β-sitosterol (SIT), the most abundant bioactive component of vegetable oil and other plants, is a highly potent antidiabetic drug. Our previous studies show that SIT controls hyperglycemia and insulin resistance by activating insulin receptor and glucose transporter 4 (GLUT-4) in the adipocytes of obesity induced type 2 diabetic rats. The current research was undertaken to investigate if SIT could also exert its antidiabetic effects by circumventing adipocyte induced inflammation, a key driving factor for insulin resistance in obese individuals. Effective dose of SIT (20 mg/kg b.wt) was administered orally for 30 days to high fat diet and sucrose induced type-2 diabetic rats. Metformin, the conventionally used antidiabetic drug was used as a positive control. Interestingly, SIT treatment restores the elevated serum levels of proinflammatory cytokines including leptin, resistin, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) to normalcy and increases anti-inflammatory adipocytokines including adiponectin in type 2 diabetic rats. Furthermore, SIT decreases sterol regulatory element binding protein-1c (SREBP-1c) and enhances Peroxisome Proliferator–activated receptor-γ (PPAR-γ) gene expression in adipocytes of diabetic rats. The gene and protein expression of c-Jun-N-terminal kinase-1 (JNK1), inhibitor of nuclear factor kappa-B kinase subunit beta (IKKβ) and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) were also significantly attenuated in SIT treated groups. More importantly, SIT acts very effectively as metformin to circumvent inflammation and insulin resistance in diabetic rats. Our results clearly show that SIT inhibits obesity induced insulin resistance by ameliorating the inflammatory events in the adipose tissue through the downregulation of IKKβ/NF-κB and c-Jun-N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway.

Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is one of the dreaded neurological conditions and finding a cure for it has been a hot area of research. Naloxone - a mu-opiate receptor (mor) antagonist was considered for SCI treatment based on its positive effects under shock conditions. In contrary to animal studies based reports about the potential benefits of naloxone in treating SCI, a large scale clinical trial [National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study II (NASCIS II)] conducted in USA failed to witness any effectiveness. The inconsistency noticed was intriguing. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to re-examine the role of naloxone in treating SCI using a highly standardised Multicenter Animal Spinal Cord Injury Study (MASCIS) animal model of contusive SCI. Results indicated that naloxone produced negligible and insignificant neuroprotection. In an attempt to understand the cause for the failure, it was found that mu-opioid receptor (mor) gene expression was upregulated in the brain but was down regulated in the spinal cord after contusive SCI. Given that the beneficial effects of naloxone are through its action on the mor, the results indicate that unlike the brain, spinal cord might not be bracing to utilise the opiate system in the repair process. This could possibly explain the failure of naloxone treatment in NASCIS II. To conclude, opiate antagonists like naloxone may be neuroprotective for treating traumatic brain injuries, but not for traumatic/contusive spinal cord injuries.

Objective:Neuroprotective effect of naringenin against carbaryl toxicity was studied in mouse neuroblastoma cell line.Materials and Methods:Mouse neuroblastoma cells (Neuro 2A) obtained from National Center for Cell Sciences, Pune, India were either exposed to carbaryl or pre-treated with naringenin (a flavonoid prepared from grape fruit) before their exposure to carbaryl. Results were analyzed using MTT [3-4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenltetrazolium bromide] assay for cell viability, FACS (fluorescence assisted cell sorting) analysis for apoptotic and necrotic cell populations, DCFH-DA (2`,7`-dichlorofluorescin-diacetate) assay for Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) visualization, JC-1 staining for determining mitochondrial membrane potential and real-time PCR for quantifying pro and anti-apoptotic gene expression.Results:Exposure to naringenin resulted in better survival of Neuro 2A cells which were subsequently subjected to carbaryl toxicity. Treatment with naringenin was found to reduce the oxidative stress by decreasing the ROS and was found to maintain the integrity of mitochondrial membrane potential. It was also found to downregulate pro-apoptotic genes (BAX and Caspase-3) while upregulating anti-apototic gene (Bcl2).Conclusion:The results of this pilot study underline the potential of naringenin in treating carbaryl induced neurotoxicity and further studies are warranted to establish the effect of naringenin in vivo conditions.

The present study was made to investigate the protective effect of methanolic extract of Ficus benghalensis L., Moraceae, on isoniazid-rifampicininduced hepatotoxicity in rats. Rats were divided into six different groups; group 1 served as a control, group 2 received isoniazid and rifampicin (100 mg/ kg, i.p.), in sterile water, groups 3, 4 and 5 received 100, 200 & 300 mg/kg bw, p.o. methanolic extract of F. benghalensis and group 6 received Liv 52. All the treatment protocols followed 21 days and after rats were sacrificed blood and liver were used for biochemical and histological studies, respectively. Administration of isoniazid and rifampicin caused a significant elevation in the levels of liver marker enzymes (p<0.05 and p<0.01) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (p<0.001) in experimental rats. Administration of methanolic extracts of F. benghalensis significantly prevented isoniazid-rifampicin-induced elevation in the levels of serum diagnostic liver marker enzymes and TBARS level in experimental groups of rats. Morever, total protein and reduced glutathione levels were significantly (p<0.001) increased in treatment group. The effect of extract was compared with a standard drug, Liv 52. The changes in biochemical parameters were supported by histological profile. It is to be concluded that the methanolic extract of F. benghalensis protects against isoniazid and rifampicin-induced oxidative liver injury in rats.

Objective. The present systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the oxidative stress-mediated lipid peroxidation end product malondialdehyde (MDA) in periodontitis using the available literature. Materials and Methods. An electronic literature search was performed for the published articles from 2000 to 2022 in PubMed (MeSH), Science Direct, Wiley Online library, and cross-reference using specific keywords. Results. The literature search identified 1,166 articles. After analyzing the abstracts of the obtained articles, the articles were excluded for the following reasons: duplicate studies (n = 395) and not relevant to the research question (n = 726). The remaining 45 articles were chosen for full-text evaluation. Finally, the present qualitative synthesis selected 34 articles that met the inclusion criteria for evaluation and removed the articles which did not meet the required criteria (n = 11). Out of these, 16 articles had coherent data for quantitative synthesis. The meta-analysis used the standardized mean differences method at a 95% confidence interval by random-effects model. The periodontitis group displayed significantly higher MDA levels ( P < 0.001 ) in gingival crevicular fluid, saliva, and serum samples of the studies analyzed than the healthy control. Conclusion. The analyzed studies showed significantly higher MDA levels in various biological samples of patients with periodontitis, supporting the role of elevated oxidative stress and consequent lipid peroxidation in periodontitis.