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Toxins Feb 2023The relative lack of marine venom pharmaceuticals can be anecdotally attributed to difficulties in working with venomous marine animals, including how to maintain venom... (Review)
Review
The relative lack of marine venom pharmaceuticals can be anecdotally attributed to difficulties in working with venomous marine animals, including how to maintain venom bioactivity during extraction and purification. The primary aim of this systematic literature review was to examine the key factors for consideration when extracting and purifying jellyfish venom toxins to maximise their effectiveness in bioassays towards the characterisation of a single toxin.An up-to-date database of 119 peer-reviewed research articles was established for all purified and semi-purified venoms across all jellyfish, including their level of purification, LD50, and the types of experimental toxicity bioassay used (e.g., whole animal and cell lines). We report that, of the toxins successfully purified across all jellyfish, the class Cubozoa (i.e., and ) was most highly represented, followed by Scyphozoa and Hydrozoa. We outline the best practices for maintaining jellyfish venom bioactivity, including strict thermal management, using the "autolysis" extraction method and two-step liquid chromatography purification involving size exclusion chromatography. To date, the box jellyfish has been the most effective jellyfish venom model with the most referenced extraction methods and the most isolated toxins, including CfTX-A/B. In summary, this review can be used as a resource for the efficient extraction, purification, and identification of jellyfish venom toxins.
Topics: Animals; Cnidarian Venoms; Scyphozoa; Cubozoa; Cell Line; Chromatography, Gel
PubMed: 36977061
DOI: 10.3390/toxins15030170 -
Scientific Reports Oct 2022Currently, there is no specific pharmaceutical agent for treating acute pancreatitis (AP). Somatostatin and its analogues have been used to prevent the autolysis of the... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
Currently, there is no specific pharmaceutical agent for treating acute pancreatitis (AP). Somatostatin and its analogues have been used to prevent the autolysis of the pancreas in AP, however, their effectiveness has not been confirmed. This investigation aimed to examine the efficacy of ulinastatin, a protease inhibitor, combined with somatostatin analogues in the treatment of AP. We conducted a systematic database search in 4 databases to identify randomized controlled trials in which the efficacy of ulinastatin in combination with somatostatin analogue was compared to somatostatin analogue alone in patients with AP. Since the patient populations of analysed papers were slightly different, we used random effect models to pool odds ratios (OR) and mean differences (MD) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI). A total of 9 articles comprising 1037 patients were included in the meta-analysis. The combination therapy significantly reduced the complication rates for acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute kidney injury, and multiple organ dysfunction. Symptoms were relieved threefold with the combination therapy compared to somatostatin alone, and combination therapy significantly shortened the length of hospital stay. The decrease in mortality was not statistically significant..
Topics: Humans; Acute Disease; Pancreatitis; Protease Inhibitors; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; Somatostatin
PubMed: 36289288
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22341-7 -
Romanian Journal of Morphology and... 2017Establishing the postmortem interval (PMI) is vital in legal medicine as it allows to retrospectively estimate the hour of death, which is essential for the police as a... (Review)
Review
Establishing the postmortem interval (PMI) is vital in legal medicine as it allows to retrospectively estimate the hour of death, which is essential for the police as a starting point for their inquiries (especially in violent deaths). Ultrastructure studies aimed specifically to detect autolytic changes are scarcely identified in the scientific literature. Moreover, they are performed in a variety of conditions (different temperatures, species, in vitro ÷ in situ, and so on), making the results difficult to interpret for legal medicine purposes. The main aim of this review is to determine the potential usefulness of ultrastructure studies for the estimation of the postmortem interval and to provide a summary of relevant scientific literature in the area, which might be useful as a starting point for more specific and detailed studies in the field. We performed a search on the ISI Thomson Web of Knowledge database using a series of predefined keywords; the articles fulfilling the inclusion criteria were systematically analyzed to identify ultrastructure changes associated with autolysis. Our investigation revealed 20 relevant articles, which detailed ultrastructure changes in the brain, heart, liver, pancreas, kidney, bone, sweat glands, thyroid, skeletal muscle, cartilage and sweat glands. For each organ, we arranged systematically postmortem ultrastructure changes that were described by various authors. Ultrastructure changes appear early and may be useful in determining the time since death in the early postmortem interval. However, most studies published in this area followed methodologies that could not allow a proper reproducibility in forensic circumstances. Therefore, before using ultrastructure for estimating the PMI in practical environments, further studies are needed. They should be performed ideally on human samples, obtained at regular intervals after death, at variable, decreasing temperatures.
Topics: Humans; Muscle, Skeletal; Postmortem Changes
PubMed: 28730221
DOI: No ID Found