Molecular Biology: Open Access

Osteoarthritis is a common joint disease in old ages. The current therapies are not often effective, since those are associated with some side effects such as peptic ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding. Because of the degree of inflammation associated with pain in the patients with osteoarthritis, research on the plants with anti-inflammatory properties, although low, in addition to the analgesic effects, can make a substantial contribution to the patients with osteoarthritis, because the side effects caused by steroidal and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are not induced by them.

In this study, we investigated the medicinal plants of Iran and found the role of Malva (Malva neglecta) in reducing bone-joint symptoms, therefore, the plant was investigated to determine the most effective dose and to study whether the clinical effects is associated with anti-inflammatory effect. Due to the role of chondrocytes and monocyte/ macrophage cells on the process of inflammation in the osteoarthritis, our study was performed on these two cell lines, as a model similar to what occurs in the human osteoarthritis.

Diet and dietary habits are currently accused of being among cancer causing agents. The present study was carried out in a trial to point at the beneficial anti-cancer properties of one the most Egyptian traditional food components (Garlic). We studied the anti-cancerous properties of Diallyl disulphide (DADS), a major organosulfur compound in garlic oil, on HT29 colon cancer cell line and in vivo of male rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) as an animal model of colon cancer. DADS showed differential effect on the expression of a group of genes, as it down-regulated the expression of oncogenes (e.g., CTNNB1, CCDN1, BIRC5, MYC and AKT), while up-regulated the expression of tumour suppressor gene (TP53) and apoptosis regulator gene (BAX). DADS’ apoptotic effect was also seen via inducing the expression of cytochrome c and activation of caspase-3. Moreover, DADS induced chromatin configuration changes through increasing histone acetylation of histone-3 and -4. Examination of 1,2 dimethyl hydrazine (DMH) induced cancer in vivo model (O. cuniculus) showed histological changes characteristic for colon tumorigenesis such as, hyperplastic intraepithelial lesions, neoplastic changes and lymphocytes infiltration, which were strongly attenuated in animals coinjected with both DADS and DMH and were not observed in the animals that received DADS prior to DMH treatment. This study suggested the protective properties of DADS against colon cancer in vitro and in vivo.

The RNAi technology is a revolutionarized and powerful mechanism for in built alternate cell defence of an organism. The foreign DNA intruders form double stranded RNA intermediate during their propagation, which further cleaved in small antisense RNA by the action of dicing enzyme Dicer and further coupled with the complementary RNA for nucleation. Now a days lot more transgene were developed that involved frequently different silencing tricks, in extreme cases threshold induced silencing, DNA elimination etc. In few organisms the hall mark of silencing are involved in unpaired DNA silencing in somatic cells. The simple co-suppression events and double stranded mediated RNA degradation creates a new technology RNAI for a readymade knock down methods, However beyond limiting unfold silencing strategies of different transgenes in transcriptional silencing and RNAi technology has imported connection that are subject to answer in the review. We imagine new more powerful technology may generate for readymade activation or silencing based on the recently invented different types of transgene silencing.

In the Chinese Hainan Island, Amynthas and Metaphire are two dominated pheretimoid earthworm species belonging to the family Megascolecidae. They differ from earthworms in the adjacent regions in their morphology and at the molecular level, which could have occurred due to the unique geography of Hainan Island. Hainan Island is made of two tectonic parts linked to South China and Indochina blocks, respectively. In addition, there is an apparent complicated link between Hainan Island and mainland China because of the different plate movements and sea level changes. In order to understand the evolution of pheretimoid earthworms in Hainan Island, we first investigated the earthworm biodiversity here. Bayesian phylogenetic tree was then constructed from 3511 base pairs from five mitochondrial genes: COI, COII, 16S, 12S, and ND1. Their divergent time was finally traced based on the molecular clock of 2.0-2.4% substitutions/Ma. The results showed three species differentiations between Hainan and Guangdong earthworm species. According to the paleogeography of Asiatic regions (including Hainan Island itself), we hypothesized that the Hainan pheretimoid earthworms might originate from Southeast Asia, and then they dispersed to the south and finally arrived at South China and Hainan Island. Meanwhile, due to the geology movement of the adjacent plates, there was also the migration of earthworms among adjacent regions. Furthermore, we also considered that the relationship between genera Metaphire and Amynthas might be re-considered as one genus.

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by an obligatory intracellular mycobacteria Mycobacterium leprae, which presents tropism for Schwann cells and skin macrophages. Leprosy is a public health problem and early diagnosis is essential to avoid incapacities. The disease´s clinical presentation varies from few to widespread lesions and its diagnosis continues to be a challenge due to the low sensibility of the conventional methods, based on bacillary counts of skin smears and histopathology. Molecular techniques, especially the methods to identify M. leprae DNA based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) have emerged as a support of the conventional methods for the analysis of clinical samples in difficult to diagnose cases, such as pure neural leprosy, indeterminate and paucibacillary leprosy. The technique has also proved useful in the study of leprosy transmission and monitoring résistance to the WHO recommended Multidrug treatment. Different biological samples can be analysed and there is no consensus in the molecular diagnostic techniques respect of the most efficient nucleic acid extraction method, most appropriate methodology and genetic target for PCR. These methods provide a very valuable option for confirmation of difficult clinical cases with scarce bacilli but requires a well-equipped laboratory and the high cost makes it inaccessible to be used as a routine diagnostic tool in most endemic countries.

Background: Co-evolution of human and microbial genome is of fundamental interest. It allows both the human and pathogens to adapt themselves in the changing environment. Even in an experimental condition to check resistance against a particular antibiotic the microbes slowly develop resistance against that antibiotic in laboratory environment. Thus it is a very critical issue that should be address in order to overcome the microbial diseases. Purpose: The present study is focus on the currently evolved pathogens and availability of vaccines; that work against the pathogens to protect human population. Conclusion: By understanding the way pathogens get evolved will be helpful in future to develop new and more affective vaccines. It may also helpful in understanding the disease pathogenesis.

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is the most common cancer in children and one of the main causes of death among childhood blood disorders. There are two subtypes according to the affected lymphoid progenitor: B-ALL and T-ALL. The T-ALL is the less common and historically was associated with poor prognosis in both adults and children, although at present, treatment outcomes do not differ significantly between the two types of ALL. The T-ALL subtype is the most complex and heterogeneous at the genetic level and currently the one with less new therapeutic alternatives available. This trend is changing thanks to the remarkable progress that is being made in understanding the biology involved. Advances in genomic research during last decade have largely contributed to this progress. Moreover many efforts are being made to identify which of this new basic data is relevant for clinical practice. This will allow us to better define the risk and take decisions on the best treatment to apply to each patient. Therefore we are moving towards a personalized patient management that ultimately will result in an increase in survival and progress to T-ALL cure. This review summarizes the most relevant and applicable biological findings in T-ALL made in recent years and their therapeutic implications that will influence the clinical practice in the future.

Imputation is a powerful in silico approach to fill in those missing values in the big datasets. This process requires a reference panel, which is a collection of big data from which the missing information can be extracted and imputed. Haplotype imputation requires ethnicity-matched references; a mismatched reference panel will significantly reduce the quality of imputation. However, currently existing big datasets cover only a small number of ethnicities, there is a lack of ethnicity-matched references for many ethnic populations in the world, which has hampered the data imputation of haplotypes and its downstream applications. To solve this issue, several approaches have been proposed and explored, including the mixed reference panel, the internal reference panel and genotype-converted reference panel. This review article provides the information and comparison between these approaches. Increasing evidence showed that not just one or two genetic elements dictate the gene activity and functions; instead, cisinteractions of multiple elements dictate gene activity. Cis-interactions require the interacting elements to be on the same chromosome molecule, therefore, haplotype analysis is essential for the investigation of cis-interactions among multiple genetic variants at different loci, and appears to be especially important for studying the common diseases. It will be valuable in a wide spectrum of applications from academic research, to clinical diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and pharmaceutical industry.

HPV infection is currently associated with the risk of lesions in the oral cavity and the oropharynx and has been recognized as a possible etiologic agent of a set of head and neck cancers. However, the detection of HPV in healthy individuals is rare, and little is known about the HPV types present in the oral cavity. A variety of sampling methods has been proposed to increase the sensitivity of viral detection, mostly intended to detect HPV in the oropharynx. Here we estimated the prevalence of HPV in 66 samples of healthy mucosa from the oral cavity of Colombian sexually active men using a liquid-based cytology strategy for sample collection. Generic HPV detection was performed by PCR using a fragment of the β-globin gene as a quality control for the isolated DNA. Type-specific detection was performed with the commercial linear array technique (Roche, USA). All oral samples were positive for β-globin gene. Overall HPV prevalence was 4.5% (3/66); one sample corresponded to HPV16, another was genotyped as HPV11 and the third could not be genotyped and was classified as undetermined. The prevalence of HPV in the oral cavity of asymptomatic men is consistent with that reported worldwide for oropharyngeal cancer. Despite the small sample size, this is the first study that detected HPV in the healthy oral cavity of Colombian men.

Understanding the molecular basis of life is at the centre today, the integration of Computer Science, Mathematics and statistics improved the belief in structural and functional genomics. Recently there is an increased interest in function of non-coding RNA transcripts. Non-coding RNAs are small molecules that are not translated into proteins, but these molecules have a pivotal role in almost all molecular and cellular processes. MicroRNA is one of those noncoding RNA molecules that regulate gene expression at posttranslational level. These 18-25 nt length molecules are primary transcribes consist of a secondary hairpin structure. There are 700 miRNAs in the human genome, at least 1-4% of expressed genes; this makes miRNAs as the biggest group of regulators. This review summarizes biogenesis, role of expression profiles in and at various cellular and molecular mechanisms and their applications. More or less, research on non-coding RNA candidates has been done and proved their importance, however, even more to be proved.

In this paper, the major achievements in the application of molecular methods in flax research in China are discussed. Some advanced biological technologies in flax breeding program are mentioned that were utilized widely in flax studies, which were also in employed in the fiber crop sector around the world. Special attention has been focused on the new results of flax disease investigations performed through molecular methods, particularly those related to powdery mildew and wilt. A conclusion was drawn that powdery mildew resistance is inherited via a single dominant gene. A label bank was made containing 20000 SAGE LABLE separating from cDNA, through SAGE analysis of genes resistant to powdery mildew. AFLP analysis was performed on wilt. Specific bands, AG/CAG and FuJ7(t), of the wilt resistance gene were found to be closely linked, with a genetic distance of 5.2 cm between them. The AG/CAG segments were recovered, cloned, sequenced, and successfully transformed into a SCAR marker, used for molecular detection and marker-assisted selection breeding. A flax genetic linkage map was constructed with 12 linkage groups. The results revealed that the markers on the map were distributed evenly, and the co-dominant markers in SRAP and SSR were more suitable for the construction of a genetic map in flax. All of the above findings have established a solid foundation for further flax research in China.

Nowdays, the use of medicinal plants has been very common. Colocynth, Scientific name is Citrullus colocynthis in traditional medicine used to relieve pain and inflammation. The of aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of ethanol extract of Colocynth root on pro-inflammatory cytokine COX-2, INOS, IL-1β , TNF-α and NO, PGE2 on Inflammatory cells, similar osteoarthritis in chondrocyte cells and monocytes/macrophages and then treating them. At first the ethanol extract of the Citrullus colocynthis plant was prepared from the Iranian biological resource center. Then chondrocyte cells and THP-1 monocyte / macrophages (5 × 10⁵ cells/well) were incubated at a humidity of 90%, 5% CO₂, 37ºC for 72 h with control media alone or Citrullus colocynthis at concentrations of 70 μg/ml. One set of cells was activated by 20 μl LPS 20, then active cells are exposed to ethanol extract. And finally, cells tested with two control, cells and inflamed cells with LPS20, then results were evaluated Real Time PCR. Our review of the three levels of normal cells and inflamed cells and cells treated with ethanol extract of roots of Citrullus colocynthis plant with 20 ng/ml LPS20 showed that plant can reduce the expression of inflammatory cytokine and pro–inflammatory cytokine COX-2, INOS, TNF-α in Chondrocyte cells and reduced expression levels of TNF-α in THP-1 monocytes / macrophages and was reduced production of NO, PGE2. Our observations indicated that ethanol extract of root Citrullus colocynthis can reduce expression levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines in inflamed cells caused by situation same osteoarthritis, and we can use this plant for the treatment osteoarthritis in the future.