In the present study, patients with pre-DM and T2DM have higher serum levels of metabolic HGF, nesfatin, and betatrophin and lower levels of omentin, irisin, and OXT. Future longitudinal and interventional studies are required to confirm the utility of these markers as novel progression or therapeutic targets in the pharmacotherapy of diabetes.

A total of 100 Jordanian clinical Staphylococcus aureus isolates was analysed for the presence of the enterotoxin genes sea, seb, sec, sed and see using multiplex PCR. Twenty-three isolates (23 %) were potentially enterotoxigenic. The prevalence of sea, sec and sea plus sec among the total clinical isolates was 15, 4 and 4 %, respectively. None of the isolates harboured sed, seb or see genes. S. aureus isolates were subjected to DNA fingerprinting by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis to test whether isolates harbouring the toxin genes were genetically clustered. A total of 13 genotypes was identified at a 47 % similarity level. Genotypes I and V accounted for the largest number of enterotoxigenic isolates (19 %). This study has demonstrated the genetic diversity of Jordanian clinical S. aureus isolates and shown that the presence of the toxin genes is not genotype specific. INTRODUCTIONStaphylococcus aureus produces a variety of extracellular toxins and virulence factors that contribute to its pathogenic potential. Some S. aureus strains produce pyrogenic exotoxins, such as staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) and toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 (Sharma et al., 2000). SEs are a group of single-chain, low-molecular-mass proteins that are similar in composition and biological activity but differ in antigenicity (Fueyo et al., 2001). Several serologically distinct SEs have been recognized, comprising the classical SEs (SEA to SEE) (Dinges et al., 2000;Becker et al., 2003) and the newly described SEs (SEG to SER and SEU) (Su & Wong, 1995;Jarraud et al., 2001;Letertre et al., 2003).The enterotoxins of S. aureus can be detected by their biological activity, by immunoassays and by PCR (McLauchlin et al., 2000). The prevalence of enterotoxigenic clinical S. aureus isolates has been reported in different countries by many investigators (Mehrotra et al., 2000;Fueyo et al., 2001;Becker et al., 2003). There are no published reports on the prevalence of these genes in Jordanian S. aureus isolates.Accurate and rapid typing of S. aureus strains is crucial to the control of infectious strains. Numerous typing methods have been described (Frénay et al., 1994;Kluytmans et al., 1995;Yoshida et al., 1997;van Leeuwen et al., 2003); among these is randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis, which has been found to be a simple, rapid and effective method for genotyping of S. aureus (Tambic et al., 1997).The purpose of this study was to investigate (i) the prevalence of the classical enterotoxin genes in Jordanian clinical isolates of S. aureus, (ii) the genetic variation among these isolates using RAPD analysis and (iii) the genotype specificity of the classical enterotoxin genes. METHODSBacterial strains. This study used 100 clinical S. aureus isolates that were collected and identified by biochemical tests during a previous study (Al-Zu'bi et al., 2004). These isolates were obtained from various clinical specimens submitted to the microbiology laboratory of Jordan University Hospital, Amman, Jordan. In all assays,...

BackgroundAsthma and allergic rhinitis are respiratory diseases with a significant global burden. Forkhead box O3 (FOXO3) is a gene involved in the etiology of a number of respiratory diseases. The objective of this study is to assess the association of rs13217795, an intronic FOXO3 single-nucleotide polymorphism, with asthma and allergic rhinitis.MethodsIn this case–case–control genetic association study, genotyping was conducted using the PCR–RFLP method. Genotype-based associations were investigated under the general, recessive, and dominant models of disease penetrance using binomial logistic regression; and, allele-based associations were tested using Pearson’s chi-squared test.ResultsThe final study population consisted of 94 controls, 124 asthmatics, and 110 allergic rhinitis patients. The general and recessive models of disease penetrance were statistically significant for both case–control comparisons. Under the general model, the odds of the asthma phenotype were 1.46 (0.64 to 3.34) and 3.42 (1.37 to 8.57) times higher in heterozygotes and derived allele homozygotes, respectively, compared to ancestral allele homozygotes. The corresponding odds ratios for the allergic rhinitis phenotype were 1.05 (0.46 to 2.40) and 2.35 (0.96 to 5.73), respectively. The dominant model of disease penetrance was not statistically significant. The minor allele in all study groups was the ancestral allele, with a frequency of 0.49 in controls. There was no deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium in controls. Both case–control allele-based associations were statistically significant.ConclusionsHerein we present the first report of the association between rs13217795 and allergic rhinitis, and the first independent verification of the association between rs13217795 and asthma. Marker selection in future genetic association studies of asthma and allergic rhinitis should include functional polymorphisms in linkage disequilibrium with rs13217795.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12881-017-0494-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background:The antiproliferative activity of Salvia species grown in Jordan has not been fully evaluated yet. The aim of this work was to study the antiproliferative activity of crude ethanol extracts from nine Salvia species grown in Jordan against a panel of breast cancer cell lines.Material and Methods:Cytotoxic activity was evaluated in human tumor models of breast cancer; MCF-7, T47D, ZR-75-1, and BT 474 by the sulforhodamine B assay. In addition, the extracts were evaluated using a non-transformed cell line (Vero) and normal fibroblast cells in order to demonstrate their selectivity and safety.Results:From the nice ethanol extracts under investigation, those of S. dominica and S. fruticosa showed an inhibitory concentration of 50% of cells (IC50) in concentrations less than 30μg/mL against the four cell lines under investigation. S. syriaca and S. hormium showed an IC50 below 30μg/ml for two out of the four cell lines. S. fruticosa, S. hormium and S. syriaca showed selectivity in their antiproliferative activity against estrogen receptor positive cell lines with minimal toxicity against normal human periodontal fibroblasts. Phytochemical screening using thin layer chromatography indicated the presence of terpenoids, flavonoids and coumarins in all examined extracts.Conclusion:Three of the plant extracts under investigation exhibited antiproliferative activity against breast cancer cells and were shown to be safe and selective. These could be considered as a potential source for novel anticancer therapy.