The Genotoxicity of DNA Intercalating Drug 8-Methoxy pyrimido [4′,5′:4,5]thieno(2,3-b)quinoline-4(3H)-one

8-methoxypyrimido[4',5':4,5]thieno(2,3-b)quinoline-4(3H)-one (MPTQ) is known to have antitumor and cytotoxic activities on various types of tumors. This compound showed a strong clastogenic effect on bone marrow cells of Swiss albino mice treated in vivo (17.5-35 mg/kg body weight). MPTQ induced micronuclei formation (MN) at doses of 17.5, 23.3, and 35 mg/kg. Dose and time-yield effect of MPTQ was studied in the case of chromosome aberration assay. MPTQ induced a statistically significant increase in the frequency of chromosome aberrations and micronuclei induction. The drug induced significant abnormal sperms even in the sperm shape abnormality assay. Based on the data reported in the literature, we have tried to establish the relationship between the clastogenic effect observed and process of MPTQ intercalation into DNA and the formation of protein-associated DNA-strand breaks probably promoted by topoisomerase enzymes.

8-Methly-4-(3-diethylaminopropylamino) pyrimido [4′,5′;4,5] thieno (2,3–b) quinoline (MDPTQ), a quinoline derivate that causes ROS-mediated apoptosis in leukemia cell lines

The present study reports the biological activity of 8-methyl-4-(3-diethylamino-propylamino) pyrimido [4';5';4,5] thieno (2,3-b) quinoline (MDPTQ), a quinoline derivative structurally related to ellipticine and suggests a possible mechanism through which the compound induces apoptosis in carcinoma cell lines. Out of the 8 cell lines used in the study as representatives of different types of cancer, MDPTQ was found to be effective only against leukemia cell lines (HL-60 and K-562) whereas it had no effect on normal human bone marrow cells (BMC) which were used as controls. Fall mitochondrial membrane potential and increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) were mainly responsible for inducing apoptosis in the two cell lines. Cell death was demonstrated by increase in caspase 3 activity as well as phosphatidyl serine exposure. Pre-incubation with N-acetylcysteine (NAC) reduced the increased ROS and caspase 3 activity as well as phosphatidyl serine exposure. MDPTQ also caused cell cycle arrest in these cell lines. The above study for the first time reports the mode of action of a quinoline derivative, which could be a possible future candidate for leukemia therapy. However, there are lot of questions that need to be answered in terms of signalling pathways and its effects on animal models.

Hereditary sacrococcygeal teratoma--not the same as its sporadic counterpart!

Sacrococcygeal teratoma (SCT) can be sporadic or familial and there appear to be different characteristics to these entities. It can be an isolated anomaly or occur as part of the Currarino triad, when it is associated with anorectal malformations and sacral anomalies. We present a case of familial sacrococcygeal teratoma and discuss its relationship to previously published reports, drawing conclusions regarding embryogenesis, diagnosis, screening and management.

Neuro-fuzzy decision trees

Fuzzy decision trees are powerful, top-down, hierarchical search methodology to extract human interpretable classification rules. However, they are often criticized to result in poor learning accuracy. In this paper, we propose Neuro-Fuzzy Decision Trees (N-FDTs); a fuzzy decision tree structure with neural like parameter adaptation strategy. In the forward cycle, we construct fuzzy decision trees using any of the standard induction algorithms like fuzzy ID3. In the feedback cycle, parameters of fuzzy decision trees have been adapted using stochastic gradient descent algorithm by traversing back from leaf to root nodes. With this strategy, during the parameter adaptation stage, we keep the hierarchical structure of fuzzy decision trees intact. The proposed approach of applying backpropagation algorithm directly on the structure of fuzzy decision trees improves its learning accuracy without compromising the comprehensibility (interpretability). The proposed methodology has been validated using computational experiments on real-world datasets.

Comparative evaluation of TRI-DOT Rapid HIV test with fourth-generation ELISA for the detection of human immunodeficiency virus

This study evaluated the TRI-DOT Rapid HIV test for the early detection of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in comparison with a fourth-generation ELISA (Vironostika HIV Uniform II). Of 23,609 sera, seven (0.03%) gave discordant results. Six of these were reactive only by the fourth-generation assay and were p24 antigen-positive by VIDAS DUO, Western blot and qualitative RT-PCR tests. The remaining discordant serum was considered to be false-positive by the TRI-DOT assay, as it was negative by repeat ELISA and Western blot tests. The sensitivity and specificity of the TRI-DOT test were 99.48% and 99.99%, respectively, compared with the fourth-generation ELISA.