The Effects of Sickle Cell Disease on the Quality of Life: A Focus on the Untold Experiences of Parents in Tanzania.

Tanzania is among the top five countries with a high burden of sickle cell disease (SCD) in the world. Even though the effects of SCD on quality of life have been documented in other countries including Nigeria and the United States of America, few are known from Tanzania. Therefore, this study focused on evaluating the effects of SCD on the quality of life among children living with SCD and their parents. The study employed a qualitative approach to interview purposively selected parents of children who have lived with SCD and have used hydroxyurea (HU) for more than 3 years. The in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 parents of children with SCD at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania. A semi-structured interview guide was used. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed. Three themes were generated including psycho-social effects: family conflicts and divorce, limited access to education, stress and fear; financial effects: Employment limitation, reduced efficiency and productivity, loss of job and lack of self-keeping expenses; and physical effects: physical disability and dependence, and burden of the frequent crisis. Children living with SCD and their parents suffer psycho-social, financial, and physical impacts of the disease. Appropriate interventions should be introduced to minimize the observed effects as ways of improving the quality of life of the individuals living with SCD and their caregivers.

The wound healing potential of collagen peptides derived from the jellyfish Rhopilema esculentum.

PURPOSE: Wound represents a major health challenge as they consume a large amount of healthcare resources to improve patient's quality of life. Many scientific studies have been conducted in search of ideal biomaterials with wound-healing activity for clinical use and collagen has been proven to be a suitable candidate biomaterial. This study intended to investigate the wound healing activity of collagen peptides derived from jellyfish following oral administration. METHODS: In this study, collagen was extracted from the jellyfish--Rhopilema esculentum using 1% pepsin. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and fourier transform infrared (FTIR) were used to identify and determine the molecular weight of the jellyfish collagen. Collagenase II, papain and alkaline proteinase were used to breakdown jellyfish collagen into collagen peptides. Wound scratch assay (in vitro) was done to determine migration potential of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) covering the artificial wound created on the cell monolayer following treatment with collagen peptides. In vivo studies were conducted to determine the effects of collagen peptides on wound healing by examining wound contraction, re-epithelialization, tissue regeneration and collagen deposition on the wounded skin of mice. Confidence level (p < 0.05) was considered significant using GraphPad Prism software. RESULTS: The yield of collagen was 4.31%. The SDS-PAGE and FTIR showed that extracted collagen from jellyfish was type I. Enzymatic hydrolysis of this collagen using collagenase II produced collagen peptides (CP1) and hydrolysis with alkaline proteinase/papain resulted into collagen peptides (CP2). Tricine SDS-PAGE revealed that collagen peptides consisted of protein fragments with molecular weight <25 kDa. Wound scratch assay showed that there were significant effects on the scratch closure on cells treated with collagen peptides at a concentration of 6.25 µg/mL for 48 h as compared to the vehicle treated cells. Overall treatment with collagen peptide on mice with full thickness excised wounds had a positive result in wound contraction as compared with the control. Histological assessment of peptides treated mice models showed remarkable sign of re-epithelialization, tissue regeneration and increased collagen deposition. Immunohistochemistry of the skin sections showed a significant increase in ß-fibroblast growth factor (ß-FGF) and the transforming growth factor-ß1 (TGF-ß1) expression on collagen peptides treated group. CONCLUSION: Collagen peptides derived from the jellyfish-Rhopilema esculentum can accelerate the wound healing process thus could be a therapeutic potential product that may be beneficial in wound clinics in the future.

Collagen from Marine Biological Sources and Medical Applications.

Collagen is the most studied protein with a wide range of applications including pharmaceutical, biomedical, cosmetics, leather, and film industries due to its special characteristics that are high biocompatibility, good bioactivity, and weak antigenicity. Although collagen sources are abundant, the outbreak of varied diseases among land animals posed threat to its utilization in our daily life. Thus, a probe for an alternative source began, which in turn revealed the immense untapped marine sources, such as fish, jellyfish, and some marine Mammals. The present article deals with a brief description of collagen, its characteristics, marine sources, extraction, collagen peptides and their biological activities, potential use and application in various field.