Molecular Genomic Study of Inhibin Molecule Production through Granulosa Cell Gene Expression in Inhibin-Deficient Mice

Inhibin is a molecule that belongs to peptide hormones and is excreted through pituitary gonadotropins stimulation action on the granulosa cells of the ovaries. However, the differential regulation of inhibin and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) on granulosa cell tumor growth in mice inhibin-deficient females is not yet well understood. The objective of this study was to evaluate the role of inhibin and FSH on the granulosa cells of ovarian follicles at the premature antral stage. This study stimulated immature wild-type (WT) and Inhibin-α knockout (Inha−/−) female mice with human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and examined hCG-induced gene expression changes in granulosa cells. Also, screening of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was performed in the two groups under study. In addition, related modules to external traits and key gene drivers were determined through Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) algorithm. The results identified a number of 1074 and 931 DEGs and 343 overlapping DEGs (ODEGs) were shared in the two groups. Some 341 ODEGs had high relevance and consistent expression direction, with a significant correlation coefficient (r² = 0.9145). Additionally, the gene co-expression network of selected 153 genes showed 122 nodes enriched to 21 GO biological processes (BP) and reproduction and 3 genes related to genomic pathways. By using principal component analysis (PCA), the 14 genes in the regulatory network were fixed and the cumulative proportion of fitted top three principal components was 94.64%. In conclusion, this study revealed the novelty of using ODEGs for investigating the inhibin and FSH hormone pathways that might open the way toward gene therapy for granulosa cell tumors. Also, these genes could be used as biomarkers for tracking the changes in inhibin and FSH hormone from the changes in the nutrition pattern.     

Virtual Screening of Artemisia annua Phytochemicals as Potential Inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Enzyme

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a human coronaviruses that emerged in China at Wuhan city, Hubei province during December 2019. Subsequently, SARS-CoV-2 has spread worldwide and caused millions of deaths around the globe. Several compounds and vaccines have been proposed to tackle this crisis. Novel recommended in silico approaches have been commonly used to screen for specific SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors of different types. Herein, the phytochemicals of Pakistani medicinal plants (especially Artemisia annua) were virtually screened to identify potential inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease enzyme. The X-ray crystal structure of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 with an N3 inhibitor was obtained from the protein data bank while A. annua phytochemicals were retrieved from different drug databases. The docking technique was carried out to assess the binding efficacy of the retrieved phytochemicals; the docking results revealed that several phytochemicals have potential to inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 main protease enzyme. Among the total docked compounds, the top-10 docked complexes were considered for further study and evaluated for their physiochemical and pharmacokinetic properties. The top-3 docked complexes with the best binding energies were as follows: the top-1 docked complex with a −7 kcal/mol binding energy score, the top-2 docked complex with a −6.9 kcal/mol binding energy score, and the top-3 docked complex with a −6.8 kcal/mol binding energy score. These complexes were subjected to a molecular dynamic simulation analysis for further validation to check the dynamic behavior of the selected top-complexes. During the whole simulation time, no major changes were observed in the docked complexes, which indicated complex stability. Additionally, the free binding energies for the selected docked complexes were also estimated via the MM-GB/PBSA approach, and the results revealed that the total delta energies of MMGBSA were −24.23 kcal/mol, −26.38 kcal/mol, and −25 kcal/mol for top-1, top-2, and top-3, respectively. MMPBSA calculated the delta total energy as −17.23 kcal/mol (top-1 complex), −24.75 kcal/mol (top-2 complex), and −24.86 kcal/mol (top-3 complex). This study explored in silico screened phytochemicals against the main protease of the SARS-CoV-2 virus; however, the findings require an experimentally based study to further validate the obtained results.     

A deep learning method for estimating the boiling heat transfer coefficient of porous surfaces

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Owing to the high nucleation site density and relatively robust behavior, sintered coated surfaces are of great interest for thermal management via...     

CuI/Fe3O4 NPs@Biimidazole IL‐KCC‐1 as a leach proof nanocatalyst for the synthesis of imidazo[1,2‐a]pyridines in aqueous medium

In the present work, an innovative leach proof nanocatalyst based on dendritic fibrous nanosilica (DFNS) modified with ionic liquid loaded Fe₃O₄ NPs and CuI salts was designed and applied for the rapid synthesis of imidazo[1,2‐a]pyridines from the reaction of phenyl acetylene, 2‐aminopyridine, and aldehydes in aqueous medium. The structure of the synthesized nanocatalyst was studied by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FT‐IR), flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS), energy‐dispersive X‐ray (EDX), and X‐ray diffraction (XRD), vapor–liquid–solid (VLS), and adsorption/desorption analysis (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller [BET] equation) instrumental techniques. CuI/Fe₃O₄NPs@IL‐KCC‐1 with high surface area (225 m² g^?1) and porous structure not only exhibited excellent catalytic activity in aqueous media but also, with its good stability, simply recovered by an external magnet and recycled for eight cycles without significant loss in its intrinsic activity. Higher catalytic activity of CuI/Fe₃O₄NPs@IL‐KCC‐1 is due to exceptional dendritic fibrous structure of KCC‐1 and the ionic liquid groups that perform as strong anchors to the loaded magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) and avoid leaching them from the pore of the nanocatalyst. Green reaction media, shorter reaction times, higher yields (71–97%), easy workup, and no need to use the chromatographic column are the advantages of the reported synthetic method.     

Theoretical investigation of effects of local cooling of a nozzle divergent section for controlling condensation shock in a supersonic two-phase flow of steam

In supersonic adiabatic two-phase flows of steam, under the influence of supersonic acceleration, the fluid loses its equilibrium conditions and becomes supersaturated. Following this condition and to restore the fluid to equilibrium, micro droplets of water form in the absence of any surface or foreign particles. This phenomenon is called homogeneous nucleation and the formed minute small droplets grow along the fluid flow path. The formation of these droplets and their growth causes the release of the latent heat of evaporation to the gas phase particularly in the nucleation region, and results in an increase in the flow pressure which is called the condensation shock. In this paper, and in continuation of the series of papers by the authors, in addition to analytically solving the adiabatic gas-liquid supersonic flow of steam in a convergent-divergent channel, a novel solution to controlling the undesired effects of this pressure rise (condensation shock) is presented. In the proposed method, with the help of cooling the divergent section of the nozzle, the analytical model for the 1D non-adiabatic two-phase steam flows is further developed which shows considerable decrease in the intensity of the formed condensation shock. Also the growth rate of the formed droplets due to the cooling of the steam flow has higher importance than the nucleation itself.     

Inventory control and pricing for perishable products under age and price dependent stochastic demand

Multistage stochastic programming (SP) with both endogenous and exogenous uncertainties is a novel problem in which some uncertain parameters are decision-dependent and others are independent of decisions. The main difficulty of this problem is that nonanticipativity constraints (NACs) make up a significantly large constraint set, growing very fast with the number of scenarios and leading to an intractable model. Usually, a lot of these constraints are redundant and hence, identification and elimination of redundant NACs can cause a significant reduction in the problem size. Recently, a polynomial time algorithm has been proposed in the literature which is able to identify all redundant NACs in an SP problem with only endogenous uncertainty. In this paper, however, we extend the algorithm proposed in the literature and present a new method which is able to make the upper most possible reduction in the number of NACs in any SP with both exogenous and endogenous uncertain parameters. Proving the validity of this method is another innovation of this study. Computational results confirm that the proposed approach can significantly reduce the problem size within a reasonable computation time.     

Synthesis of diaryl sulfides via nickel ferrite‐catalysed C─S bond formation in green media

NiFe₂O₄ magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were synthesized, characterized and applied as an air‐stable, inexpensive and magnetically separable nanocatalyst for the synthesis of structurally diverse sulfides. Efficient methodologies were developed for the synthesis of unsymmetric diaryl sulfides via odourless and one‐pot reactions of triphenyltin chloride/S₈ or arylboronic acid/S₈ as thiolating agents with aryl halides or nitroarenes as starting materials in the presence of base (K₂CO₃ or NaOH) and NiFe₂O₄ MNPs as a catalyst in water or poly (ethylene glycol) as solvent at 80–110 °C. Free from ligand and the unpleasant smell of thiols and with the use of magnetically reusable nanocatalyst, green solvents and commercially available and cheap sulfur source and starting materials, these methods are more eco‐friendly and practical than available protocols for the synthesis of sulfides.