Search results for: Afzan Mahmad

Authors: Afzan Mahmad, Santibuana Abd Rahman, Gouri Kumar Dash, Mohd. Syafiq Bin Abdullah

Abstract:

Antibacterial activity of the methanol extract of fruit peel of Punica granatum Linn (Family: Punicaceae) was evaluated against two Gram positive and two Gram negative bacteria. The Gram positive bacteria included Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae and the Gram negative organisms included Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa respectively. The culture media used for antibacterial assay was Mueller Hinton agar for the growth of S. aureus, E. coli, and P. aeruginosa. The media used for the growth of S. pneumoniae was Mueller Hinton blood agar. The antibacterial assay was performed through Disc diffusion technique. The methanol extract was tested at three different concentrations (50, 100 and 200 mg/ml). Standard antibiotic discs containing vancomycin (30 μg) for S. pneumoniae, penicillin (10 units) for S. aureus, ceftriaxone (30 μg) for E. coli and ciprofloxacin (5 μg) for P. aeruginosa were used for the activity comparison. The results of the study revealed that the extract possesses antibacterial activity against S. aureus, S. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa at all tested concentrations. The maximum zone of inhibition of 19 mm of the extract at 200 mg/ml was observed against S. pneumoniae. However, no zone of inhibition was observed against E. coli at the tested concentrations of the extract. Based on the results obtained in this study, it may be concluded that the fruit peel of P. granatum possess broad spectrum of antibacterial activity against a number bacteria.

Keywords: Punica granatum Linn., methanol extract, antibacterial, zone of inhibition

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Authors: Wahizatul Afzan Azmi, Nur Ain Farhah Ros Saidon Khudri, Mohamad Haris Hussain, Tse Seng Chuah

Abstract:

Malaysia houses a broad range of palm trees species and some of these palm trees are very crucial for the country’s social and economic development, especially the oil palm trees. However, the destructive pest of the various palms species, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) or known as Red Palm Weevil (RPW) was first detected in Terengganu in 2007. Recently, the pattern of infestation has move from coastal lines toward inland areas. After the coconut plantations, it is presumed that the RPW will be a serious threat to the oil palm plantations in Malaysia. Thus, this study was carried out to detect the presence and distribution of Red Palm Weevil (RPW) in selected oil palm plantations of Terengganu. A total of 42 traps were installed in the three oil palm plantations in Terengganu and were inspected every week for two months. Oil palm plantation A collected significantly higher adults RPW compared to the other locations. Generally, females of RPW were significantly higher than male individuals. Females were collected more as the synthetic aggregation pheromone used, ferrugineol was synthesized from the male aggregation pheromone of adult RPW. Oil palm plantation A collected the highest number of RPW might be due to the abundance of soft part in the host plant as the oil palm trees age ranged between 6 to 10 years old. As a conclusion, RPW presence was detected in some oil palm plantations of Terengganu and immediate action is crucially needed before it is too late.

Keywords: red palm weevil, pest, oil palm, pheromone

Procedia PDF Downloads 184

Authors: Nurkhairul Bariyah Baharun, Afzan Adam, Reena Rahayu Md Zin

Abstract:

Tumor microenvironment (TME) in breast cancer is mainly composed of cancer cells, immune cells, and stromal cells. The interaction between cancer cells and their microenvironment plays an important role in tumor development, progression, and treatment response. The TME in breast cancer includes tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) that are implicated in killing tumor cells. TILs can be found in tumor stroma (sTILs) and within the tumor (iTILs). TILs in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) have been demonstrated to have prognostic and potentially predictive value. The international Immune-Oncology Biomarker Working Group (TIL-WG) had developed a guideline focus on the assessment of sTILs using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained slides. According to the guideline, the pathologists use “eye balling” method on the H&E stained- slide for sTILs assessment. This method has low precision, poor interobserver reproducibility, and is time-consuming for a comprehensive evaluation, besides only counted sTILs in their assessment. The TIL-WG has therefore recommended that any algorithm for computational assessment of TILs utilizing the guidelines provided to overcome the limitations of manual assessment, thus providing highly accurate and reliable TILs detection and classification for reproducible and quantitative measurement. This study is carried out to develop a TNBC digital whole slide image (WSI) dataset from H&E-stained slides and IHC (CD4+ and CD8+) stained slides. TNBC cases were retrieved from the database of the Department of Pathology, Hospital Canselor Tuanku Muhriz (HCTM). TNBC cases diagnosed between the year 2010 and 2021 with no history of other cancer and available block tissue were included in the study (n=58). Tissue blocks were sectioned approximately 4 µm for H&E and IHC stain. The H&E staining was performed according to a well-established protocol. Indirect IHC stain was also performed on the tissue sections using protocol from Diagnostic BioSystems PolyVue™ Plus Kit, USA. The slides were stained with rabbit monoclonal, CD8 antibody (SP16) and Rabbit monoclonal, CD4 antibody (EP204). The selected and quality-checked slides were then scanned using a high-resolution whole slide scanner (Pannoramic DESK II DW- slide scanner) to digitalize the tissue image with a pixel resolution of 20x magnification. A manual TILs (sTILs and iTILs) assessment was then carried out by the appointed pathologist (2 pathologists) for manual TILs scoring from the digital WSIs following the guideline developed by TIL-WG 2014, and the result displayed as the percentage of sTILs and iTILs per mm² stromal and tumour area on the tissue. Following this, we aimed to develop an automated digital image scoring framework that incorporates key elements of manual guidelines (including both sTILs and iTILs) using manually annotated data for robust and objective quantification of TILs in TNBC. From the study, we have developed a digital dataset of TNBC H&E and IHC (CD4+ and CD8+) stained slides. We hope that an automated based scoring method can provide quantitative and interpretable TILs scoring, which correlates with the manual pathologist-derived sTILs and iTILs scoring and thus has potential prognostic implications.

Keywords: automated quantification, digital pathology, triple negative breast cancer, tumour infiltrating lymphocytes

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