-called lipidomics technologies and offer an opportunity to elucidate the mechanisms leading to disease. Furthermore, these advances also provide the tools to unravel the complexity of the ‘allostatic forces’ that allow maintenance of normal cellular/tissue phenotypes through the application of bioenergetically inefficient adaptive mechanisms. An alternative strategy is to focus on tissues with limited allostatic capacity, such as the eye, that could be used as readouts of metabolic stress over time. Identification of these allostatic mechanisms and pathological ‘scares’ might provide a window to unknown pathogenic mechanisms, as well as facilitate identification of early biomarkers of disease.
32-34	Ø Research on Robbery Offenders' Attention to Negative Emotion	PDF
	YANG Dong, LIU Zicheng, PENG Min
	ABSTRACT From the paradigm of visual search, this essay discusses the characteristics of attentional bias of robbers toward emotions (angry faces and happy faces). Data shows that, compared with the non-violent group, the violent group’s reaction time toward angry faces is obviously shorter than happy faces, which preliminarily verifies the attentional bias of robbery offenders toward negative emotional information. Key words: Robbery offenders, Attentional bias, Emotional faces.
35-40	Ø The Study on the Impact of ATM Gene Silencing on Hela Cell Radiosusceptibility	PDF
	LUO Judong, GE Yangyang, ZHOU Xifa, LU Xujing, ZHANG Shuyu, TANG Hua, LING Yang, CHEN Ling, CAO Jianping
	ABSTRACT Objective By using conventional chromosome aberration analysis, the radiosensitivity of Hela cells by silencing ATM gene (Hela^ATM— cell) using siRNA technology was investigated. Methods (1) ATM siRNAs were designed and synthesized, including four pairs of siRNAs specifically targeting ATM gene, a negative control siRNA and a FAM-marked siRNA as a negative control. Transfections of these siRNAs into Hela cells were performed using liposome, transfection efficiency was monitored under fluorescent microscope. ATM expression of transfected Hela cells was detected at different time by using RT-PCR assays. (2) By using conventional chromosome aberration analysis method, chromosome aberration frequencies (CAF) of Hela^ATM— cells and Hela cells exposed to ⁶⁰Co γ-ray were observed compared to control Hela cells. Results (1) FAM-marked negative control siRNA was successfully transfected into Hela cells as monitored by fluorescent microscope. (2) The data with RT-PCR assays showed that ATM gene expression was significantly depressed in Hela1057 cells (transfection with 1057-1075nt siRNA) 24h following transfection (p<0.05). The 1057-1075nt siRNA worked until 96h after transfected (p<0.05). ATM gene expression was decreased significantly at 24h and 48h after transfected compared to 96h (p<0.05), no significant difference between 24h and 48h, 72h and 96h after transfected (p>0.05); ATM gene expression was decreased significantly at 24h and 48h than 72h and 96h after transfection (p<0.05). (3) After exposed to 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Gy ⁶⁰Co γ-ray, the main pattern of chromosome aberration was dic and the radiation-induced level of CAF was significantly higher in Hela^ATM— cells than in control Hela cells at each dose point (p<0.01). In the two cells, CAF had a positive correlation with the doses used, and their linear regression equation was Y=a+bD. The slope of CAF linear regression equations of Hela^ATM— cells was larger than that of control Hela cells (p<0.05). Conclusion (1) ATM gene was successfully silenced by transfection of chemically synthesized siRNAs in Hela cells, named Hela^ATM—. (2) The CAF of Hela^ATM— cells was significantly higher than control Hela cells by using conventional chromosome aberration analysis.