Bacteria assemble and exist in a community lifestyle, which is called as biofilm. The development of biofilm can be dissected in stages as the attachment, microcolony formation, and maturation. The event of dispersion occurs where they disperse to escape an adverse condition or for dissemination. Pathogenic biofilms cause chronic and recurrent infections leading to suffering and life loss in few cases if left unattended. Biofilm plays a major role in pathogenesis where the acute infection becomes chronic. Matrix is the major reason for the biofilm to be adept in escaping the host immune system and other harsh environmental insults. Development of antimicrobial tolerance due to the presence of persister cells and the heterogeneous nature of biofilms help them gain successful resistance to antimicrobial agents. Biofilm infections can be categorized as nondevice-related and device-related diseases. In the former case, they can affect every system of the human body from respiratory to digestive, auditory, cardiovascular, integumentary, urinary tract, and reproductive system causing chronic infections to several life-threatening cancers. In case of the device-related infections, biofilms can be formed on contact lens to cardiac pacemakers, catheters, and orthopedic implants, where it has emerged as a major threat to patients’ life. Infections due to polymicrobial biofilms occur in most cases, where unculturable microbes are an issue for which development of new techniques to culture them is required. Hunting new strategies for biofilm diagnosis and treatment of biofilms is also a current necessity.
In the new era of scientific research, the word 'Omics' has been the most significant term. This term comes up with the ideology of studying and analyzing almost all the aspects of biological systems, which specifically concentrate on a complex system of life. It also includes high-throughput molecular biology techniques used by computational drug discovery tools. The use of this technology is mainly to study, analyze and interpret the data of the entire human genomic sequence, which is the most significant achievement in the discipline of biomedical and bio-informational scientific research. Comprehensive data analysis is accomplished using a multidisciplinary approach such as microarrays and other bioinformatics tools, so it becomes easier for researchers to examine the biological activity of 30,000 human genes and polymorphism on large scale beyond 20 lakhs numbers. Polymorphism is relatively common, known for its dynamic functions and interaction, which affects the human species, nowadays it is considered rare, but the vast majority of them are single nucleotide polymorphisms. As "Omics" techniques are used to expose the network among gene products, as humans are genetically similar, they could aid greatly in disease diagnosis and treatment by monitoring and analyzing the interaction of biomolecules in living systems.
Background: Benzalkonium chloride (BAK) is the most used preservative in topical ophthalmic formulations. BAK causes dry eye and trabecular meshwork degeneration. Hence, BAK-free formulations are desirable for chronic conditions like glaucoma. The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy of BAK-free versus BAK-containing ophthalmic suspension of fixed dose combination (FDC) of brinzolamide and timolol on their intraocular pressure (IOP) lowering effect following a single ocular instillation in New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits. Methods: Twelve normotensive NZW rabbits (male) between 9-12 months of age (3.4-4.4 kg) received a single ocular instillation (35 ml) in left eye of either ophthalmic suspension containing FDC of brinzolamide (1% w/v)/timolol (0.5% w/v) without BAK (n=6, test) or with BAK 0.01% w/v (n=6, reference). IOP was measured before ocular instillation (baseline) and at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 24 hours after instillation using a pneumatonometer. Change in IOP from baseline were calculated and analysed using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Bonferroni post-test for pairwise comparisons. Results: Significant IOP reduction (p<0.05) from baseline was seen in both test and reference groups, up to 6 hours after instillation. Maximum IOP reduction was 25.5% and 22.6% at 2 hours in the test and reference group respectively. No significant differences (p>0.05) were observed between the test and reference group for the change in IOP at all time points. Conclusions: BAK-free and BAK-containing ophthalmic suspension of FDC of brinzolamide 1% and timolol 0.5% after a single ocular instillation in normotensive NZW rabbits produces similar reductions in IOP.
