Women’s pelvic floor muscle strength and urinary and anal incontinence after childbirth: a cross-sectional study

Abstract OBJECTIVE To analyse pelvic floor muscle strength (PFMS) and urinary and anal incontinence (UI and AI) in the postpartum period. METHOD Cross-sectional study carried out with women in their first seven months after child birth. Data were collected through interviews, perineometry (Peritron™), and the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-Short Form (ICIQ-SF). RESULTS 128 women participated in the study. The PFMS mean was 33.1 (SD=16.0) cmH2O and the prevalence of UI and AI was 7.8% and 5.5%, respectively. In the multiple analyses, the variables associated with PFMS were type of birth and cohabitation with a partner. Newborn’s weight, previous pregnancy, UI during pregnancy, and sexual activity showed an association with UI after child birth. Only AI prior to pregnancy was associated with AI after childbirth. CONCLUSION Vaginal birth predisposes to the reduction of PFMS, and caesarean section had a protective effect to its reduction. The occurrence of UI during pregnancy is a predictor of UI after childbirth, and women with previous pregnancies and newborns with higher weights are more likely to have UI after childbirth.AI prior to pregnancy is the only risk factor for its occurrence after childbirth. Associations between PFMS and cohabitation with a partner, and between UI and sexual activity do not make possible to conclude that these variables are directly associated

Isolation and functional characterization of a cotton ubiquitination-related promoter and 5'UTR that drives high levels of expression in root and flower tissues

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cotton (<it>Gossypium </it>spp.) is an important crop worldwide that provides raw material to 40% of the textile fiber industry. Important traits have been studied aiming the development of genetically modified crops including resistance to insect and diseases, and tolerance to drought, cold and herbicide. Therefore, the characterization of promoters and regulatory regions is also important to achieve high gene expression and/or a specific expression pattern. Commonly, genes involved in ubiquitination pathways are highly and differentially expressed. In this study, we analyzed the expression of a cotton ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (E2) family member with no previous characterization.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Nucleotide analysis revealed high identity with cotton <it>E2 </it>homologues. Multiple alignment showed a premature stop codon, which prevents the encoding of the conserved cysteine residue at the <it>E2 </it>active site, and an intron that is spliced in <it>E2 </it>homologues, but not in <it>GhGDRP85</it>. The <it>GhGDRP85 </it>gene is highly expressed in different organs of cotton plants, and has high transcript levels in roots. Its promoter (uceApro2) and the 5'UTR compose a regulatory region named uceA1.7, and were isolated from cotton and studied in <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it>. uceA1.7 shows strong expression levels, equaling or surpassing the expression levels of CaMV35S. The uceA1.7 regulatory sequence drives GUS expression 7-fold higher in flowers, 2-fold in roots and at similar levels in leaves and stems. GUS expression levels are decreased 7- to 15-fold when its 5'UTR is absent in uceApro2.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>uceA1.7 is a strong constitutive regulatory sequence composed of a promoter (uceApro2) and its 5'UTR that will be useful in genetic transformation of dicots, having high potential to drive high levels of transgene expression in crops, particularly for traits desirable in flower and root tissues.</p

Synchronous bursts on scale-free neuronal networks with attractive and repulsive coupling

This paper investigates the dependence of synchronization transitions of bursting oscillations on the information transmission delay over scale-free neuronal networks with attractive and repulsive coupling. It is shown that for both types of coupling, the delay always plays a subtle role in either promoting or impairing synchronization. In particular, depending on the inherent oscillation period of individual neurons, regions of irregular and regular propagating excitatory fronts appear intermittently as the delay increases. These delay-induced synchronization transitions are manifested as well-expressed minima in the measure for spatiotemporal synchrony. For attractive coupling, the minima appear at every integer multiple of the average oscillation period, while for the repulsive coupling, they appear at every odd multiple of the half of the average oscillation period. The obtained results are robust to the variations of the dynamics of individual neurons, the system size, and the neuronal firing type. Hence, they can be used to characterize attractively or repulsively coupled scale-free neuronal networks with delays.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; accepted for publication in PLoS ONE [related work available at http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.4961 and http://www.matjazperc.com/

Transcriptomics reveal an integrative role for maternal thyroid hormones during zebrafish embryogenesis

Thyroid hormones (THs) are essential for embryonic brain development but the genetic mechanisms involved in the action of maternal THs (MTHs) are still largely unknown. As the basis for understanding the underlying genetic mechanisms of MTHs regulation we used an established zebrafish monocarboxylic acid transporter 8 (MCT8) knock-down model and characterised the transcriptome in 25hpf zebrafish embryos. Subsequent mapping of differentially expressed genes using Reactome pathway analysis together with in situ expression analysis and immunohistochemistry revealed the genetic networks and cells under MTHs regulation during zebrafish embryogenesis. We found 4,343 differentially expressed genes and the Reactome pathway analysis revealed that TH is involved in 1681 of these pathways. MTHs regulated the expression of core developmental pathways, such as NOTCH and WNT in a cell specific context. The cellular distribution of neural MTH-target genes demonstrated their cell specific action on neural stem cells and differentiated neuron classes. Taken together our data show that MTHs have a role in zebrafish neurogenesis and suggest they may be involved in cross talk between key pathways in neural development. Given that the observed MCT8 zebrafish knockdown phenotype resembles the symptoms in human patients with Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome our data open a window into understanding the genetics of this human congenital condition.Portuguese Fundacao para Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) [PTDC/EXPL/MARBIO/0430/2013]; CCMAR FCT Plurianual financing [UID/Multi/04326/2013]; FCT [SFRH/BD/111226/2015, SFRH/BD/108842/2015, SFRH/BPD/89889/2012]; FCT-IF Starting Grant [IF/01274/2014]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Absence of TERT promoter mutations in colorectal precursor lesions and cancer

Hotspot mutations (c.-124bp G > A and c.-146bp G > A) in the promoter region of the TERT gene have been recently described in several types of solid tumors, including glioma, bladder, thyroid, liver and skin neoplasms. However, knowledge with respect to colorectal precursor lesions and cancer is scarce. In the present study we aimed to determine the frequency of hotspot TERT promoter mutations in 145 Brazilian patients, including 103 subjects with precursor lesions and 42 with colorectal carcinomas, and we associated the presence of such mutations with the patients clinical-pathological features. The mutation analysis was conclusive in 123 cases, and none of the precursor and colorectal carcinoma cases showed TERT promoter mutations. We conclude that TERT mutations are not a driving factor in colorectal carcinogenesis.This study was financially partially supported by Barretos Cancer Hospital Internal Research Funds (PAIP) to participating authorsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio