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Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz is an annual flowering plant that belongs to the Brassicaceae family. C. sativa as a dicotyledonous plant, one of its characteristics is morphological formability to respond to large environmental changes. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of ethyl methylsulfonate on germination and morphological traits of C. saiva. Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) is one of the most potent mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds that cause point-substitution-mutation in the genome. To induce mutations in this experiment, ethyl methanesulfonate with concentrations of 0.1% and 0.5% was used in two periods of 8 and 16 hours on 200 seeds of Camelina. The results of variance analysis for plant heights, number of leaves per sub-branch, number of seeds per pod, number of main branch leaves, stem diameter, and pod length did not show the significant difference, but the only significant difference was for the trait of pod width. Also, results showed that there was a significant difference between the tested treatments in terms of germination percentage, longest root length, mean root length, mean shoot length, seedling fresh weight, and seedling dry weight. According to the results of germination experiments, EMS treatment widely affected all six studied traits, therefore, the amounts of the largest root length and shoot length decreased with increasing EMS concentration, but this relationship was not observed in other traits. Although EMS is classified as toxic, for germination percentage, it was observed that with increasing concentration and time of EMS treatment, germination percentage also increased. According to the correlation results, all traits had a positive and significant relationship with each other, which is probably due to the nature of the traits and their additive effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Breast cancer is one of the important causes of mortality among women. Many studies have focused on the development of natural health products for prevention and treatment of breast cancer. This study investigated the effects of Bifidobacterium bifidum and its microvesicles (MVs) on 4T1-induced breast cancer in BALB/c mice. Methods: Sixty female BALB/c mice were divided into 5 groups: (1) negative control, (2) positive control, (3) doxorubicin, (4) probiotic and (5) MVs (isolated from B. bifidum). The mice in groups 4 and 5 were pretreated with B. bifidum and MVs for 4 weeks, respectively. Tumor was induced by subcutaneous administration of 4T1 cell culture. After tumor development, mice in group 3 were treated with doxorubicin while other groups were treated as before. The mice were sacrificed after 3 weeks, breast tumors were removed and histologically examined. Also, P53 and Ki67 protein were evaluated by immunohistochemistry staining, and P53 gene expression was assessed by RT-PCR. Results: Pretreatment with MVs and probiotic reduced mortality and tumor growth rate. MVs and Probiotic prevented the weight loss and suppressed tumor cell proliferation which was indicated by Ki-67 and p53. The expression of p53 confirmed these results. Despite the malignancy in the breast tissue, necrosis of cancer cells occurred in the mice treated with MVs. Conclusion: MVs of B. bifidum effectively inhibited breast cancer development in mice and suppressed tumor cell proliferation. Probiotic microorganisms and their metabolites can be used as a functional food to prevent breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) as a non-protein amino acid has a widespread application in the body's various organs and inhibition of many physiologic diseases. Lactic acid bacteria are able to GABA synthesis in many foods. The purpose of this study was to ferment the soymilk by a new lactic acid bacterium called Lactobacillus sp. Makhdzir Naser-1 (GQ451633). At first, optimum conditions for maximum GABA production were obtained with regard to effective factors such as inoculation time, pH, soy milk concentration and ambient temperature. The optimum conditions are: fermentation time 48 hours, pH 5.3, 12% soy milk and warming temperature 37 ° C. At optimum point, with three repeats of treatment, the produced GABA was 4.17, which has not very significant difference with the predicted value (4.188). Therefore, the accuracy of the proposed equation for predicting GABA value was confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The focus in the present work was on the continuous β‐carotene production from free fatty acids supplied by the soap stock as a sole carbon source for Rhodotorula rubra cells in an airlift bioreactor. The effects of dilution rate on the cell growth and β‐carotene production were studied by both freely suspended‐ and immobilized‐cell systems in the chemostat operations. The results showed that the immobilization of the cell on natural sponge of loofah significantly increased the optimum and maximum dilution rates from 0.0375 to 0.05 hr−1 and 0.055 to 0.150 hr−1, respectively. The immobilization process has practical role in balancing of cell proliferation in the matrix and wash out the grown cells containing β‐carotene from the bioreactor where β‐carotene productivity was enhanced from 5.4 to 23.4 mg L−1 hr−1 using the immobilized cell technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the radioprotective efficacy of lentil (Lens culinaris) sprouts against X-ray radiation-induced cellular damage. Lentil seeds were dark germinated at low temperature and the sprout extract was prepared in PBS. Free radical scavenging of extract was evaluated using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay and then the radioprotective potency of extract (0 to 1000 µg/mL) on the lymphocyte cells was determined by lactate dehydrogenases assay. Moreover, micronuclei assay was assessed using the cytokinesis-block technique. The irradiations were performed using 6 MV X-ray beam. The value of IC50 for DPPH assay was 250 µg/mL. The median lethal dose for radiation was determinate at 5.37 Gy. Pretreatment with lentil sprout extract at 1000 µg/mL reduced cytotoxicity at 6 Gy total concentration from 70% to 50%. The results of micronuclei assay indicated that cells were resistant to radiation at concentrations of 500-1000 µg/mL of exogenous lentil sprout extract. The value of median effective concentration for micronuclei assay was 500 µg/mL. The results indicated that lentil sprout extract showed actually somewhat radioprotective effect on lymphocyte cell. In addition, the obtained results suggest that extract of total lentil sprout have more antioxidant activity than radicle part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expression has been shown to be increased in several types of human tumours. In this study, for the imaging of HER2-related tumours, a modified RNA aptamer with HER2-specific targeting was labelled with 99mTc, by using hydrazino nicotinamide (HYNIC) as the chelator in the presence of tricine or ethylenediamine- N,N′-diacetic acid (EDDA) as the co-ligand. Stability testing of the radiolabelled aptamers in the serum was performed through SDS-PAGE. The aptamer-radionuclide conjugate was evaluated for its cellular HER2-specific binding in ovarian cancer cells (SKOV-3), and its biodistribution properties were assessed in normal and SKOV-3 tumour-bearing mice. In the presence of either tricine or EDDA, the HYNIC-RNA aptamers were labelled with 99mTc at a high yield and radiochemical purity. Cellular experiments confirmed the specific binding of the RNA aptamer to the HER2 receptor. In the animal biodistribution study, uptake of the EDDA-co-liganded 99mTc-HYNIC-RNA aptamer by the liver and spleen was remarkably lower than that of the aptamer with tricine. Tumours also showed a higher accumulation of radioactivity with the EDDA-co-liganded aptamer complex. This study demonstrated EDDA to be better than tricine for use as a co-ligand with the RNA aptamer, which can be a potential tool for the molecular imaging of HER2-overexpressing cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, researchers have investigated the therapeutical properties of metal nanoparticles especially silver nanoparticles in vitro and in vivo conditions. The aim of the experiment was green synthesis and chemical characterization of silver nanoparticles from aqueous extract of Pistacia atlantica leaf (Ag NPs) and evaluation of their cytotoxicity, antioxidant, and antibacterial effects under in vitro condition. Ag NPs were spherical with a size range of 40‐60 nm and characterized using various analysis techniques including UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy to determine the presence of Ag NP in the solution. We studied functional groups of Pistacia atlantica extract in the reduction and capping process of Ag NP by FT‐IR, crystallinity and FCC planes by XRD pattern, elemental analysis of the sample by EDS, and surface morphology, shapes, and size of Ag NPs by SEM, AFM, and TEM. Destroy initiation and termination temperatures of the Ag NPs were determined by TGA. DPPH free radical scavenging test was done to evaluate the antioxidant potentials, which indicated similar antioxidant potentials for Ag NPs and butylated hydroxytoluene. The synthesized Ag NPs had great cell viability dose‐dependently and indicated this method was nontoxic. Agar diffusion tests were done to determine the antibacterial characteristic. Ag NPs revealed similar antibacterial property to the standard antibiotic. Also, Ag NPs prevented the growth of all bacteria at 1‐7 μg/ml concentrations and removed them at 3‐15 μg/ml concentrations. Finally, synthesized Ag NPs revealed non‐cytotoxicity, antioxidant and antibacterial activities in a dose‐depended manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Camelina sativa is one of the most important oilseeds that has a proportionate profile of essential unsaturated fatty acids that are suitable for human nutrition. In this regard, we can mention a high percentage and a reasonable ratio of omega 3 and omega 6., Objectives: In the current study, the created variation of second-generation mutant (M2) camelina lines in terms of fatty acid profiles and ISSR molecular markers in C. sativa was evaluated., Materials and Methods: For this purpose, while producing the first-generation of mutant plants (M1), 200 M2 seeds with 0.1% and 0.5% ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutations were treated in two replications for 8 and 16 hours based on a completely randomized design., Results: The results of mean comparisons showed that there was no significant difference between treatments in terms of fatty acids of palmitic acid, stearic acid, linoleic acid, eicosadienoic acid, oleic acid and erucic acid. The cluster analysis revealed that all the treatments used with five replications were divided into eight groups. It was found that all replications of the treatment with a concentration of 0.1% and a time of 16 hours (C1T2) were in the second group with the lowest palmitic acid was present among other treatments. Therefore, C1T2 treatment is recommended as the best treatment to reduce palmitic acid. Examination of the information content of ISSR molecular markers also showed that markers 2, 5, and 6 were the best informative markers in the detection of camelina fatty acid profiles., Conclusion: A significant variation has been created in the fatty acids profile and it can be applied in future breeding programs depending on the intended purpose., (Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s); Published by Iranian Journal of Biotechnology.)