Baghdad Journal of Biochemistry and Applied Biological Sciences

Kidney stone disease is the third most common urological ailment worldwide, people. The mechanism of stone formation includes: urine supersaturation, aggregation, retention, nucleation, and growth of crystals in the cells of the renal tubular epithelium. Kidney stones may cause extreme pain and blockage of urine flow. They are usually treated with conventional drugs and shock wave (ESWL) as well as a variety of medications that may cause several adverse effects. The remaining stone fragments and the risk of infection following ESWL are major challenges in the treatment of kidney stones. Recently, despite the emergence of modern drugs, medicinal plants have been recognized and utilized in many nations clinically due to their safety profile, efficiency, cultural acceptance, and fewer side effects than approved drugs. Medicinal plants are used in different cultures as a reliable source of natural remedies. The aim of this review is to provide comprehensive information about traditionally used plants as well as their scientifically proven pharmacological activities, their primary chemical ingredients, and potential mechanisms of action, such as analgesic, astringent, demulcent, diuretic activity, antioxidant activity, inhibition of the inflammatory process, nucleation inhibition, crystallization inhibition, inhibition of crystal aggregation, reducing , reducing stone size, and reducing urine supersaturation.

Organotins are widely described as anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and antimicrobial agents. In addition to their use in biomedical fields, organotins are also used in agricultural and industrial applications. These materials are more toxic than inorganic cans, which are poorly absorbed and are excreted on the surface of the can, and cause toxicity to a variety of organisms and damage the environment.This review focuses on organotin’s toxicity and uses in biomedical fields.

Background ad objective: Among the notable achievements of the twentieth century was the discovery and identification of new drugs from plants against microbial infections. However, the discovery of novel drugs since then is inadequate due to emergence of resistant microbes. In an effort to discover novel drugs, the study aimed to investigate the antimicrobial activity of crude extracts from endophytic fungi isolated from Cnidoscolas aconitifolius and Ocimum suave.
Methods: Following morphological characterization and initial screening for antimicrobial activity, isolates that had higher inhibition were genotypes by Sanger sequencing. Two isolates (Candida tropicalis from O. suave and Phyllosticta capitalensis from C. aconitifolius) were tested for antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus.
Results: Overall, the range of crude extract concentration was from 152 mg/mL to 1353 mg/mL, and that of a zone of inhibition was from 7 to 21 mm. The lowest minimum inhibition concentration (19>MIC>9.5) was observed in Phyllosticta spp. extract against S. aureus.
Conclusions: Findings of the present study have shown that endophytes isolated from medicinal plants can generate secondary metabolites with therapeutic applications. Therefore, further investigations are warranted to decipher the content and structure of bioactive compounds that may be associated with the antimicrobial activity of crude extracts.

Background and objective: Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) is an organic compound with neuroprotective properties. The target of this study was to investigate the concentration of therapeutic dose of ALA in the blood plasma of broiler chicks to define the pharmacokinetic parameters.
Methods: A randomized controlled study was performed on thirty-five healthy broiler chicks of seven days old, chicks were injected into the peritoneum with a single dose of analgesic (ED50) 80mg /kg b.wt., following injection of the drug, blood samples were collected at 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 24 h (five chicks per time) from the jugular vein. Then, the blood plasma was obtained, the concentrations of ALA acid in plasma samples were estimated by using the UV-spectrometric method, and the pharmacokinetic parameters were determined by the PKSolver software. The time versus concentration curve for ALA was obtained from the software. The pharmacokinetic parameters were determined with non-compartmental models.
Results: The concentration of ALA in the blood plasma of chicks injected with ALA at a dose of 80 mg/kg were 134.6±7.17, 178.5±4.10, 192.4±7.83, 158.5±11.05, 147.1±10.16, and 122.8±7.09 µg/ml at times 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, and 24 h, respectively. The maximum plasma concentration was 192.4 µg/ml during a period of 1 hour of injection. The terminal elimination half-life was 65 h, the terminal phase elimination rate constant was 0.011 h-1, the mean residence time was 94 h, and the area under the curve from time 0 to infinity was 14960 µg.h/ml.
Conclusions: Our study suggests that the peak of the analgesic effect of ALA was one hour after treatment. In addition, it is characterized by a long elimination half-life and a poor clearance from the chick’s body, which refer to longer effects of its pharmacological properties.

Background and objectives: Given the difficulty in establishing an ideal method that can successfully extract bacterial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in Gram-negative bacteria, the objective of this work was to compare protocols for the extraction of bacterial DNA and to report the more practical, faster, and less costly ones.
Methods: Bacterial species used were Escherichia coli, provided by Dr. Leão Sampaio University Center. The methods used to extract bacterial DNA were: sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), salting-out, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)/Phenol-Chloroform, and commercial kit for DNA isolation from Promega. The extracted DNA by all the methods was detected and assessed by the agarose gel electrophoresis.
Results: The best result was that obtained by the SDS method, it showed the greatest advantage for bringing speed, low cost, and good concentration of the extracted material. The other methods showed low-quality DNA, probably due to the presence of large amounts of proteins in the cell wall of E. coli interfering with the quality of the samples.
Conclusions: It was concluded that the SDS method can provide better DNA in terms of quality, which is preferred for the amplification by the polymerase (PCR) chain reaction. This will be helpful for diagnostic microbiologists because of the low cost and good quality of the extracted DNA.

Background and objective: Acne vulgaris (AV) is a common skin disease of sebaceous hair follicles. Many factors are associated with the occurrence and severity of acne, while the exact etiology remains incompletely understood. The current study was aimed to investigate the association between the severity of acne and serum zinc, copper, and calprotectin.
Methods: Fifty patients with AV were recruited in the study as well as 25 healthy age and sex-matched individuals as controls. The acne severity was classified into mild (n=21), moderate (n=16), and severe acne (n=14) according to the global acne grading system (GAGS). Serum levels of zinc, acne and calprotectin were evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The gained data were analyzed using GraphPad Prism software.
Results: Insignificant difference was found in zinc and copper levels between controls and AV patients, except in severe AV, where the patients displayed significant elevation in serum copper level (p<0.05) as compared to that of mild AV. The calprotectin concentration was significantly higher (p<0.001) in all AV patients, when compared with healthy subjects, which was positively correlated with the disease severity. No gender difference was noted for all measured biomarkers.
Conclusions: Our study suggests a possible association between calprotectin and acne inflammation, which requires validation in large-scale studies.