Publications by authors named "MA Lone"

Objectives: Although patient safety has received a lot of emphasis in medicine and nursing, data regarding patient safety perception in dentistry are limited, particularly among dental students. Given the increasing risk of safety hazards, curriculum developers need evidence to guide their implementation in undergraduate studies. This study aimed to determine patient safety culture among undergraduate dental students in Pakistan.

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Objective:  The present study evaluated the effect of chemical disinfectants and microwave sterilization on the removal of biofilm containing , , and from type IV dental stone.

Materials And Methods:  One hundred twenty-eight ( = 128) type IV dental cast stone specimens were prepared, and biofilms of microorganisms were cultured. Dental stone samples were subjected to disinfection protocols, including 0.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study in Pakistan looked at how empathetic dental students are and used a special questionnaire called the Jefferson Scale of Empathy to measure it.
  • The study included 304 students from different years in dental school, and they found that female students were more empathetic than males, and third-year students scored the highest for empathy.
  • Overall, the questionnaire was found to be reliable, meaning it worked well for measuring empathy, and the results matched what the creators expected.
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Sphingolipids (SLs) are essential lipids with important functions in membrane formation and cell signaling. The presence of a long chain base (LCB) structure is common to all SLs. De novo SL synthesis is initiated by the enzyme serine-palmitoyltransferase (SPT), which forms an LCB by the conjugation from serine and fatty acyl-CoAs.

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Lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) are key players in cellular homeostasis and regulation, as they coordinate the exchange of lipids between different cellular organelles. Despite their importance, our mechanistic understanding of how LTPs function at the molecular level is still in its infancy, mostly due to the large number of existing LTPs and to the low degree of conservation at the sequence and structural level. In this work, we use molecular simulations to characterize a representative dataset of lipid transport domains (LTDs) of 12 LTPs that belong to 8 distinct families.

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Objective: To assess the prevalence of various learning styles and their correlation with academic performance and mental health of medical students.

Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted at the King Faisal University, Houfof, Saudi Arabia, from January to June 2019, and comprised medical students regardless of gender or the academic year. Data was collected using the Visual Aural Read/write Kinesthetic questionnaire.

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In the present study, single phase nickel based disulphide (NiS) and diselenide (NiSe) nanostructures were prepared hydrothermally in a short time span (4 h) under subcritical temperature (160 °C). The nanostructures grow in cubic crystal phases. Average crystallite sizes and intrinsic microstrains were determined using Williamson-Hall (W-H) plot analysis.

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Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) leads to paralysis and death by progressive degeneration of motor neurons. Recently, specific mutations in were identified in patients with juvenile form of ALS encodes the second catalytic subunit of the serine-palmitoyltransferase (SPT) complex.

Methods: We used the GENESIS platform to screen 700 ALS whole-genome and whole-exome data sets for variants in .

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Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease of the upper and lower motor neurons with varying ages of onset, progression and pathomechanisms. Monogenic childhood-onset ALS, although rare, forms an important subgroup of ALS. We recently reported specific variants resulting in sphingolipid overproduction as a cause for juvenile ALS.

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Objective: To determine the current trends in complete denture education in undergraduate dental colleges.

Methods: The survey-based study was conducted in April and May 2020 at undergraduate dental colleges of Pakistan, and comprised heads of the Prosthodontics Department at all dental colleges across Pakistan having at least one batch of final year dental students. Data was collected using an online predesigned questionnaire that explored theoretical and practical teaching patterns of complete denture prosthodontics in the undergraduate years, and the materials and practices of students when constructing complete dentures in the clinics.

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Objectives: The objective of this study was to explore current trends in undergraduate fixed prosthodontics teaching at undergraduate dental level education.

Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study included close-ended questions to inquire about the teaching practices of fixed prosthodontics at Bachelor of Dental Surgery level education. Electronic copies of the survey forms were sent to the heads or directors of department of prosthodontics responsible for undergraduate dental students teaching and learning in various institutes of Sindh by the help of Google forms in December 2020.

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Article Synopsis
  • ALS is a serious and progressive neuromuscular disease linked to mutations in the SPTLC1 gene, which plays a role in the production of sphingolipids, essential for cell function.
  • A new mutation, SPTLC1p.L38R, was identified in a young Chinese girl with juvenile ALS, showing symptoms like muscle weakness, fasciculations, and breathing issues.
  • Research indicated that this mutation disrupts the interaction with regulatory proteins and leads to increased levels of harmful sphingolipids in the body, potentially contributing to the disease's neurotoxic effects.
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Objective: Conventional use of retraction cord in soft tissue management is effective only when the non-resilient nature of material does not jeopardize gingival health. Therefore this study aims to clinically evaluate the gingival displacement, ease of application and bleeding from polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) retraction cord.

Patients And Methods: This study is a single-center, parallel-group, randomized controlled clinical trial (1:1).

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Neural differentiation, synaptic transmission, and action potential propagation depend on membrane sphingolipids, whose metabolism is tightly regulated. Mutations in the ceramide transporter CERT (CERT1), which is involved in sphingolipid biosynthesis, are associated with intellectual disability, but the pathogenic mechanism remains obscure. Here, we characterize 31 individuals with de novo missense variants in CERT1.

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The variability of the northern westerlies has been considered as one of the key elements for modern and past climate evolution. Their multiscale behavior and underlying control mechanisms, however, are incompletely understood, owing to the complex dynamics of Atlantic sea-level pressures. Here, we present a multi-annually resolved record of the westerly drift over the past 6,500 years from northern Italy.

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects motor neurons. Mutations in the SPTLC1 subunit of serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT), which catalyzes the first step in the de novo synthesis of sphingolipids (SLs), cause childhood-onset ALS. SPTLC1-ALS variants map to a transmembrane domain that interacts with ORMDL proteins, negative regulators of SPT activity.

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Sphingolipids (SL) are a class of chemically diverse lipids that have important structural and physiological functions in eukaryotic cells. SL entail a long chain base (LCB) as the common structural element, which is typically formed by the condensation of L-serine and long chain acyl-CoA. This condensation is the first and the rate-limiting step in the de novo SL synthesis and catalyzed by the enzyme serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT).

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The aim of the study was to critically assess and review the latest evidence relating the associations between host defence peptides (HDPs), periodontal diseases (PD) and diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2). To explore studies on HDPs, periodontal disease, and DM2, researchers utilised specific key phrases to search the electronic databases PubMed (National Library of Medicine), Embase (Ovid), Medline (EBSCO), and Dentistry and Oral Sciences (EBSCO). Quality assessment was conducted by means of the Newcastle Ottawa scale and the Systematic Review Centre for Laboratory Animal Experimentation (SYRCLE) tool.

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Animal models of neurodegenerative diseases such as inherited peripheral neuropathies sometimes accurately recreate the pathophysiology of the human disease, and sometimes accurately recreate the genetic perturbations found in patients. Ideally, models achieve both, but this is not always possible; nonetheless, such models are informative. Here we describe two animal models of inherited peripheral neuropathy: mice with a mutation in tyrosyl tRNA-synthetase, Yars , modeling dominant intermediate Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type C (diCMTC), and mice with a mutation in serine palmitoyltransferase long chain 1, Sptlc1 , modeling hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy type 1 (HSAN1).

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Hereditary sensory neuropathy type 1 (HSAN1) is a rare axonopathy, characterized by a progressive loss of sensation (pain, temperature, and vibration), neuropathic pain, and wound healing defects. HSAN1 is caused by several missense mutations in the serine palmitoyltransferase long-chain base subunit 1 and serine palmitoyltransferase long-chain base subunit 2 of the enzyme serine palmitoyltransferase-the key enzyme for the synthesis of sphingolipids. The mutations change the substrate specificity of serine palmitoyltransferase, which then forms an atypical class of 1-deoxy-sphinglipids (1-deoxySLs).

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Article Synopsis
  • Hereditary sensory neuropathy type 1 (HSN1) is linked to mutations in an enzyme involved in lipid metabolism that lead to the production of neurotoxic compounds known as 1-deoxysphingolipid bases (DSBs).
  • Research using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) showed that these DSBs contribute to neurotoxicity by disrupting critical cell signaling and reducing the growth of sensory neuron extensions (neurites).
  • The study also found that l-serine supplementation can mitigate these adverse effects, suggesting a potential therapeutic approach for HSN1.
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease of the lower and upper motor neurons with sporadic or hereditary occurrence. Age of onset, pattern of motor neuron degeneration and disease progression vary widely among individuals with ALS. Various cellular processes may drive ALS pathomechanisms, but a monogenic direct metabolic disturbance has not been causally linked to ALS.

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Understanding the dynamics between the East Asian summer (EASM) and winter monsoon (EAWM) is needed to predict their variability under future global warming scenarios. Here, we investigate the relationship between EASM and EAWM as well as the mechanisms driving their variability during the last 10,000 years by stacking marine and terrestrial (non-speleothem) proxy records from the East Asian realm. This provides a regional and proxy independent signal for both monsoonal systems.

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Background: Wound healing is a multifactorial procedure involving different cell types and biological mediators. The principles of wound healing are also applicable to periodontal tissues. The formation and stability of blood clots play a vital role in successful healing of wounds in periodontal tissues.

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