Opportunities for prioritizing and expanding conservation enterprise in India using a guild of carnivores as flagships

Conservation interventions in developing countries are frequently thwarted by socio-economic agendas, severely limiting the scope and rigor of biodiversity and habitat conservation. Very few ecological assessments incorporate human interests in conservation prioritization, creating asynchrony between planning and implementation. For conservation actions to be logistically feasible, multiple criteria including ecological, social, economic and administrative aspects must be considered. Understanding how these different dimensions interact spatially is also important for gauging the potential for conservation success. Here, we use a guild of select mammalian carnivores (wild canids and hyenas) in India to (i) generate distribution maps at the spatial scale of administrative sub-districts, that are relevant to management, (ii) examine ecological, social and biogeographic factors associated with their distribution, assess key threats, and identify areas important for their conservation, (iii) use prioritization tools for balancing habitat conservation, human needs and economic growth, and (iv) evaluate the spatial congruence between areas with high conservation potential, and areas currently in focus for protection efforts, conservation investments, and infrastructure development. We find that the current Protected Area system does not adequately cover or represent diverse habitats, that there is immense potential for States to increase financial investments towards alternative conservation strategies, and, most infrastructure projects may be potentially jeopardizing important carnivore habitats where the two overlap. Our framework allowed for identifying locations where conservation investments would lead to the highest benefits for carnivores as flagships, which also benefit other species across habitats. We make a case for re-evaluating how large-scale prioritization assessments are made, and for broadening the purview of conservation policies in India and other developing countries

Immune Differentiation Regulator p100 Tunes NF-κB Responses to TNF

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is a pleiotropic cytokine whose primary physiological function involves coordinating inflammatory and adaptive immune responses. However, uncontrolled TNF signaling causes aberrant inflammation and has been implicated in several human ailments. Therefore, an understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying dynamical and gene controls of TNF signaling bear significance for human health. As such, TNF engages the canonical nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway to activate RelA:p50 heterodimers, which induce expression of specific immune response genes. Brief and chronic TNF stimulation produces transient and long-lasting NF-κB activities, respectively. Negative feedback regulators of the canonical pathway, including IκBα, are thought to ensure transient RelA:p50 responses to short-lived TNF signals. The non-canonical NF-κB pathway mediates RelB activity during immune differentiation involving p100. We uncovered an unexpected role of p100 in TNF signaling. Brief TNF stimulation of p100-deficient cells triggered an additional late NF-κB activity consisting of RelB:p50 heterodimers, which modified the TNF-induced gene-expression program. In p100-deficient cells subjected to brief TNF stimulation, RelB:p50 not only sustained the expression of a subset of RelA-target immune response genes but also activated additional genes that were not normally induced by TNF in WT mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and were related to immune differentiation and metabolic processes. Despite this RelB-mediated distinct gene control, however, RelA and RelB bound to mostly overlapping chromatin sites in p100-deficient cells. Repeated TNF pulses strengthened this RelB:p50 activity, which was supported by NF-κB-driven RelB synthesis. Finally, brief TNF stimulation elicited late-acting expressions of NF-κB target pro-survival genes in p100-deficient myeloma cells. In sum, our study suggests that the immune-differentiation regulator p100 enforces specificity of TNF signaling and that varied p100 levels may provide for modifying TNF responses in diverse physiological and pathological settings

Hemoptysis secondary to actinomycosis: A rare presentation

We present a 70-year-old female patient who had the history of hypertension and presented with massive haemoptysis. She had been complaining of cough with expectoration and mild streaking of blood in sputum for about 3 days with only crepts in right infrascapular and infra-axillary regions as positive clinical findings. Bronchoscopy revealed a cauliflower-like lesion in the upper- right lobe bronchus; bronchial aspirate showed occasional colonies of gram positive filamentous bacteria surrounded by neutrophils. The Trucut biopsy showed sheets of neutrophils with colonies of filamentous bacteria consistent with actinomycotic infection. She was started on intravenous benzyl penicillin 20 million units 6 hourly. She recovered with no further bouts of hemoptysis and was discharged on amoxicillin + clavulanic acid in a stable condition and she remained under similar condition for more than a year on follow up. Actinomycosis is a rare disease caused by a harmless commensal species, Actinomyces. Diagnosis of actinomycosis is a challenging situation, and more so, very few cases causing hemoptysis have come to light so far

Glue therapy in hemoptysis: A new technique

Hemoptysis is defined as the spitting of blood derived from the lungs or bronchial tubes as a result of pulmonary or bronchial hemorrhage. There is a large chunk of patients with hemoptysis who do not respond to conservative treatment including use of cough suppressants, antibiotics, vitamin C, hemostatics, and anxiolytics. The advanced management of such a situation is bronchial artery embolization (BAE) or open thoracic surgery, which is often not possible. We have attempted a cheap, effective, and safe alternative in the form of intrabronchial instillation of glue (n-butyl cyanoacrylate) under vision with the help of a therapeutic video bronchoscope (OLYMPUS T-180). The glue is instilled through a polyethylene catheter placed through the working channel of the video bronchoscope