Effect of Formulation and Route of administration on the distribution of 17-Hydroxyprogesterone Caproate in Rats

Weekly intramuscular (250 mg/week) or subcutaneous (275 mg/week) injections of 17-hydroxyprogesterone caproate (17-OHPC) is the only treatment option for the prevention of preterm birth in women with a prior history of preterm delivery.The objective of the current study was to determine the relative distribution of 17-OHPC in selected tissues in adult female SD rats after IM (oily formulation or solution), IV (solution), PO (solution) or intravaginal (suppository) administration.Plasma, uterus, adipose, and liver samples were collected at various times and analyzed by LC-MS-MS.Highest concentrations of 17-OHPC were observed in the adipose tissue, after IM (oily formulation), and intravaginal administration.Substantial concentrations of 17-OHPC were also observed in the uterus after IM, intravaginal and IV administration.17-OHPC was not detected in the liver and in any of the tissues after PO administration.17-OHPC levels in plasma after intravaginal suppository administration were low despite substantial concentrations being observed in the adipose and the uterus.The distribution of 17-OHPC depends on the formulation, the route of administration and the sampling time.Low systemic concentrations and substantial distribution in the tissues of interest after intravaginal administration warrants future studies to evaluate the potential of the daily intravaginal route of administration of 17-OHPC.

Assessment of glomerular filtration and tubular secretion in baboons with life-supporting pig kidney grafts

With pig kidney xenotransplantation nearing clinical reality, it is imperative to measure pig kidney function in the graft recipients. Our aims were (i) to compare inulin clearance after a short intravenous (IV) bolus with steady-state inulin IV infusion, (ii) to use this method to measure the glomerular filtration rate (GFR), and (iii) to determine the tubular secretory function using cefoxitin in a pig-to-baboon renal transplant model. A short IV infusion of inulin and cefoxitin were followed by a maintenance IV infusion of inulin over 5 h in seven healthy baboons, three healthy pigs, and five baboons after bilateral native nephrectomy and intra-abdominal pig renal transplantation. Blood and urine samples were collected. Serum and urinary inulin and serum cefoxitin concentrations measured by validated assays were used to calculate GFR and renal secretion. GFR calculated were similar by both methods. The body weight normalized total body clearance of inulin was similar in pigs and baboons despite differences in absolute clearances. Pig kidney transplanted into baboons provided similar clearance in baboons when normalized to baboon body weight and sustained filtration and secretory functions. The study documented that pig kidneys support the physiologic needs of baboons and are likely to support human recipients as well.

Boundaries tuned support vector machine (BT-SVM) classifier for cancer prediction from gene selection

In recent days, the identified genes which are detecting cancer-causing diseases are plays a crucial part in the microarray data analysis. Huge volume of data required since the disease changed often. Conventional data mining techniques are lacking in space concern and time complexity. Based on big data the proposed work is executed. Using the ISPCA - Improved Supervised Principal Component Analysis, feature extraction is developed in this study. For gene expression, co-variance matrix is generated and through feature selection cancer classification is performed by IPSCA. Further feature selection process by boundaries tuned support vector machines (BT-SVM) classifier and modified particle swarm optimization with novel wrapper model algorithm are performed. The experimentation is carried out by utilizing different datasets like leukaemia, breast cancer dataset, brain cancer, colon, and lung carcinoma from the UCI repository. The proposed work is executed on six benchmark dataset for DNA microarray data in terms of accuracy, recall, and precision to evaluate the performance of the proposed work. For evaluating the proposed work effectiveness, it is compared with various traditional techniques and resulted in optimum accuracy, recall, precision and training time with and without feature selection effectively.

LNTP-MDBN: Big Data Integrated Learning Framework for Heterogeneous Image Set Classification

BACKGROUND

With the explosive growth of global data, the term Big Data describes the enormous size of dataset through the detailed analysis. The big data analytics revealed the hidden patterns and secret correlations among the values. The major challenges in Big data analysis are due to increase of volume, variety, and velocity. The capturing of images with multi-directional views initiates the image set classification which is an attractive research study in the volumetricbased medical image processing.

METHODS

This paper proposes the Local N-ary Ternary Patterns (LNTP) and Modified Deep Belief Network (MDBN) to alleviate the dimensionality and robustness issues. Initially, the proposed LNTP-MDBN utilizes the filtering technique to identify and remove the dependent and independent noise from the images. Then, the application of smoothening and the normalization techniques on the filtered image improves the intensity of the images.

RESULTS

The LNTP-based feature extraction categorizes the heterogeneous images into different categories and extracts the features from each category. Based on the extracted features, the modified DBN classifies the normal and abnormal categories in the image set finally.

CONCLUSION

The comparative analysis of proposed LNTP-MDBN with the existing pattern extraction and DBN learning models regarding classification accuracy and runtime confirms the effectiveness in mining applications.

Potential Co-Relation Between Chronic Periodontitis And Cancer - An Emerging Concept

Periodontal disease caused chiefly by bacteria is characterized by inflammation, bacteremia, and a strong immune response. It is based on evidence that a continuous long-term exposure to oral bacteremia and bacterial toxins induces inflammatory immune response after immune evasion releases growth factors such as FGF, EGF, TGF-Beta, free radicals such as ROS and NOS, cytokines such as TNFAlfa, IL-1 Beta, IL-6; and matrix metalloproteinase such as MMP-9. Immature myeloid cells such as macrophages, dendritic cells and granulocytes involved in chronic inflammation and tumor progression through immunosuppressive activity against innate and adaptive immunity by factors such as iNOS, Arginase1 and ROS, activate major transcriptional factors such as NF-KB and STAT3 that could contribute to genetic instability, uncontrolled cell proliferation, angiogenesis, resistance to apoptosis, epithelial to mesenchymal transition, immunosuppression, invasion and metastasis. This study is a product of research and analysis on the role of chronic inflammatory mediators of chronic periodontitis in progression to cancer.

Modified Corneosurfametry as a new accelerated high-throughput ex vivo methodology for predicting cleanser effects towards human skin

BACKGROUND

Corneosurfametry (CSM) was originally developed as a tool to predict irritation potential of cleansers. In this method, surface skin stripped using cyanoacrylate is contacted with surfactants/products, rinsed and stained with toluidine blue and basic fuschin dyes. The intensity of staining increases with increases in irritation potential of surfactant. Our objective was to modify the CSM technique to achieve better control of the tape stripping process. Another objective was to correlate the modified CSM (MCSM) with a traditional in-vivo forearm controlled application test (FCAT) for mildness and to explore its utility to assess the state of corneum after a clinical test.

METHODS

Surface skin cells were tape stripped from forearms of volunteers with D-Squame Adhesive Discs. Discs were treated with a 10% solution of the product in a 96-plate well for 10 min, rinsed, dried and treated with basic fuschin-toluidine blue dye solution, rinsed and dried again. Forearm Controlled Application Test (FCAT) was based on a published protocol. Tape strips obtained after product treatment were also analyzed by the MCSM procedure without additional product treatment.

RESULTS

Mildness/barrier damage assessed from in-vivo FCAT showed a similar ranking to the MCSM results. MCSM, TEWL and Erythema analysis of between-treatment differences showed a good correlation indicating that barrier damage seen in in-vivo studies can be predicted from ex-vivo MCSM studies. MCSM analysis of tape strips after the FCAT study showed that the damage decreased with increase in tape strip number. A moisturizing body wash (MBW) with mild surfactants showed the least damage in all layers. In contrast, harsh dish washing liquid showed significantly higher damage down to several layers. Another MBW with petrolatum in a harsher base showed damage almost similar to that of the harsh dish washing liquid in the surface layers. Thus, the MCSM was able to show underlying damage which would have been normally masked by the deposited petrolatum.

CONCLUSION

The MCSM assay was shown to be a valuable tool for accelerated high throughput evaluation of mildness of surfactants and fully formulated products. MCSM can also be used to assess the state of the corneum after a product treatment.

Growth, spectral, thermal, optical, mechanical and etching studies of l-lysine semi-maleate (l-LSM) single crystals

Organic nonlinear optical material, l-lysine semi-maleate (l-LSM) single crystals were grown by slow cooling solution growth technique. The crystal system of grown l-LSM was confirmed by single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction analyzes. Functional groups of the grown crystal have been identified by Fourier Transform Infrared spectral analysis. The proton and carbon NMR spectral studies confirm the presence of hydrogen and carbon in the grown l-LSM. The melting and thermal decomposition temperatures of the crystal were determined using thermogravimetric (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses. Optical transparency, second harmonic generation efficiency, micro hardness, dielectric constant and loss, refractive index and birefringence have also been measured. Further, the growth patterns and dislocations present in the grown crystal are studied.

Synthesis, growth and characterization of L-lysinium(+)...L-lysinium(2+) dichloride perchlorate (LLDP) single crystals by Sankaranarayanan-Ramasamy method

L-lysinium(+)...L-lysinium(2+) dichloride perchlorate was synthesized at ambient temperature and bulk single crystals were grown by conventional and Sankaranarayanan-Ramasamy methods. Crystals grown by these methods were subjected to single crystal X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared, high resolution X-ray diffraction, Vickers microhardness and thermogravimetric/differential scanning calorimetric/differential thermal analyses. Further, the cut-off wavelength and optical transmittance of the grown crystals were determined by UV-vis-NIR spectrum. Linear refractive index (n(x)) of the crystal was measured using minimum deviation method for different wavelengths. Optical quality of the grown crystals was analyzed by conoscopic interference pattern and the birefringence was calculated using interferometric technique. Surface laser damage threshold of the crystal was determined using Nd:YAG laser. The nonlinear refractive index n(2) was measured through the Z-scan technique using low power continuous wave HeNe laser. Frequency and temperature dependent dielectric constant (ε(r)) and dielectric loss (tanδ) were measured.

Rabson-Mendenhall syndrome

Rabson-Mendenhall syndrome is a rare, autosomal recessive disorder affecting insulin receptor. This disorder is characterized by insulin-resistant diabetes mellitus, hyperinsulinemia, deficiency of subcutaneous fat, acanthosis nigrican, growth retardation, coarse and senile appearance, precocious puberty, and dental prematurity, enlarged genitalia, and pineal hyperplasia. Mutations of the insulin receptor gene affecting insulin action appear to be the basic mechanism underlying this syndrome. Herein, we present a case report on Rabson-Mendenhall syndrome in a 9-year-old girl.

Role of tracheostomy in the management of foreign body airway obstruction in children

INTRODUCTION

Foreign body aspiration in the airway of children is a life-threatening clinical situation. Endoscopic retrieval alone is successful in the majority of patients. Occasionally, open surgical intervention in the form of tracheostomy, thoracotomy and bronchotomy and/or pulmonary resection is needed. We analysed the specific indications for tracheostomy during the removal of airway foreign bodies in our study.

METHODS

The records of four patients who needed tracheostomy, out of 342 cases of foreign body airway obstruction managed by the senior author, were analysed. These patients underwent an additional tracheostomy for open removal of the foreign body and/or to secure the airway to facilitate the foreign body removal.

RESULTS

Rigid bronchoscopy was successful in retrieving the foreign bodies in 338 (98.8 percent) cases, while four (1.2 percent) cases required additional tracheostomy, either to protect the airway during the procedure or to assist in removing the foreign body. The indications for tracheostomy were subglottic foreign bodies of long duration, sharp subglottic foreign bodies and foreign bodies that were larger than the glottic chink. There was no mortality or long-term complication because of the tracheostomies.

CONCLUSION

Tracheostomy is occasionally indicated in foreign body extraction, when they are subglottic in location and impacted, or are large foreign bodies that get obstructed at the glottic chink during removal.

An Evolutionary Hybrid Scheduling Algorithm for Computational Grids

Grids promote user collaboration through flexible, coordinated sharing of distributed resources to solve a single large problem. Grid scheduling, similar to resource discovery and monitoring, is inherently more complex in Grid environments. We propose two approaches for solving Grid scheduling problems with the simultaneous objectives of maximizing the number of workflow executions and minimizing the waiting time variance among tasks of each workflow. One is the multiple objective Niched Pareto Genetic Algorithm (NPGA) that involves evolution during a comprehensive search and work on multiple solutions. After the Genetic search, we strengthen the search using Simulated Annealing as a local search meta-heuristic. For comparison, we evaluate other scheduling, such as, Tabu Search (TS), Simulated annealing (SA), and Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization (Discrete PSO). Results show that our proposed evolutionary Hybrid scheduling involving NPGA with an SA search, works better than other scheduling in considering workflow execution time within a deadline and waiting time variance in tasks with minimal iterations.

Lost in translation: translational interference from a recurrent mutation in exon 1 of MECP2

BACKGROUND

Rett syndrome (RTT) is an X linked neuro-developmental disorder affecting mostly girls. Mutations in the coding region of MECP2 are found in 80% of classic RTT patients. Until recently, the region encoding MECP2 was believed to comprise exons 2, 3, and 4 with the ATG start site located at the end of exon 2 (MeCP2_e2).

METHODS

Recent reports of another mRNA transcript transcribed from exon 1 (MeCP2_e1) prompted us to screen exon 1 among RNA samples from 20 females with classic or atypical RTT.

RESULTS

A previously reported 11 base pair deletion in exon 1 was detected in one subject with a milder phenotype. Although RNA expression for both protein isoforms was detected from the mutant allele, evaluation of MeCP2 protein in uncultured patient lymphocytes by immunocytochemistry revealed that MeCP2 protein production was restricted to only 74-76% of lymphocytes. X chromosome inactivation studies of genomic DNA revealed similar XCI ratios at the HUMARA locus (73:27 with HpaII and 74:26 with McrBC). We have demonstrated that translation but not transcription of the MeCP2_e2 isoform is ablated by the 11 nucleotide deletion, 103 nucleotides upstream of the e2 translation start site.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings reveal that nucleotides within the deleted sequence in the 5'-UTR of the MeCP2_e2 transcript, while not required for transcription, are essential for translation.

Regional-dependent intestinal absorption and meal composition effects on systemic availability of LY303366, a lipopeptide antifungal agent, in dogs

Low oral bioavailability and a negative meal effect on drug plasma levels motivated studies on formulation and meal composition effects on the absorption of LY303366, a poorly water-soluble, semisynthetic, cyclic peptide antifungal drug. Solid drug particle size and meal composition studies were evaluated in beagle dogs. Canine regional absorption studies were also carried out utilizing surgically implanted intestinal access ports, and Caco-2 studies were performed to evaluate drug candidate intestinal permeability. Particle size and Caco-2 data indicate that drug permeability limitations to absorption are more important than dissolution rate limits. Caco-2 cell-associated LY303366 approached 10% of incubation concentration that is in the range of the oral bioavailability of the drug. Canine regional absorption studies showed that the extent of LY303366 absorption following duodenal administration was similar to that following oral administration. Significantly lower drug plasma levels were obtained following administration through a colonic access port, a result consistent with poor membrane permeation. Administration of drug with meals of mixed composition, as well as simple fat and protein meals, resulted in significant reductions in AUC(0-48h) compared with results from fasted dogs. In contrast, carbohydrate meals did not reduce drug plasma levels compared to controls. Intravenous pretreatment with devazepide, a cholecystokinin (CCK) antagonist that blocks canine biliary secretion, did not reverse the negative effect of the fat meal on LY303366. Taken together, the results from the present study suggest that membrane-permeability-limited absorption is the cause of the observed regionally dependent absorption of LY303366 in the dog and that the observed negative meal effects depend on composition but are independent of biliary secretion.

The design of potent, selective, non-covalent, peptide thrombin inhibitors utilizing imidazole as a S1 binding element

Modeling of neutral or mildly basic functional groups in the S1 site of thrombin led to the targeting of imidazole as a S1 binding element and correctly predicted the optimal chain length for connecting this group with the S2 and S3 binding elements. Derivatives of 4-(3-aminopropyl)-imidazole can be selective inhibitors of thrombin demonstrating potent anticoagulant activity.

Application of oral bioavailability surrogates in the design of orally active inhibitors of rhinovirus replication

Previous studies in rats and humans demonstrated poor oral bioavailability of potent in vitro 2-aminobenzimidazole inhibitors of rhinovirus replication due to significant first-pass elimination and possibly also to poor aqueous solubility. Estimations of aqueous solubility, as well as measurements of caco-2 permeability and NADPH dependent compound loss in rat liver microsomal incubations were employed alongside traditional in vivo experiments in rats to guide subsequent chemistry efforts. Retention of activity upon replacement of the metabolically labile vinyl oxime in the lead molecule with a vinyl carboxamide was a major breakthrough; however, oral bioavailability among the latter compounds was variable. Based on the ability to independently measure solubility, permeability, and metabolic stability of new compounds, variable solubility across the series (ranging from approximately 1 to 10 microg/mL) was identified as the cause of the inconsistent performance. Subsequent efforts to improve solubility led to the discovery of highly soluble (>10 mg/mL) and potent dessulfonyl vinyl carboxamide benzimidazoles. Determination of the metabolic stability of these compounds as a surrogate of the extent of their first-pass elimination supported a prediction of excellent oral bioavailability. In comparison to the sulfonyl-containing vinyl carboxamides, caco-2 permeabilities were reduced 5 to 10-fold; however, these were considered to be in the range of well-absorbed compounds based on comparison to a series of reference compounds of known percentage absorption in humans. Subsequent experiments in the rat verified the oral bioavailability of these N-alkyl compounds, with one compound (368177) having an absolute oral bioavailability of 89.4%. The application of solubility and caco-2 permeability as surrogates for oral absorption potential, in conjunction with the use of microsomal incubations as a surrogate for first-pass metabolism, was shown to augment a rational chemistry approach to discover orally bioavailable inhibitors of rhinovirus replication. Future expanded use of these surrogates is planned.

The synthesis of water soluble prodrugs analogs of echinocandin B

A facile synthesis of phosphonate and phosphate ester prodrugs on the phenolic hydroxy of two echinocandin semisynthetic derivatives is reported. The water solubility and stability profiles of the ECB compounds varied with the choice of alkyl group used. In some cases, the ester prodrugs with small aliphatic side chains retained antifungal activity while enhancing water solubility.

Ciliary motility in two patients with yellow nail syndrome and recurrent sinopulmonary infections

The yellow nail syndrome (YNS) is described as a combination of yellow nails, chronic lymphedema, pleural effusions, and recurrent sinopulmonary infections, but all these features need not be present for the diagnosis. The mechanism that renders patients with this syndrome susceptible to respiratory infections is not known. To determine whether abnormal ciliary motility is a predisposing factor, in vitro ciliary beat frequency (CBF) was measured in two patients with YNS and recurrent respiratory infections. In each case, the CBF was within normal limits (12 Hz). These data suggest that abnormal ciliary motility is not a pathophysiologic mechanism of recurrent sinopulmonary infections in YNS.