To investigate the response of corn to combined application of chemical fertilizers with rhizobacteria plant growth promoting, an experiment was conducted in 2017 at Research farm of Agricultural and Natural Resources Campus of Tehran University, Karaj, Iran, in a randomized complete block design with four replications. Four nutritional treatments including T1 (Control treatment without applying fertilizer), T2 (Just PGPRs), T3 (Use chemical fertilizers based on soil test) and T4 (T3 + PGPRs) were considered. According to the results, the highest total dry weight (3.9 kg/m2), crop growth rate (79.8 g.m-2.day-1), net assimilation rate (15.3 g.m-2.day-1) and grain yield (18.2 ton.ha-1) were observed in T4 treatment and T2 treatment produced the highest  leaf area index (5.3), leaf area duration (205.2) and specific leaf weight (78.5 g.m-2) . Also, the lowest value of all traits was observed in in T1 (control) treatment. The results showed that the presence of rhizobacteria plant growth promotioninduction in the corn nutrition program increased the growth and growth indices of the plant. Combined application of chemical fertilizers with rhizobacteria plant growth promoting resulted in the highest growth and final grain yield of corn.

Background: Breast cancer is a multifactorial potentially lethal disease that is triggered by genetic factors as well as numerous environmental factors. The present research aimed to examine the expression of Vascular endothelial growth factor messenger RNA (VEGF mRNA), cytokeratin-19 mRNA (CK19 mRNA), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein biomarker in the peripheral blood of patients with breast cancer.Methods: 40 patients with breast cancer were compared to 40 healthy individuals. The real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (real-time RT-PCR) method was used to determine the expressions of the CK19 mRNA and VEGF mRNA biomarkers in the peripheral blood samples of the healthy participants and the patients. The VEGF protein was also compared using the (ELISA) method.Findings: The positive VEGF mRNA biomarker was observed in 30 of the 40 patients with breast cancer; thus the sensitivity of this marker was 75%. In the healthy participants group, 6 of the 40 participants showed a positive VEGF mRNA biomarker expression. The CK19 mRNA marker was positive in 25 of the 40 patients, which indicated a sensitivity of 62.5%. In the healthy participants group, the positive expression of the CK19 mRNA biomarker was observed in 7 of the 40 participants. VEGF was positive in 27 of the 40 patients. In the control group, 5 of the 40 participants showed the positive expression of this biomarker.Conclusion: In sum, based on the results of this research, the assessed breast cancer tumor markers can be used as screening tests for the early diagnosis of patients. To further prove the findings of this study, more extensive studies with larger sample sizes are recommended.

Introduction: The discovery of hidden patterns in pharmaceutical data can contribute to improving the performance of hospital pharmacies. One of the applications of advanced data analysis techniques is the identification of drug interactions. Method: This study was conducted using data mining techniques with the FP-growth algorithm in the RapidMiner Studio® 10.1 environment to extract association rules and frequent pharmaceutical patterns. Data preprocessing and modeling were performed based on the CRISP-DM model. The type and level of drug interactions were determined based on the algorithm's results and by referencing the database at www.drugs.com. Results: The results included 17 association rules and 126 prescribing patterns, ranging from single-drug to four-drug combinations. Of the 64 two-drug prescribing patterns, 56 had no interaction, 6 had moderate interactions, 1 had a minor interaction, and 1 had a major interaction. Additionally, of the 19 three-drug patterns, 18 had no interaction, and only 1 had a moderate interaction. No interactions were observed in the four-drug prescribing pattern. Conclusion: The findings of this study can assist stakeholders in improving the pharmaceutical supply chain, optimizing prescriptions, reducing drug interactions, and lowering costs. The discovered patterns may also be used as part of a clinical decision support system. Although no significant drug interactions were observed in this study, the discovery of even one major interaction highlights its importance and further underscores the practical role of computer applications in medicine.

Selection based on molecular markers is one of the new methods that may improve progress and accuracy of selection in animal breeding programs. The GHRH gene (growth Hormone-releasing Hormone) is a candidate gene for marker-assisted selection strategies. Polymorphs of GHRH gene are reported to be significantly associated with milk production and constituent traits. In order to study the polymorphism of GHRH gene, blood samples were collected from 112 Sarabi cows. Genomic DNA was extracted and a fragment of 297 bp in size was amplified using polymerase chain reaction. The amplified fragments were subjected to restriction digestion with HaeIII endonuclease enzyme and the resultant digested products were run on 2% Agarose gel. The results revealed the existence of two alleles of GHRHA and GHRHB for the examined locus with frequencies of 0.19 and 0.81 respectively. Three different genotypic variants including GHRHA GHRHA, GHRHA GHRHB and GHRHB GHRHB were identified with genotypic frequencies of 0.0357, 0.3037 and 0.6607 respectively. The  c2 test showed that population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (P<0.05). These data provide evidence that sarabi cattle breed have a genetic variability, which opens interesting prospects for future selection programs, especially marker-assistant selection.

More than 22% of the world's agricultural land is saline, and this trend continues to increase with climate changes. Salinity stress causes leaf color change, osmotic stress, ionic toxicity, prevents growth, photosynthesis and plant performance. Due to their size less than micron, metal nanoparticles have a great absorption and transmission power in plants. Salinity stress is a major problem in hot and dry areas under tomato cultivation. For this purpose, investigating the mutual effects of the size and type of zinc oxide and iron oxide nanoparticles on the improvement and change of growth and increasing the resistance to salt stress in tomato plants of the early urbana variety were carried out in the form of a completely randomized and factorial design with 4 replications, at a significant level of 5%. In this research, zinc oxide nanoparticles in 25 and 50 nm sizes, iron oxide in 25 nm sizes and sodium chloride in 0 and 75 mM levels were used. Nanoparticles and salinity treatments were both applied to the plants. The results showed that salt stress led to a decrease in plant growth parameters such as shoot and root length, leaf area, RWC, ion leakage. Also, NaCl led to an increase in the accumulation of prolin and other aldehydes, sodium, iron and zinc. The application of nanoparticles had a slight effect in stress-free conditions, but in stressed conditions, these two nanoparticles alone and especially in combination neutralized the effect of salinity and reduced the damage caused by salinity stress.

Background: Impairment of the gene expression and nerve growth factors due to exposure to persistent pollutants in nature can lead to functional disorders in the nervous system. In the present study, the effects of exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) on the expression of nerve growth factors in the rat brain were investigated during pregnancy.Methods: The brains of 35 pregnant rats were used. the rats were divided into five groups include: control, sham, 1 mg/kg PFOA group, 5 mg/kg PFOA group, and 10 mg/kg PFOA group. In the group that received PFOA, this compound was gavaged daily. The brains of the newborn mice were removed 20 days after delivery, and the expression of nerve growth factors was analyzed using ELISA and Real-Time PCR methods.Findings: The results showed that NGF gene expression was significantly higher in the PFOA-treated groups, especially in the PFOA/5mg group (P ≤ 0.001). Also, there was a significant increase in NGF protein expression in the 5 mg PFOA dose group (P ≤ 0.01) and the 10 mg PFOA group (P ≤ 0.05) compared to the control and sham groups.Conclusion: The results of this study showed that exposure to PFOA during pregnancy can lead to increased expression of nerve growth factor. This can prevent the occurrence of neurological disorders caused by exposure to toxic agents.

Background: The increasing incidence of infertility is alarming. About %30-10 of infertilities are classified as unexplained infertility (UI), which is not an absolute clinical condition. TGF-b1 is multifunctional cytokine and produced mainly by T regulatory (Treg) lymphocytes. This cytokine plays an important role in physiology of normal pregnancy. The association of single nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) of TGF-b1 gene with many immunologic diseases has been reported. In this study, the association of TGF-b1 C29T (Pro10Leu) gene polymorphism with unexplained infertility was investigated in Iranian UI patients.Materials and Methods: In this case-control study blood samples were collected from 177 UI patients (142 male and 35 female) and 336 controls (232 male and 104 female) with no history of infertility. DNA was extracted by salting out method. Analysis of the TGF-b1 gene polymorphism C29T (Pro10Leu) was performed by PCR and automated sequencing method.Results: The genotype distributions and allele frequencies of TGF-b1 gene C29T (Pro10Leu) polymorphism were not statistically significant between different categories of UI patients and control group (p>0.05).Conclusion: The results of this study showed, C29T (Pro10Leu) polymorphism of TGF-b1 gene may not be associated with unexplained infertility and further studies are necessary to clarify the association of TGF-b1 polymorphisms and susceptibility to unexplained infertility.

Introduction: Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) emerges from a dysplastic epithelial surface and comprises about 90% of head and neck cancers. VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) is one of the growth factors which directly affects vascular endothelial cells and evokes proliferation, migration and chemo taxis of endothelial cells. The aim of the present study was to assess and compare VEGF expression in the normal and dysplastic oral mucosa and in SCC.Materials and Methods: In this analytical-descriptive study, 20 normal mucosa, 20 dysplastic mucosa, and 20 SCC samples, which had been fixed with formalin and embedded in paraffin, were evaluated for expression of VEGF, using immunohistochemical technique and standard biotin streptavidin method. Data were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests at 95% confidence interval (a=0.05).Results: Means of VEFG expression were significantly higher in SCC samples compared to dysplastic samples (p value=0.024). In addition, VEGF expression in SCC samples was higher than that in the normal samples (p value=0.001). However, there was no significant relationship between the expression of VEFG in the dysplastic and normal mucosa samples (p value=0.108).Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, there is an increase in the expression of VEGF during transition from normal mucosa to dysplastic mucosa to SCC.