Acne vulgaris is a typical skin disorder among adolescence, causing inflammation of pilosebaceous follicle
which characterized by comedones, papules, pustules, cysts, nodules and often scars in face, neck, upper trunk
and arms. Propionibacterium acnes and Staphylococcus epidermidis have been recognized that play as a major
role in acne formation. This study was conducted to compare the antimicrobial activity of five plant extracts
namely Piper betle, Aloe vera, Solanum lycopersicum, Cinnamomum zeylanicum and Cucumis sativus against P.
acnes and S. epidermidis. The well diffusion assay was used to determine the sensitivity of the samples, while
the liquid dilution method was used for the determination of the minimal inhibition concentration (MIC). The
result showed a remarkable antibacterial activity of Piper betle extract compared to other plant extracts and
Doxycycline (positive control) against both of acne-inducing bacteria, P. acnes and S. epidermidis.
The objective of this study was to evaluate the in vitro antibacterial activities of methanol and aqueous extracts of P. pellucida aerial part (PPAP) against four multi-drug resistant organisms; methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, extended-spectrum beta-lactamase and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae and four foodborne pathogens; Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium. The antibacterial potentialities of the plant extracts were evaluated at 250 mg/ml and 500 mg/ml. Only susceptible bacteria were further determined for minimum inhibitory (MIC) and minimum bactericidal (MBC) concentrations. The best extract of a single dose of 5000 mg/kg PPAP methanol extract was acutely tested on female rats by adapting the OECD guidelines No 425. Findings obtained indicated that only PPAP methanol extract was found to be a potent inhibitor towards Bacillus cereus with the MIC and MBC values at 3.91 mg/ml and 7.81 mg/ml respectively. Toxicity study revealed that there was neither mortality nor morbidity and absent of abnormalities on all rats examined.
In this study, the development and validation of a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) assay for determination of repaglinide concentration in human plasma for pharmacokinetic studies is described. Plasma samples containing repaglinide and an internal standard, indomethacin were extracted with ethylacetate at pH 7.4. The recovery of repaglinide was 92%+/-55.31. Chromatographic separations were performed on Purospher STAR C-18 analytical column (4.8 mm x 150 mm; 5 microm particle size). The mobile phase composed of acetonitrile-ammonium formate (pH 2.7; 0.01 M) (60:40, v/v). The flow rate was 1 ml/min. The retention time for repaglinide and indomethacin were approximately 6.2 and 5.3 min, respectively. Calibration curves of repaglinide were linear in the concentration range of 20-200 ng/ml in plasma. The limits of detection and quantification were 10 ng/ml and 20 ng/ml, respectively. The inter-day precision was from 5.21 to 11.84% and the intra-day precision ranged from 3.90 to 6.67%. The inter-day accuracy ranged 89.95 to 105.75% and intra-day accuracy ranged from 92.37 to 104.66%. This method was applied to determine repaglinide concentration in human plasma samples for a pharmacokinetic study.
Cytokines play an important role in modulating inflammation during viral infection, including hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Genetic polymorphisms of cytokines can alter the immune response against this infection. The objective of this study was to investigate the possible association between chronic hepatitis C virus infection susceptibility and cytokine gene polymorphism for interleukin-10 (IL-10) rs1800896 and rs1800871, interleukin 6 (IL-6) rs1800795, TNF-α rs1800629, and TGF-β1 rs1800471 in Malay male drug abusers. The study was conducted on 76 HCV-positive (HP) male drug abusers and 40 controls (HCV-negative male drug abusers). We found that there were significant differences in the frequencies of genotype for IL-10 rs1800871 (p = 0.0386) and at the allelic level for IL-10 rs1800896 A versus G allele (p = 0.0142) between the HP group and the control group. However, there were no significant differences in gene polymorphism in interleukin 6 rs1800795, TNF-α rs1800629 and TGF-β1 rs1800471. These findings suggest significant associations between gene polymorphism for IL-10 rs1800871, IL-10 rs1800896 (at the allelic level) and susceptibility to HCV infection among Malay male drug abusers.