Tumour Growth Inhibition and Systemic Responses of ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD Disrupted Salmonella Agona and Salmonella Typhimurium in Mice

@#Introduction: Bacteria had long been known to have tumour-targeting and tumour inhibition capabilities and have re-emerged into the limelight of cancer research as a possible alternative treatment for solid tumours. Conventional therapies for solid tumours are either by surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, which are very invasive and non-specific to the tumours and results in various adverse effects on the patients. Bacterial Mediated Tumour Therapy often utilises attenuated bacteria as therapeutic agents to ensure reduced pathogenicity of the strains. However, this often results in lower invasiveness towards the tumours itself. In this study, we studied the tumour inhibition capabilities of Salmonella Pathogenicity Island (SPI) attenuated Salmonella Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) and Salmonella Agona (S. Agona), specifically with attenuation of sopB, sopD, and pipD genes. Methods: Balb/c mice bearing CT26 tumours were inoculated with S. Typhimurium and S. Agona, both unattenuated and ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD attenuated strains. Tumour volumes were monitored daily. Organs and blood were collected for plasma liver enzyme analysis and histopathology studies on testis, liver, kidneys and brain. Results: The ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD S. Agona treated group showed improved inhibition of tumour growth with 51.11% tumour volume reduction compared to unattenuated S. Agona. The ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD strains have also shown lesser systemic effects as observed in plasma and histopathological studies) compared to its unattenuated counterparts. Conclusion: The present study showed that ΔsopBΔsopDΔpipD S. Agona has a great potential to be utilised as tumour therapeutic agent as it exerts lesser systemic effect while having similar tumour inhibition capabilities as the well-studied S. Typhimurium strain.

Morphometric analysis of 3D soft-tissue for sexual dimorphism in human face / Análisis morfométrico de tejidos blandos 3D de dimorfismo sexual en rostro humano

Sexual dimorphism in Homo-sapiens is a phenomenon of a direct product of evolution by natural selection where evolutionary forces acted separately on the sexes which brought about the differences in appearance between male and female such as in shape and size. Advances in morphometrics have skyrocketed the rate of research on sex differences in human and other species. However, the current challenges facing 3D in the acquisition of facial data such as lack of homology, insufficient landmarks to characterize the facial shape and complex computational process for facial point digitization require further study in the domain of sex dimorphism. This study investigates sexual dimorphism in the human face with the application of Automatic Homologous Multi-points Warping (AHMW) for 3D facial landmark by building a template mesh as a reference object which is thereby applied to each of the target mesh on Stirling/ESRC dataset containing 101 subjects (male = 47, female = 54). The semi-landmarks are subjected to sliding along tangents to the curves and surfaces until the bending energy between a template and a target form is minimal. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used for feature selection and the features are classified using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) with an accuracy of 99.01 % which demonstrates that the method is robust.

El dimorfismo sexual en el Homo-sapiens es un fenómeno directo de la evolución por selección natural, donde las fuerzas evolutivas actuaron por separado en los sexos, lo que provocó las diferencias en la apariencia entre hombres y mujeres, tal como la forma y tamaño. Los avances en el área de la morfometría, han generado un aumento significativo de las investigaciones en las diferencias de sexo en humanos y otras especies. Sin embargo, los desafíos actuales que enfrenta el 3D en el análisis de datos faciales, como la falta de homología, puntos de referencia insuficientes para caracterizar la forma facial y la complejidad del proceso computacional para la digitalización de puntos faciales, requiere un estudio adicional en el área del dimorfismo sexual. Este estudio investiga el dimorfismo sexual en el rostro humano con la aplicación de la deformación automática de múltiples puntos homólogos para el hito facial 3D, mediante la elaboración de una malla de plantilla como objeto de referencia, y se aplica en cada una de las mallas objetivas en el conjunto de datos Stirling / ESRC que contiene 101 sujetos (hombre = 47, mujer = 54). Los semi-puntos de referencia se deslizan a lo largo de las tangentes a las curvas y superficies hasta que la energía de flexión entre una plantilla y una forma objetivo es mínima. El análisis de componentes principales (PCA) se utiliza para la selección de características y las características se clasifican mediante el análisis discriminante lineal (ADL) con una precisión del 99,01 %, lo que demuestra la validez del método.

The roles of miRNAs in human breast cancer and canine mammary tumor

MicroRNAs have become a hot topic in cancer research nowadays due to their important role not only on cancer development, progression, invasion but also on repression of cancer related genes. With advanced technologies, these microRNAs can easily be detected from biopsy samples and blood for early diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Due to increasing demand of research in exploring expression profile of microRNAs with respect to different subtypes of breast cancer, this review aimed to provide an update on microRNA database available resources, canine breast cancer models, the role of microRNA as oncomir or oncosupressor, detection of microRNAs and potential of miRNAs for breast cancer treatment (AU)

pncA Mutations in the Specimens from Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis / 결핵및호흡기질환

BACKGROUND: Pyrazinamide (PZA) is an effective antitubercular drug that becomes toxic to Mycobacterium tuberculosis when converted to pyrazinoic acid by pyrazinamidase (PZase), encoded by mycobacterial pncA. A strong association was noted between the loss of PZase activity and PZA resistance. The causative organisms in extrapulmonary tuberculosis are rarely cultured and isolated. To detect pncA mutations in specimens from extrapulmonary tuberculosis as confirmative diagnosis of mycobacterial infection and alternative susceptibility test to PZA. METHODS: Specimens were collected from clinically proven extrapulmonary tuberculosis. pncA was sequenced and compared with wild-type pncA. RESULTS: pncA from 30 specimens from 23 donors were successfully amplified (56.6% in specimens, 59% in donors). Six mutations in pncA were detected (20.0% in amplified specimens, 26.1% in specimen donors) at nucleotide positions of 169, 248 and 419. The mutation at position 169 results in substitution of aspartic acid for histidine, a possible allelic variation of M. bovis that have intrinsic PZA resistance. The mutation at position 248 changes proline into arginine and that at position 419, arginine into histidine. CONCLUSION: DNA-based diagnosis using pncA may be simultaneously useful for the early diagnosis of mycobacterial infection and the rapid susceptibility to PZA in extrapulmonary tuberculosis. A potential implication of pncA allelic variation at 169 might be suggested as a rapid diagnostic test for M. bovis infection or Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) reactivation.

Characterization and antimicrobial activities of two Streptomyces isolates from soil in the periphery of Universiti Putra Malaysia

This study was to assess the identification and antimicrobial activities of two actinomycete isolates. The two isolates designated as B8 and C2, were isolated from a patch of soil in the peripheral area of Universiti Putra Malaysia by streaking on starch casein agar after standard serial dilution procedures. Their antimicrobial activities were first evaluated against eight clinical laboratory strains namely Bacillus sp., Enterococcus sp., Escherichia coli, Klebsiella sp., Pseudomonas sp., Salmonella sp., Staphylococcus aureus, and Staphylococcus epidermidis by perpendicular streak method on Mueller Hinton and Tryptic Soy agar. In both media, a broad-spectrum antibacterial activity was observed for both isolates, with B8 against all the test bacteria and C2 against five of them (Bacillus sp., E. coli, Pseudomonas sp., S. aureus and S. epidermidis). Re-assessment against E. coli ATCC 25922 and S. aureus ATCC 25923 strains by similar method showed antibacterial activities by isolate B8 against both ATTC strains while C2 only against S. aureus ATCC 25923. Streptomyces griseus ATCC 10137 was included in the later experiment and showed antibacterial activity against both ATCC strains. Subsequently, the two isolates were identified by PCR/sequencing techniques and phylogenetic analysis to be Streptomyces species (>93% homology based on 16S rRNA and rpoB genes). Characterization on cultural characteristic and viable count at different temperatures (37ºC and 28ºC), on different microbiological media (AIA, ISP-2, MHA, NA, PDA and TSA), were performed. More morphological features were observed on ISP-2 for both isolates. A higher growth yield was also observed at 28ºC in all media but in comparing that between the two isolates, isolate B8 outnumbered C2 at all experimental conditions. The observed variation in cultural traits and growth yield indicate unique properties between the two antibiotic-producing isolates

Antibiotic resistance, plasmid profile and RAPD-PCR analysis of enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) clinical isolates.

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) is a leading cause of diarrhea among infants in developing countries. A total of 38 EPEC isolates, obtained from diarrhea patients of Hospital Miri, Sarawak, were investigated through plasmid profile, antibiotic resistance and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. From the 8 types of antibiotics used, all isolates were 100% resistant to furoxime, cephalothin and sulphamethoxazole and showed high multiple antibiotic resistant (MAR) indexes, ranging from 0.5 to 1.0. In plasmid profiling, 22 isolates (58%) showed the presence of one or more plasmids in the range 1.0 to 30.9 mDa. The dendrogram obtained from the results of the RAPD-PCR discriminated the isolates into 30 single isolates and 3 clusters at the level of 40% similarity. The EPEC isolates were highly diverse, as shown by their differing plasmid profiles, antibiotic resistance patterns and RAPD profiles.