Among all nephropathies, diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is the most common cause of kidney impairment advancement to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Although DKD has no cure, the disease is commonly managed by strict control of blood glucose and blood pressure, and in most of these cases, kidney function often deteriorates, resulting in dialysis, kidney replacement therapy, and high mortality. The difficulties in finding a cure for DKD are mainly due to a poor understanding of the underpinning complex cellular mechanisms that could be identified as druggable targets for the treatment of this disease. The review is thus aimed at giving insight into the interconnection between chronic hyperglycaemia and cellular mechanistic perturbations of nephropathy in diabetes. A comprehensive literature review of observational studies on DKD published within the past ten years, with 57 percent published within the past three years was carried out. The article search focused on original research studies and reviews published in English. The articles were explored using Google Scholar, Medline, Web of Science, and PubMed databases based on keywords, titles, and abstracts related to the topic. This article provides a detailed relationship between hyperglycaemia, oxidative stress, and various cellular mechanisms that underlie the onset and progression of the disease. Moreover, it also shows how these mechanisms affect organelle dysfunction, resulting in fibrosis and podocyte impairment. The advances in understanding the complexity of DKD mechanisms discussed in this review will expedite opportunities to develop new interventions for treating the disease.

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of variations in mass of plantain pseudo-stem waste, volume of yeast used, and fermentation time on the product yield resulting from simultaneous saccharification and fermentation using digestive juice of African land snail and yeast. The experiment was divided into three stages which included a total of fifty seven (57) experimental setups containing sixteen (19) different combinations of the varied substrates. The results show that by varying the mass of plantain pseudo-stem waste, the production of ethanol was optimized at a mass of 250 g, which yielded 125.6 ml ± 3.5 of distillate and a percentage ethanol composition of 25.0 ± 3.6. While varying the volume of yeast used between 50 and 250 ml, with 250 g of plantain pseudo-stem waste, 250 ml of snail digestive juice and 4 g garlic for 24 h, acetic acid was detected in the setup containing 200 ml of yeast, but was not detected in similar experimental setups containing 6 g garlic. The optimum ethanol production while varying the volume of yeast slurry was recorded to be 182.3 ml ± 4.9 of distillate with 28.0% ± 1.0 ethanol composition. Variations in fermentation periods had the greatest impact on the percentage composition of ethanol and the volume of ethanol produced showing the best fermentation period for obtaining optimal ethanol production to be at 96 h. These findings show that the best specifications for the optimum production of ethanol from a 250 g of plantain pseudo-stem waste using 250 ml snail digestive, are 200 ml of yeast slurry, 6 g of garlic to ferment for a period of 96 h.

In this study, the characterization of hydroxycinnamic acid, saponins, allicins, flavonoids, and terpenoids from Vitex doniana was carried out using gas chromatography. Caffeic acid and p-coumaric acid were the most occurring hydroxycinnamic acid, while cichoric acid and sinapic acid were the lowest in amount. The occurrence of saponins followed the order; sapogenin > saponins > gitogenin > titogenin > diosgenin > solagenin > neohecogenin > hecogenin > euphol, while methyl-allyl-thiosulphinate (62.50%), diallyl-thiosulphinate (33.1%), and allyl-methyl-thiosulphinate (4.4%) were the only detectable allicins. The flavonoids; kaempferol (55.16%), quercetin (14.30%), apigenin (13.99%), casticin (4.90%), vitexin (4.49%), and quercitrin (2.93%) were among the highest occurring flavonoids, whereas butein (0.61 × 10⁻⁵%), luteolin (0.60 × 10⁻⁵%), quercetin-3, 7, 3, 4-tetramethylether (0.27 × 10⁻⁵%), isorhamnetrin (0.25 × 10⁻⁵%), and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (0.14 × 10⁻⁵%) were the least constituent flavonoids. A total of sixty one (61) terpenoids were isolated of which β-phellandrene, phytol, caryophellene oxide, bicyclogermacrene, β-caryophyllene, and α-pinene were the most occurring terpenoids. This study, by showing the abundance of numerous phytochemicals, has provided the scientific evidence behind the usage of V. doniana for various therapeutic purposes.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxic effects associated with the administration of aqueous extracts (AE) of Calliandra portoricensis (CP), Dracaena arborea (DA), Duranta repens (DR), Polytrichum juniperinum (PJ), Parmelia caperata (PC), and Nostartium officinale (NO) on Wistar rats. LD₅₀ for each plant was obtained prior to administration. Seven groups of six rats each were orally gavaged for 28 days as follows; group 1–7 received normal rat pellets and saline, in addition, group 2 received 20 mg/kg b.w CP, group 3 & 4 respectively received 8 mg/kg b.w DA and DR, group 5 & 6 respectively received 4 mg/kg b.w PJ and PC, and group 7 received 100 mg/kg b.w NO. Liver enzymes; ALP, ALT, AST and GGT were significantly (p < 0.05) elevated by CP, DR, PJ and PC extracts. All the extracts caused significant alterations of the total protein, albumin and globulin levels. The urea levels were deranged by all the extracts while CP, PJ, PC, and NO extracts caused no significant effects on the creatinine levels. Both DR and NO deranged the serum electrolytes; Na, K, Cl, and HCO₃. Results for the lipid profile showed that all extracts significantly altered the phosphatidate phosphohydrolase and LDL levels while no significant effects were observed in the VLDL, TG, TC, HDL, cardiac risk ratio, arterogenic coefficients, and arterogenic index of plasma, of NO treated rats. For hematological parameters DR, PJ, and PC significantly deranged the RBC, HGB, MCHC, MCV, and MCH concentrations while the neutrophils, eosinophils and basophils were significantly altered on administration of all the extracts. No significant effects were observed on the platelets and plateletcrit level in rats gavaged with CP, whereas the MPV, PDW, and PCT concentrations were deranged by DR extracts. CP and NO caused no alterations in the MDA, GSH, and GST levels whereas the SOD, GPx, and xanthine oxidase levels were significantly deranged by all the plant extracts. Only NO treatment produced catalase, glutathione reductase, and xanthine dehydrogenase levels equivalent to the control group. This study has shown various degrees of deleterious effects on biochemical parameters associated with the consumption of these plants, thus raising serious concerns over their continuous applications as local medicaments.

Lignocellulosic biomass represents the largest renewable reservoir of potentially fermentable carbohydrates on earth, and its utilization for ethanol production continues to be a subject of worldwide interest. The present study evaluated the effect of 0, 30, 60 and 90 min heating periods on fermentation setups containing a mixture of 100 g plantain pseudo-stem waste, 250 ml of digestive juice of African land snail (Archachatina marginata), 4 g garlic and 200 ml of yeast slurry. On exclusion of some fermentation conditions, the yield of ethanol was evaluated for fermentation setups excluding yeast and garlic, yeast only, digestive juice of African land snail and garlic, digestive juice of African land snail only, and garlic. From the results, the best yield of ethanol at 76.0 ml ± 3.5 of distillate containing 21.7% ± 2.1 (w/v) ethanol composition was obtained at 60 min heating period, which declined continuously as the heating period increased to 90 min. No significant change (p ) in the ethanol yield was observed between the fermentation setups excluding the digestive juice of snail and garlic, and yeast only. The ethanol yield obtained from the fermentation setup excluding garlic alone was 79.7 ml ± 2.5 distillate containing 9.7% ± 1.5 ethanol by volume and the formation of acetic acid. This result suggests that the optimum heating period to enable the accessibility of cellulose degrading enzymes from the digestive juice of the African land snail is 60 min, and that constituents of garlic can promote the inhibition of acetic acid synthesis from fermentation.

Pregnancy brings about strong cravings for nonfood materials, the gestational toxicities of which are not yet ascertained. In this study, we used rat models to investigate the effect of clay beverage consumption during early and late gestation on p-Type ATPases, nephrocardiac integrity, the antioxidant system, and on the activities of the renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system (RAAS). The rats at early (7th day) and late gestation (20th) were administered single doses (500 mg/kg body weight) of clay beverage and examined using ELISA and spectrophotometry. The gestational clay beverage intake significantly elevated the renal hemodynamics, glomerular filtration rate (GFR), anion gap, urinary output, and blood urea nitrogen–creatinine ratio (BUN/Crt). At early and late gestation, clay beverage consumption elevated the heartbeat, atherogenic index of plasma, cardiac risk ratio, and atherogenic coefficients. Creatinine kinase and troponin levels after clay beverage consumption significantly increased with gestation age, while lactate dehydrogenase elevation was independent of gestation age. Mg²⁺-ATPase and Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase significantly decreased during gestation and were further altered with clay beverage intake. The rats showed higher RAAS activities during early and late gestation stages but greatly decreased activities after clay beverage administration. When F2-isoprostane and malondialdehyde levels were measured, slight elevations were found during pregnancy and were greatly elevated with clay beverage intake, while the glutathione reductase, catalase, and superoxide dismutase levels were decreased. We thus discourage clay beverage consumption throughout the entire pregnancy period because of these profound homeostatic imbalances and organ toxicities associated with its consumption.