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Biomedical subjects

D Das

Publications and source records attributed to D Das.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Diclofenac disposition in Indian cow and goat with reference to Gyps vulture population declines.

Gyps vultures across India are declining rapidly and the NSAID diclofenac has been shown to be the major cause. Vultures scavenge livestock carcasses that have been treated with diclofenac within the days preceding death. We present data on diclofenac disposition in Indian cow and goat, and field data on the prevalence of diclofenac in carcases in the environment. In the disposition experiment, animals were treated with a single intramuscular injection of diclofenac at 1000 microg kg-1 bw. In cow, diclofenac was detectable in liver, kidney and intestine up to 71 h post-treatment; in plasma, half-life was 12.2 h. In goat, tissue residues were undetectable after 26 h. Prevalence of diclofenac in liver from 36 dead livestock collected in the field was 13.9%. Data suggest that diclofenac residues in Indian cow and goat are short-lived, but diclofenac prevalence in carcasses available to vultures may still be very high.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Direct observation of dijets in central Au+Au collisions at sqrt[sNN]=200 GeV.

The STAR Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider reports measurements of azimuthal correlations of high transverse momentum (pT) charged hadrons in Au+Au collisions at higher pT than reported previously. As (pT) is increased, a narrow, back-to-back peak emerges above the decreasing background, providing a clear dijet signal for all collision centralities studied. Using these correlations, we perform a systematic study of dijet production and suppression in nuclear collisions, providing new constraints on the mechanisms underlying partonic energy loss in dense matter.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Identified baryon and meson distributions at large transverse momenta from Au + Au collisions at square root sNN=200 GeV.

Transverse momentum spectra of pi+/-, p, and p up to 12 GeV/c at midrapidity in centrality selected Au + Au collisions at square root sNN=200 GeV are presented. In central Au + Au collisions, both pi +/- and p(p) show significant suppression with respect to binary scaling at pT approximately >4 GeV/c. Protons and antiprotons are less suppressed than pi+/-, in the range 1.5 approximately < pT approximately < 6 GeV/c. The pi-/pi+ and p/p ratios show at most a weak pT dependence and no significant centrality dependence. The p/pi ratios in central Au + Au collisions approach the values in p + p and d + Au collisions at pT approximately >5 GeV/c. The results at high pT indicate that the partonic sources of pi+/-, p, and p have similar energy loss when traversing the nuclear medium.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Forward neutral pion production in p + p and d + Au collisions at square root sNN=200 GeV.

Measurements of the production of forward pi0 mesons from p + p and d + Au collisions at square root sNN=200 GeV are reported. The p + p yield generally agrees with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations. The d + Au yield per binary collision is suppressed as eta increases, decreasing to approximately 30% of the p + p yield at eta =4.00, well below shadowing expectations. Exploratory measurements of azimuthal correlations of the forward pi0 with charged hadrons at eta approximately 0 show a recoil peak in p + p that is suppressed in d + Au at low pion energy. These observations are qualitatively consistent with a saturation picture of the low-x gluon structure of heavy nuclei.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Strange baryon resonance production in sqrt s NN=200 GeV p+p and Au+Au collisions.

We report the measurements of Sigma(1385) and Lambda(1520) production in p+p and Au+Au collisions at sqrt[s{NN}]=200 GeV from the STAR Collaboration. The yields and the p(T) spectra are presented and discussed in terms of chemical and thermal freeze-out conditions and compared to model predictions. Thermal and microscopic models do not adequately describe the yields of all the resonances produced in central Au+Au collisions. Our results indicate that there may be a time span between chemical and thermal freeze-out during which elastic hadronic interactions occur.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Expression and purification of two anti-CD19 single chain Fv fragments for targeting of liposomes to CD19-expressing cells.

Antibody-targeted liposomal anticancer drugs combine the specificity of antibodies with large payloads of entrapped drugs. We previously showed that liposomal doxorubicin (DXR) targeted via anti-CD19 monoclonal antibodies (mAb) or their Fab' fragments against the B-cell antigen CD19 led to improved therapeutic effects in murine B-cell lymphoma models relative to non-targeted liposomal DXR. We now are examining the use of anti-CD19 single chain fragments of the antibody variable region (scFv) as a targeting moiety, to test the hypothesis that scFv have advantages over full-sized mAb or Fab' fragments. We expressed two different anti-CD19 scFv constructs, HD37-C and HD37-CCH in E. coli, and purified the scFvs using two different methods. The HD37-CCH construct was selected for coupling studies due to its relative stability and activity in comparison to HD37-C. When coupled to liposomes, the HD37-CCH scFv showed increased binding in vitro to CD19-positive Raji cells, compared to non-targeted liposomes. Cytotoxicity data showed that HD37-CCH scFv-targeted liposomes loaded with DXR were more cytotoxic than non-targeted liposomal DXR. Our results suggest that anti-CD19 scFv constructs should be explored further for their potential in treating B-lymphoid leukemias and lymphomas.

Antibiotics, Antineoplastic↗
PubMed2006

Preparation and characterization of Mg-Al hydrotalcite-like compounds containing cerium.

Hydrotalcite-like compounds (HTlcs) containing Mg(2+), Al(3+), and Ce(3+) in the hydroxide layer and with carbonate as charge-balancing anion have been prepared by a co-precipitation (at constant pH) method. The Al/Ce ratio in the final product depends on the concentration in the initial solution. The crystallinity of the layered materials decreases with the increase in cerium content, probably, due to the distortions introduced by the large difference in the ionic radii of the cations. All the synthesized materials were characterized by XRD, FT-IR spectroscopy and TG/DTA. The textural properties were determined from low-temperature nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Geometrical and electronic properties of neutral and charged cesium clusters Cs(n) (n=2-10): a theoretical study.

We have investigated the structure and electronic properties of cesium clusters following all electron ab initio theoretical methods based on configuration interaction, second-order Moller-Plesset (MP2) perturbation theory, and density-functional theory. Becke's three-parameter nonlocal hybrid exchange-correlation functional (B3LYP) is found to perform best on the present systems with a split valence 3-21G basis function. We have calculated the optimized geometries of neutral and singly charged cesium clusters having up to ten atoms, their binding energy per atom, ionization potentials (IPs), and adiabatic electron affinity (EA). Geometry optimizations for all the clusters are carried out without imposing any symmetry restriction. The neutral clusters having up to six atoms prefer planar structure and three-dimensional structure is preferred only when the number of atoms in a cluster is more than six. There is a good agreement between the present theoretical and reported experimental IP values for the neutral clusters with cluster size n<or=10. Calculated EA is also in good agreement with the available experimental data for the small Cs clusters. Similar calculations have also been carried out for small Rb clusters and the performance of B3LYP is equally good. Thermodynamic properties such as enthalpy and entropy for small Cs and Rb clusters have also been calculated and are well compared with the experimental data.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Effects of garlic oil on postmenopausal osteoporosis using ovariectomized rats: comparison with the effects of lovastatin and 17beta-estradiol.

The purpose of this study was to examine the antiosteoporosis effects of garlic oil in an ovariectomized (Ovx) rat model of osteoporosis and to compare its efficacy with lovastatin (a synthetic hypocholesterolemic drug) and 17beta-estradiol (a potent antiosteoporotic agent). Animals were divided into five groups: sham-operated control, ovariectomized, ovariectomized supplemented with lovastatin, ovariectomized supplemented with garlic oil and ovariectomized supplemented with 17beta-estradiol. In our study, the development of a high rate of bone turnover and osteoporosis in the ovariectomized animals were confirmed by significant alterations of serum alkaline phosphatase activity, serum tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase activity, urinary excretion of calcium, phosphate, hydroxyproline and urinary calcium to creatinine ratio, when compared with the sham-operated control group. Supplementation of these animals with either garlic oil or lovastatin or 17beta-estradiol, in addition to their hypocholesterolemic effect, could counterbalance all these changes. The results revealed that all three compounds significantly protected the hypogonadal bone loss as reflected by higher bone densities and higher bone mineral contents than the ovariectomized group of animals. The results emphasize that, like 17beta-estradiol, the hypocholesterolemic compounds garlic oil and lovastatin are also effective in suppressing bone loss owing to estrogen deficiency and their efficacy in the order of lower to higher is garlic < lovastatin < 17beta-estradiol.

Acid Phosphatase↗
PubMed2006

Overcoming HIV drug resistance through rational drug design based on molecular, biochemical, and structural profiles of HIV resistance.

There are 20 available drugs for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. With a single exception, all of these drugs inhibit either HIV reverse transcriptase or protease. Reverse transcriptase inhibitors can be further categorized as nucleoside/nucleotide analogs or non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Resistance that has emerged against all available antiretroviral drugs represents a major challenge in the therapy of HIV infection. Nevertheless, extensive analysis of the molecular and structural mechanisms by which such mutations confer resistance has accumulated over the years. This understanding has driven the development and refinement of novel compounds capable of maintaining antiviral activity against both wild-type and drug-resistant HIV strains. The molecular, biochemical, and structural profiles of reverse transcriptase inhibitor and protease inhibitor resistance are discussed. In addition, how this knowledge has been utilized to generate a new generation of antiviral drugs with activity against drug-resistant HIV is reviewed.

Anti-HIV Agents↗
PubMed2005

Correlating sequential homology of Mce1A, Mce2A, Mce3A and Mce4A with their possible functions in mammalian cell entry of Mycobacterium tuberculosis performing homology modeling.

OBJECTIVE: The striking homology of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis mammalian cell entry operons (mce1, mce2, mce3 and mce4) with other mycobacterial species and the proposed role of the mammalian cell entry protein 1A (Mce1A) of M. tuberculosis to facilitate invasion of host cells have led us to look into the finer details of these proteins in order to better understand their structure-function relationship. DESIGN: We performed sequential alignments and secondary structure predictions of Mce1A, Mce2A, Mce3A and Mce4A, and compared these results with results from homology modeling by fold prediction and threading. RESULTS: Sequential alignments showed that Mce1A and Mce2A are highly homologous, close to 70%, while the other combinations gave only about 30% similarities. The major parts of the proteins aligned without gaps and there were striking similarities by secondary structure predictions indicating that the proteins would have similar folds and to be alpha/beta proteins like the previously reported Mce1A model based on Colicin N. Fold prediction showed that the best templates for Mce2A were substrate-binding domain of DnaK and slow processing precursor penicillin acylase from Escherichia coli while the alpha-domains of Mce3A and Mce4A could both be modeled using the cytoplasmic domain of serine chemotaxis receptor as template. CONCLUSION: Although different templates had to be used to model the MceA proteins, functional information may be derived that is relevant for their overall function in M. tuberculosis. The beta-domain is probably involved in binding with the receptors on target cells while the alpha-domain is more likely to be involved in pore formation. As predicted from the folds, Mce3A and Mce4A model structures indicate a lipid bound conformation and therefore may be required in signaling events of the mammalian cell entry process.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed2005

Distributions of charged hadrons associated with high transverse momentum particles in pp and Au+Au collisions at sqrt[sNN]=200 GeV.

Charged hadrons in [EQUATION: SEE TEXT] associated with particles of [EQUATION: SEE TEXT] are reconstructed in pp and Au+Au collisions at sqrt[sNN]=200 GeV. The associated multiplicity and p magnitude sum are found to increase from pp to central Au+Au collisions. The associated p distributions, while similar in shape on the nearside, are significantly softened on the awayside in central Au+Au relative to pp and not much harder than that of inclusive hadrons. The results, consistent with jet quenching, suggest that the awayside fragments approach equilibration with the medium traversed.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Multistrange Baryon elliptic flow in Au+Au collisions at square root of sNN=200 GeV.

We report on the first measurement of elliptic flow v2(pT) of multistrange baryons Xi- +Xi+ and Omega- + Omega+ in heavy-ion collisions. In minimum-bias Au+Au collisions at square root of s(NN)=200 GeV, a significant amount of elliptic flow, comparable to other nonstrange baryons, is observed for multistrange baryons which are expected to be particularly sensitive to the dynamics of the partonic stage of heavy-ion collisions. The pT dependence of v2 of the multistrange baryons confirms the number of constituent quark scaling previously observed for lighter hadrons. These results support the idea that a substantial fraction of the observed collective motion is developed at the early partonic stage in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Three years of emergency department gastrointestinal syndromic surveillance in New York City: what have we found?

BACKGROUND: Use of syndromic surveillance as a tool to detect outbreaks and potential biologic or chemical terrorist attacks is increasing. Evaluating health departments' use of syndromic surveillance is necessary to determine the value of this methodology. METHODS: Syndromic surveillance signals detected by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) during November 2001-August 2004 were reviewed for diarrhea and vomiting syndromes, the methods used to investigate such signals, and results of these investigations to determine if any unreported outbreaks were detected. Gastrointestinal (GI) outbreaks reported to DOHMH also were reviewed to understand why they were not detected by DOHMH's Emergency Department (ED) syndromic surveillance system. RESULTS: During the study period, ED surveillance generated 98 citywide and 138 spatial GI signals. Multiple outbreaks suspected to be caused by norovirus and rotavirus were identified, as well as a citywide increase in diarrheal illness. Of 98 citywide signals detected, 73 (75%) occurred during seasonal outbreaks. During the same period, 49 GI outbreaks were reported to DOHMH; none was detected simultaneously by ED surveillance. CONCLUSION: Only substantial, citywide syndromic signals were identified as outbreaks and routinely reported. GI outbreaks did not generate syndromic signals. Syndromic surveillance signals occur frequently, are difficult to investigate satisfactorily, and should be viewed as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, well-maintained traditional surveillance systems that rely on strong ties between clinicians and public health authorities.

Disease Outbreaks↗
PubMed2005

Multiplicity and pseudorapidity distributions of photons in Au+Au collisions at square root of (S(NN)) = 62.4 GeV.

We present the first measurement of pseudorapidity distribution of photons in the region 2.3 < or = eta < or = 3.7 for different centralities in Au+Au collisions at square root of (S(NN)) = 62.4 GeV. We find that the photon yield scales with the number of participating nucleons at all collision centralities studied. The pseudorapidity distribution of photons, dominated by pi0 decays, has been compared to those of charged pions, photons, and inclusive charged particles from heavy-ion and nucleon-nucleon collisions at various energies. The photon production has been shown to be consistent with the energy and centrality independent limiting fragmentation scenario.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Open charm yields in d+Au collisions at squareroot[sNN]=200 GeV.

Midrapidity open charm spectra from direct reconstruction of D0(D0)-->K-/+pi+/- in d+Au collisions and indirect electron-positron measurements via charm semileptonic decays in p+p and d+Au collisions at squareroot[sNN]=200 GeV are reported. The D0(D0) spectrum covers a transverse momentum (pT) range of 0.1<pT<3 GeV/c, whereas the electron spectra cover a range of 1<pT<4 GeV/c. The electron spectra show approximate binary collision scaling between p+p and d+Au collisions. From these two independent analyses, the differential cross section per nucleon-nucleon binary interaction at midrapidity for open charm production from d+Au collisions at BNL RHIC is dsigma(NN)cc/dy=0.30+/-0.04(stat)+/-0.09(syst) mb. The results are compared to theoretical calculations. Implications for charmonium results in A+A collisions are discussed.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Primary neurological manifestations of lung cancer--a retrospective analysis of 8 patients.

Neurological manifestations are reported in 5 to 10% of cases of lung cancer. We present a series of 216 consecutive patients of lung cancer of which 8 patients presented first with neurological manifestations without overt respiratory symptoms. The present study aimed to identify the number of patients of lung cancer presenting with primary neurological symptoms, the nature of the presentations, and the outcome of these patients among 216 patients who presented over a 2 year period in the Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Kolkata. Out of 8 patients, 3 patients presented with seizures, 3 patients with hemiparesis and 2 patients with paraparesis. Thus, 3.7% (8/216) of patients in our series presented with a neurological manifestation. We concluded that primary neurological manifestations are rare in lung cancer. The lungs should be the first site of evaluation in a case of a cerebral metastasis with an unknown primary.

Adult↗