This paper describes a female patient with major depressive disorder with psychotic features, who underwent mainstream psychiatric treatment complemented with ruqyah shar'iyyah (incantations based on Qur'an and prophetic traditions) healing in Malaysia. The patient faced the stigmatization of mental health within her family and had poor coping mechanisms, in addition to an incomplete understanding of what characterizes a religiously observant Muslim faith healer, in the early phases of her illness. The patient had periods of non-compliance with psychiatric care in between various ruqyah shar'iyyah, treatment periods, and faced a relapse that led to hospital admission. The patient's outcome improved after she complemented her psychiatric treatment with ruqyah shar'iyyah, that complied with Islamic creed and law. The importance of the inter-related systems of medical and psycho-spiritual treatments needs to be emphasized as it is crucial to the psychological wellbeing of the patient. The case report illustrates that ruqyah shar'iyyah, a practice encouraged by the Prophet Muhammad is believed to be a therapeutic remedy for any disorder, and can be used as complementary spiritual-based treatment to mainstream psychiatry, bringing multiple benefits across various cultural groups of Muslims.

The characterization of bacterial enzymatic pathways of phenol metabolism is important to better understand phenol biodegradation. Phenol hydroxylase is the first enzyme involved in the oxidative metabolism of phenol, followed by further degradation via either meta-or ortho-pathways. In this study, the first known instance of phenol degradation via the meta-pathway by a member of the genus Acinetobacter (Acinetobacter sp. strain AQ5NOL 1) is reported. Phenol hydroxylase converts phenol to catechol, which is then converted via the meta-pathway to 2-hydroxymuconic semialdehyde by the catechol 2,3-dioxygenase enzyme. Phenol hydroxylase extracted from strain AQ5NOL 1 was fully purified using DEAE-Sepharose((R)), DEAE-Sephadex((R)), Q-Sepharose((R)) and Zorbax((R)) Bioseries GF-250 gel filtration and was demonstrated by SDS-PAGE to have a molecular weight of 50 kDa. The phenol hydroxylase was purified to about 210.51 fold. The optimum pH and temperature for enzyme activities are 20 degrees C and 7- 7.5, respectively. The apparent K-m and V-max values of phenol hydroxylase with phenol as the substrate were 13.4 mu M and 2.5 mu mol min(-1) mg(-1), respectively. The enzyme was stable at -20 degrees C for 36 days.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of Acinetobacter sp. strain AQ5NOL 1 immobilised in gellan gum beads to degrade phenol in the presence of heavy metals. Sewn different heavy metals, namely, As5+, Cu2+ Cd2+, Ni2+, Cr6+, Ph2+, and He at 1 ppm were tested. Results of the study showed that degradation of phenol by free cells was inhibited by Hg2+, Cu6+ and Cr6+ after 48 hours of incubation by 97.91 %, 77.58 % and 75.26 %, respectively. Only Hg2+ and Cr6+ inhibited phenol degradation by immobilised Acinetobacter cells in 18 hours by 67.55 % and 53.19 %. Phenol degradation by immobilised cells was affected when Cr and Hg2+ concentrations exceeded 0.5 and 0.1 ppm, respectively. However, inhibitory effects of heavy metals can be overcome by prolonging the incubation time for immobilised Acinetobacter sp. strain AQ5NOL 1 from 18 hours to 24 and 30 hours for Cr6+ (46.80 %) and Hg2+ (21.40 %), respectively.