Objective During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, non-pharmacologic interventions were the strategies for the prevention of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The Ministry of Ayush, Govt. of India, had advised Arsenicum album 30C, as a prophylactic to prevent COVID-19. This study was undertaken to evaluate the protective efficacy and safety of the Arsenicum album 30C. Methods We conducted a prospective, multicentre, cluster-randomized, parallel arm, community-based, open-label study involving apparently healthy individuals residing in containment areas of 7 cities of India. Clusters are defined as the population residing in the containment areas, who are under restriction for movement. 42 clusters were randomly assigned at 2:1 to the Arsenicum album 30C group (30 clusters) or to the control group (12 clusters, which received no specific therapy). The medicine was given twice daily for 7 days. The primary outcome was the incidence of COVID-19, as per the case definition notified by the National Centre for Disease Control, Government of India, during three weeks follow-up period. Results The analysis included 32186 individuals residing in 42 clusters (containment areas). A total of 22693 individuals of 30 clusters received Arsenicum album 30C and 9493 individuals of 12 clusters were observed in the control group. Results were similar in the medicine and control groups for age, gender, and comorbidity. The overall protective effect of the Arsenicum album 30C was 80.22% (95% confidence interval [CI], 71.16 to 86.44; 40 cases per 22693 [6.04 per 10000 person-weeks] in the Arsenicum album 30C group vs. 84 cases per 9493 [29.78 per 10000 person-weeks] in the control group). The protective effect of the Arsenicum album 30C against laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 was 68.22% (95% [CI], 49.64 to 80; 32 cases per 22693 [4.83 per 10000 person-weeks] in the Arsenicum album 30C group vs. 42 cases per 9493 [14.93 per 10000 person-weeks] in the control group). Adverse effects observed in both groups were mild and resolved without medication and sequelae. Conclusion Homeopathic medicine Arsenicum album 30C was associated with a decrease in the incidence and provided some protection against COVID-19 as compared to non-treatment. Further, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials may be conducted to validate the results of this study.
Introduction: The combined abilities of colonisation and both inherent and acquired resistance have made Enterococci a significant human pathogen. Aims and Objectives: This study was done to determine the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration of various antibiotics against Enterococci and to correlate the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of Enterococci with low level and high level drug resistance. Materials and Methods: A total of 774 isolates of Enterococci obtained from various clinical samples were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing by Kirby Bauer Disk Diffusion method. The Minimum Inhibitory Concentration of various antibiotics were determined by Vitek 2 automated system, agar dilution and E test. Results: 15 out of 774 isolates showed the presence of vancomycin resistant genes by Multiplex PCR. 10 (90.91 %) isolates out of 11 E. faecalis with van A gene showed high level resistance to Penicillin (16-64 µg/ml). 8 (72.73 %) out of 11 isolates showed high level resistance to Gentamicin (512-1024 µg/ml). 6 (54.55 %) , out of 11 isolates were resistant to β lactams. One isolate of E. faecalis from urine with van B gene showed showed high level resistance to Penicillin (32 µg/ml), Linezolid (≥ 8µg/ml), high level resistance to Gentamicin (1024 µg/ml), Fluoroquinolones (≥ 8µg/ml) and Macrolides (≥ 8µg/ml). Conclusion: Isolates of Enterococci resistant to glycopeptides, penicillin, Betalactams and aminoglycosides have important clinical implications in the treatment for infection.
Background: Recent genome-wide profiling by sequencing and distinctive chromatin signatures has identified thousands of long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) species (>200 nt). LincRNAs are emerging as important regulators of gene expression. While altered expressions of lincRNAs have been observed to play an important role in tumorigenesis, their roles in breast cancer (BCa) progression and metastasis are still poorly understood. Experimental designs and results: To discover novel BCa-associated lincRNA transcripts, we have employed a high-density SNP array based approach, in which we specifically probed the transcripts in the human intergenic region to globally explore lincRNA genes that are aberrantly expressed in BCa. We found 38 lincRNA transcripts that were dysregulated in tumors (P<0.01, FDR2-fold change, vs. adjacent normal samples), including 22 lincRNAs being up-regulated, and 16 lincRNAs being down-regulated. One of the lincRNAs, termed LincIN, was probed by 5 exon-targeted markers, showing significant upregulation of expression in breast tumors (P<0.001). Results from BCa tissue microarray (TMA) analysis by RNAscope® ISH demonstrated that high LincIN expression in BCa tissues correlated with poorly differentiated tumor grade (vs. moderately and well differentiated grade, P<0.05). Furthermore, knockdown of LincIN in BCa cells diminished cancer cell migration and invasion in vitro and reduced lung metastasis in MDA-MB-231-luc-D3H1 xenografted mice, while overexpression of LincIN tended to promote BCa cell migration in vitro. Using RNA pull-down and subsequent mass spectrometry (MS), we identified and validated that NF90/ILF3 is one of the most abundant LincIN binding partners. NF90/ILF3 is a well-known double-stranded RNA-binding protein and participates in the post-transcriptional regulation of many genes, including p21. Overexpression of LincIN in MCF10A cells significantly decreased the p21 protein level but not the static p21 mRNA level, suggesting a potential role of LincIN in post-transcriptional regulation of p21. Importantly, the effect of LincIN-mediated downregulation of p21 protein was diminished when NF90 was reduced by RNAi. These results suggested that LincIN may regulate breast tumor progression/metastasis via mediating the NF90/ILF3-associated post-transcriptional regulation. Conclusions: Results from our clinical correlative analysis and functional studies support that LincIN is a promising prognostic RNA marker for BCa progression/metastasis. Knockdown of LincIN in BCa cells diminished cancer cell invasion in vitro and reduced lung metastasis in vivo, suggesting that LincIN could be a novel target for treating advanced BCa disease. This work was partially supported by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure (KG100274), and Eileen Stein Jacoby Fund. Citation Format: Zhengyu Jiang, Zhou Yan, Karthikeyan Devarajan, Carolyn M. Slater, Mary B. Daly, Xiaowei Chen. A novel metastasis-associating LincRNA destabilizes tumor-suppressor mRNAs through cooperative action with NF90/ILF3 binding. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 2870. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-2870
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