Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a well-known lipid disease caused by inherited genetic defect... more Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a well-known lipid disease caused by inherited genetic defects in cholesterol uptake and metabolism is underdiagnosed in many countries including Saudi Arabia. The present study aims to identify the molecular basis of severe clinical manifestations of FH patients from unrelated Saudi consanguineous families. Two Saudi families with multiple FH patients fulfilling the combined FH diagnostic criteria of Simon Broome Register, and the Dutch Lipid Clinic Network (DLCN) were recruited. LipidSeq, a targeted resequencing panel for monogenic dyslipidemias, was used to identify causative pathogenic mutation in these two families and in 92 unrelated FH cases. Twelve FH patients from two unrelated families were sharing a very rare, pathogenic and founder LDLR stop gain mutation i.e., c.2027delG (p.Gly676Alafs*33) in both the homozygous or heterozygous states, but not in unrelated patients. Based on the variant zygosity, a marked phenotypic heterogeneity in t...
Background: Probiotics are live microbial feed supplements, which positively affect the host anim... more Background: Probiotics are live microbial feed supplements, which positively affect the host animal by improving its intestinal microbial balance. Studies have shown probiotic activities of Lactobacillus isolated from dairy foods, which include the ability to inhibit the growth of other bacteria and the reduction of cholesterol. However, there is limited documented work on the probiotic activity. Natural foods are always accepted in an Indian context than any pharmaceutical preparation hence this study contributes to the repertoire of natural food for health, and can be formulated for consumption of humans. Hence, probiotic organisms are produced on a large scale and the cells are dried and employed as capsules that can reestablish the lost normal enteric flora, improving the microbial balance. Aim: A simple and reliable method for the identification of the beneficial strains has become important because of its increasing applications. This work was aimed at isolating and characteri...
Background:: The exciting benefits of Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in the biomedical field necess... more Background:: The exciting benefits of Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in the biomedical field necessitate generating knowledge on the safety concerns which have been raised over the applications of these NPs. Objective:: To understand the biological effects and mechanism of toxicity induction of Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) stabilized AgNPs as well as CTAB alone in mice following intravenous injection. Methods:: The investigations were carried out by measuring hematological and serum biochemical parameters, oxidative stress, genotoxicity, and histopathology. Results:: AgNPs’ treatment was found to induce a marked decrease (p<0.05) in platelet and lymphocyte count, Serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT), and increase (p<0.05) in granulocytes count and Serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT) whereas CTAB treatment-induced a decrease in platelet count. The decrease in glutathione (GSH) and an increase in lipid peroxidation (LPO) levels in the liver, spleen, a...
Microbial diseases of silkworm, Bombyx mori L., are an economic threat to the silk industry. Ever... more Microbial diseases of silkworm, Bombyx mori L., are an economic threat to the silk industry. Every sericulturist has experienced the loss of his crops either due to a protozoan disease or other microbial diseases. Among the diseases, the worst is pebrlne, a microsporidian disease caused by the protozoan Nosema bombycis, followed by bacterial or viral diseases. This article reviews the molecular basis of the protozoan attack to the silkworms and its physiological impact on the larval development. The frequent occurrence of the disease relates to environmental factors and hygiene. The pharmaco-diagnostics of this disease has only been recently developed and reviewed herein. The ubiquitous pebrine disease caused by N. bombycis is prevalent in various silk producing larvae Indicating its virulency and subsequent economic impact. The only method adopted for the identification of pebrine disease has been the examination of the mother moth. However, recently several diagnostic techniques w...
Different types of pathogens, viz., protozoa, virus, fungus and bacteria are the major causes of ... more Different types of pathogens, viz., protozoa, virus, fungus and bacteria are the major causes of the diseases to the larvae of silkworm, Bombyx mori L. The ubiquitous pebrine disease caused by Nosema bombycis takes a heavy toll of various silk producing larvae indicating its virulency and subsequent economic impact. Seventy percent of the silkworm diseases are due to viral infections. Viral diseases occur due to interruption in carbohydrate metabolism affecting trehalose levels in the blood. The loss due to different strains of bacteria is also more. Hypoproteinemia was also observed in the plasma of haemolymph of the grasserie infected B. mori larvae. This may be due to reduction of protein synthesis and release by fat body cells into the haemolymph. Bacterial diseases occur due to the variations in the alkaline phosphatase activity in the midgut of the larvae. Due to this the goblet cells of the midgut showed necrosis and its secretary activity was also affected significantly and ...
Phylogeny reconstruction has attracted much attention from biologists and computer scientists fro... more Phylogeny reconstruction has attracted much attention from biologists and computer scientists from gene-order dataover the last few years. Ubiquitin is widespread in eukaryotes and plays a pivotal role in selective ATP dependent protein degradation in cells. It is also highly expressed in several types of cancers. Hence, in order to understand its diversification in eukarya we undertook this study to determine its phylogeny using various computational methods. All sequences of Ubiquitin conjugating enzyme were extracted from protein data bank (PDB), and using MaximumLikelihood method as implemented in PHYML and the unrooted phylogenetic tree was constructed. This tree had four major clusters and one mini cluster. We calculated the divergence for the clusters of the gene from the site-specific change of functional importance in protein sequence evolution. The divergence was then mapped on the 3-D structure of the ube2c protein obtained from the PDB Data bank: (IL7K) using RASMOL. Fro...
Due to their low cost and environmentally friendly nature, plant extracts based methods have gain... more Due to their low cost and environmentally friendly nature, plant extracts based methods have gained significant popularity among researchers for the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles. Herein, green synthesis of silver nanoparticles was performed using the aqueous solution of Ziziphus mauritiana leaves extract (ZM-LE) as a bio-reducing agent. The as-obtained silver nanoparticles were characterized by using UV-Vis spectroscopy, XRD (X-ray diffraction), TEM (transmission electron microscopy), and FT-IR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy). In addition, the effects of the concentrations of the leaves extract, silver nitrate, and the temperature on the preparation of nanoparticles were also investigated. In order to determine the nature of secondary metabolites present in leaves extract, a preliminary investigation of phytoconstituents was carried out using different methods including Folin-Ciocalteu and AlCl3 methods. The results have indicated the presence of a considerable amou...
Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a well-known lipid disease caused by inherited genetic defect... more Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a well-known lipid disease caused by inherited genetic defects in cholesterol uptake and metabolism is underdiagnosed in many countries including Saudi Arabia. The present study aims to identify the molecular basis of severe clinical manifestations of FH patients from unrelated Saudi consanguineous families. Two Saudi families with multiple FH patients fulfilling the combined FH diagnostic criteria of Simon Broome Register, and the Dutch Lipid Clinic Network (DLCN) were recruited. LipidSeq, a targeted resequencing panel for monogenic dyslipidemias, was used to identify causative pathogenic mutation in these two families and in 92 unrelated FH cases. Twelve FH patients from two unrelated families were sharing a very rare, pathogenic and founder LDLR stop gain mutation i.e., c.2027delG (p.Gly676Alafs*33) in both the homozygous or heterozygous states, but not in unrelated patients. Based on the variant zygosity, a marked phenotypic heterogeneity in t...
Background: Probiotics are live microbial feed supplements, which positively affect the host anim... more Background: Probiotics are live microbial feed supplements, which positively affect the host animal by improving its intestinal microbial balance. Studies have shown probiotic activities of Lactobacillus isolated from dairy foods, which include the ability to inhibit the growth of other bacteria and the reduction of cholesterol. However, there is limited documented work on the probiotic activity. Natural foods are always accepted in an Indian context than any pharmaceutical preparation hence this study contributes to the repertoire of natural food for health, and can be formulated for consumption of humans. Hence, probiotic organisms are produced on a large scale and the cells are dried and employed as capsules that can reestablish the lost normal enteric flora, improving the microbial balance. Aim: A simple and reliable method for the identification of the beneficial strains has become important because of its increasing applications. This work was aimed at isolating and characteri...
Background:: The exciting benefits of Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in the biomedical field necess... more Background:: The exciting benefits of Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in the biomedical field necessitate generating knowledge on the safety concerns which have been raised over the applications of these NPs. Objective:: To understand the biological effects and mechanism of toxicity induction of Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) stabilized AgNPs as well as CTAB alone in mice following intravenous injection. Methods:: The investigations were carried out by measuring hematological and serum biochemical parameters, oxidative stress, genotoxicity, and histopathology. Results:: AgNPs’ treatment was found to induce a marked decrease (p<0.05) in platelet and lymphocyte count, Serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT), and increase (p<0.05) in granulocytes count and Serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT) whereas CTAB treatment-induced a decrease in platelet count. The decrease in glutathione (GSH) and an increase in lipid peroxidation (LPO) levels in the liver, spleen, a...
Microbial diseases of silkworm, Bombyx mori L., are an economic threat to the silk industry. Ever... more Microbial diseases of silkworm, Bombyx mori L., are an economic threat to the silk industry. Every sericulturist has experienced the loss of his crops either due to a protozoan disease or other microbial diseases. Among the diseases, the worst is pebrlne, a microsporidian disease caused by the protozoan Nosema bombycis, followed by bacterial or viral diseases. This article reviews the molecular basis of the protozoan attack to the silkworms and its physiological impact on the larval development. The frequent occurrence of the disease relates to environmental factors and hygiene. The pharmaco-diagnostics of this disease has only been recently developed and reviewed herein. The ubiquitous pebrine disease caused by N. bombycis is prevalent in various silk producing larvae Indicating its virulency and subsequent economic impact. The only method adopted for the identification of pebrine disease has been the examination of the mother moth. However, recently several diagnostic techniques w...
Different types of pathogens, viz., protozoa, virus, fungus and bacteria are the major causes of ... more Different types of pathogens, viz., protozoa, virus, fungus and bacteria are the major causes of the diseases to the larvae of silkworm, Bombyx mori L. The ubiquitous pebrine disease caused by Nosema bombycis takes a heavy toll of various silk producing larvae indicating its virulency and subsequent economic impact. Seventy percent of the silkworm diseases are due to viral infections. Viral diseases occur due to interruption in carbohydrate metabolism affecting trehalose levels in the blood. The loss due to different strains of bacteria is also more. Hypoproteinemia was also observed in the plasma of haemolymph of the grasserie infected B. mori larvae. This may be due to reduction of protein synthesis and release by fat body cells into the haemolymph. Bacterial diseases occur due to the variations in the alkaline phosphatase activity in the midgut of the larvae. Due to this the goblet cells of the midgut showed necrosis and its secretary activity was also affected significantly and ...
Phylogeny reconstruction has attracted much attention from biologists and computer scientists fro... more Phylogeny reconstruction has attracted much attention from biologists and computer scientists from gene-order dataover the last few years. Ubiquitin is widespread in eukaryotes and plays a pivotal role in selective ATP dependent protein degradation in cells. It is also highly expressed in several types of cancers. Hence, in order to understand its diversification in eukarya we undertook this study to determine its phylogeny using various computational methods. All sequences of Ubiquitin conjugating enzyme were extracted from protein data bank (PDB), and using MaximumLikelihood method as implemented in PHYML and the unrooted phylogenetic tree was constructed. This tree had four major clusters and one mini cluster. We calculated the divergence for the clusters of the gene from the site-specific change of functional importance in protein sequence evolution. The divergence was then mapped on the 3-D structure of the ube2c protein obtained from the PDB Data bank: (IL7K) using RASMOL. Fro...
Due to their low cost and environmentally friendly nature, plant extracts based methods have gain... more Due to their low cost and environmentally friendly nature, plant extracts based methods have gained significant popularity among researchers for the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles. Herein, green synthesis of silver nanoparticles was performed using the aqueous solution of Ziziphus mauritiana leaves extract (ZM-LE) as a bio-reducing agent. The as-obtained silver nanoparticles were characterized by using UV-Vis spectroscopy, XRD (X-ray diffraction), TEM (transmission electron microscopy), and FT-IR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy). In addition, the effects of the concentrations of the leaves extract, silver nitrate, and the temperature on the preparation of nanoparticles were also investigated. In order to determine the nature of secondary metabolites present in leaves extract, a preliminary investigation of phytoconstituents was carried out using different methods including Folin-Ciocalteu and AlCl3 methods. The results have indicated the presence of a considerable amou...
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