Journal of Advances in Biology & Biotechnology

Background: Down-regulation of connexin-43 gap-junction protein is involved in primary tumor formation as well as metastasis in breast cancer patients and restoration of gap-junction intercellular communication by up-regulation of connexins has been shown to restore normal phenotypes. However the molecular mechanisms behind these processes remain unknown and a better understanding of the key events is necessary to design anti-cancer treatment models against breast cancer.

Methods and Materials: In this study, Connexin 43 was analyzed for polymorphic changes using PCR method to establish its role (if any) in breast cancer in our cohort of population.

Results: After sequence analysis, none of the screened samples revealed any kind of variations in early or advanced stage of the disease.

Conclusion: Our studies imply that mutational deactivation does not play any role in the down regulation of Connexin 43 expression in breast cancer patients. Instead, some other regulatory mechanism like hypermethylation or mutation of the promoter region of the gene may be involved.

Drought stress during seed germination may act as selection criteria for drought tolerance in wheat. An experiment was done at University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) under a controlled condition to investigate germination of ten Egyptian wheat varieties under a stressful amount of water, and to verify for the presence of drought-resistant genes in the studied Egyptian cultivars using specific molecular markers for drought and DREB1 Gene markers.  A sample from Nebraska soil was used to construct the moisture retention curve, and to select soil moisture stressful levels.  Wheat cultivars showed different significant variations in the percentages of germination (p<0.01) as well as there were a significant effects of water stress treatments and days on germination (p<0.01. The most responsive Egyptian cultivars on the more stressful condition (7.5 ml) were Sids13 (18.33%) followed by Giza168 (16.66%). Among the Egyptian cultivars Giza168 and Sids12 showed the highest mean of germination responses (42.50%) to the two water treatments followed by Sids13 (40.83%). In the present study, 22 drought specific molecular markers were used to screen the ten wheat cultivars from Egypt. The PIC ranged from 0.00 to 0.90 with a mean PIC of 0.38. The generated Dendrogram revealed three main clusters. Cluster 1 contains three cultivars (Sids 12, Giza 168 and Wesley), cluster 2 includes three cultivars (Gemmiza 10, Gemmiza11 and Sakha 93) and cluster 3 contains (Misr1 and Misr2). Screening for dreb1 gene specific to dehydration responsive element binding protein's was made using four primers, results showed two primers (P18 and P22 primers) were approximately matched the expected band size products. This study may add valuable information for further wheat improvement programs and selection and hybridization for drought tolerance. Tolerant cultivars can be grown under rainfall condition in the north coastal region of Egypt.

The growth of water hyacinths under outdoor and controlled laboratory conditions was examined using diluted cow manure as the chosen supplier of nutrients. The study showed that water hyacinth can be used for water purification. Ammonia appears to be the preferred source of nitrogen for the water hyacinths. Water hyacinth is able to survive severe weather conditions below 5ºC for a short amount of time.

Both studies showed that the water hyacinths grew very well during a 22-day study period. Results show that water hyacinths can gain a significant amount of biomass in a short period of time when grown in diluted cow manure. Plants could increase their biomass up to 3.75 and up to 4.0 times during an indoor laboratory study at 20ºC, resulting in over 500 t/ha of biomass production per year. Plant grown at water temperatures of 35ºC do not show an increase in plant biomass. Factors such as climate, contaminant concentration, retention rate, and weather conditions play an important role in plant growth and contaminate removal.

This study evaluated the ameliorating effect of honey on caffeine-induced sperm toxicity in male albino rats. Thirty healthy male albino rats of 12 weeks old were divided into five groups with six rats in each group using a Completely Randomized Design (CRD). The experimental animals were treated with combinations of caffeine and honey orally. Group 1 served as the control and was given only water and feed; Group 2 (honey group) received 10 ml/kgBW of honey; Group 3 (caffeine group) received 200 mg/kgBW of caffeine; Group 4 (C + H₁ group) received 200 mg/kgBW of caffeine and 10 ml/kgBW of honey while Group 5 (C + H₂) received 20 ml/kgBW of honey and 200 mg/kgBW of caffeine. The treatments lasted for a period of 65 days. Results showed statistically significant (p<0.05) reduction in weight of testes and epididymis, epididymal sperm viability,           motility and count in caffeine treated rats when compared with the control. There was a concomitant increase in sperm head abnormalities in caffeine treated rats. However, honey                    effectively ameliorated the caffeine induced sperm toxicities in albino rat models in a dose-dependent manner.

The metallic keyboards of automated teller machines situated within Calabar metropolis were investigated for microbial contamination due to their vast dermal contact by multiple users. Swab sticks soaked with normal sterile saline were used to collect specimens from the keypads. Isolation was done on nutrient agar and eosine methylene blue (EMB) for bacteria and Sabouraud dextrose agar for fungi using standard microbiological procedures. Identification of microorganisms was done using colonial, microscopic and biochemical characteristics. The results reveal that these machines that serve as cash dispensing device can be a potential disease dispensing machines as samples analyzed revealed bacterial isolates such as Staphylococcus spp (32%)), Bacillus spp (24%), Escherichia spp (20%), Pseudomonas spp (18%) and Salmonella spp (6%) while fungal isolates of the samples analyzed include microorganisms such as Rhizopus spp (56%), Aspergillus spp, (25%) and Penicillium spp (19%). These findings necessitate the need for adequate personal hygiene by users and frequent routine cleaning of these machines by the bank’s authorities is highly recommended.