Osol Journal for Medical Sciences

Background: Methamphetamine (METH) is a powerful psych stimulant that causes hepatotoxic and neurotoxic effects through metabolic disruption and oxidative stress. Despite growing evidence of liver impairment brought on by methamphetamine, it is still unclear how exposure duration affects oxidative markers and cytochrome P450 (CYP3A4) activity.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine how long-term methamphetamine usage is associated with liver abnormalities, to find out if long-term exposure makes oxidative and metabolic problems worse, and to determine whether these biochemical changes happen before or at the same time as changes in LFTs, which would explain how methamphetamine causes progressive liver damage.

Methods: A case-control study was performed on 116 male individuals aged 18 to 40 years, including 80 METH users divided into two groups according to the duration of use (G1 3-5 years; n =44 and G2 6-8 years; n = 36) and 36 control participants. Serum CYP3A4, MDA, LFTs, albumin, total protein, and globulin levels were measured.

Results: Age and body mass index did not significantly differ across groups. (p > 0.05). CYP3A4 levels were markedly reduced in both METH user groups compared with controls (p<0.001) where MDA levels were significantly elevated (p<0.001), showing a duration-dependent increase. ALT, AST, and ALP were significantly higher in long-term users (p<0.05). While total protein and albumin increased significantly in both groups (p<0.001).

Conclusions: Prolonged METH exposure induced progressive oxidative and metabolic hepatic alteration that preceded clinically apparent hepatotoxicity. CYP3A4 inhibition and MDA elevation serve as sensitive early biomarkers for detecting subclinical hepatic impairment in chronic METH users, underscoring their potential value as early diagnostic.

Background: Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a member of the Betaherpesvirinae subfamily, is a widespread pathogen that poses a major health concern, particularly in newborns and immunocompromised individuals. The virus possesses a linear double-stranded DNA genome of approximately 230 kb enclosed within an icosahedral nucleocapsid surrounded by a lipid envelope. Results: Expression of the viral genome is regulated through complex transcriptional events leading to the production of immediate-early and late proteins, which play essential roles in viral replication and latency. HCMV can infect various epithelial tissues, including the gastrointestinal, respiratory, and reproductive tracts. The infection often establishes latency in host cells, and complete viral clearance is rarely achieved. Reactivation may occur under conditions of immune suppression, posing a serious threat during organ transplantation, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. Diagnosis is by virological, molecular, and serological tests for viral DNA or specific antibodies. Although various antivirals are available, the treatment is still troublesome owing to drug resistance and low bioavailability, as well as toxicities over long-term administration. These restrictions highlight the importance of developing new therapeutic interventions against viral replication and latency pathways.

Conclusion: HCMV remains an important clinical and public health concern owing to its potential for persistence and reactivation in the host. Advances in molecular diagnostics have improved detection accuracy, but effective management still depends on early diagnosis, immune monitoring, and the development of safer and more potent antiviral therapies. Further research is essential to understand viral latency and to design innovative treatment approaches.

Background: Male infertility is a complex disorder affected by hormonal imbalances, poor quality of semen, and oxidative stress. The defense mechanisms against oxidative damage to spermatozoa require antioxidant defense systems. Afamin is a transport protein of vitamin E, a lipid soluble antioxidant that helps in maintaining the stability of sperm membrane and cell integrity. Nonetheless, the differences in the levels of afamin and vitamin E in various semen phenotypes and reproductive hormones are not well defined.

Objective: Analyzing the levels of association between afamin and vitamin E concentrations in the serum and seminal plasma and the hormonal profile in infertile males.

Method: The study was conducted as a cross-sectional study involving ninety infertile men. Semen analysis was performed. Both serum and seminal afamin and vitamin E were measured. Hormonal profile was also evaluated in serum.

Result: Significant differences between groups were found in seven parameters: FSH (p =0.034), LH (p =0.011), Testosterone (p =0.049), afamin serum (p =0.006), vit-E serum (p =0.002), afamin semen (p =0.001), and E semen (p =0.001). There were strong positive and negative correlations between LH and seminal afamin, LH with seminal vitamin E in asthenozoospermic men (r=0.6032; p-value=0.001; r=-0.6108; p-value=0.012), respectively.

Conclusion: Results indicate that localized seminal biochemical markers have a pivotal diagnostic value of male factor infertility that cannot be fully reflected by serum analysis. The increased levels of gonadotropins in oligozoospermic phenotypes also indicate the existence of compensatory mechanisms of the HPG axis to the disrupted spermatogenesis.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the antibacterial activity of banana peel extract (BPE) and green-synthesized copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO-NPs) against Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae, and to investigate their synergistic effects.

Methods: Banana peel extract was prepared using Soxhlet extraction, while CuO nanoparticles were synthesized using plant-derived bioactive compounds as natural reducing and stabilizing agents. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized using UV–Vis and FTIR spectroscopy. GC–MS analysis was performed to identify the major bioactive compounds in the extract. Antibacterial activity and synergistic interactions were assessed using minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and checkerboard assays.

Results: UV–Vis analysis confirmed CuO nanoparticle formation with an absorption peak at 971 nm, while FTIR analysis revealed functional groups involved in nanoparticle stabilization. GC–MS analysis identified several antioxidant and reducing compounds in banana peel extract. The combined use of BPE and CuO-NPs showed enhanced antibacterial activity, particularly against S. aureus, with a strong synergistic effect (FICI = 0.375). A lower antibacterial effect was observed against K. pneumoniae.
Conclusion: The findings suggest that banana peel-mediated green synthesis of CuO nanoparticles is an eco-friendly and promising strategy for future antimicrobial and biomedical applications.

Background: Otitis media is one of the most frequent infections during childhoodin klebsiella pneumonia isolates causing Otitis Media, especially in relation to recurrent and complicated cases of otitis media.

Methods: Baqubah Teaching Hospital, Al-Batool Teaching Hospital, and Al-Khalis General Hospital in the Diyala Governorate of Iraq were selected as the study sites for a prospective cross-sectional study conducted d between September 2024 and January 2026. Middle ear samples were collected, and after standard microbiologic methods, and K. pneumoniae was identified using the VITEK-2 system. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing for ceftriaxone and cefotaxime was performed using Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion and E-test methods were employed, in accordance with CLSI 2025. ESBL production was detected with modification of the combination disk method.

Results: Positive cultures were found in 82.8% (265 of 320) of children. K. pneumoniae was found in 78 of these isolates (29.4% of positive cultures, 24.4% of all samples) with a mean age of 4.2 ± 2.8 years. 71.8% were under 5 years of age. 59 (75.6%) were confirmed ESBL producers. Among the resistant isolates, ceftriaxone and cefotaxime showed MIC₅₀/MIC₉₀ values, with cefotaxime having a statistically significantly lower MIC (p = 0.009). In the checkerboard synergy assay, 80.8% (63 of 78) of isolates showed synergy (FICI ≤ 0.5) with cefotaxime and avibactam in contrast to 38.5% with ceftriaxone and tazobactam (p < 0.001). Regression analysis found prior hospitalization within 3 months (OR = 5.12, 95% CI: 2.78-9.43, p < 0.001), prior cephalosporin use (OR = 6.34, 95% CI: 3.45-11.65, p < 0.001), and recurrent otitis media (OR = 3.87, 95% CI: 2.12-7.06, p < 0.001) to be statistically significant independent resistance risk factors.

Conclusion: Due to the high prevalence of ESBL, monotherapy with ceftriaxone or cefotaxime has been shown to be ineffective against the majority of K. pneumoniae isolates from pediatric otitis media in Diyala. Even though cefotaxime has the lowest MIC against the resistant strains, however, the combination of cefotaxime with avibactam demonstrated strong synergistic activity paraphrasing.

Background: Obesity is a complex, multifactorial health condition that occurs from the build-up of too much body fat due to the interrelation between hormones, genes, and the surrounding environment.
Objective: The current study aimed to assess the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and the levels of resistin, ghrelin, and some antioxidants (superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx)) in Iraqi adults.
Methods: The study was conducted in Baquba city, Diyala Governorate, from October 2025 to April 2026. The study group consisted of 88 Iraqi adults aged 18 to 65 years who attended Baquba Teaching Hospital and its specialized outpatient clinics. Participants were divided into three categories: healthy controls (n=28), overweight subjects (n=30), and obese subjects (n=30). Venous blood samples were collected under sterile conditions, and concentrations of resistin, ghrelin, superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) were determined using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique (USCN Life Science Inc.). Results of the current investigation were calculated by SPSS using IBM SPSS Statistics and GraphPad Prism.
Results: The results revealed non-significant demographic variations among the groups (gender and age). Additionally, no statistically significant difference (P > 0.05) was observed in resistin levels between the study groups. In contrast, levels of ghrelin and antioxidants (SOD and GPx) decreased significantly with increasing body weight (P < 0.001). According to Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, ghrelin levels demonstrated superior diagnostic utility in distinguishing between the study groups, whereas resistin levels showed limited diagnostic value.
Conclusion: These findings suggest a clear association between elevated body mass index (BMI) and variations in certain biochemical and antioxidant biomarkers. These results support the concept of obesity as a metabolic disorder associated with inflammation and oxidative.

Acinetobacter baumannii is a common Gram –negative, non-fermenting coccobacillus. Bacteria can live in blood, urine, skin, soft tissues, lungs, digestive tract, wounds, and brain. Form a biofilm and efflux pumps and is quite resistant to several drugs. The study proposed to consider the A. baumanni prevalence in different infections, to determine the MIC of ciprofloxacin, use molecular methods (PCR) to find genes, effect of ciprofloxacin, curcumin, and Capsaicin on Ggene expression of Quorum Sensing (QS). From October 8, 2025, to January 1, 2026, 160 l specimens were taken from different infections at Iraq's Baqubah Teaching Hospital.

The results showed that 20 of the isolates (12.5% of the total) had a positive growth rate for A. baumannii. The samples were sorted by where they came from: wounds, sputum, burns, and urine were 15%, 45%, 30%, 10% respectively. The study found the fold change values following treatment with ciprofloxacin, curcumin, and capsaicin, for the abaI gene were 0.7239, 0.0236, and 0.1453, respectively, while the change for abaR gene was 0.7100, 0.0122, and 0.3927, respectively. The effect of sub-MIC combination of ciprofloxacin with curcumin was more than with capsaicin, where the fold change values were recorded 0.0528 and 1.6353, respectively for abaI, while 0.0729 and 2.0507 for abaR gene.

The conclusion of this study is that the fold change value of quorum sensing abaI, abaR genes significantly changed, and after treatment with ciprofloxacin, curcumin, and capsaicin, in addition, the significant effect of ciprofloxacin and curcumin mixture gives promising ideas for suggesting alternative strategies to lowering the virulence factors controlled by QS, such as biofilm formation to resolve the antibiotics resistance problem for A . Baumannii isolates

Background: A growing amount of interest has been shown in the biosynthesis of metal-oxide nanoparticles by the utilization of plant extracts. Zinc oxide nanoparticles are one of the essential materials for preparing nanoscale systems.

Objective: The objective of the current research is to green-synthesize zinc oxide nanoparticles and study their chemical and physical properties.

Methods: In the study, Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) were prepared from Musa SP as one of the significant plant extracts using banana peels, and these extracts were used to produce nanoparticles for many minerals and aspects. This study clarifies ZnO-NPs physical and chemical characteristics accurately and demonstrates the significance of ZnO extract in many fields of life. The most important of which are Ag, Au, as well as oxides of some metals such as Cu, ZnO, and Fe2O3.

Result: These nanoparticles were diagnosed using infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to determine the ions' positions, X-ray diffraction (XRD) to consider the crystal structure, light-emitting scanning electron microscope (SEM) to prove the shape of the surface, and finally UV-Vis spectroscopy to identify the compound ZnO.

Conclusion: Through these measurements, the physical and chemical properties of the material were studied found in this research that the small sized ranging from (40) to (70) nm, and the production of nanoparticles at the peak of the spectral emission of (420) nm, also this results show that ZnO-NPs had anti-oxidant properties, which were determined clearly by two procedures, DPPH and total antioxidant.

Background: Nanoparticles are used in numerous medical and other fields thanks to their physical and chemical properties. Green synthesis using plant extracts is an environmentally friendly approach for Ruta graveolens. L was used to prepare ZnO-NPs because it contains compounds that act as reducing and stabilizing agents.

Aims: This study aimed to chemically characterize the leaf extract of Ruta graveolens L using GC-MS technology, and then utilize it in the green synthesis of ZnO-NPs.

Materials and Methods: The plant leaves were collected and extracted using methanol. The extract was then used to prepare nanoparticles, which were characterized using DLS, SEM, and EDS techniques.

Results: GC-MS results revealed ten identified chemical compounds belonging to furanocoumarins, aliphatic ketones, terpene alcohols, and fatty acids. Psoralen, 3-(α, α-dimethylallyl)- was the most abundant compound at 11.773%, followed by 2-Undecanone at 11.370%. DLS analysis showed that the prepared particles fell within the nanometre scale range, averaging a size of 94.3 nm, a Z-average of 64.5 nm, and a dispersion index (PI) of 0.703, indicating relative size heterogeneity. SEM images showed that the particles had a spherical to irregular shape with a clear tendency to clump together, while some direct measurements of their dimensions ranged from 29.86 to 32.89 nm. EDS analysis confirmed that zinc and oxygen were the main elements in the sample, with zinc comprising 77.91% and oxygen 22.09% by weight.

Conclusion: The study concludes that the alcoholic extract of Ruta graveolens .L leaves has clear potential for use in the green synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles, and that the various characterization results supported the successful preparation of particles within the nanoscale with morphological and elemental properties that confirm the successful formation of ZnO-NPs.

Background: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important opportunistic bacterium responsible for multidrug-resistant infections in hospitalised patients. The MexAB-OprM efflux pump system is a major contributor to antibiotic resistance by the expulsion of antimicrobial drugs from bacterial cells. Therefore, siRNA-mediated gene silencing is being developed as a promising method for resistance-related gene silencing and improving therapeutic efficacy.

Objective: To explore the prevalence and antibiotic resistance profile of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection clinical isolates and assess the silencing of efflux pump genes (mexB and oprM) that are linked to multidrug resistance and virulence by siRNA.

Methods: Twenty-nine P. aeruginosa strains were recovered from 200 clinical specimens. The identification was achieved by morphological characteristics, biochemical tests, and with the aid of the Vitek 2 Compact system. The antimicrobial susceptibility was tested using 13 antibiotics by the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Production of AmpC β-lactamase was phenotypically determined, and efflux pump activity was determined by the ethidium bromide cartwheel method. The genes, mexB and oprM, were detected by conventional PCR. A 21-bp siRNA duplex was designed that targets these efflux pump genes, and quantitative RT-PCR was used to assess the level of gene expression prior to and following siRNA treatment.

Results: The highest level of antibiotic resistance was seen with ticarcillin-clavulanate and gentamicin (89.7%), and the lowest was with piperacillin-tazobactam (24.1%) of the 29 isolates. Sixty-seven percent (12/12) of the isolates produced AmpC β-lactamase. None of the 9 (45%) isolates that were found to be positive by phenotypic testing for efflux pump activity were characterized as multidrug resistant. The 9 isolates (45%) identified as efflux pump positive, none were classified as MDR. All the selected isolates were positive for the mexB and oprM genes by conventional PCR. After siRNA transfection, qPCR showed a dramatic down-regulation of the expression of both genes when compared to the control. The fold change of mexB was found to be 2.107 to 0.0006, and that of oprM was 1.521 to 0.0032, respectively, which means the gene silencing was effective.

Conclusion: This study shows the high prevalence of antibiotic resistance and virulence mechanisms associated with efflux pumps in clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa. siRNA-mediated knockdown of mRNA expression of mexB and oprM genes was found to be highly efficient, suggesting that siRNA-based therapy could be an effective approach for the treatment of multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa infections.

Background: Artemisia vulgaris (Mugwort) is a traditional medicinal plant rich in volatile constituents and phenolic compounds that contribute to its varied biological activities.

Objectives: Currently, this work investigates the phytochemical isolation, structural identifications, and investigations of essential oil composition and antioxidant potential of Iraqi Artemisia vulgaris. Methods: The aerial parts of A. vulgaris were macerated using an Acetone: Water mixture (80:20, v/v). The isolated phenolic acid compound was identified by liquid chromatography and spectroscopy analyses. The essential oils obtained through hydrodistillation were analyzed using gas chromatography. The evaluation and investigation for antioxidant activity were achieved by assaying the radical scavenging corresponding to ascorbic acid as a reference standard.

Results: The chromatographic analysis revealed that the isolated compound matched that of p-coumaric acid. Spectral characteristics, UV and FTIR, further confirmed its structural characteristics as a hydroxycinnamic acid derivative. The GC/MS analysis of extracted volatile oil identified several major constituents, including α-thujene (21.25%), p-cymene (10.72%), γ-terpinene (8.66%), and D-limonene (5.30%). The crude extract revealed concentration-dependent antioxidant activity, reaching 70.7% radical scavenging at 200 μg/mL. Iraqi Artemisia vulgaris represents a valuable source of phenolic and terpenes compositions.

Conclusion: The successful isolation and identification of p-coumaric acid, together with the characterization of its essential oil constituents, contribute to a significant antioxidant activity, supporting the potential pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications.