Basic Science Sector

Simple and sensitive spectrophotometric methods were described for the determination of cyclopentolate (CPH) and naphazoline hydrochlorides (NPZ) drugs in pure form and in pharmaceutical preparations based on ion pair and charge transfer complexation reactions, respectively. The first method is based on the reaction of the CPH drug with Mo(V)-thiocyanate in hydrochloric acid medium and dyestuff reagents namely bromophenol blue (BPB), bromocresol green (BCG) and bromocresol purple (BCP).

This study was conducted at the Experimental Farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, in May during the two seasons of 2008 and 2009 on roselle plants (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.). The objective was to improve the vegetative growth, yield characters and antioxidant activity of plants growing under different organic and inorganic media conditions in response to the spray of amino acids, humic acids and micro elements. The results showed great similarity which had been noticed with the majority of the studied characters in both seasons.

Rabbit viral haemorrhagic disease (RVHD) is a highly contagious, highly fatal, peracute and acute viral disease of both wild and domestic rabbits caused by rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV). Testing for haemagglutination activity (HA) in processed liver samples is one of the cornerstones for rapid diagnosis of RHDV outbreaks in national rabbitries. However, RHDV isolates exhibiting no HA activity are increasingly being reported. The extent of deviation from classical HA activity patterns for RHDV strains in Egypt has not been investigated. This study compared the HA activity patterns of samples collected from 61 RHDV outbreaks that occurred between 1999 and 2005 to determine whether dependence on HA test (HAT) for diagnosis of RHDV outbreaks needs to be reviewed. All samples were confirmed RHDV positive using sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and western blotting. Using slide HAT, only 36.1% of samples were positive (22 samples). Plate HAT conducted at 4?C detected an additional 16 positive samples bringing the total HA-positive samples to 38 (62.3%). Plate HAT conducted at 22?C failed to detect additional positive samples. The majority of samples detected after plate HA testing (62.5%) had HA titres comparable to those obtained from slide-HA-positive samples, indicating that the difference in HA activity is dependent on the nature of the HA antigen rather than its presence. Direct detection of HA activity failed in 37.7% of samples despite the presence of classical signs, pathology, and being reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) positive for three different VP60 regions. Experimental infection of seronegative rabbits with 9 HA negative RHDV samples showed that 5 isolates were in-fact HA positive, while only 4 isolates remained HA negative. The increased detection of viruses lacking HA activity and the low HAT sensitivity mandates the use of molecular techniques for rapid confirmation of RHDV diagnosis in the Egyptian environment.

Background: The antibacterial drugs were the first effective chemotherapeutic agents to be employed systematically for the prevention and cure of bacterial infection in humans. The considerable medical and their subsequent wide spread use were quickly reflected in the sharp decline in morbidity and mortality figures for the treatable infections diseases. Before penicillin became generally available, cefotaxime sodium was the mainstry of antibacterial chemotherapy.

The condensation reaction of 2-aminoprop-1-ene-1,1,3-tricarbonitrile ( 1 ) with 2-acetyl-furan ( 2 ) afforded 2-amino-4-(furan-2-yl)penta-1,3-diene-1,1,3-tricarbonitrile ( 3 ). The latter compound underwent a series of heterocyclization reactions to give quinoline, furan, pyrazole and thiophene derivatives. The antitumor evaluation of the newly synthe-sized products against three cancer cell lines, namely breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7), non-small cell lung cancer (NCI-H460) and CNS cancer (SF-268) were recorded. Three of the synthesized compounds, namely 4 , 5d and 12 showed high inhibitory effects.

A simple, rapid and sensitive extractive spectrophotometric method has been developed for the assay ofsildenafil citrate (SILC) in pure and pharmaceutical formulations (Virecta tablets). This method is based on theformation of chloroform soluble ion-pair of SILC with bromothymol blue (BTB) and methylene chloride soluble ionpairof SILC with bromophenol blue (BPB) and eriochrome blue black R (EBBR) in borax buffer of pH 3 and volume1mL for BTB while acetate buffer of pH 3 and volume 1mL for BPB and universal buffer of pH 2 and volume 1.5 mLfor EBBR with absorption maximum at 415, 420 nm and 510 nm for BTB, BPB and EBBR reagents, respectively.