Evaluation of resistance of some barley varieties to wheat stem sawfly (Hymenoptera: Cephidae) in Hama Governorate

Wheat stem sawfly (Hymenoptera: Cephidae) is a significant pest on wheat and barley in Syria, and host plant resistance is one of the most effective mitigation of wasps damage. The preference for laying eggs among females of wheat stem sawfly (WSS) was studied in some cultivation barley varieties in Syria, and the reasons for this preference, by comparing the characteristics of plant height in the stages of early wasp propagation, phenological development stages synchronized with late propagation wasps stages that are known having attraction influence for female wasps to put eggs, within the natural conditions at the place of experimenting in Soran region, northern of Hama, about 20 km. The results showed a great variation in the infection rates between the tested barley cultivar varieties. Female of wheat stem sawfly (WSS) preferred to lay eggs in the barley cultivar (Arabi Aswad) (Aswad means black), which was a sensitive variety for infection althoughit is not being the highest height plant in the early stages or the less developed in the late stages of wheat stem sawfly spread, whereas the rest of the tested varieties distinguished (Furat 1, Furat 3, Furat 4, Furat 5, Furat 6, Furat 9, Arabi Abiad, and Arabi Abiad Mohsan) (Abiad means white, Mohsan means improved) by its relative resistance to the injury. Our results suggest conducting other studies to reach the reasons forpredilection preference or lack of preference and benefit from them later for reducing losses resulting from this injury

Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis with an Intracranial Haemorrhage: A Case Report

BACKGROUND: Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) is a rare, life-threatening disorder. It has an annual incidence of approximately two to four per million people per year. Nearly 70–80% of all cases of CVST are located in the superior sagittal sinus (SSS). CVST presents a diagnostic challenge due to different presentations. CASE PRESENTATION: We describe the case of a young pregnant female who presented to the emergency room with an acute headache attributed to multifactorial causes. CONCLUSION: This report highlights the importance of including CVST in the differential diagnosis when treating a pregnant female with headaches. Although the symptoms of CVST are varied, the most common occlusion is in the SSS. In such cases, the patient may present with signs and symptoms that include headaches, intracranial hypertension and papilloedemas

Metadherin mRNA expression in hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: Metadherin (MTDH) has been known as an essential oncogene in carcinogenesis and tumor spread in several malignancies, via its effect on pathways of signal transduction.Objective: We aimed to evaluate the role of serum MTDH mRNA expression in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to compare its expression levels with serum levels of Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP).Subjects & methods: A total of 150 subjects (90 HCC patients & 60 healthy volunteers) were enrolled in the current study. Serum MTDH mRNA relative expression was analyzed by Real Time PCR technique.Results: There was a significant statistical increase of serum MTDH mRNA expression in HCC group when compared to controls (P < 0.05). MTDH mRNA expression was significantly associated with clinicopathological data, advanced tumor stage and poor histological differentiation in HCC patients (p < 0.05). There was direct positive correlation between MTDH mRNA expression and serum AFP levels in HCC group (r = 0.445), P value = <0.05. ROC curve was used to verify the accuracy of MTDH mRNA expression and compare it with accuracy of serum AFP in HCC diagnosis; MTDH mRNA expression had higher accuracy (92%), sensitivity (91%) and specificity (93%) than AFP.Conclusion: MTDH mRNA is up-regulated in serum of HCC patients; MTDH may be considered as noninvasive biomarker for HCC diagnosis and it could replace serum AFP in HCC diagnosis as it had higher accuracy.Keywords: Biomarker, Expression, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Metadherin, Real Time PC

Transcriptional regulation of the glucoamylase-encoding gene under endoplasmic reticulum stress in Aspergillus niger

The ability of many filamentous fungi, such as Aspergillus niger, to secret a high level of homologous proteins has led to their consideration as hosts for the production of heterologous proteins. However, the levels of some secreted heterologous proteins have often been low. Although many strategies have been developed to improve the level of secreted heterologous proteins, further studies into the remaining bottlenecks are required. One common strategy used to improve secreted protein production from filamentous fungi is to express the target protein under the control of a highly-induced native promoter. One major bottleneck in the secretion of heterologous proteins is caused by the folding of proteins within the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Recent studies have shown that expressing some heterologous proteins could subject A. niger to ER-stress. In this study, A. niger was subjected to different environmental conditions and ER stress responses were examined under each of these environmental conditions to further investigate the regulation of the gene encoding glucoamylase (glaA). Treating A. niger with dithiothreitol (OTT), a reducing agent that causes the formation of unfolded proteins, caused the down-regulation of transcription of the glaA but not the gene encoding the non-secreted protein y-actin. The OTT-treated fungal cells also showed evidence of induction of the UPR because expression of bipA was up-regulated and splicing of hacA, the gene encoding the transcription factor responsible for induction of the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), occurs allowing the production of an active HacA protein. This is the first study to show clearly by nuclear run-on studies that the transcriptional down-regulation effect occurs at the level of transcription, rather than mRNA stability, and is found to be mediated through the promoter of the glaA gene (PglaA) in a region more than 1.192 kb upstream of the translational start. As a preliminary attempt to investigate if the transcriptional downregulation effect was mediated through HacA (i.e. part of the UPR), the ER stress was induced through antisense technology to lower the level of POI in the ER of A. niger. Although the transcription of glaA was attenuated in that strain of A. niger, UPR was not evident, suggesting that the transcriptional down-regulation mechanism is controlled differently from the UPR. Furthermore, activation of the ER-Associated Degradation (ERAO) mechanism in OTT-treated A. niger cultures was demonstrated by detecting transcriptional up-regulation of the putative gene encoding the RpnG, a homologue of the yeast Rpn7p subunit of the 26S proteasome

Management of oesophageal foreign bodies

AbstractObjectiveThe aim of the study was to evaluate the management of foreign bodies in the oesophagus and to determine the association with socioeconomic status.MethodsThis cross-sectional analytical study was carried out in the Department of Ear, Nose and Throat and head and neck surgery of Bahawal Victoria Hospital affiliated with Quaid-i-Azam Medical College, Bahawalpur, Pakistan, between December 2012 and May 2013. The medical records of 34 consecutive cases of foreign body ingestion were searched, and the data were recorded on a questionnaire prepared for this purpose.ResultsThe average age of the patients was 10.38 years; 29 cases (85.2%) were in children under 12 years. There were 18 females (52.9%) and 16 males (47.1%). Thirty patients (88%) presented with a history of dysphagia, and 25 (73.6%) had vomiting. The site of impaction was the post-cricoid region in 22 patients (66%), the lower oesophagus in 5 (15%), the mid-oesophagus in 4 (13%), the posterior pharyngeal wall in 1 (3%) and the pyriform fossa in 1 patient (3%). Coins were the most common foreign body (61.8%). Socioeconomic analysis showed that 18 patients (52.9%) were in the low socioeconomic class, 12 (35.3%) in the middle class and 4 (11.8%) in the upper class.ConclusionThe presence of a foreign body in the oesophagus is a serious condition, and early removal is recommended. Foreign body lodgement is commoner among poor families

Ultrastructural pathology of the upper respiratory tract of rabbits experimentally infected with Pasteurella multocida A:3

Twenty-four 8 to 9 week-old Pasteurella multocida-free rabbits were divided into three equal groups, the first group was pretreated with hydrocortisone and inoculated intranasally with pasteurella multocida serotype A:3. The second group was inoculated intranasally with P. multocida without hydrocortisone treatment. The third group was inoculated with phosphate buffered saline only and used as a control group. Pasteurella multocida was isolated from the nasal cavity of all infected rabbits in group 1 and 2 and from the trachea of seven rabbits in group 1 and five rabbits in group 2. This study was conducted to observe the ultrastructural changes of the upper respiratory tract of hydrocortisone treated and non-treated rabbits infected with P. multocida serotype A:3. The ultrastructural changes detected in infected rabbits were ciliary destruction and deciliation of the ciliated epithelial cells, cellular swelling, goblet cell hyperplasia and endothelial cell damage. Pasteurella multocida was observed attached to the degenerated cilia,microvilli and mucus. Pasteurella multocida infection was associated with inflammatory responses, which may have caused tissue damage. It is possible that hydrocortisone modulates the severity of infection as an immune suppressor and an inhibitor of goblet cell secretion

A reduced-reference perceptual image and video quality metric based on edge preservation

In image and video compression and transmission, it is important to rely on an objective image/video quality metric which accurately represents the subjective quality of processed images and video sequences. In some scenarios, it is also important to evaluate the quality of the received video sequence with minimal reference to the transmitted one. For instance, for quality improvement of video transmission through closed-loop optimisation, the video quality measure can be evaluated at the receiver and provided as feedback information to the system controller. The original image/video sequence-prior to compression and transmission-is not usually available at the receiver side, and it is important to rely at the receiver side on an objective video quality metric that does not need reference or needs minimal reference to the original video sequence. The observation that the human eye is very sensitive to edge and contour information of an image underpins the proposal of our reduced reference (RR) quality metric, which compares edge information between the distorted and the original image. Results highlight that the metric correlates well with subjective observations, also in comparison with commonly used full-reference metrics and with a state-of-the-art RR metric. © 2012 Martini et al

Association between the inflammatory potential of diet and stress among female college students

A pro-inflammatory diet may have an adverse influence on stress and inflammatory biomarker levels among college students. The dietary inflammatory index (DII®) is a tool used to assess the inflammatory potential of a diet. However, evidence for the association between DII and stress is limited. We examined the association between energy-adjusted DII (E-DIITM), high sensitivity-C-reactive protein [hs-CRP], and stress among female college students. This cross-sectional study included 401 randomly selected female students, aged 19-35 years. Data collection included blood, anthropometric measurements, a healthy-history questionnaire, the perceived stress scale (PSS-10), the Saudi food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), and E-DII. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to examine the association between FFQ-derived E-DII score, hs-CRP, and PSS. A higher E-DII score per 1SD (1.8) was associated with a 2.4-times higher PSS score (95% CI: 1.8, 3.1). Higher hs-CRP per 1SD (3.3 mg/L) was associated with a 0.9 (95% CI: 0.7-1.1) times higher PSS score, independent of lifestyle and dietary factors. Our findings indicate that pro-inflammatory diets were highly prevalent among Saudi college students and were associated with higher stress levels. Consideration of the role of stress and focusing on anti-inflammatory foods may be key for healthier dietary habits