Rafidain journal of science 

About: Rafidain journal of science is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Chemistry & Biology. It has an ISSN identifier of 1608-9391. Over the lifetime, 765 publications have been published receiving 1153 citations. The journal is also known as: Rafidain journal of science.

Effect of Heavy Metal Content of some Common Spices Available in Local Markets in Erbil City on Human Consumption

Abstract: Herbs and spices are sources of many bioactive compounds that can improve the taste of foods as well as their influence on digestion and metabolism processes. They can also contain some undesirable components that can be harmful, e.g. micotoxins, pesticides, heavy metals, and polycyclic carbohydrates residues. The objective of this study was to determine metals content in the most popular spices and herbs used in local market in Erbil. The content of these metals was assayed by Atomic absorption spectrophotometric method. The study showed differences in metal concentration according to the plant part (Rhizomes, Seed, Leaf, and fruit). The concentration ranged on dry basis were : ( 6.1- 47.0), (56-650), (6-44), (10.5-22.5), (8.526.5), (26-88.6), (1.25-14.6), and (0.045-1.35) mg/kg for the metals, Zn, Fe, Cu, Cr, Co, Mn, Pb, and Cd respectively. Most of the metal levels in the spices were acceptable with the exception of Pb, Cu and Cd which were above the standard limit approved by World Health Organization (WHO) and Food Agriculture Organization (FAO), Pb was above the standard level for fenugreek, cinnamon, Cd was above the standard level for ginger. Consumers of these spices would not be exposed to any risk associated with the daily in take of 10g of spices per day containing the following metals; Zn, Fe, Cu, Cr, Co, Mn.but there are danger from fenugreek and cinnamon for Pb, while the danger of ginger is from Cd. Generally most of the spices available in the market are safe for human consumption except for Pb and Cd.

Antibacterial Activity of Linum usitatissimum L. Seeds and Active Compound Detection

Abstract: In the present study, antibacterial properties of four different extracts from Linum usitatissimum L. seeds were screened against four types of Gram-positive and negative bacteria: Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa using agar-well diffusion method and comparing their antibacterial activities with the antibiotics Ampicillin, Cefalexin, Chloramphenicol and Tetracycline. Petroleum ether extract demonstrated significant inhibitory effects against all tested bacteria using all extract concentrations compared with used antibiotics except chloramphenicol, the clearest activity was seen against K. pneumoniae using the extract concentration 50mg/cm. Ethanol extract possessed considerable antibacterial activities against the pathogenic bacteria, the highest inhibitory effect was observed against B. cereus using the extract concentration 200mg/cm, followed by aqueous extract which revealed good inhibitory action against Ps. aeruginosa using the same concentration. The weakest extract used was the chloroform extract which was only active against S. aureus. Thin-Layer Chromatography of petroleum ether extract indicated the presence of active fatty acids. ــــــــــــــــــ ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ــــــــــــ ناتكلا تاتابن روذبل يطيبثتلا ريثأتلاLinum usitatissimum L. ةلاعفلا اهتابكرم نع فشكلاو

Histological Study of the Liver and Kidney of Albino Mice Mus musculus Exposed to Lead

Abstract: The present study was performed to investigate the histological effects caused by lead in the liver and kidney of male albino mice Mus musculus. The study was conducted on 25 mice, the animals were divided into 5 equal groups. The first group was given distilled water and used as a control group. The second and third groups were orally administered (2 and 4 mg lead acetate /kg of body weight) for two weeks. The fourth and fifth groups were orally administered (2 and 4 mg lead acetate/kg of body weight) for four weeks. The animals were anesthetized, the (liver and kidneys) were extracted for histological studies. Histological changes which observed in the liver were, vacuolation, fatty degeneration, necrosis in some hepatocytes, congestion within central veins, hemorrhage between hepatic cords and infiltration of inflammatory cells. In the kidney the changes noted were hemorrhage in the interstitial tissue with enlargement of epithelial layer lining renal tubules, necrosis of some tubules with hyalinization and focal inflammatory cells infiltration. In this study deleterious toxic effects observed in liver and kidney.

Isolation and Identification of Saccharomyces cerevisiae var boulardii and its Uses as a Probiotic (in vitro)

Abstract: The study included isolation and identification of Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii from fresh and dried fruits such as (fig, grape, apricot, lychees, mangosteen) which were available in local markets in Erbil city. Fifty isolates of the yeast were obtained depending on morphological, physiological and biochemical tests. The antibacterial activity of the isolated yeasts against pathogenic bacteria Salmonella enteric sub spp.enterica (Typhimurium) in vitro was determined by Well's Diffusion method. Most of the isolated yeasts showed antibacterial activity against tested bacterium, the highest diameter of inhibition zone was (16 mm) for isolates (S.b32). The ability to tolerate different concentrations of bile salt and gastric acids were also studied. Ten strains of the isolated yeast had the highest inhibitory activity and were used to study physiological properties (bile salt concentration and gastric acidity) which were (S.b6, S.c1, S.b2, S.c36, S.b13, S.b28, S.b32, S.b22, S.b48, and S.b5). The result showed that the isolate (S.b32) was more resistant than other strains when exposed to bile salt and gastric acids.