No abstract

Addition of glutamine to liraglutide regimen enhances the glycemic control and may have utility in clinical settings.

Doxorubicin (DXR) is a broad-spectrum anti-cancer. Doxorubicin irreversible toxicity resulting from oxidative damage limits its therapeutic use. Boswellic acids (BAs) are inhibitors of 5-lipoxygenase and have been used in traditional medicine for their powerful anti-inflammatory effects and cellular protective effects. This study tested the protecting mechanisms of BAs against nephrotoxicity induced by DXR in mice and explored their antioxidant and antiapoptotic activities in the form of immunohistochemical expression of Bcl2 in the tissue of the kidney. DXR (6 mg/kg) was injected intraperitoneally weekly to mice along with BAs (125, 250 and 500 mg/kg) daily. The experiment continued for three weeks. It was found that the elevated serum urea and creatinine in DXR-treated mice were ameliorated by BAs. Furthermore, BAs decreased malondialdehyde and increased glutathione levels in renal tissues of DXR-treated mice. The immunostained kidney tissue showed an antiapoptotic effect for BAs as it increased expression of Bcl2 in mice co-treated with BAs with DXR compared to the DXR control mice. Western blot analysis demonstrated that DXR control group showed greater expression for renal caspase 3 and mice administered BAs (125-500 mg/kg) along with DXR showed significant downregulations. These findings were supported by the DNA laddering assay and histopathological examination of renal tissues stained with haematoxylin+eosin or periodic acid Schiff. Results suggest BAs for nephroprotection against toxicity induced by DXR.

No abstract

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are postulated to play significant role in the pathogenesis, progression as well as drug resistance of breast cancer. Nucleostemin (NS) is thought to be a key molecule for stemness, and the clinical impact of NS immunoreactivity in breast cancer can indicate its actual role and future therapeutic potentials.The current study is an observational study with an attempt to evaluate the correlation between NS expression (protein and gene expression levels) and different clinicopathological attributes of invasive breast cancer. For that reason, we investigated NS immunohistochemistry expression on commercial tissue microarray (TMA) of 102 patients and 51 archival specimens from patients admitted to Saqr Hospital, Ras Al Khaimah and diagnosed in Al Baraha Hospital, Dubai, UAE. In addition, the association between NS (GNL3) gene expression and different prognostic parameters as well as patient outcome was also evaluated using 2 large publicly available databases.Interestingly, we found NS expression to be associated with less differentiated and more advance stage. In addition, NS expression was significantly higher in larger size (P = .001) and LN-positive tumors (P = .007). Notably, NS expression was significantly correlated to P53 positive (P = .037) status. Furthermore, NS was found to be more expressed in the highly aggressive breast cancer subtypes including human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2) and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtypes. Moreover, our results also showed that high GNL3 gene expression to be associated with poor patient outcome and higher chances of tumor recurrence.Our results highlight NS expression as a marker of aggressive phenotype and poor outcome and indicate its possible use as a potential target for CSC-associated breast cancer management.