HYPOMETHYLATION OF DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID IN TESTICULAR TISSUE DUE TO ARSENIC EXPOSURE IN MICE

ABSTRACTObjective: Among various environmental carcinogens, arsenic is highly sensitive and possesses potential to cause several diseases including cancer.Nevertheless, arsenic has not been observed to induce mutation directly but is involved in epigenetic changes. Hypomethylation of oncogenes andhypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes are reported to be associated with accumulation of arsenic. The present investigation demonstrates adirect correlation arsenic and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) methylation.Methods: Swiss albino mice were grouped as control and arsenic treated for 12 weeks. Arsenic concentration in blood and testes was analyzed byatomic absorption spectrometer. Furthermore, DNA was extracted from the testes of mice by DNA purification kit and used for determining globalmethylation in mice genome with the help of MethylFlash Methylated DNA Quantification Kit.Results: Arsenic concentration in arsenic-treated mice was significantly higher than the control group in both blood and testes. Interestingly, arsenicconcentration in blood was recorded to be higher than testes in the arsenic-treated group with significance (p<0.0001). Moreover, a lower percentageof cytosine of mice genome was found to be methylated in arsenic-treated mice group than control group (p<0.0001).Conclusion: Greater concentration of arsenic in mice leads to hypomethylation of mice genome globally. Arsenic fosters deregulation of geneexpression by modifying methylation of CpG island of the promoter region. Epigenetic study is of prime importance in the field of oncology. Drugdevelopment for repressing alteration of DNA methylation is imperative for cancer treatment.Keywords: Arsenic, Cancer, Deoxyribonucleic acid, Methylation, Carcinogen

Anti-mycobacterial activity of Piper longum L. fruit extracts against multi drug resistant Mycobacterium Spp

A long tradition of using pepper as to fight against several ailments by the local tribal people is still in the practice, in many parts of the rural India. So utilizing this tribal knowledge base for this highly medicinal plant, an attempt was made to isolate some novel natural bioactive compounds with potential activity against multidrug resistant (MDR) Mycobacterium. A bioassay guided fractionation of Pippali (Piper longum L.) was performed in five different organic solvents and their activities were monitored against different pathogenic bacteria including MDR Mycobacterium. Different fractions were screened for the bioactivity against Mycobacterium, and the structure of bioactive compound was characterized with H1 and C13 NMR. An ethyl acetate fraction of Pippali extract was found active against M. smegmatis (3000µg ml-1) and M. tuberculosis (39 µg ml-1). It also shows very significant activity against other bacterial strains like E.coli (152 µg ml-1), Staphylococcus aureus (14 µg ml-1), Salmonella typhi (180 µg ml-1), Enterococcus faecalis (15 µg ml-1), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (52 µg ml-1). This fraction of ethyl acetate was then purified and characterized as piperine [5-(1, 3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-1-piperidin-1-ylpenta-2,4-dien-1-one], a well known alkaloid from this plant. Bioactivity guided fractionation concludes that Piperine is the only active ingredients in various fractions of fruit extract evaluated for antibacterial activity. Fraction having piperine has significant activity against multi drug resistant strains of Mycobacterium spp. than other purified fractions of fruit extract. The current finding encourages us to develop new alternative medicine that includes piperine alone and/or in combination with other drugs to fight against the drug resistance among Mycobacterial strains.   

Electron-Hole Asymmetry in the Electron-phonon Coupling in Top-gated Phosphorene Transistor

Using in-situ Raman scattering from phosphorene channel in an electrochemically top-gated field effect transistor, we show that its phonons with A$_g$ symmetry depend much more strongly on concentration of electrons than that of holes, while the phonons with B$_g$ symmetry are insensitive to doping. With first-principles theoretical analysis, we show that the observed electon-hole asymmetry arises from the radically different constitution of its conduction and valence bands involving $\pi$ and $\sigma$ bonding states respectively, whose symmetry permits coupling with only the phonons that preserve the lattice symmetry. Thus, Raman spectroscopy is a non-invasive tool for measuring electron concentration in phosphorene-based nanoelectronic devices

SURVEILLANCE OF MORTALITY: FROM A TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL OF EASTERN INDIA IN PERSONS WITH AND WITHOUT DIABETES MELLITUS

Objective: There is abundant knowledge about the gravity of global load of diabetes mellitus (DM). There are conflicting reports on the cause of death from different parts of the world. In India, there are not enough studies to establish the cause of death in DM. To find out the mortality pattern in DM and non-DM (NDM) in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Eastern India.Methods: Retrospective analysis of in-hospital mortality in a tertiary care hospital in Eastern India, from January 2012 to December 2015.Results: There were a total of 1590 deaths of which 442 were having DM and 1148 did not have DM (NDM). Mean age of death for nondiabetics was 66.4 years (M:F = 67.5:65.3) and that for diabetics were 62.7 years (M:F = 63.5:60.04) which was not statistically significant (p=0.9) though diabetics died younger by 4 years. On analyzing the specific cause of death, coronary artery disease (CAD) was 14.71% in DM and 1.57% in NDM (p=0.0001). Chronic kidney disease (CKD) was 18.55% in DM and 1.92% in NDM (p=0.0001). Congestive heart failure was 7.27% in DM and 1.83% in NDM (p=0.0001). CVA was 13.57% in DM and 1.66% in NDM (p=0.0001). Infection was the most common cause of death (39.37%) in DM, but in NDM also this was quite high 34.41% (p=0.21). The death due to CVA in DM was more in hemorrhage as compared to ischemic (p=0.00001).Conclusion: We found causes of death in DM were an infection, CKD, CAD, CVA, and CHF in descending order in this part of the world. The diabetes patients had lesser hospital stay than nondiabetes patients (p=0.009)

Ensemble Averaging of Transfer Learning Models for Identification of Nutritional Deficiency in Rice Plant

Computer vision-based automation has become popular in detecting and monitoring plants’ nutrient deficiencies in recent times. The predictive model developed by various researchers were so designed that it can be used in an embedded system, keeping in mind the availability of computational resources. Nevertheless, the enormous popularity of smart phone technology has opened the door of opportunity to common farmers to have access to high computing resources. To facilitate smart phone users, this study proposes a framework of hosting high end systems in the cloud where processing can be done, and farmers can interact with the cloud-based system. With the availability of high computational power, many studies have been focused on applying convolutional Neural Networks-based Deep Learning (CNN-based DL) architectures, including Transfer learning (TL) models on agricultural research. Ensembling of various TL architectures has the potential to improve the performance of predictive models by a great extent. In this work, six TL architectures viz. InceptionV3, ResNet152V2, Xception, DenseNet201, InceptionResNetV2, and VGG19 are considered, and their various ensemble models are used to carry out the task of deficiency diagnosis in rice plants. Two publicly available datasets from Mendeley and Kaggle are used in this study. The ensemble-based architecture enhanced the highest classification accuracy to 100% from 99.17% in the Mendeley dataset, while for the Kaggle dataset; it was enhanced to 92% from 90%

Electron - Phonon interaction to tune pseudocapacitive properties of NiO

Electrochemical properties of two protype NiO nanostructures (coral and flake) were investigated at room temperature. Coral - like nanostructure possesses higher specific capacitance instead of having less surface area. In addition, significant differences have been noticed in the shape of the CV curves. Here, a mechanism of electron transfer across electrode - electrolyte has been proposed to understand these phenomenon on the basis of electron - phonon interaction, analysed by Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopies. Difference in electron - phonon interaction for the two synthesized structures is found to originate from morphological anisotropy that has been illustrated using fractional dimensional space approach

Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging-transrectal ultrasound fusion biopsies increase the rate of cancer detection in populations with a low incidence of prostate cancer

Purpose: To prospectively evaluate the diagnostic yield of multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI)-fusion, transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided prostate biopsies for detection of prostate cancer in an Asian population with a low incidence of prostate cancer. Materials and Methods: A total of 131 males with suspected prostate cancer were recruited to undergo fusion biopsy with the Artemis prostate fusion biopsy device (Eigen, Grass Valley, CA, USA). All patients underwent standard 12-core systematic biopsies in addition to biopsies targeted at the mpMRI-identified abnormal regions. Yield from the standard cores was compared with that from the targeted cores. Gleason scores of 4+3 or higher were considered significant. Results: The mean age of the patients was 63.54±7.96 years and the mean prostate-specific antigen value was 9.75±5.35 ng/mL. A total of 36 patients had cancer, of which 3 (8.3%) were detected only on standard cores and 3 (8.3%) only on targeted cores. Of the clinically significant cancers (n=30), targeted biopsy detected a higher number (28/30, 93.3%) than standard biopsy (21/30, 70.0%). A total of 6 of 8 cancers (75.0%) that were insignificant on standard biopsy were upgraded to significant cancer on targeted cores. Conclusions: Eight percent of cancers were detected only on MRI-TRUS fusion-targeted biopsies, whereas the method upgraded more than two-thirds of insignificant cancers to significant cancers. Fusion biopsies thus provide incremental information over standard TRUS biopsies in the diagnosis of significant prostate cancer in populations with a low incidence of prostate cancer