In Vitro Antiviral Activity of Cinnamomum cassia and Its Nanoparticles Against H7N3 Influenza A Virus

( Munazza Fatima ),( Najam Us Sahar Sadaf Zaidi ),( Deeba Amraiz ),( Farhan Afzal ) 한국미생물 · 생명공학회 2016 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.26 No.1

Nanoparticles have wide-scale applications in various areas, including medicine, chemistry, electronics, and energy generation. Several physical, biological, and chemical methods have been used for synthesis of silver nanoparticles. Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles using plants provide advantages over other methods as it is easy, efficient, and eco-friendly. Nanoparticles have been extensively studied as potential antimicrobials to target pathogenic and multidrug-resistant microorganisms. Their applications recently extended to development of antivirals to inhibit viral infections. In this study, we synthesized silver nanoparticles using Cinnamomum cassia (Cinnamon) and evaluated their activity against highly pathogenic avian influenza virus subtype H7N3. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized using UVVis absorption spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Cinnamon bark extract and its nanoparticles were tested against H7N3 influenza A virus in Vero cells and the viability of cells was determined by tetrazolium dye (MTT) assay. The silver nanoparticles derived from Cinnamon extract enhanced the antiviral activity and were found to be effective in both treatments, when incubated with the virus prior to infection and introduced to cells after infection. In order to establish the safety profile, Cinnamon and its corresponding nanoparticles were tested for their cytotoxic effects in Vero cells. The tested concentrations of extract and nanoparticles (up to 500 μg/ml) were found non-toxic to Vero cells. The biosynthesized nanoparticles may, hence, be a promising approach to provide treatment against influenza virus infections.

Spatial and temporal analysis of acute respiratory infections (ARIs) in Southern Punjab, Pakistan

Munazza Fatima,Rehman Mehmood Khattak,Sue. C. Grady,Ibtisam Butt,Sana Arshad,Till Ittermann,Henry Volzke 대한공간정보학회 2022 Spatial Information Research Vol.30 No.4

Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) is a main health issue of Pakistan. This study deals to visualize the spatial distribution of ARIs in first instance and further to investigate their underlying temporal pattern in Bahawalpur district of Southern Punjab Pakistan. The main purpose is to measure spatial patterns of ARIs which might be helpful for better understanding its environmental determinants and leads to hypothesis generation for further investigation. Study design selected to conduct this research is of descriptive and exploratory nature. Epidemiological data of ARIs was collected mainly through 115 health centres from the study area for year 2010 to 2012 and was used to map spatial patterns of ARIs through Inverse distance weighted (IDW) spatial interpolation and Spatial Autocorrelation and Cluster Outlier Analysis. Results show that the clusters of ARIs were found mainly around urban units of tehsils. The study also suggests the set of remedies and policy changes addressing the local environmental problems and to reducing the incidence of ARIs through collaboration of local government and community.

Diagnostic Accuracy, Sensitivity, Specificity and Positive Predictive Value of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) in Intra Oral Tumors

Gillani, Munazza,Akhtar, Farhan,Ali, Zafar,Naz, Irum,Atique, Muhammad,Khadim, Muhammad Tahir Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2012 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.13 No.8

Objective: The objective of this study was to establish the diagnostic accuracy, specificity and sensitivity of fine needle aspiration cytology(FNAC) for intra-oral tumors, comparing with histopathology as the gold standard. Materials and methods: Forty cases of FNA cytology from intraoral tumors was performed in AFID along with the demographic data and clinical information and then diagnosed at AFIP, Rawalpindi. Then the cytology results obtained per FNAC were compared with the histopathological biopsy results of the same lesions. The following variables were recorded for each patient: Age, gender, site of biopsy, diagnosis. The data were entered and analyzed using Open-epi version 2.0. Diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were calculated. Cohen Kappa was further applied to compare the agreement between the biopsy and FNAC diagnoses. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Among the total patients included in the study there were 24 males and 16 females, with a ratio of 1.5:1. Age of the patients ranged from 24 to 80 years with a mean of 52 years. A total of six sites were aspirated from the oral cavity with maximum (11) aspirates taken from alveolar ridge. The results of FNAC revealed that there were 32 malignant and 8 benign aspirates. Confirmation through histopathological analysis came for 31/32 malignant cases while one was falsely given positive for malignancy on FNAC. Among a total of 40 cases, 31(77%) cases diagnosed were found to be malignant and remaining 9(23%) were benign. The FNAC results revealed 32 malignant and 8 benign lesions. Histopathology of the subsequent surgically excised specimen showed malignant lesions in 31(77%) and benign in 9(23%) patients. As a whole, it was found that the absolute sensitivity for introral FNAC was 100% and specificity 89% with positive predictive value of 97% and negative predictive value of 100%. Conclusion: Cytological diagnosis was almost corroborative with final histopathological diagnosis in all cases, with very few exceptions, exhibiting high diagnostic accuracy.

Thermal Conductivity and Mixed Convection Influence on the Flow of Viscoelastic Fluid Due To Inclined Cylinder

Tasawar Abbas,Munazza Saeed,Kaouther Ghachem,Badr M. Alshammari,Sami Ullah Khan,Lioua Kolsi 한국자기학회 2023 Journal of Magnetics Vol.28 No.1

The thermal flow of second grade fluid with Soret and Dufour effects has been observed in this investigation. The problem is modified with mixed convection and thermal radiation applications. The thermal conductivity with variable relations is used to analyze the transport phenomenon. Further, the applications of mixed convection and magnetic force has also been focused. The convective thermal and concentration flow constraints are used for the current flow problem. The shooting numerical scheme is used to calculate the numerical observations. The major impact of parameters is visualized for flow parameters. It is observed that the velocity profile increases for curvature parameter and viscoelastic fluid parameter. The assumptions of variable thermal conductivity enhanced with transport phenomenon. The Nusselt number declined for variable thermal conductivity parameter.

Modified Multi-Chaotic Systems that are Based on Pixel Shuffle for Image Encryption

Om Prakash Verma,Munazza Nizam,Musheer Ahmad 한국정보처리학회 2013 Journal of information processing systems Vol.9 No.2

Current development of therapeutic vaccines for the treatment of chronic infectious diseases

Park Pil-Gu,Fatima Munazza,An Timothy,Moon Ye-Eun,Woo Seungkyun,Youn Hyewon,Hong Kee-Jong 대한백신학회 2024 Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Research Vol.13 No.1

Chronic infectious diseases refer to diseases that require a long period of time from onset to cure or death, the use of therapeutic vaccines has recently emerged to eradicate diseases. Currently, clinical research is underway to develop therapeutic vaccines for chronic infectious diseases based on various vaccine formulations, and the recent success of the messenger RNA vaccine platform and efforts to apply it to therapeutic vaccines are having a positive impact on conquering chronic infectious diseases. However, since research on the development of therapeutic vaccines is still relatively lacking compared to prophylactic vaccines, there is a need to focus more on the development of therapeutic vaccines to overcome threats to human health caused by chronic infectious diseases. In order to accelerate the development of therapeutic vaccines for chronic infectious diseases in the future, it is necessary to establish a clear concept of therapeutic vaccines suitable for the characteristics of each chronic infectious disease, as well as standardize vaccine effectiveness evaluation methods, secure standards/reference materials, and simplify the vaccine approval procedure.

Modified Multi-Chaotic Systems that are Based on Pixel Shuffle for Image Encryption

Verma, Om Prakash,Nizam, Munazza,Ahmad, Musheer Korea Information Processing Society 2013 Journal of information processing systems Vol.9 No.2

Recently, a pixel-chaotic-shuffling (PCS) method has been proposed by Huang et al. for encrypting color images using multiple chaotic systems like the Henon, the Lorenz, the Chua, and the Rossler systems. All of which have great encryption performance. The authors claimed that their pixel-chaotic-shuffle (PCS) encryption method has high confidential security. However, the security analysis of the PCS method against the chosen-plaintext attack (CPA) and known-plaintext attack (KPA) performed by Solak et al. successfully breaks the PCS encryption scheme without knowing the secret key. In this paper we present an improved shuffling pattern for the plaintext image bits to make the cryptosystem proposed by Huang et al. resistant to chosen-plaintext attack and known-plaintext attack. The modifications in the existing PCS encryption method are proposed to improve its security performance against the potential attacks described above. The Number of Pixel Change Rate (NPCR), Unified Average Changed Intensity (UACI), information entropy, and correlation coefficient analysis are performed to evaluate the statistical performance of the modified PCS method. The simulation analysis reveals that the modified PCS method has better statistical features and is more resistant to attacks than Huang et al.'s PCS method.

Coexisting JAK2V617F and CALR Exon 9 Mutations in Myeloproliferative Neoplasms - Do They Designate a New Subtype?

Ahmed, Rifat Zubair,Rashid, Munazza,Ahmed, Nuzhat,Nadeem, Muhammad,Shamsi, Tahir Sultan Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2016 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.17 No.3

The classic BCR-ABL1-negative myeloproliferative neoplasm is an operational sub-category of MPNs that includes polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF). The JAK2V617F mutation is found in ~ 95% of PV and 50-60% of ET or PMF. In most of the remaining JAK2V617F-negative PV cases, JAK2 exon 12 mutations are present. Amongst the JAK2V617F-negative ET or PMF 5-10% of patients carry mutations in the MPL gene. Prior to 2013, there was no specific molecular marker described in the remaining 30-40% ET and PMF. In December 2013, two research groups independently reported mutations in the gene CALR found specifically in ET (67-71%) and PMF (56-88%) but not in PV. Initially CALR mutations were reported mutually exclusive with JAK2 or MPL. However, co-occurrence of CALR mutations with JAK2V617F has been reported recently in a few MPN cases. Many studies have reported important diagnostic and prognostic significance of CALR mutations in ET and PMF patients and CALR mutation screening has been proposed to be incorporated into WHO diagnostic criteria for MPN. It is suggestive in diagnostic workup of MPN that CALR mutations should not be studied in MPN patients who carry JAK2 or MPL mutations. However JAK2V617F and CALR positive patients might have a different phenotype and clinical course, distinct from the JAK2-positive or CALR-positive subgroups and identification of the true frequency of these patients may be an important factor for defining the prognosis, risk factors and outcomes for MPN patients.

Flurbiprofen–antioxidant mutual prodrugs as safer nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs: synthesis, pharmacological investigation, and computational molecular modeling

Ashraf, Zaman,Alamgeer,Kanwal, Munazza,Hassan, Mubashir,Abdullah, Sahar,Waheed, Mamuna,Ahsan, Haseeb,Kim, Song Ja Dove Medical Press 2016 Drug design, development and therapy Vol.10 No.-

<P>Flurbiprofen–antioxidant mutual prodrugs were synthesized to reduce the gastrointestinal (GI) effects associated with flurbiprofen. For reducing the GI toxicity, the free carboxylic group (–COOH) was temporarily masked by esterification with phenolic –OH of natural antioxidants vanillin, thymol, umbelliferone, and sesamol. The in vitro hydrolysis of synthesized prodrugs showed that they were stable in buffer solution at pH 1.2, indicating their stability in the stomach. The synthesized prodrugs undergo significant hydrolysis in 80% human plasma and thus release free flurbiprofen. The minimum reversion was observed at pH 1.2, suggesting that prodrugs are less irritating to the stomach than flurbiprofen. The anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antipyretic, and ulcerogenic activities of prodrugs were evaluated. All the synthesized prodrugs significantly (<I>P</I><0.001) reduced the inflammation against carrageenan and egg albumin-induced paw edema at 4 hours of study. The reduction in the size of the inflamed paw showed that most of the compounds inhibited the later phase of inflammation. The prodrug 2-oxo-2<I>H</I>-chromen-7-yl-2-(2-fluorobiphenyl-4-yl)propanoate (<B>4b</B>) showed significant reduction in paw licking with percentage inhibition of 58%. It also exhibited higher analgesic activity, reducing the number of writhes with a percentage of 75%, whereas flurbiprofen showed 69% inhibition. Antipyretic activity was investigated using brewer’s yeast-induced pyrexia model, and significant (<I>P</I><0.001) reduction in rectal temperature was shown by all prodrugs at all times of assessment. The results of ulcerogenic activity showed that all prodrugs produced less GI irritation than flurbiprofen. Molecular docking and simulation studies were carried out with cyclooxygenase (COX-1 and COX-2) proteins, and it was observed that our prodrugs have more potential to selectively bind to COX-2 than to COX-1. It is concluded that the synthesized prodrugs have promising pharmacological activities with reduced GI adverse effects than the parent drug.</P>

Analysis of a Magneto Hydrodynamic Second-Grade Fluid in a Porous Medium with Temperature Dependent Thermal Conductivity

Fouad Mallawi,Tasawar Abbas,Munazza Saeed,Bilal Ahmad,Taseer Muhammad 한국자기학회 2024 Journal of Magnetics Vol.29 No.1

The heat and mass transfer effects on steady two-dimensional magneto hydrodynamic flow of second-grade fluid is carried out in this study. Mathematical formulations for nonlinear flows over stretching surface in the presence of magnetic field, temperature dependent thermal conductivity, porous medium and convective boundary are carried out in Cartesian coordinate system. The model equations are determined by using fundamental laws of fluid mechanics. The governing PDEs for second-grade fluid have been derived and then transfigured into a system of nonlinear coupled ODEs via appropriate similarity transformation. The BVP is then solved by an efficient numerical scheme known as Runge Kutta Fehlberg method along with shooting technique. The outcomes are presented graphically and tabulated with the aim of illustrating the physical impacts of governing parameters on the temperature, concentration, and velocity profiles. Greater Prandtl numbers result in a decrease in temperature, while higher values of thermal conductivity and coefficient of internal heat absorption all result in an increase in temperature. Further, comparison of the results with published literature for limited cases show the validity of numerical technique.