A comparative study of the conduction velocity of motor and sensory fibres of ulnar and median nerves among leprosy patients and normal subjects

Background: Leprosy and the associated scourge have affected humanity for thousands of years. One of the most debilitating consequences of leprosy is peripheral neuropathy. Nerve Conduction Velocity study provides us with a non-invasive modality to assess peripheral nerve involvement in leprosy.Methods: With this in mind, a cross-sectional observational study was conducted including 30 leprosy patients as "Cases" and 30 age-matched healthy subjects, not suffering from any kind of neurological disorders, as "Controls". Using a digital electromyography machine, the Latency, Amplitude and Conduction Velocities of Motor and Sensory fibres of Ulnar and Median nerves were recorded. The results were compared among controls and cases using suitable statistical tests (descriptive statistics and significance testing using unpaired t-test).Results: In this study, with regard to Sensory Nerve conduction Velocity (SNCV), statistically very significant difference was noted in case of right (p 0.0011) and left (p 0.0037) ulnar nerves among controls and cases. The difference in the amplitude of Motor Action potential (MAP) with regard to right median nerve, among cases and controls, was also statistically significant (p 0.0127). Further the amplitude of Sensory Nerve Action Potential (SNAP) values were higher among cases compared to controls.Conclusions: As such, the findings of this study (and which is also corroborated by many previous studies) lead us to the conclusion that NCV studies can detect lepromatous neuropathy much before the emergence of frank clinical signs and this type of neuropathy is predominantly demyelinating in nature with occasional axonal loss

A comparative study of total body fat percentage, visceral fat percentage and whole body subcutaneous and skeletal fat percentage between patients with depression and normal subjects

Background: In today’s world, depression has been named as the foremost public health problem while obesity has reached epidemic proportions in India in the 21st century. A probable association between depression and obesity has been suspected. The quantification of obesity, can be done by various methods such as body mass index (BMI), bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) etc. Among these, BMI and BIA have emerged as well accepted techniques. From impedance measurement values and other data such as a person’s height, weight and body types, it is possible to calculate the percentage of body fat, fat-free mass (skeletal muscles), and other body composition values. Methods: This was an analytical cross-sectional study. Cases comprised of subjects who were diagnosed with depression but were ‘drug naive’ while the control group comprised of age-matched subjects drawn from the normal population. Measurement of various anthropometric parameters like BMI, total body fat (TBF) %, visceral fat % etc. was carried out among the cases and controls using a portable body fat monitor scan that employed BIA. Results: BMI, TBF%, visceral fat %, whole body subcutaneous and skeletal fat % were found to be much higher among the cases (subjects with depression) in comparison with the controls (normal subjects), in a statistically significant way. Conclusions: The study showed that the intrinsic inflammatory potential of obesity coupled with its probable dysregulatory impact on the (hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal) HPA axis was possibly the underlying cause of the elevated anthropometric parameters noted among the cases

Chaperone-mediated inhibition of tubulin self-assembly

Molecular chaperones are known to play an important role in facilitating the proper folding of many newly synthesized proteins. Here, we have shown that chaperone proteins exhibit another unique property to inhibit tubulin self-assembly efficiently. Chaperones tested include α -crystallin from bovine eye lenses, HSP16.3, HSP70 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and α -casein from milk. All of them inhibit polymerization in a dose-dependent manner independent of assembly inducers used. The critical concentration of MTP polymerization increases with increasing concentration of HSP16.3. Increase in chaperone concentration lowers the extent of polymerization and increases the lag time of self-assembly reaction. Although the addition of a chaperone at the early stage of elongation phase shows no effect on polymerization, the same concentration of chaperone inhibits polymerization completely when added before the initiation of polymerization. Bindings of HSP16.3 and α -casein to tubulin have been confirmed using isothermal titration calorimetry. Affinity constants of tubulin are 5.3 × 104 and 9.8 × 105 M-1 for HSP16.3 and α s-casein, respectively. Thermodynamic parameters indicate favourable entropy and enthalpy changes for both chaperones-tubulin interactions. Positive entropy change suggests that the interaction is hydrophobic in nature and desolvation occurring during formation of tubulin-chaperone complex. On the basis of thermodynamic data and observations made upon addition of chaperone at early elongation phase or before the initiation of polymerization, we hypothesize that chaperones bind tubulin at the protein-protein interaction site involved in the nucleation phase of self-assembly

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium report, data summary of 50 countries for 2010-2015: Device-associated module

•We report INICC device-associated module data of 50 countries from 2010-2015.•We collected prospective data from 861,284 patients in 703 ICUs for 3,506,562 days.•DA-HAI rates and bacterial resistance were higher in the INICC ICUs than in CDC-NHSN's.•Device utilization ratio in the INICC ICUs was similar to CDC-NHSN's. Background: We report the results of International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2010-December 2015 in 703 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and Western Pacific. Methods: During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Healthcare Safety Network (CDC-NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 861,284 patients hospitalized in INICC hospital ICUs for an aggregate of 3,506,562 days. Results: Although device use in INICC ICUs was similar to that reported from CDC-NHSN ICUs, DA-HAI rates were higher in the INICC ICUs: in the INICC medical-surgical ICUs, the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection, 4.1 per 1,000 central line-days, was nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.8 per 1,000 central line-days reported from comparable US ICUs, the overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher, 13.1 versus 0.9 per 1,000 ventilator-days, as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection, 5.07 versus 1.7 per 1,000 catheter-days. From blood cultures samples, frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (29.87% vs 10%) and to imipenem (44.3% vs 26.1%), and of Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (73.2% vs 28.8%) and to imipenem (43.27% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC ICUs compared with CDC-NHSN ICUs. Conclusions: Although DA-HAIs in INICC ICU patients continue to be higher than the rates reported in CDC-NSHN ICUs representing the developed world, we have observed a significant trend toward the reduction of DA-HAI rates in INICC ICUs as shown in each international report. It is INICC's main goal to continue facilitating education, training, and basic and cost-effective tools and resources, such as standardized forms and an online platform, to tackle this problem effectively and systematically

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field