Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Role Of Macrophages In Ocular Surface Fibrosis, Alyanna Corpuz

Pharmaceutical Sciences (MS) Theses

The present study is designed to investigate whether irradiation as used for conditioning regimen to ablate recipient’s diseased bone marrow prior to transplantation could trigger macrophage activation and polarization and whether macrophages could cause the transdifferentiation of ocular surface fibroblasts into myofibroblasts, thus contributing to oGVHD-associated fibrosis.

Bone marrow cells were cultured in M-CSF to obtain M0 macrophages, which were subsequently polarized into M1 and M2 phenotypes using IFN-g + LPS and IL-4, respectively.

The macrophages were exposed to 7 Gy radiation. The effect of irradiation on macrophage activation markers, phagocytosis, and apoptosis was assessed using real-time PCR, confocal microscopy, …

Approvals And Prices Of Systemic Antibiotics In Saudi Arabia And The United States, Saad Alharthi

Pharmaceutical Sciences (MS) Theses

Introduction

Antibiotics is one of the therapeutic classes with the highest level of consumption in the world. Despite the global diffusion of antibiotics, their availability and prices vary by country. This study assessed differences in the availability and prices of systemic antibiotics marketed in the United States (US) and Saudi Arabia and evaluated the factors associated with the differences in prices of systemic antibiotics marketed in both countries.

Material and Methods

We collected regulatory data from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA), the National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) and the …

Content And Activity Of Cytochrome P450 3a In Rat Brain Microsomes And Mitochondria, Nouf Alshammari

Pharmaceutical Sciences (MS) Theses

The potential contribution of CYP3A in brain microsomes and mitochondria is crucial to designing appropriate therapeutic strategies and preventing toxicities. Until recently, there has been limited data reported in the literature with respect to CYP3A activity and its expression in the brain tissue. The reason for this limitation is most likely the relatively low level of CYP3A in the brain tissue. To this end, the primary purpose of this study is to develop a CYP3A functional assay in rat brain mitochondria and microsomes to determine the Michaelis-Menten kinetics of the formation of CYP3A-mediated hydroxylated metabolites of midazolam by UPLC-MS/MS. We …

Investigating Hybrid Cyclic/Linear And Linear Peptides As Vehicles For Nucleic Acid Delivery, Abdulelah Alhazza

Pharmaceutical Sciences (MS) Theses

Small interfering RNA (siRNA) and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated Protein 9 (Cas9) are advanced biotechnological approaches that have been able to temporarily downregulate gene expression through post-transcription RNA interference or permanently knockdown a protein via creating a mismatch in DNA, respectively. Nucleic acids are anionic and hydrophilic molecule, which cannot enter the cell through passive diffusion and/or interaction with the cell membrane. Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) offer a unique carrier for nucleic acid delivery, where positively charged components of CPP bind to the negatively charged nucleic acid and the hydrophobic components enhance the interaction with cell membrane, and …