Objective: Chemotherapeutic combinational approaches would be more efficient in decreasing toxicity of drug, preventing tumor progression in relation to either drug alone. Hence, the aim of this study is to constract magnetic PLGA/PEG nanoparticles (NPs) co-loaded with Metformin (Met) and Silibinin (Sil) to investigate their cytotoxicity as well as their impact on mRNA expression levels of leptin and leptin receptor genes in A549 lung cancer cells. Materials and Methods:The synthesized NPs were characterized by FTIR, FE-SEM, and VSM and then, MTT assay was utilized to assess and compare the cytotoxicity of various concentrations of the chemotheruptic molecules in pure and nanoformulated forms as well as in alone and combination state after 48 h exposure time. Moreover, the mRNA levels of leptin and its receptor genes expression were studied by quantitative real-time PCR. By co-encapsulation of Met and Sil into PLGA/PEG/ Fe 3 O 4 , cytotoxic efficiency of the compounds considerably augmented for all concentrations. Results: Cytotoxicity assay displayed that combination of Met and Sil had a synergistic concentration-dependent effect on A549 lung cancer cells. Moreover, qPCR data revealed that the expression levels of the leptin and leptin receptor was considerably reduced with increasing concentrations of drug-encapsulated magnetic NPs, especially Met/Sil-encapsulated PLGA/PEG/ Fe 3 O 4 NPs. Conclusion: Present preliminary study shows that co-incorporating Met, Sil, Fe 3 O 4 into PLGA/PEG NPs might provide a more promising and safe treatment strategy for lung cancer.

Collaborative deep reinforcement learning (CDRL) algorithms in which multiple agents can coordinate over a wireless network is a promising approach to enable future intelligent and autonomous systems that rely on real-time decision making in complex dynamic environments. Nonetheless, in practical scenarios, CDRL face many challenges due to heterogeneity of agents and their learning tasks, different environments, time constraints of the learning, and resource limitations of wireless networks. To address these challenges, in this paper, a novel semantic-aware CDRL method is proposed to enable a group of heterogeneous untrained agents with semantically-linked DRL tasks to collaborate efficiently across a resource-constrained wireless cellular network. To this end, a new heterogeneous federated DRL (HFDRL) algorithm is proposed to select the best subset of semantically relevant DRL agents for collaboration. The proposed approach then jointly optimizes the training loss and wireless bandwidth allocation for the cooperating selected agents in order to train each agent within the time limitation of its realtime task. Simulation results show the superior performance of the proposed algorithm compared to state-of-the-art baselines.

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Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most prevalent diseases in the world, which is strongly associated with liver dysfunction. Hyperglycemia, through an oxidative stress pathway, damages various tissues. Herbal medicine is a good candidate to ameliorate hyperglycemia and oxidative stress. In this study, the effects of aqueous (garlic) extract (AGE) on gene expression of inducible nitric oxide synthases (iNOS) and production of nitric oxide (NO) were evaluated in the liver tissue of diabetic rats. Four groups of rats contained normal control rats, garlic control rats (AGE), Streptozotocin (STZ) + nicotinamide-induced diabetic rats (DM), and diabetic rats treated with garlic (DM + AGE). Glucose levels and liver enzymes activities were determined by colorimetric assay in the serum. Gene expression of iNOS by real-time PCR, NO levels by Griess method, oxidative stress parameters by spectrophotometric method and histopathological examination by hematoxylin and eosin staining method were evaluated in the liver tissues. Glucose levels, activities of liver enzymes, oxidative stress markers, iNOS gene expression, and NO production increased significantly in diabetic rats in comparison with control rats, whereas after oral administration of garlic, these parameters decreased significantly, close to the normal levels. Hence, the beneficial effects of garlic on the liver injury of diabetes could be included in the hypoglycaemic and antioxidant properties of garlic via a decrease in gene expression of iNOS and subsequent NO production.

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Background Curcumin is a kind of medicinal plant, a member of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. As the herbal medicine has been globally demanded in recent years and due to the anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, and antifungal properties of curcumin, the present study aimed to compare the inhibitory effect of curcumin with that of nystatin on Candida albicans growth. Methods In this experimental study, the antifungal effect of curcumin on Candida albicans was evaluated. Candida albicans is cultivated in Agar Sabuard medium containing chlorophenic, 10-series of curcumin extract, and one 10-series of a disc impregnated with nystatin. Inside of each plate, one disc of herbal extract, one disc of nystatin as a positive control, one disc of methanol and one empty disc as negative control were placed, after 24 hrs, the inhibitory zone diameter of the herbal extract was compared with that of positive control using Mann–Whitney. Results The mean of inhibitory zone diameter in nystatin and curcumin was 1.04±20.46 and 1.36±0.89 mm, respectively. Mann–Whitney test shows a significant difference between the inhibitory zone diameter of these materials ( P <0.001). Conclusion The results of this study suggested that curcumin extract did not have any effect on the inhibition of Candida albicans in laboratory environment.

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