David A. Ojo

Reversal of aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) inhibition and reduction of erythrocyte protoporphyrin levels by Vitamin C in occupational lead exposure in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

In order to investigate the toxic effects of lead during occupational exposure to this metal, the activity of aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) and the concentrations of erythrocyte protoporphyrin (EPP) were determined in blood of various artisans in Abeokuta, Nigeria and these were related to blood lead levels. ALAD activity in the artisans was inhibited to varying extents. ALAD activity was inhibited to the tune of 77% in petrol station attendants while the lowest inhibition of 36% was obtained in the welders. EPP was also significantly increased in the artisans (p<0.001). The highest EPP level of 241.57±89.27μg/100ml of red blood cell was observed in upholsterers. A significant (p<0.001) negative correlation was observed between ALAD activity and blood lead levels on one hand (r=-0.631) and between ALAD activity and EPP on the other hand (r=-0.461). Administration of a daily dose of 500mg ascorbic acid for 2 weeks reversed the lead-induced inhibition of ALAD. Increased EPP levels observed in the artisans also responded positively to the ascorbic acid supplementation. A significant reduction (p<0.001) in blood lead was also observed in the artisans at the end of the 2-week ascorbic acid therapy. Our findings indicate that ascorbic acid may offer more advantages over the conventional agents for the treatment of lead poisoning, especially in cases where the subjects cannot be removed from the source of lead exposure.

Tissue dyslipidemia in salmonella-infected rats treated with amoxillin and pefloxacin

BackgroundThis study investigated the effects of salmonella infection and its chemotherapy on lipid metabolism in tissues of rats infected orally with Salmonella typhimurium and treated intraperitoneally with pefloxacin and amoxillin.MethodsAnimals were infected with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium strain TA 98. After salmonellosis was confirmed, they were divided into 7 groups of 5 animals each. While one group served as infected control group, three groups were treated with amoxillin (7.14 mg/kg body weight, 8 hourly) and the remaining three groups with pefloxacin (5.71mg/kg body weight, 12 hourly) for 5 and 10 days respectively. Uninfected control animals received 0.1ml of vehicle. Rats were sacrificed 24h after 5 and 10 days of antibiotic treatment and 5 days after discontinuation of antibiotic treatment. Their corresponding controls were also sacrificed at the same time point. Blood and tissue lipids were then evaluated.ResultsSalmonella infection resulted in dyslipidemia characterised by increased concentrations of free fatty acids (FFA) in plasma and erythrocyte, as well as enhanced cholesterogenesis, hypertriglyceridemia and phospholipidosis in plasma, low density lipoprotein-very low density lipoprotein (LDL-VLDL), erythrocytes, erythrocyte ghost and the organs. The antibiotics reversed the dyslipidemia but not totally. A significant correlation was observed between fecal bacterial load and plasma cholesterol (r=0.456, p<0.01), plasma triacyglycerols (r=0.485, p<0.01), plasma phospholipid (r=0.414, p<0.05), plasma free fatty acids (r=0.485, p<0.01), liver phospholipid (r=0.459, p<0.01) and brain phospholipid (r=0.343, p<0.05).ConclusionThe findings of this study suggest that salmonella infection in rats and its therapy with pefloxacin and amoxillin perturb lipid metabolism and this perturbation is characterised by cholesterogenesis.

Amoxillin- and pefloxacin-induced cholesterogenesis and phospholipidosis in rat tissues

BackgroundTo investigate whether amoxillin and pefloxacin perturb lipid metabolism.MethodsRats were treated with therapeutic doses of each antibiotic for 5 and 10 days respectively. Twenty four hours after the last antibiotic treatment and 5 days after antibiotic withdrawal, blood and other tissues (liver, kidney, brain, heart and spleen) were removed from the animals after an overnight fast and analysed for their lipid contents.ResultsBoth antibiotics produced various degrees of compartment-specific dyslipidemia in the animals. While plasma and erythrocyte dyslipidemia was characterised by up-regulation of the concentrations of the major lipids (cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids and free fatty acids), hepatic and renal dyslipidemia was characterised by cholesterogenesis and phospholipidosis. Splenic dyslipidemia was characterised by cholesterogenesis and decreased phospholipid levels. Cardiac and brain cholesterol contents were not affected by the antibiotics. A transient phospholipidosis was observed in the brain whereas cardiac phospholipids decreased significantly. Lipoprotein abnormalities were reflected as down-regulation of HDL cholesterol. Furthermore, the two antibiotics increased the activity of hepatic HMG-CoA reductase. Although erythrocyte phospholipidosis was resolved 5 days after withdrawing the antibiotics, dyslipidemia observed in other compartments was still not reversible.ConclusionOur findings suggest that induction of cholesterogenesis and phospholipidosis might represent additional adverse effects of amoxillin and pefloxacin.

Triple positivity of HBsAg, anti-HCV antibody, and HIV and their influence on CD4+ lymphocyte levels in the highly HIV infected population of Abeokuta, Nigeria

BACKGROUND Few studies exist on hospital-based seroprevalence of triple positivity of HIV/HBV/HCV in Nigeria. OBJECTIVES The study aimed at determining the triple positivity of HIV, HBsAg and HCV among HIV-infected individuals in Abeokuta, Nigeria and defining the influence of these triple infections on CD4+ counts of HIV-infected individuals as antiretroviral therapy improves in Nigeria. METHODS Enumeration of CD4+ levels in 183 HIV-infected persons was done with Partec Flow Cytometer. Seropositivity of HBsAg and anti-HCV antibody was detected with rapid kits. RESULTS From the result obtained, significance variance (p<0.05) existed between HIV positive persons and persons who tested positive to HIV/HBV/HCV triple infection before and after the commencement of HAART. Of these infections, 31(16.9%) had HBV/HCV/HIV triple infection, while 152(83.1%) had HIV mono infection only, 56(30.6%) had HBV/HIV dual infection only and 43(23.5%) had HCV/HIV dual infection only. Significant variance (p<0.05) also existed between subjects with CD4 counts of <200 cells/µl, 200-499 cells/µl and >500 cells/µl. Highest seroprevalence of HIV (35.0%) was found in age groups 35-44 years and >65 years had the least (2.7%). Significant variance (p<0.05) also existed in the progression of CD4+ lymphocytes cells between subjects with persistent decrease (32.3%) in CD4+ lymphocytes cells and those with fluctuation in their CD4+ lymphocytes cells (12.9%) after the commencement of ART. CONCLUSION The study further confirms that triple positivity of HIV/HBV/HCV infection is common in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Testing of these triple infections should be a big concern in the best choice and commencement of ART. Also, the study showed that consistent and prolonged use of HAART had a positive impact on the CD4 count of HIV-infected individuals.

An Adaptive and Collaborative Server-Side SMS Spam Filtering Scheme Using Artificial Immune System

ABSTRACT SMS Spam, which is an unsolicited or unwanted message, is a major problem with Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) subscribers. Existing Spam filters have not been able to stop the SMS Spam problem due to frequent drift in spammer’s words, limited bag of words for training, device portability, and high computational overhead of filters. This paper presents a collaborative and adaptive server-side SMS Spam filter using Artificial Immune System (coined ExAIS_SMS). The proposed scheme involves five modules: the innate mechanism, the user feedback, the quarantine, the tokenizer, and the immune engine. In this study, a new English corpus consisting of 5,240 SMS messages from 20 different users was collected for the study. A comprehensive experimental analysis on the SMS data set reveals the constant changes of Spam keywords and the impact of user feedback for system adaptability. In order to prove the efficiency of the proposed scheme, ExAIS_SMS was benchmarked with existing systems using the NUS corpus. The result gave an overall accuracy of 99% for ExAIS_SMS, 98% for Bayesian, and 97% for a client side AIS. The results showed that ExAIS_SMS is an efficient SMS Spam filtering technique, especially in resource constrained mobile phones.

Neonatal sepsis in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital: Clinical features, clinical outcome, aetiology and antibiotic susceptibility pattern

Background: Neonatal sepsis is a significant cause of neonatal mortality in developing countries. The aetiological agents and their antimicrobial susceptibility patterns are dynamic. Objectives: Th...

Molecular Interactions and Docking Studies of the Phytochemical Constituents of Costus Afer against Therapeutic Targets of Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes mellitus continues to exist as one of the world’s commonest chronic diseases, and the incidence of diabetes is presumed to grow steadily. With the associated adverse side effects of some of the current drugs, the management of diabetes mellitus continues to pose serious challenge in the medical field. There is a need for more robust approach to the treatment and management of diabetes and plants with their anti-diabetic potentials are expected to play key roles in the discovery of new and more potent pharmaceuticals that can successfully treat diabetes. Costus afer, a reported anti-diabetic plant was investigated in the present study for its anti-diabetic properties against certain therapeutic target of diabetes. Phytochemical constituents of C. afer were obtained through GC-MS analysis. These phytochemicals were docked into the binding pocket of the therapeutic targets (glycogen phosphorylase, pancreatic alpha-amylase, dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV), aldose reductase). The docking scores from Autodock vina were validated and the correlation coefficient (R2) graph of the docking scores of ChemBL’s 125 compounds, docked into the human aldose reductase binding pocket against their corresponding pIC50 values gives R2=0.86, while the correlation coefficient graph of the docking scores of 50 compounds from ChemBL, docked into Dipeptidyl peptidase IV binding pocket against their corresponding pIC50 values gives R2=0.92. In the present study, the phytochemical Citronellyl isobutyrate with a binding affinity of -9.1 kcal/mol has the best inhibitory effect on the aldose reductase receptor/enzyme. The drug likeness of Citronellyl isobutyrate being the lead compound was determined through the calculation of its molecular properties. Citronellyl isobutyrate is a promising therapeutic agent in the treatment of type II diabetes and its associated complications.

Anthropometric indicators and their correlation with hypertension comorbidly occurring with diabetes in some residents of Abeokuta, Nigeria

Objectives - To compare anthropometric measurements of general obesity and central obesity and assess the respective associations with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) comorbidly occurring with hypertension, and also to determine if the association between the anthropometric indices and cardiovascular risk factors varies with gender. Methods. Age and sex matched control subjects (n=150) and patients (n=470) [hypertensive non-diabetics (n=179), normotensive diabetics (n=132), hypertensive diabetics (n=159)] presenting at the Medical Out-Patient Clinic of the State Hospital, Abeokuta, Nigeria were recruited. The examination included a fasting blood sample, fasting plasma glucose (FPG), blood pressure measurements and questionnaires to assess treatment for hypertension and T2DM. Weight, height, umblical circumference (UC), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), were measured using standard procedures; body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage (BF%), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) and other body composition were calculated to assess overweight and obesity. Results. BMI and BF % were significantly increased in all the patients. There was significant difference in gender BMI and BF%. In both controls and patients, BMI and BF% were significantly (p < 0.05) higher in female when compared with their male counterparts. Also UC, WC, HC, WHR, WHtR were significantly higher in patients in both sexes when compared with their control counterparts. WHtR has more significantly positive correlation with hypertension and/or T2DM when compared with all other anthropometric parameters. WHtR was still a slightly better predictor in men, whereas in women, WC was slightly better than others. Conclusions. The association of central and general obesity varied with gender. In addition, the useful anthropometric predictors for known risk factors for cardiovascular disease (T2DM, hypertension and their comorbidity) risk factors were WHR for men, and WC for women.