International Journal of Biochemistry Research & Review

Drugs are designed to treat medical conditions for the general population. Idiosyncratic reactions to drugs are determined by the individual’s respective genetic variations that direct effectiveness and side effects. Adverse drug reactions rank within the top ten leading causes of death in the developed world. The field of pharmacogenomics has advanced in the last fifty years, picking up significant momentum with recent biotechnological developments that allow scientists to investigate the human genome and provide individualized drug therapy that will increase the efficacy of drugs and decrease the incidence of adverse drug reactions. Pharmacogenomics has reached a milestone in making personalized medicine accessible and effective. The medical community shares this responsibility for the emerging focus on pharmacogenomics with regulatory agencies and bioinformatics specialists as they struggle to streamline vast libraries of information and reconcile public and regulatory approval on this critical path to the next level of health care.

The effect of Annona muricata methanol leaf extract (AMELE) on colon antioxidant status and ketone bodies in blood and urine of cycas treated rats was investigated. Seventy male Wistar albino rats were randomly assigned into seven groups of ten experimental animals in a study that lasted for twenty-eight days. After 28 days, using standard methods, serum and urinary ketone bodies were assayed. Malondialdehyde (MDA), antioxidants enzymes in the colon and histopathological analysis were assayed. The results showed ketogenic diet had significant (p<0.05) increase in serum and urinary ketone body levels compared to other groups on normal feed. Annona muricata extract enhanced cellular consumption and uptake of ketone bodies whereas cycas reduced cellular consumption of ketone bodies. Annona muricata given either with ketogenic diet or cycas or with both ketogenic diet and cycas led to higher tissue levels of antioxidant enzymes. Tissue MDA levels were significantly (p<0.05) increased in all cycas treated groups compared to the control group with the highest levels seen in the two groups placed on normal feed and cycas. Lactate dehydrogenase activities were significantly (p<0.05) increases in all the groups placed on ketogenic diet compared to the groups placed on normal feed. Histopathological analysis revealed normal rat colon tissues in all the groups except 43% of the group 2 animals. This therefore indicates that cycas- induced oxidative stress and tissue injury may be mitigated by the combined administration of Annona muricata extract and ketogenic diet.

Introduction: Hyperglycemia induced oxidative stress in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus modify various biomolecules to cause Diabetic Nephropathy (DN). IMA (Ischemia-Modified Albumin) is one such oxidative stress marker already examined in various clinical events but have not yet been evaluated in different stages of DN.

Aim: To estimate and assess the relationship of IMA with glycemic status and lipid parameters in all stages of DN.

Study Design: Cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted at Department of Biochemistry, Kasturba Medical College Hospitals, Mangaluru conducted between 2014 and 2015.

Materials and Methods: There were 60 type 2 diabetic cases and 30 healthy controls. Diabetic cases were further categorized into three equal groups on the basis of UACR (urine albumin-creatinine ratio), DN stage I having UACR less than 30 mg/g, DN stage II having UACR 30 to 300 mg/g, and DN stage III having UACR ≥ 300 mg/g of creatinine. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay serum IMA level was estimated whereas automated analyzers was used for serum creatinine, HbA1c, urine albumin and urine creatinine analysis.

Results: Lowest level of IMA (109 ng/mL) measured in DN stage I, which was significantly different from those in DN stage II (154 ng/mL) and DN stage III (178 ng/mL). The significant positive correlation between IMA and fasting blood glucose, glycated hemoglobin were present in stage II and stage III DN.  In this study significant positive correlation of serum IMA to serum total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol and negative correlation with high density lipoprotein were revealed in all stage of DN.

Conclusion: Current study postulates that early evaluation of serum IMA in diabetic patients with deranged lipid profile will provide an index of nephropathy development. This will help in prognosis and controlling complication in diabetes mellitus.

Availability of clean water is a serious problem, especially in developing countries like Nigeria; Water for consumption purpose needs to be treated to meet the quality guidelines of 5 Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU) according to World Health Organization, Wastewater treatment are mostly using Polyaluminum Chloride, a synthetic coagulant, which possess health risk and require expensive cost. This research was carried out to observe the effect of Moringa oleifera seed as natural coagulant to replace synthetic coagulant. Highly turbid water was collected from Gulbi River in Kaura-namoda, Zamfara State. Nigeria. M. oleifera seed was processed into flour and de-fated with different organic solvent. (AOY = Normal borehole water, BOY = Raw water sample from the river, COY = Water treated with (de-fated M. oleifera flour with Chloroform.), DOY = Water sample with (de-fated M. Oleifera flour with acetone), EOY = Water sample with (de-fated M. Oleifera flour with diethyl ether.), FOY = Water sample with Alum, GOY = Water sample with unde-fated M. oleifera flour) and used as a coagulant in place of aluminium sulphate (Alum). Collected water samples were treated with different Moringa oleifera flour coagulants samples The water treated with different coagulants samples were analyzed based on physic-chemical properties. The pH values ranged from 5.6 to 6.7. The turbidity, conductivity, total solid, temperature and coliform ranged from 4.19 to 76.5 NTU, 94.0 to 188.4 μS/cm, 45.5 to 89.3 mg/l, 30.4 to 33.8ºC and 9 × 40²cfu, respectively. The work has been considered as revolutionary for small household applications in rural areas, where water purification is absent and M. oleifera trees are abundantly available.

Phytochemical analysis, antimicrobial and antioxidant properties of the leaf extract and fractions of Sabicea brevipes were studied. The leaves were defatted and the marc extracted with methanol. The extract was further purified by solvent-solvent partitioning using n-hexane, ethyl acetate and n-butanol to obtain the three solvent fractions. They were screened for phenolics, flavonoids, tannins, saponins, terpenoids, glycosides, and steroids. Total phenolics, flavonoids and tannins were determined quantitatively. The antimicrobial test was screened in vitro by agar diffusion method. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test for significant difference at p ≤ 0.05 in all study groups. The methanol extract exhibited the most significant amount of phenolics (110.78 ± 1.06 mg GAE/g) while ethyl acetate fraction had the least total phenolics content (50.55 ± 2.91 mg GAE/g). The same trend was observed for the total flavonoids content whereas the methanol extract measured (418.40 ± 14.03 mg QE/g) while ethyl acetate fraction had 192.40 ± 3.06 mg QE/g. Total tannins contents were: methanol extract (102.22 ± 7.58 mg GAE/g) and ethyl acetate (27.33 ± 0.77 mg GAE/g). The antioxidant results showed that the methanol extract had the highest DPPH free radical scavenging ability (93.69%) with half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of 0.601± 0.02 and also highest ferric ion reducing power (50.381 ± 1.56 µmol Fe²⁺/g). Also, the methanol extract showed high total antioxidant capacity (96.79 ± 0.31 mg AAE) and IC₅₀ of 0.798± 0.01. The antimicrobial results revealed that the methanol extract showed better activity against Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans than the solvent fractions at concentrations of 200, 100, 50, 25, 12.5, mg/mL having various inhibition zone diameters (IZDs). The methanol extract and fractions of S. brevipes compared favourably in terms of zone of inhibition and minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) with the standard drug disc (Gentamycin and Ketoconazole) against the tested microorganisms. The MIC of the extract and solvent fractions ranged from 6.31 mg/mL to 50.12 mg/mL. The continual use of the extract of Sabicea brevipes in preventing oxidative stress and in the treatment of common infection is justified by these results.