Quantitative trait loci analysis to identify modifiers genes of the gene opaque2 in maize endosperm

The protein quality of maize can be improved by replacing normal Opaque2 alleles with non-functional recessive alleles opaque2 (o2). The allele o2 produces a severe phenotype with soft endosperm enhancing its protein quality but decreasing its agronomical value. Plant breeders have restored a desirable ratio of hard to soft endosperm in o2 germplasm known as Quality Protein Maize (QPM). Neither the mechanism nor the genetic components by which the modification of the endosperm in QPM lines occurs are well understood. To increase the understanding of the genetics of endosperm modification, a population of 146 recombinant inbred lines derived from a cross between the o2 inbred line B73o2 and the QPM inbred line CML161 was evaluated in two Texas locations from 2004 to 2006. Four traits related to endosperm texture were measured and showed significant effect of the inbred lines, high heritability estimates and high genetic correlations. Relative content of the essential amino acids lysine, tryptophan and methionine were measured and showed significant effects of the lines and considerable high genetic correlations and heritabilities. Negative correlation was observed between endosperm texture traits and amino acid content. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) were mapped for traits related to the modification of endosperm texture and the content of lysine, tryptophan and methionine. QTLs clusters for endosperm texture traits were detected on chromosomes 3, 5, 6 and 8 explaining 62-68% of the variation. QTLs clusters for amino acid contents were located on chromosomes 7 and 8 that explained up to 39% of the observed variation. The product of the O2 gene is a transcription factor that affects the expression of a number of endosperm genes. A group of 29 endosperm genes associated with the O2 activity were evaluated in developing endosperm of the recombinant inbred lines. Genomic regions controlling gene transcript abundance in developing endosperm were identified by expression QTL mapping. Evidence is presented of QTL hot spots that segregate in association with endosperm texture modification or amino acid contents and are associated with the regulation of the expression of a group of endosperm genes

Herpetofauna de la cuenca baja de los ríos Gaira y manzanares. Santa Marta, Colombia

Con el propósito de conocer la herpetofauna en la cuenca baja de los ríos Gaira y Manzanares, en la ciudad de Santa Marta, Caribe colombiano, se realizaron muestreos en horas de mayor actividad (diurnas y nocturnas) durante el periodo de lluvias, entre octubre y noviembre de 2004. Se realizaron transectos de 100 m de longitud paralelos y perpendiculares a los ríos. En cada trayecto se registró el número de especies y el hábitat donde se avistaron, con el fin de determinar la estructura y el uso del recurso de habitabilidad de la comunidad. Se calcularon índices ecológicos (riqueza, abundancia relativa, diversidad equitatividad) y se realizaron pruebas estadísticas para determinar diferencias entre los ríos a partir de esos índices. La riqueza total fue de 35 especies, de las cuales 11 fueron Anuros, 7 Serpientes y 16 Saurios. Las familias Leptodactylidae y Geckonidae presentaron tos mayores valores de riqueza. Los mayores valores de abundancia relativa lo presentaron las familias Leptodactylidae y Teiidae. Cnemidophorus lemniscatus fue la especie diurna que presentó la mayor abundancia relativa; mientras que la nocturna fue Bufo marinus: Aunque la estructura de la herpetofauna difirió dentro de los ríos, entre ellos no hubo diferencias estadística (ANOSIM: R>-0.185 ; p>20%). Por ser una especie generalista y tener gran adaptación a los ambientes intervenidos, C. lemniscatus fue la especie que más aprovechó los recursos. Se registra la ampliación del rango de distribución altitudinal de dos especies, Colostethus ruthvenii y Anolis sanctae martae, y se registra por primera vez la presencia del genero Ptychoglossus para las tierras bajas del Caribe colombiano. Dado a la baja riqueza y que las especies más abundantes son típicas de sistemas intervenidos, pone en manifiesto la gran alteración y el mal aprovechamiento de las cuencas hidrográficas estudiadas. En este estudio se proponen pautas para la conservación de la herpetofauna estudiada

Perception of trust and commitment in the financial sector in Bogota (Colombia)

This study aims to determine the variables through which financial sector entities can establish retention processes and create long-term and quality relationships with Bogota's financial consumers. This was done by applying a survey to a sample of 384 people. The perception of trust and commitment of financialconsumers is between regular and non-conforming however, it was possible to establish significant variations between such perception associated with age groups, number of years linked to the financial institution, marital status, type of economic activity and the number of financial products

Violencia en las relaciones de pareja y su relación con los mitos del amor romántico en mujeres estudiantes de enfermería de una Universidad Pública, Chile

La violencia contra la mujer es una emergencia mundial de salud pública, ésta involucra la violencia en el noviazgo. El estudio tuvo por objetivo probar la hipótesis de relación positiva y significativa entre los diferentes tipos de violencia en la pareja y los mitos del amor romántico. El paradigma metodológico fue cuantitativo no experimental, diseño transversal-correlacional. La muestra fue de 163 mujeres estudiantes de enfermería de una Universidad Pública. Las escalas utilizadas fueron: cuestionario de violencia entre novios adaptado por Rodríguez et al, (DVQ-R) (i.e., Desapego, Humillación, Coerción, Violencia Física y Violencia Sexual) y la escala de “mitos del amor romántico”  probada por Ramírez-Carrasco et al. (2021) en población chilena, (media naranja; emparejamiento; exclusividad; celos; omnipotencia; libre albedrío; matrimonio; pasión eterna), para los análisis de correlación se utilizó el coeficiente rho de spearman. Se determino que; el 26,7% de las estudiantes sufren algún tipo de violencia por la pareja. Los mitos de los celos tuvieron las mayores correlaciones con las violencias de: desapego, coerción, humillación y violencia sexual; el mito de emparejamiento se correlacionó con desapego, coerción y la violencia física; el mito de libre albedrío con desapego y coerción, los demás mitos no se relacionaron con ningún tipo de violencia. Se concluye que los mitos del amor romántico son un factor de riesgo para el desarrollo de la violencia en la pareja, es urgente desarrollar un programa de intervención para erradicar los mitos mencionados y que considere visibilizar las violencias por coerción y el desapego, muchas veces desestimadas.

Disease mutations in Rab7 result in unregulated nucleotide exchange and inappropriate activation

Rab GTPases are molecular switches that orchestrate vesicular trafficking, maturation and fusion by cycling between an active, GTP-bound form, and an inactive, GDP-bound form. The activity cycle is coupled to GTP hydrolysis and is tightly controlled by regulatory proteins. Missense mutations of the GTPase Rab7 cause a dominantly inherited axonal degeneration known as Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2B through an unknown mechanism. We present the 2.8 Å crystal structure of GTP-bound L129F mutant Rab7 which reveals normal conformations of the effector binding regions and catalytic site, but an alteration to the nucleotide binding pocket that is predicted to alter GTP binding. Through extensive biochemical analysis, we demonstrate that disease-associated mutations in Rab7 do not lead to an intrinsic GTPase defect, but permit unregulated nucleotide exchange leading to both excessive activation and hydrolysis-independent inactivation. Consistent with augmented activity, mutant Rab7 shows significantly enhanced interaction with a subset of effector proteins. In addition, dynamic imaging demonstrates that mutant Rab7 is abnormally retained on target membranes. However, we show that the increased activation of mutant Rab7 is counterbalanced by unregulated, GTP hydrolysis-independent membrane cycling. Notably, disease mutations are able to rescue the membrane cycling of a GTPase-deficient mutant. Thus, we demonstrate that disease mutations uncouple Rab7 from the spatial and temporal control normally imposed by regulatory proteins and cause disease not by a gain of novel toxic function, but by misregulation of native Rab7 activity

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use in early acute respiratory distress syndrome : Insights from the LUNG SAFE study

Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Background: Concerns exist regarding the prevalence and impact of unnecessary oxygen use in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We examined this issue in patients with ARDS enrolled in the Large observational study to UNderstand the Global impact of Severe Acute respiratory FailurE (LUNG SAFE) study. Methods: In this secondary analysis of the LUNG SAFE study, we wished to determine the prevalence and the outcomes associated with hyperoxemia on day 1, sustained hyperoxemia, and excessive oxygen use in patients with early ARDS. Patients who fulfilled criteria of ARDS on day 1 and day 2 of acute hypoxemic respiratory failure were categorized based on the presence of hyperoxemia (PaO2 > 100 mmHg) on day 1, sustained (i.e., present on day 1 and day 2) hyperoxemia, or excessive oxygen use (FIO2 ≥ 0.60 during hyperoxemia). Results: Of 2005 patients that met the inclusion criteria, 131 (6.5%) were hypoxemic (PaO2 < 55 mmHg), 607 (30%) had hyperoxemia on day 1, and 250 (12%) had sustained hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use occurred in 400 (66%) out of 607 patients with hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use decreased from day 1 to day 2 of ARDS, with most hyperoxemic patients on day 2 receiving relatively low FIO2. Multivariate analyses found no independent relationship between day 1 hyperoxemia, sustained hyperoxemia, or excess FIO2 use and adverse clinical outcomes. Mortality was 42% in patients with excess FIO2 use, compared to 39% in a propensity-matched sample of normoxemic (PaO2 55-100 mmHg) patients (P = 0.47). Conclusions: Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use are both prevalent in early ARDS but are most often non-sustained. No relationship was found between hyperoxemia or excessive oxygen use and patient outcome in this cohort. Trial registration: LUNG-SAFE is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02010073publishersversionPeer reviewe

Global overview of the management of acute cholecystitis during the COVID-19 pandemic (CHOLECOVID study)

Background: This study provides a global overview of the management of patients with acute cholecystitis during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: CHOLECOVID is an international, multicentre, observational comparative study of patients admitted to hospital with acute cholecystitis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data on management were collected for a 2-month study interval coincident with the WHO declaration of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and compared with an equivalent pre-pandemic time interval. Mediation analysis examined the influence of SARS-COV-2 infection on 30-day mortality. Results: This study collected data on 9783 patients with acute cholecystitis admitted to 247 hospitals across the world. The pandemic was associated with reduced availability of surgical workforce and operating facilities globally, a significant shift to worse severity of disease, and increased use of conservative management. There was a reduction (both absolute and proportionate) in the number of patients undergoing cholecystectomy from 3095 patients (56.2 per cent) pre-pandemic to 1998 patients (46.2 per cent) during the pandemic but there was no difference in 30-day all-cause mortality after cholecystectomy comparing the pre-pandemic interval with the pandemic (13 patients (0.4 per cent) pre-pandemic to 13 patients (0.6 per cent) pandemic; P = 0.355). In mediation analysis, an admission with acute cholecystitis during the pandemic was associated with a non-significant increased risk of death (OR 1.29, 95 per cent c.i. 0.93 to 1.79, P = 0.121). Conclusion: CHOLECOVID provides a unique overview of the treatment of patients with cholecystitis across the globe during the first months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The study highlights the need for system resilience in retention of elective surgical activity. Cholecystectomy was associated with a low risk of mortality and deferral of treatment results in an increase in avoidable morbidity that represents the non-COVID cost of this pandemic