Antimicrobial, antitumor and brine shrimp lethality assay of Ranunculus arvensis L. extracts

To investigate the antitumor activity, brine shrimp lethality assay, antibacterial and antifungal activity of Methanol Extract [ME], Water Extract [WE], Acetone Extract [AE], Chloroform Extract [CE], Methanol-Water Extract [MWE], Methanol-Acetone Extract [MAE], Methanol-Chloroform Extract [MCE] of Ranunculus arvensis [L.]. Antitumor activity was evaluated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens [At10] induced potato disc assay. Cytotoxicity was evaluated with brine shrimp lethality assay. Antibacterial activity was evaluated with six bacterial strains including Escherichia coli, Enterobacter aerogenes, Bordetella bronchiseptica, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Micrococcus luteus and Streptococcus anginosus and antifungal screening was done against five fungal strains including Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, A. fumigates, Fusarium solani and Mucor species by using disc diffusion method. Best antitumor activity was obtained with ME and WE, having highest IC50 values 20.27+/-1.62 and 93.01+/-1.33µg/disc. Brine shrimp lethality assay showed LC50 values of AE, MAE and ME were obtained as 384.66+/-9.42µg/ml, 724.11+/-8.01µg/ml and 978.7+/-8.01µg/ml respectively. WE of R. arvensis revealed weak antimicrobial result against the tested microorganisms. On the other h and, the antifungal activity of the plant extracts was found to be insignificant. These findings demonstrate that extracts of R. arvensis possesses significant antitumor activity. Further extensive study is necessary to assess the therapeutic potential of the plant.

Multidrug resistant gram-negative bacteria in clinical isolates from Karachi

A total of 54 gram-negative bacteria obtained from various pathological labs and hospitals of Karachi were screened for their resistance to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, gentamycin, kanamycin, neomycin, streptomycin and tetracycline antibiotics. Of the 54 bacteria, 50 were resistant to one or more antibiotics. Among the resistant bacteria, 13 out of 28 were found to transfer their resistances by conjugation. This indicates that at least 46% of clinical gram-negative bacteria in Karachi possess various types of transferable R plasmids, such as pAK5, pAK9, pAK10, pAK11, pAK12, pAK13, pAK14, pAK15, pAK16, pAK17, pAK18, pAK19, pAK20 and pAK21. The non-conjugative R plasmids included pMT14 and pZ26. Only pAK15 showed 26% segregation even after 20 consecutive transfers in plain broth [spontaneous segregation] whereas only pAK15 and pAK16 showed any significant loss of their markers in curing by acridine orange. The stability of R plasmids is more dangerous from clinical point of view

Date seeds: an unusual cause of distal colonic obstruction

A 72 year old woman presented with clinical signs and symptoms ofcolonic obstruction. Plain radiographs of the abdomen showed features of distal colo-rectal obstruction, and a limited barium enema examination demonstrated multiple, oval filling defects in the recto-sigmoid. A cleansing enema under general anaesthesia confirmed impacted date seeds which were extracted, and the patient made an uneventful recovery