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A b s t r a c t. Osmotic dehydration characteristics of kiwifruit were predicted by different activation functions of an artificial neural network. Osmotic solution concentration (y 1 ), osmotic solution temperature (y 2 ), and immersion time (y 3 ) were considered as the input parameters and solid gain value (x 1 ) and water loss value (x 2 ) were selected as the outlet parameters of the network. The result showed that logarithm sigmoid activation function has greater performance than tangent hyperbolic activation function for the prediction of osmotic dehydration parameters of kiwifruit. The minimum mean relative error for the solid gain and water loss parameters with one hidden layer and 19 nods were 0.00574 and 0.0062% for logarithm sigmoid activation function, respectively, which introduced logarithm sigmoid function as a more appropriate tool in the prediction of the osmotic dehydration of kiwifruit slices. As a result, it is concluded that this network is capable in the prediction of solid gain and water loss parameters (responses) with the correlation coefficient values of 0.986 and 0.989, respectively.

Background:Pancreatic cancer has poor prognosis by surgical and chemotherapy when it is diagnosed, so other anti-cancerous assistant therapeutic drugs are suggested e.g. epigenetic reversal of tumor-suppressor genes on promoter hypermethylation. 5-Aza-CdR is a nucleoside analog of DNMTi but it has long-term cytotoxicity effects. This study compares the anticancer effect of 5-Aza-CdR and Disulfiram potencies on PANC-1 cell line and up-regulation of p21.Materials and Methods:PANC-1 cell line was cultured in DMEM high glucose and treated by 5-Aza-CdR with 5 and 10 μM concentration for four days and 13 μM DSF (Diulfiram) for 24 hours. MS-PCR and RT-PCR were carried out to detect the methylation pattern and estimate the mRNA expression of RASSF1A and p21 in PANC-1.Result:MS-PCR demonstrated partial unmethylation after treatment with 5-Aza-CdR while there was no unmethylated band after DSF treatment. RT-PCR showed significant differences between re-expression of RASSF1A before and after treatment with 10 μM 5-Aza-CdR (P < 0.01) but not after treatment with 13 μM DSF (P > 0.05). The significant correlation was observed between RASSF1A re-expression and p21 up-regulation before and after treatment with 10 μM 5-Aza-CdR (P < 0.01) but not after treatment with 13 μM DSF (P > 0.05), while p21 up-regulation was significantly higher after DSF treatment (P < 0.01).Conclusion:Our findings indicated that 5-Aza-CdR induces the re-expression of RASSF1A and p21 up-regulation in PANC-1. DSF showed no epigenetic reversion while it affected p21 up-regulation.

Objective: Promoter methylation, which can be regulated by MTHFR activity, is associated with silencing of genes. In this study we evaluated the methylation status (type) of the BRCA2 promoter in ovarian cancer patients carrying different genotypes of the MTHFR gene (A or C polymorphisms at position 1298). Methods: The methylation type of the BRCA2 promoter was evaluated using bisulfate-modified DNA in methylationspecific PCR and the MTHFRa1278c polymorphism was assessed by PCR-RFLP. Results: Analysis of the BRCA2 promoter methylation type of cases showed that 7 out of 60 cases (11.7%) were methylated while the remaining 53 (88.3%) were unmethylated. In methylated cases, one out of the 7 cases had a CC genotype and the remaining 6 methylated cases had an AC genotype. The AA genotype was absent. In unmethylated cases, 34, 18, and one out of these had AC, AA and CC genotype, respectively. Conclusion: There was no significant relationship between the methylation types of the BRCA2 promoter in different genotypes of MTHFRa1298c polymorphism in ovarian cancer; p=0.255. There was no significant relation between the methylation types of the BRCA2 promoter in different genotypes of the MTHFRa1298c polymorphism in ovarian cancer.

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women with very high mortality rates in the world. Genetic and epigenetic studies for early detection and treatment are important and vital in this way. In this regard, in order to assess the RASS-F1A promotor methylation in breast cancer cell line, this research was conducted. Materials and Methods: Remarkably, observing the unmethylated band in promoter of RASSF1A gene in breast treated cancerous cell line of MCF-7 with DSF by MSP method was one of the most important purpose of this project. The breast cancerous cell line of MCF-7 were treated for 1 and 3 days with DSF in different dozes (2.5 up to 37.5 µl) in triplicate repetition in order to find the IC50 doze. Results: Correspondingly, the results of MTT method indicated that the cancerous cell line of MCF-7 which were treated with 5, 10, 12.5 and 15 µl with DSF, had 40 to 60 percent alive cells. In treatment for 3 days, the dozes of 5, 10, 12.5 and 15 µl had methylated and unmethylated bands.Considerably, the treatment for 3 days, was partial methylated. For treatment of 1 day, the dozes 5, 10, 12.5 and 15 µl were shown the methylated band and only the unmethylated band was observed in doze of 15 µl .It was concluded that the partial methylated was existed in treatment for one day in doze of 15 µl. Conclusions: Consequently, It seems that the DSF needs more than 3 days treatment or high dozes for demethylation of the promotor of RASSF1A in breast's cancerous cell line MCF-7.