Evaluation of Patient Comfort and Impact of Different Anesthesia Techniques on the Temporomandibular Joint Arthrocentesis Applications by Comparing Gow-Gates Mandibular Block Anesthesia with Auriculotemporal Nerve Block.

Aim: Temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) are clinical situations that are characterized by pain, sound, and irregular movements of the temporomandibular joints. The most common method in the treatment of TMDs is arthrocentesis. This study aims to compare the effect of conventional extraoral auriculotemporal nerve block (ANB) and Gow-Gates (GG) mandibular anesthesia techniques on patient comfort in an arthrocentesis procedure. Materials and Methods: We performed this study on 40 patients who underwent TMJ arthrocentesis with ANB (n = 20) or GG (n = 20) mandibular anesthesia techniques at the Marmara University Faculty of Dentistry between 2016 and 2019. The predictor variable was the type of an anesthesia technique, and the outcome variables included were pain, maximum mouth opening (MMO), and protrusive movement (PM). They were compared at the preoperative period and 3rd and 6th month periods. Statistical analysis included means with standard deviations, a one-way ANOVA for continuous data, and the results were evaluated at the significance level of p < 0.05. Results: No statistically significant difference was observed between the VAS values, MMO, and PM averages of preoperative, 3rd and 6th months of ANB and GG (p=0.142, p=0.209, and p=0.148). Conclusion: Both anesthesia techniques have provided effective results in terms of pain and functional jaw movements in the postoperative period in arthrocentesis treatment.

Time delay during intra-base proton tunneling in the guanine base of the single stranded DNA.

Spontaneous point mutations are one of the main actors in evolution, and the tautomerization of organic bases in the DNA is hypothesized to be the underlying mechanism of this crucial process. Tautomerization can be induced by proton tunneling, and if it occurs in single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) during the replication process, tautomerized bases might give rise to a mismatch, which will eventually defect the genetic code. In the present work, we report on the tautomerization time in the guanine base of the ssDNA. The model we use includes an intra-base tunneling mechanism such that time tunneling (delay time) is estimated to be around a few pico-seconds. The time delay is found to be biologically relevant which indicates that it is long enough to induce point mutations. Our results close a gap in the literature and sheds light on the importance of point mutations originating from quantum effects in the ssDNA.

Time delay during the proton tunneling in the base pairs of the DNA double helix.

DNA undergoes spontaneous point mutations, which are believed to be central to the evolution of the organisms and which are thought to occur by tautomerization of the canonical Guanine-Cytosine (G-C) base pair into non-canonical G∗-C∗ base pair via the double proton tunneling. In the present work, we close a gap in the literature by computing the time delay during the proton tunneling. Our results, based on the well-known dwell time and our model of the entropic time, range from femtoseconds to picoseconds, and completely agree with the time scales of the structural changes in molecules (mutation processes not the complete replication processes). The tunneling delay times are thus nonnegligible and imply that the DNA mutations can be resolved using the attosecond laser technology, if not the femtosecond technology. Our results can be relevant also for other tunneling-enabled biological processes.

Phylostat: a web-based tool to analyze paralogous clade divergence in phylogenetic trees.

Phylogenetic trees are useful tools to infer evolutionary relationships between genetic entities. Phylogenetics enables not only evolution-based gene clustering but also the assignment of gene duplication and deletion events to the nodes when coupled with statistical approaches such as bootstrapping. However, extensive gene duplication and deletion events bring along a challenge in interpreting phylogenetic trees and require manual inference. In particular, there has been no robust method of determining whether one of the paralog clades systematically shows higher divergence following the gene duplication event as a sign of functional divergence. Here, we provide Phylostat, a graphical user interface that enables clade divergence analysis, visually and statistically. Phylostat is a web-based tool built on phylo.io to allow comparative clade divergence analysis, which is available at https://phylostat.adebalilab.org under an MIT open-source licence.

Spectrophotometric study on binding of 2-thioxanthone acetic acid with ct-DNA.

Thioxanthone and its derivatives are the most remarkable molecules due to their vast variety of application such as radiation curing that is, until using them as a therapeutic drug. Therefore, in this study it was intended to use 2-Thioxanthone acetic acid with and without NaCl in Tris HCl buffer solution (pH:7.0) to represent the interaction with ct-DNA. The UV-vis absorption spectra of TXCH2COOH in the presence of ct-DNA showed hypochromism and the intrinstic binding constant (Kb) was determined as 6 × 103 L mol-1. The fluoresence intensity of TXCH2COOH with ct-DNA clearly increased up to 101% which indicated that the fluorescence intensity was very sensitive to ct-DNA concentration. The binding constant (K) and the values of number of binding sites (n) and were calculated as 1.8 × 103 L mol-1 and 0.69, respectively. When the quenching constants (Ksv) of free TXCH2COOH and TXCH2COOH, which were bonded with ct-DNA were compared, slightly changed values of Ksv were seen. Moreover, displacement assay with Hoechst 33,258 and viscosity measurements in the presence and absence of NaCl salt also confirmed the binding mode which noted the electrostatic interaction following groove binding between TXCH2COOH and ct-DNA. Last but not least, the salt effect was examined on ct-DNA binding with TXCH2COOH. The results of the experiments indicated that the groove binding was strengthened by NaCl whereas in the high NaCl concentration, the binding ability of TXCH2COOH to ct-DNA was inversely affected.

Hazelnut husk as a substrate for the cultivation of shiitake mushroom (Lentinula edodes).

The possibility of using hazelnut husk (HH) as a new basal ingredient for substrate preparation in Lentinula edodes cultivation was investigated. Some chemical properties of the substrates prepared by HH alone and its mixtures with wheat straw (WS), beech wood-chip (BWC) and wheat bran (WB) in different ratios were compared, and their effects on spawn run time, days to first harvest (earliness), yield and biological efficiency (BE) were determined. The N content of the substrate prepared from HH alone was very high (0.82%), and thus the C:N ratio of substrates decreased with an increase in the rate of HH in the mixtures. Yield and BE in the HH alone substrate was considerably low compared with the controls (80BWC:10WS:10M and 60BWC:20WS:20WB), and decreased with an increase in the rate of HH in the mixtures. However, when the HH content in the mixtures was kept below 50%, the yield was relatively high (50HH:50WS and 50HH:50BWC). Even when the HH content increased to 75% in the mixture, the comparable yield and BE to the controls could be obtained by adding 10% of WB as nutrients (75HH:15WS:10WB and 75HH:15BWC:10WB). The results revealed that HH could be used as a new basal ingredient for substrate preparation in L. edodes cultivation.