Antioxidants deficiency: a sensitive indicator of cardiometabolic risk in chronic renal failure?

Background: Antioxidant depletion occurring in chronic renal failure patients is an important cause of associated morbidity & mortality, which in turn imposes a great socioeconomic burden of health care. Early diagnosis & targeted management of this preventable deficiency may have a positive impact on the management of co morbidities associated with chronic renal failure.Aims & Objectives: To evaluate the status of antioxidants as an early indicator of cardiometabolic risk in chronic renal failure patients.Settings & Design: This was a randomised case Control study including 10 controls of either sex with normal renal function between age group 20-60 years and 15 patients of chronic renal failure on dialysis between the age group of 16 - 60 years.Methods: 12 hour fasting venous blood samples were collected from all the participants and were assayed for various antioxidants.Statistical analysis: Results were analyzed by unpaired t test, p value was determined & Correlation coefficient was calculated amongst various parameters.Results: In the present study, significantly low levels of vitamin C ( Cases: 0.367 ± 0.13 mg/dl controls: 1.324 ± 0.61 mg/dl; p < 0.01) & vitamin E  (cases: 0.235 ± 0.102 mg/dl, controls (0.854 ± 0.28 mg/dl; p < 0.01) were observed in chronic renal failure patients as compared to controls.Conclusion: Diminished levels of Vitamin C & E in our study may be an indicator of increased oxidative stress which can be a responsible factor for increased incidence of cardiovascular complications. Supplementing these patients with recommended dosage of these vitamins may provide an essential tool to reduce the burden of suffering

Author Correction: A chickpea genetic variation map based on the sequencing of 3,366 genomes

In Extended Data Fig. 1 of this Article, the labels ‘Market class’ and ‘Biological status’ were inadvertently swapped. In the corresponding figure legend, “Track 1: Biological status; Track 2: Market class;” should have been “Track 1: Market class; Track 2: Biological status;”. The original Article has been corrected online

A chickpea genetic variation map based on the sequencing of 3,366 genomes

Zero hunger and good health could be realized by 2030 through effective conservation, characterization and utilization of germplasm resources1. So far, few chickpea (Cicer arietinum) germplasm accessions have been characterized at the genome sequence level2. Here we present a detailed map of variation in 3,171 cultivated and 195 wild accessions to provide publicly available resources for chickpea genomics research and breeding. We constructed a chickpea pan-genome to describe genomic diversity across cultivated chickpea and its wild progenitor accessions. A divergence tree using genes present in around 80% of individuals in one species allowed us to estimate the divergence of Cicer over the last 21 million years. Our analysis found chromosomal segments and genes that show signatures of selection during domestication, migration and improvement. The chromosomal locations of deleterious mutations responsible for limited genetic diversity and decreased fitness were identified in elite germplasm. We identified superior haplotypes for improvement-related traits in landraces that can be introgressed into elite breeding lines through haplotype-based breeding, and found targets for purging deleterious alleles through genomics-assisted breeding and/or gene editing. Finally, we propose three crop breeding strategies based on genomic prediction to enhance crop productivity for 16 traits while avoiding the erosion of genetic diversity through optimal contribution selection (OCS)-based pre-breeding. The predicted performance for 100-seed weight, an important yield-related trait, increased by up to 23% and 12% with OCS- and haplotype-based genomic approaches, respectively