• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1979-1985
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• 2016

Background: Complementary and alternative medicine has been highly appreciated as a supportive regimen for classical treatment strategies. Here we offer a nutrition-based adjuvant therapy for liver fibrosis, a major risk factor for cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Aim of the study: To evaluate the possible hepatoprotective effects of Jerusalem artichoke tubers (JAT) in combination with interferon and ribavirin. Materials and Methods: Twelve groups of rats were administered JAT, interferon and ribavirin either separately or in combination from day one of $CCL_4$ administration until the end of the study. Animals were killed after 8 weeks of $CCL_4$-induced hepatotoxicity. Results: Hepatocytes from rats treated with triple combination of interferon, ribavirin, and JAT showed more less normal architecture compared to $CCL_4$-treated rats. We also detected significantly higher hepatic protein expression levels of p53, BAX and transforming growth factor-${\beta}$ (TGF-${\beta}$) in the $CCL_4$-intoxicated group compared to normal controls, as evidenced by immunohistochemical staining and western blotting analyses. Addition of JAT as a supportive regimen improved response to ribavirin and interferon and effectively participated in retaining normal histopathological and biochemical criteria and significantly lowered protein expression of p53, BAX, and TGF-${\beta}$. Conclusions: We suggest that addition of JAT as a supportive r egimen to interferon and ribavirin effectively potentiates their anti-fibrotic effects.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.80-85
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• 1995

After solvent extraction of 28 domestic cultivated medicinal plants using methylene chloride, 1000ppm of extracts were added to linoleic acid to compare antioxidative activities. Although their magnitude was somewhat different, all extracts showed the antioxidative activities. Antioxidative activity of Scutellariae baicalensis extract was similar to that of BHA. Antioxidative activity of Paeonia moutan and Liriope platyphylla extracts was lower than that of Scutellariae baicalensis. When Scutellariae baicalensis was extracted with 9 solvents which have a different polarity, the extraction yield and antioxidative activity generally increased with increasing polarity. The nitrite-scavenging effects, electron donating abilities(EDA) and anti-complementary activities were determined.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.874-881
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• 2014

A laboratory experiment was conducted to determine chronic effects of waterborne copper exposure on rock bream Oplegnathus fasciatus using a panel of enzymes. The activities of the following biochemical biomarkers were determined at different concentrations of $CuSO_4$ for 10 and 20 days: alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in plasma; antioxidant enzymes including glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) in liver and gills; and acethylcholinesterase (AChE) in brain and muscle. After exposure to two $CuSO_4$ concentrations (200 and $400{\mu}g/L$), the activities of plasma ALT in the fish showed a tendency to increase with AST and LDH, depending on $CuSO_4$ concentration. Additionally, GSH levels and SOD activities significantly increased, depending on $CuSO_4$ concentrations in liver and gills. This involved the inactivation of reactive molecules formed during oxidative stress, which could provide protection against oxidative damage induced by $CuSO_4$. However, GPx and AChE activities significantly decreased with $CuSO_4$ in liver and gills. In conclusion, these enzymes may represent convenient biomarkers for monitoring heavy metal pollution in coastal areas. Such chronic exposure studies are necessary for improving our understanding of complementary or deleterious effects of pollutants, and for developing metal toxicity biomarkers.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.1617-1622
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• 2009

Optium conditions for the production of mycelia and extracellular polysaccharide (EXPS) from submerged mycelial culture of Inonotus obliquus and their immunomodulating activities were investigated. The optmium production of mycelia and EXPS from I. obliquus was observed in mushroom complete medium (MCM). The optimum pH, temperature, and agitation speed for the production of mycelia and EXPS were 5.5, $25^{\circ}C$, and 150 rpm, respectively. The culture period for maximum production of mycelia (10.89 g/l) and EXPS (1.25 g/l) in shake flask cultivation was 11 days. The anticomplementary activity of intracellular polysaccharide (INPS) and EXPS form I. obliquus increased in a dose-dependent manner. Lysosomal enzyme activity of EXPS and INPS increased by 2.0- and 2.2-fold at $100{\mu}g/ml$ concentration, respectively, compared to the control group.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.225-230
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• 2016

Objectives: Mellitine, a major component of bee venom (BV, Apis mellifera), is more active against gram positive than gram negative bacteria. Moreover, BV has been reported to have multiple effects, including antibacterial, antivirus, and anti-inflammation effects, in various types of cells. In addition, wasp venom has been reported to have antibacterial properties. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antibacterial activity of BV against selected gram positive and gram negative bacterial strains of medical importance. Methods: This investigation was set up to evaluate the antibacterial activity of BV against six grams positive and gram negative bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), Salmonella typhimurium, Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Burkholderia mallei and Burkholderia pseudomallei. Three concentrations of crude BV and standard antibiotic (gentamicin) disks as positive controls were tested by using the disc diffusion method. Results: BV was found to have a significant antibacterial effect against E. coli, S. aureus, and Salmonella typhyimurium in all three concentrations tested. However, BV had no noticeable effect on other tested bacteria for any of the three doses tested. Conclusion: The results of the current study indicate that BV inhibits the growth and survival of bacterial strains and that BV can be used as a complementary antimicrobial agent against pathogenic bacteria. BV lacked the effective proteins necessary for it to exhibit antibacterial activity for some specific strains while being very effective against other specific strains. Thus, one may conclude, that Apis mellifera venom may have a specific mechanism that allows it to have an antibacterial effect on certain susceptible bacteria, but that mechanism is not well understood.

• Journal of Pharmacopuncture
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.131-139
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• 2019

Introduction: Mastalgia is the most common benign breast disorder during the fertility period of women. So far a wide range of natural or complementary medicines is used to cure mastalgia. Sanitary organizations need complete and suitable details to help women, for making the proper decision for alternative treatment based on the evidence. The aim of the present study is to introduce medicinal plant-based treatments about mastalgia and summarizes clinical trials about this disorder. Method: The articles were provided using mixture of keywords including cyclic pain, breast, treatment, therapeutics, therapy, clinical trial, herbal, drug, mastalgia and all the probable terms, in national and international databases SID, Iran Medex, Magiran, PubMed, Scopus, Medline, Science direct and Cochrane library, in both Persian and English languages. All cross-sectional and review articles about herbal treatment of mastalgia until 2018 November were studied. Results: Nineteen articles from all of the available articles (45 cases) and a sample size about of (1987 cases) were included in our study. The articles were clinical trials. The results revealed that mastalgia could be healed by Nigella sativa, Vitex agnus-castus, curcumin, Hypericum perforatum, Citrus sinensis, wheat germ, and Ginkgo biloba. Conclusion: Most of the evaluated medicinal plants possessing antioxidant compounds with anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties, exhibited healing effects in the treatment of mastalgia. Thus, medicinal plants can be considered in the treatment of mastalgia; however, further investigations are needed to obtain more details about their probable side effects.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.536-544
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• 2021

5-amino salicylic acid (5-ASA) is a standard therapy for the treatment of mild to moderate forms of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) whereas more severe forms involve the use of steroids and immunosuppressive drugs. Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a naturally occurring non-sulfated glycosaminoglycan that has shown epithelium protective effects in experimental colitis recently. In this study, both 5-ASA (30 mg/kg) and HA (15 mg/kg or 30 mg/kg) were administered rectally and investigated for their potential complementary therapeutic effects in moderate or severe murine colitis models. Intrarectal treatment of moderate and severe colitis with 5-ASA alone or HA alone at a dose of 30 mg/kg led to a significant decrease in clinical activity and histology scores, myeloperoxidase activity (MPO), TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1β in colitis mice compared to untreated animals. The combination of HA (30 mg/kg) and 5-ASA in severe colitis led to a significant improvement of colitis compared to 5-ASA alone. Combined rectal therapy with HA and 5-ASA could be a treatment alternative for severe cases of IBD as it was the only treatment tested that was not significantly different from the healthy control group. This study further underlines the benefit of searching for yet unexplored drug combinations that show therapeutic potential in IBD without the need of designing completely new drug entities.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.37-48
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• 2022

Accurate analysis of petroleum hydrocarbons in soil is an important prerequisite for proper source tracking of contamination. Identification of petroleum compounds is commonly carried out by peak pattern matching in gas chromatography. However, this method has several technical limitations, especially when the soils underwent biological, physical and chemical transformation. For instance, it is very difficult to distinguish jet fuel (JP-8) from kerosene because JP-8 is derivatized from secondary reaction between chemical agents (e.g. anti-oxidants, antifreezer and so on) and kerosene. In this study, an alternative method to separately analyze JP-8 and kerosene in the petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated soil was proposed. Qualitative analyses were performed for representative phenolic antioxidants [2,6-di-tert-butyl phenol (2,6-DTBP), 2,4-di-tert- butylphenol(2,4-DTBP), 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methyl phenol (2,6-DTBMP)] using a two dimensional gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (2D GC×GC-TOF-MS). This qualitative analysis of antioxidants in soil would be a useful complementary tool for the peak pattern matching method to identify JP-8 contamination in soil.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.270-279
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• 1999

cDNAs complementary to the 3'-terminal regions of two potyvirus genomes were cloned and sequenced. The clone G7 contains one open reading frame (ORF) of 1,338 nucleotides and a 3' untranslated region (3'-UTR) of 403 nucleotides at the 3'-end excluding the 3'end poly(A) tail. The putative viral coat protein (CP) shows 55%-92% amino acid sequence homology to those of Allium potyviruses. The genome size of the virus was analyzed to be about 9.0 kb by Northern blot analysis. Five cDNA clones were screened out using GPV2 oligonucleotide as a probe. One of these clones, DEA72, which has a longest cDNA insert, contains one ORF of 1,459 nucleotides and a 3'-UTR of 590 nucleotides at the 3'-end excluding the 3'-end poly(A) tail. The putative viral CP shows 57%-88% amino acid sequence homologies to those of Allium potyviruses. The genome size of the virus was analyzed to be about 9.6 kb by Northern blot analysis. The results of immunoblot and Northern blot analyses suggest that almost all of the tested garlic plants showing mosaic or streak symptoms are infected with DEA72-potyvirus in variable degrees but rarely infected with G7-potyvirus in variable degrees but rarely infected with DEA72-potyvirus in variable degrees but rarely infected with G7-potyvirus. Immunoelectron microscopy using anti-DEA72 CP antibody shows that this potyvirus is about 750 nm long and flexuous rod shaped.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.765-773
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• 2024

Ozone, a highly reactive oxidant molecule, is widely used as a complementary therapy for various skin diseases, including wound healing, pressure ulcers, diabetic foot, and infections. However, there is limited research on the effectiveness of ozone for atopic dermatitis (AD). Ozonated sunflower oil (OSO) is an active ingredient obtained from partially ozonated sunflower oil (SO). OSO markedly reduced the LPS-induced increase in IL-1β and nitric oxide (NO) levels in RAW 264.7 mouse macrophage cells. Oxazolone (OXZ) was applied to hairless mice to induce AD-like skin symptoms and immune response. OSO significantly alleviated the OXZ-induced increases in the number of infiltrating mast cells, epidermal thickness, AD symptoms, thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), and filaggrin, as well as the serum levels of NO, IgE, IL-1β, and TNF-α. Furthermore, OSO inhibited the IL-4/STAT3/MAPK pathway and the expression of NF-κB. Our results suggest that OSO treatment could relieve AD-mediated skin damage through its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities. Therefore, it can be used as a therapeutic agent against AD-related skin diseases.