<P>Background: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a common inflammatory disease of the joints. Due to the importance of inflammation and oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of RA, drugs that have anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, such as N-acetyl Cysteine (NAC), can be used as adjunctive therapy in patients with RA. </P><P> Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of oral NAC on inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress in patients with RA. </P><P> Methods: Adjunct to standard treatment, the NAC group (23 patients) received 600 mg of NAC twice daily and the placebo group (19 patients) received identical placebo twice daily for 12 weeks. Serum levels of Total Oxidant Status (TOS), Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC), nitric oxide (NO), Total Thiol Groups (TTG), Malondialdehyde (MDA), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-&#945;), interleukin- 6 (IL-6), C-reactive Protein (CRP), and Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) were measured at baseline and at the end of the study. </P><P> Results: Results showed that in the NAC group, the serum levels of MDA, NO, IL-6, TNF-&#945;, ESR and CRP were significantly lower than the baseline. Also, the serum level of TAC and TTG, as antioxidant parameters, increased significantly. However, only NO, MDA and TTG showed a significant difference in the NAC group as compared to the placebo group at the end of study. </P><P> Conclusion: According to the results of this study, oral NAC can significantly reduce the several oxidative stress factors and inflammatory cytokines. These results need to be confirmed in larger studies while considering clinical outcomes of RA patients.</P>

In this data article, we examined some of those factors such as the effect of fresh, frozen and hot air-dried sample, pH and polarity of solvent by ultrasound-assisted extraction, as a “Green Extraction” technique, to find optimal conditions for increasing the amount of total phenolic and amino acid contents from watermelon rind. Then, we considered the DPPH radical scavenging and anti-tyrosinase activity of the extracts and their association with the amount of the phenolic and amino acid contents in the samples. The obtained data were analyzed one-way ANOVA, Tukey post hoc test and Graph Pad Prism 6 (P < 0.05). Our findings revealed one of the appropriate pre-extraction and extraction conditions of watermelon white rind to achieve more antioxidant and anti-tyrosinase effects. In addition, our data show the value of watermelon white rind as inexpensive, safe whitening and anti-browning agent, which can be used in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and food products.

In this study, we carried out a bioassay-guided fractionation of the most active extract Polygonatum orientale Desf. rhizome, in order to isolate and identify the fraction/s or compound/s responsible for wound healing activity. The wound healing process considered via scratch wound assay on NIH-3T3 fibroblasts. The results showed that the methanol extract and its fractions A5 and A6 showed excellent wound healing effect and were rich of bioactive glycoside compounds. Fraction A6 was selected for further fractionation and two sub-fractions B5 and B6 showed acceptable wound healing on fibroblasts. B5-P (sucrose) and B6-P were isolated as two active compounds from theses fractions that significantly reduced wound area, without any toxicity at very low concentrations (50-200 ng/mL). These results supported the traditional use of P. orientale rhizome for wounds treatment and showed that the accelerated wound healing activity of the rhizome is due to the presence of bioactive polar compounds.