Morus alba Prevented the Cyclophosphamide Induced Somatic and Germinal Cell Damage in Male Rats by Ameliorating the Antioxidant Enzyme Levels

Cytogenetic analysis is essential to determine the effect of mutagens and antimutagens on genetic material. This study was done to evaluate the protective effect of root bark extract of Morus alba (M. alba) against cyclophosphamide induced somatic and germinal cell damage in male rats. The ethanolic extract of M. alba (0.25, 0.5 and 1 g/kg, 2 weeks) was evaluated against cyclophosphamide (75 mg/kg, single dose) induced nuclear damage. The sampling was done after 48 h of the clastogen treatment. The somatic and germinal nuclear damage was studied by bone marrow micronucleus and sperm analysis, respectively. Serum superoxide and catalase levels were estimated to determine the antioxidant status in each group. The results were analyzed statistically to find the significant variation. The administration of M. alba for 2 weeks suppressed dose-dependently the changes induced by cyclophosphamide. M. alba (0.5 g/kg) decreased the frequency of micronucleated erythrocyte, sperm shape abnormality and enhanced the sperm count, sperm motility and polychromatic-normochromatic erythrocytes ratio significantly (p < 0.05) in comparison with the cyclophosphamide treated group. The highest tested dose of M. alba (1 g/kg) produced more prominent suppression (p < 0.01) in the cyclophosphamide-induced somatic and germinal cell defects. The results also showed significant (p < 0.05) improvement in the serum antioxidant enzymes levels with M. alba when compared with the challenge group. The lower dose of M. alba extract (0.25 g/kg) prevented the CP-induced changes but was found to be statistically insignificant. Therefore, antimutagenic potential of the high dose of the extract of M. alba is possibly due to its antioxidant nature. The ability of the M. alba extract to prevent the nuclear damage could play an important role in overcoming several mutational defects that are associated with anticancer chemotherapy.     

Medicinal Plants,Phytochemicals, and Herbs to Combat Viral Pathogens Including SARS-CoV-2

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), is the most important health issue, internationally. With no specific and effective antiviral therapy for COVID-19, new or repurposed antiviral are urgently needed. Phytochemicals pose a ray of hope for human health during this pandemic, and a great deal of research is concentrated on it. Phytochemicals have been used as antiviral agents against several viruses since they could inhibit several viruses via different mechanisms of direct inhibition either at the viral entry point or the replication stages and via immunomodulation potentials. Recent evidence also suggests that some plants and its components have shown promising antiviral properties against SARS-CoV-2. This review summarizes certain phytochemical agents along with their mode of actions and potential antiviral activities against important viral pathogens. A special focus has been given on medicinal plants and their extracts as well as herbs which have shown promising results to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection and can be useful in treating patients with COVID-19 as alternatives for treatment under phytotherapy approaches during this devastating pandemic situation.     

Assessment of Aqueous Extraction Methods on Extractable Organic Matter and Hydrophobic/Hydrophilic Fractions of Virgin Forest Soils

The assessment of water-extractable organic matter using an autoclave can provide useful information on physical, chemical, and biological changes within the soil. The present study used virgin forest soils from Chini Forest Reserve, Langkawi Island, and Kenyir Forest Reserve (Malaysia), extracted using different extraction methods. The dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total dissolved nitrogen (TDN), total dissolved phosphorus (TDP), and ammonium-nitrate content were higher in the autoclave treatments, up to 3.0, 1.3, 1.2, and 1.4 times more than by natural extraction (extracted for 24 h at room temperature). Overall, the highest extractable DOC, TDN, TDP, ammonium and nitrate could be seen under autoclaved conditions 121 °C 2×, up to 146.74 mg C/L, 8.97 mg N/L, 0.23 mg P/L, 5.43 mg N mg/L and 3.47 N mg/L, respectively. The soil extracts became slightly acidic with a higher temperature and longer duration. Similar trends were observed in the humic and nonhumic substances, where different types of soil extract treatments influenced the concentrations of the fractions. Different soil extraction methods can provide further details, thus widening the application of soil extracts, especially in microbes.     

ChCl: Gly (DESs) Promote Environmentally Benign Synthesis of Xanthene Derivatives and Their Antitubercular Activity

A ChCl: Gly (DESs) promoted environmentally benign method was developed for the first time using the reaction of aryl aldehydes and dimedone to give excellent yields of xanthene analogues. The major application of this present protocol is the use of green solvent, a wide range of substrate, short reaction times, ease of recovery, the recyclability of the catalyst, high reaction yield, and ChCl: Gly as an alternative catalyst and solvent. In addition to this, all the synthesized compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antimycobacterial activity against M. tuberculosis H37Ra (MTB) and M. bovis BCG strains. The compounds 3d, 3e, 3f, and 3j showed significant antitubercular activity against MTB and M. bovis strains with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 2.5−15.10 µg/mL and 0.26–14.92 µg/mL, respectively. The compounds 3e, 3f, and 3j were found to be nontoxic against MCF-7, A549, HCT 116, and THP-1 cell lines. All the prepared compounds were confirmed by ¹H NMR and ¹³C NMR analysis.     

Rheological properties of cellulose nanocrystal-embedded polymer composites: a review

Nanotechnology provides useful insights into the behavioural properties of materials from the nanoscale point of view, enabling researchers to develop new materials that were previously inconceivable. Cellulose is an ideal candidate for nanomaterial for nanotechnology because of its nanofibrillar structure, abundance, renewability, biodegradability and eco-friendly nature. Nanocrystalline cellulose materials have become the focus many studies related to these materials and their applications. This review summarises the current knowledge on the field of nanomaterials, focussing mainly on the rheological behaviour of polymer nanocomposites embedded with nanocrystalline cellulose. This review will enable better understanding of the use of nanocrystalline cellulose for the development and applications of cellulose nanocrystal-based nanocomposites.     

Backbending Phenomena in Even–Even $${}^{\boldsymbol{162{-}172}}$$ Hf Isotopes

Physics of Atomic Nuclei - This study probes the backbending phenomena in even–even $${}^{162{-}172}$$ Hf isotopes. Experimental ground-state rotational energies up to $$J^{\pi}=36^{+}$$...     

On the Erdös–Lax inequality concerning polynomials

Let $P(z)$ be a polynomial of degree n and for any complex number α, let $D_{\alpha }P(z):=nP(z)+(\alpha ?z)P^{\prime }(z)$ denote the polar derivative of $P(z)$ with respect to α. In this paper, we present an integral inequality for the polar derivative of a polynomial. Our theorem includes as special cases several interesting generalisations and refinements of Erdöx–Lax theorem.     

Solution of the Ulam stability problem for Euler–Lagrange–Jensen k‐quintic mappings

In this paper, we are introducing pertinent Euler–Lagrange–Jensen type k‐quintic functional equations and investigate the ‘Ulam stability’ of these new k‐quintic functional mappings f:X→Y, where X is a real normed linear space and Y a real complete normed linear space. We also solve the Ulam stability problem for Euler–Lagrange–Jensen alternative k‐quintic mappings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using <Emphasis Type="Italic">Artocarpus elasticus</Emphasis> stem bark extract

Background

Green approach in synthesizing metal nanoparticles has gain new interest from the researchers as metal nanoparticles were widely applied in medical equipment and household products. The use of plants in the synthesis of nanoparticles emerges as a cost effective and eco-friendly approach. A green synthetic route for the production of stable silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) by using aqueous silver nitrate as metal precursor and Artocarpus elasticus stem bark extract act both as reductant and stabilizer is being reported for the first time.

Results

The resultant Ag-NPs were characterized by UV–vis spectroscopy, powder X-Ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier-transform infra-red (FT-IR). The morphological study by TEM and SEM shows resultant Ag-NPs in spherical form with an average size of 5.81 ± 3.80, 6.95 ± 5.50, 12.39 ± 9.51, and 19.74 ± 9.70 nm at 3, 6, 24, and 48 h. Powder X-ray diffraction showed that the particles are crystalline in nature, with a face-centered cubic structure. The FT-IR spectrum shows prominent peaks appeared corresponds to different functional groups involved in synthesizing Ag-NPs.

Conclusions

Ag-NPs were synthesized using a simple and biosynthetic method by using methanolic extract of A. elasticus under room temperature, at different reaction time. The diameters of the biosynthesis Ag-NPs depended on the time of reaction. Thus, with the increase of reaction time in the room temperature the size of Ag-NPs increases. From the results obtained in this effort, one can affirm that A. elasticus can play an important role in the bioreduction and stabilization of silver ions to Ag-NPs.

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Graphical abstract: Figure illustrates stabilization of silver nanoparticles after formation by A. elasticus stem bark extract.

     

Nonuniform Multiresolution Analysis on Local Fields of Positive Characteristic

A generalization of Mallat’s classic theory of multiresolution analysis (MRA) on local fields of positive characteristic was considered by Jiang et al. (J Math Anal Appl 294:523–532, 2004). In this paper, we present a notion of nonuniform MRA on local field \(K\) of positive characteristic. The associated subspace \(V_0\) of \(L^2(K)\) has an orthonormal basis, a collection of translates of the scaling function \(\varphi \) of the form \(\{ \varphi (x-\lambda ) \}_{ \lambda \in \Lambda }\) where \(\Lambda = \{ 0,r/N \}+ \mathcal{Z}, \,N \ge 1\) is an integer and \(r\) is an odd integer such that \(r\) and \(N\) are relatively prime and \(\mathcal{Z}=\{u(n): n\in \mathbb {N}_{0}\}\). We obtain the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of associated wavelets and present an algorithm for the construction of nonuniform MRA on local fields starting from a low-pass filter \(m_{0}\) with appropriate conditions.