Effects of Coenzyme Q10 on the ratio of TH1/TH2 in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis Model of Multiple Sclerosis in C57BL/6

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is known as a progressive central nervous system inflammatory disease. Certain factors, such as interleukins, inflammatory cells, and oxidative stress are supposed to involve in MS etiology. Because of the important role of oxidative stress, antioxidant therapy for MS has received more attention. Although coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) acts as an antioxidant, there is a lack of enough research on its effects on MS. Therefore, the present research was designed. Methods: C57BL/6 female adult mice (n = 30) were used in this study. The animals were randomly divided into trial and control groups. To induce MS, routine procedure for experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) was used, and scoring was performed based on clinical signs. By detecting score one, CoQ10 administration was started (10 mg/kg/three weeks). By using ELISA and real-time PCR, the brain levels of TNF-, IL-10, IL-4, and IL-12 were studied. Statistical tests were used to analyze the data and the P value less than 0.05 was considered to be significant. Results: Clinical symptoms in EAE animals were significantly decreased (P<0.05) as compared to control ones. In addition, the level of the TNF- was significantly decreased following CoQ10 administration versus IL-10. The ratio of TH1/TH2 interleukins in treated animals was significantly less than that in non-treated animals (P<0.01). Conclusion: Our findings showed that CoQ10 is capable of suppressing the inflammatory pathway of MS. Key Words: Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)     

Evaluation of Water and Nitrogen Use Efficiency,Digestibility and Some Quantitative and Qualitative Characteristics of Forage Beet Cultivars Under Different Irrigation Methods and Nitrogen Levels

The aim of this study was to evaluate the water and nitrogen use efficiency and some quantitative and qualitative characteristics of forage beet cultivars under the influence of different irrigation methods and nitrogen levels in two cropping years, 2017–18 and 2018–19, at Agricultural Research Station in Karaj, Iran. Experimental factors included the first factor with four irrigation methods (normal leakage, alternate furrow irrigation, fixed furrow irrigation, type (drip-strip)), the second factor was the amount of nitrogen fertilizer with three levels (150, 200 and 250?kg N ha^?1) and the third factor included three forage beet cultivars (Sbsi052, Jamon and Kyros). Among irrigation treatments, alternate furrow irrigation and fixed furrow irrigation had the highest sugar content with 9.28% and 9.17%, respectively. The highest yield of digestible organic matter was obtained in leakage irrigation treatment, nitrogen fertilizer of 250?kg ha^?1 and in Kyros at the rate of 19.45?t ha^?1. The highest yield of root digestible dry matter, potassium, sodium and free nitrogen was observed in leakage irrigation treatment and consumption of 200?kg ha^?1 nitrogen was observed in foreign cultivars. The highest crude protein was observed in alternate furrow irrigation conditions with a consumption of 200?kg ha^?1 nitrogen in cultivar Sbsi052 at 13.08%. Leakage irrigation and type tape had the highest consumption efficiency and efficiency of nitrogen uptake with application of 150 and 200?kg ha^?1 N, and the highest water use efficiency was also observed in leakage irrigation and type tape with application of 250?kg ha^?1 N in domestic and foreign cultivars. The type irrigation method showed better quantitative and qualitative yield than the furrow irrigation methods.

     

Molecular and morphological characterization of Golestan (Iran) olive ecotypes provides evidence for the presence of promising genotypes

Unidentified olive plants naturally grow in the Golestan province of Iran, on different soils and under climates spanning from sub-temperate to desert conditions, represented by single trees or groups of few trees. We collected samples from representative sites and analyzed them by simple sequence repeat markers in order to determine their identity and their relationships to prominent Iranian and Mediterranean reference cultivars. Population structure analysis separated these ecotypes from Mediterranean and, surprisingly, from all Iranian cultivars, the parentage test excluded their direct contribution as candidate parents or offspring of cultivars, and they also showed a high level of admixture. Their differentiation from cultivated olives may be attributed to different factors: they could represent wild plants or could derive from natural dissemination of ancestral cultivated trees. Their survival up to now may be due to the fact that most of them are grown on sacred sites such as necropolis. Anyhow, the adaptation to strong environmental stresses, and their fruit size and oil content make the olive Golestan ecotypes a valuable source of genetic variation previously uncharacterized and currently threatened with extinction.     

Molecular and morphological investigation in Hymenocrater: species delimitation,relationship, divergence time and DNA barcoding

Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution - Hymenocrater comprises of 11 species throught the world. The genus is an Irano-Turanian elements, which has several usages in traditional medicine. Northeast...     

Beta cell protective effects of sodium tungstate in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats: glycemic control, blockage of oxidative stress and beta cell histochemistry

Background: Diabetes is a major public health problem. The development of new therapies that are able to improve glycemia management and even to cure diabetes is of great interest. In this study, protective effects of sodium tungstate against STZ-induced beta-cell damages were investigated. Methods: Sixty rats were divided into six groups: control, diabetic, sodium tungstate treated diabetic rats from one week before STZ injection (TDB), food-restricted diabetic (FRD), tungstate treated control, sodium tungstate treated diabetic rats from one week after STZ administration (TDA). We evaluated serum insulin, glucose and glucose tolerance; liver glycogen content, glucokinase (GK) activity; blood and pancreas antioxidant power, lipid peroxidation; and fuchsin-aldehyde histochemical staining of beta-cells. Results: Blood glucose levels of TDB group were lower than other diabetic groups (P<0.01). Blood insulin levels of all diabetic groups were lower than controls (P<0.01). Glucose intolerance improved in TDB animals. Blood and pancreas antioxidant power, liver glycogen contents and GK activities and granulated beta cells increased in TDB rats in comparison with other diabetic groups (P<0.01). Likewise, lipid peroxidation decreased significantly in TDB rats (P<0.01). Conclusions: Results suggested that sodium tungstate if administrated before STZ injection improves glycemic state by a direct effect on pancreatic beta-cells and preserves them by reducing the activity of these cells at the time of STZ injection, reducing STZ-induced oxidative stress, reducing insulin secretion, or all of the above mentioned.     

Performance of pedigree and various forms of marker-derived relationship coefficients in genomic prediction and their correlations

In recent years, with development and validation of different genotyping panels, several methods have been proposed to build efficient similarity matrices among individuals to be used for genomic selection. Consequently, the estimated genetic parameters from such information may deviate from their counterpart using traditional family information. In this study, we used a pedigree-based numerator relationship matrix ( A ) and three types of marker-based relationship matrices () including two identical by descent, that is and and one identical by state, as well as four Gaussian kernel () similarity kernels with different smoothing parameters to predict yet to be observed phenotypes. Also, we used different kinship matrices that are a linear combination of marker-derived IBD or IBS matrices with A, constructed as , where the weight () assigned to each source of information varied over a grid of values. A Bayesian multiple-trait Gaussian model was fitted to estimate the genetic parameters and compare the prediction accuracy in terms of predictive correlation, mean square error and unbiasedness. Results show that the estimated genetic parameters (heritability and correlations) are affected by the source of the information used to create kinship or the weight placed on the sources of genomic and pedigree information. The superiority of GK -based model depends on the smoothing parameters (θ) so that with an optimum θ value, the GK -based model statistically yielded better performance (higher predictive correlation, lowest MSE and unbiased estimates) and more stable correlations and heritability than the model with IBD, IBS or kinship matrices or any of the linear combinations.     

Mercury's magnetosphere after MESSENGER's first flyby

Observations by MESSENGER show that Mercury's magnetosphere is immersed in a comet-like cloud of planetary ions. The most abundant, Na+, is broadly distributed but exhibits flux maxima in the magnetosheath, where the local plasma flow speed is high, and near the spacecraft's closest approach, where atmospheric density should peak. The magnetic field showed reconnection signatures in the form of flux transfer events, azimuthal rotations consistent with Kelvin-Helmholtz waves along the magnetopause, and extensive ultralow-frequency wave activity. Two outbound current sheet boundaries were observed, across which the magnetic field decreased in a manner suggestive of a double magnetopause. The separation of these current layers, comparable to the gyro-radius of a Na+ pickup ion entering the magnetosphere after being accelerated in the magnetosheath, may indicate a planetary ion boundary layer.     

Genetic diversity and population genetic structure of pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) in Iran using AFLP markers

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is one of the oldest known edible fruits. It is native to Iran and spread from Iran to other areas. In this study amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) was used to detect intra- and inter-population genetic diversity of pomegranate. A group of 67 accessions belonged to 4 populations from Iran was studied using eight primer combinations. A total of 221 scorable bands were amplified, of which, 118 (54.13%) were polymorphic. Resolving power (Rp) ranged from 5.70 to 9.21, and the average of polymorphism information content (PIC) per primer pair was 0.40. According to Nei's gene diversity and allelic statistics, Isfahan population had a highest genetic diversity (H = 0.3646, I = 0.5327, N_e = 1.6467). Coefficient of gene differentiation between populations (GST) was 0.124, indicated that mainly proportion of genetic variation (87.6%), was within populations and the remaining (12.4%) of the variation was among populations that, also supported by analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA). The gene flow (Nm) varied from 0.969 to 10.404 between pair-wise populations and was 3.504 among all of the populations. The Jaccard similarity coefficient between individuals ranged from 0.26 to 0.88. The UPGMA dendrogram clustered all 67 accessions into 6 groups. In some cases accessions from same region were grouped together but in most cases, there was gene exchange. To study the genetic relationships among populations, a principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) based on Nei's genetic distances was performed. Results of this study showed that AFLP marker can be a useful tool for investigating the genetic diversity of pomegranate genotypes.