Functional properties, phenolic constituents and antioxidant potential of industrial apple pomace for utilization as active food ingredient

Apple pomace is a waste biomass generated after apple fruit processing.In present investigation,efforts were made to comprehend influence of differently dried pomace on cell wall properties and phenolic profile.Different drying techniques were employed to remove moisture content from fresh apple pomace.Total dietary fiber yield(74%)and array of functional properties such as density,water and oil holding capacity,swelling capacity and glucose dialysis retardation index(36.91%)was found better in freeze dried fraction.The higher total phenolics(5.78±0.08 mg GAE/g dry weight)content was also recorded in freeze dried fraction followed by oven and sun drying.The 50%aqueous acetone was found as more efficient solvent for extraction of phenolic constituents.RP-HPLC analysis has revealed presence of quercetin,phloridzin and phloretin as major phenolics.Thus,it is evident from the results that pomace generated at industrial scale can be utilized as a source of dietary food ingredient.

Acanthus ilicifolius plant extract prevents DNA alterations in a transplantable Ehrlich ascites carcinoma-bearing murine model

AIM: To investigate the chemopreventive efficacy of the Indian medicinal plant Acanthus ilicifolius L Acanthaceae in a transplantable Ehrlich ascites carcinoma (EAC)- bearing murine model. METHODS: Male Swiss albino mice were divided into four groups: Group A was the untreated normal control; Group B was the EAC control mice group that received serial, intraperitoneal (ip) inoculations of rapidly proliferating 2 x 105 viable EAC cells in 0.2 mL of sterile phosphate buffered saline; Group C was the plant extract-treated group that received the aqueous leaf extract (ALE) of the plant at a dose of 2.5 mg/kg body weight by single ip injections, once daily for 10, 20 and 30 consecutive days following tumour inoculation (ALE control); and Group D was the EAC + ALE- treatment group. The chemopreventive potential of the ALE was evaluated in a murine model by studying various biological parameters and genotoxic markers, such as tumour cell count, mean survival of the animals, haematological indices, hepatocellular histology, immunohistochemical expression of liver metallothionein (MT) protein, sister-chromatid exchanges (SCEs), and DNA alterations.RESULTS: Treatment of the EAC-bearing mice with the ALE significantly (P < 0.001) reduced viable tumour cell count by 68.34% (228.7 x 106 ± 0.53) when compared to EAC control mice (72.4 x 106 ± 0.49), and restored body and organ weights almost to the normal values. ALE administration also increased (P < 0.001) mean survival of the hosts from 35 ± 3.46 d in EAC control mice to 83 ± 2.69 d in EAC + ALE-treated mice. Haematological indices also showed marked improvement with administration of ALE in EAC-bearing animals. There was a significant increase in RBC count (P < 0.001), hemoglobin percent (P < 0.001), and haematocrit value (P < 0.001) from 4.3 ± 0.12, 6.4 ± 0.93, and 17.63 ± 0.72 respectively in EAC control mice to 7.1 ± 0.13, 12.1 ± 0.77, and 30.23 ± 0.57 respectively in EAC + ALE-treated group, along with concurrent decrement (P < 0.001) in WBC count from 18.8 ± 0.54 in EAC control to 8.4 ± 0.71 in EAC + ALE. Furthermore, treatment with ALE substantially improved hepatocellular architecture and no noticeable neoplastic lesions or foci of cellular alteration were observed. Daily administration of the ALE was found to limit liver MT expression, an important marker of cell proliferation with concomitant reduction in MT immunoreactivity (62.25 ± 2.58 vs 86.24 ± 5.69, P < 0.01). ALE was also potentially effective in reducing (P < 0.001) the frequency of SCEs from 14.94 ± 2.14 in EAC control to 5.12 ± 1.16 in EAC + ALE-treated group. Finally, in comparison to the EAC control, ALE was able to suppress in vivo DNA damage by abating the generations of ‘tailed’ DNA by 53.59% (98.65 ± 2.31 vs 45.06 ± 1.14, P < 0.001), and DNA single-strand breaks (SSBs) by 38.53% (3.14 ± 0.31 vs 1.93 ± 0.23, P < 0.01) in EAC-bearing murine liver. CONCLUSION: Our data indicate that, ALE is beneficial in restoring haematological and hepatic histological profiles and in lengthening the survival of the animals against the proliferation of ascites tumour in vivo. Finally, the chemopreventive efficacy of the ALE is manifested in limiting MT expression and in preventing DNA alterations in murine liver. The promising results of this study suggest further investigation into the chemopreventive mechanisms of the medicinal plant A. ilicifolius in vivo and in vitro.

TRAF2-MLK3 interaction is essential for TNF-α-induced MLK3 activation

混合的系 kinase (MLK3 ) 3 是被肿瘤坏死因素激活的激活 mitogen 的蛋白质 kinase kinase kinase -- 伪(TNF- 伪) 并且明确地在 TNF- 伪刺激上激活 c6 月 N 终端 kinase (JNK ) 。TNF- 伪由激活 MLK3 的机制不被知道。TNF 联系受体的因素(TRAF ) 是被招募到 TNF 受体的细胞质的结束并且调停的改编者分子，包括 JNK 的激活下游的发信号。这里，我们报导 MLK3 与 TRAF2， TRAF5 和 TRAF6 联系；然而，仅仅 TRAF2 能显著地导致 MLK3 的 kinase 活动。到 TRAF 领域并且为到它的 C 终端一半(氨基酸 511-847 ) 的 MLK3 的 TRAF2 地图的相互作用领域。与对方一起的内长的 TRAF2 和响应以一种时间依赖者方式的 TNF- 伪处理的 MLK3 伙伴。在 MLK3 和 TRAF2 之间的协会调停有绑在 MLK3 的 TRAF2 删除异种的 MLK3 激活和竞争以一种剂量依赖者方式稀释 MLK3 kinase 活动，在 TNF- 伪处理上。而且 MLK3 的下游的目标， JNK 被 TNF- 伪以一种 TRAF2 依赖的方式激活。因此，我们在 TRAF2 和 MLK3 之间的直接相互作用为 TNF- 伪 - 被要求的数据表演导致了 MLK3 和它的下游的目标的激活， JNK。

A novel strategy for automatic test data generation using soft computing technique

Software testing is one of the most crucial and analytical aspect to assure that developed software meets pre- scribed quality standards. Software development process in- vests at least 50% of the total cost in software testing process. Optimum and efficacious test data design of software is an important and challenging activity due to the nonlinear struc- ture of software. Moreover, test case type and scope deter- mines the quality of test data. To address this issue, software testing tools should employ intelligence based soft comput- ing techniques like particle swarm optimization （PSO） and genetic algorithm （GA） to generate smart and efficient test data automatically. This paper presents a hybrid PSO and GA based heuristic for automatic generation of test suites. In this paper, we described the design and implementation of the proposed strategy and evaluated our model by performing ex- periments with ten container classes from the Java standard library. We analyzed our algorithm statistically with test ad- equacy criterion as branch coverage. The performance ade- quacy criterion is taken as percentage coverage per unit time and percentage of faults detected by the generated test data. We have compared our work with the heuristic based upon GA, PSO, existing hybrid strategies based on GA and PSO and memetic algorithm. The results showed that the test case generation is efficient in our work.