Biodiversity Assessment Along the Coast of Central Kerala, India in Relation to Ecosystem Services

Conservation of biodiversity has been a matter of global concern since the event of the World Summit in 1992 and the follow up of Rio+20 in 2012. In order to promote conservation efforts and provide a platform for bioevaluation, special areas of interest along the coasts are evaluated according to their capacity to support and harbour biological diversity. Assessment of biodiversity along the coasts of districts of Alapuzha, Ernakulam and Thrissur of central Kerala was undertaken to ascertain the provisional, regulatory, supporting and cultural services provided and to appraise their ecological sensitivity

CATALOGUE-2018 Marine Biodiversity Museum CMFRI Special Publication No. 129

A new Marine Biodiversity Museum was established at Kochi following the shifting of the headquarters of the Institute from Mandapam to Kochi. The Museum was inaugurated by Padma Vibhushan Prof. M.S. Swaminathan on 4th February 2006. The museum now holds around 2300 specimens of various categories such as fishes, echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans, corals, seaweeds etc. These specimens are of fundamental importance to taxonomic, systematic and biodiversity studies. The first catalogue on Marine Biodiversity Museum comprised of specimens belonging to all the groups was published in 2012. The present catalogue prepared by the Marine Biodiversity Division of the Institute is expected to update the present status of the specimens in the museum as on March 2017. I am happy to bring out this catalogue in the year of Platinum Jubilee celebrations of CMFRI (1947-2017). The help and support extended by the previous Directors of CMFRI and Museum-in-charges are gratefully acknowledged. Majority of the specimens in the Museum represents the collections made by scientists of CMFRI as part of their research activities. The keen interest shown and the sincere effort put in by the scientists of the Institute in building up this Museum as an invaluable gift to those who pursue science need special mention. They have deposited their valuable specimens in the Museum and contributed in one way or the other to bring it to the present status. I congratulate all those who have been involved in the collection, preservation, identification and cataloguing of the specimens in the Marine Biodiversity Museum

Hard Coral Diversity of Kalpeni Islands, Lakshadweep

Hard Coral Diversity of Kalpeni Islands, Lakshadwee

Status and diversity of Jellyfishes around Indian Coastal waters

Jellyfish is a common word used for any gelatinous animal in marine waters. These include a wide variety of stinging and non-stinging jellyfishes. Jellyfishes are the oldest animal on planet earth from Pre-Cambrian period, and passed through 500 million years of natural selection. The term jellyfish generally refers to gelatinous zooplankton including medusae of the phylum Cnidaria(scyphomedusae, hydromedusae, cubomedusae and siphonophores) and planktonic members of the phylum Ctenophora, Salps and Pyrosomes etc. The true jellyfishes are coming under the three Cnidarian classes viz., Hydrozoa, Scyphozoa and Cubozoa and seasonally swarm in the coastal waters

Unveiling the pathogenic mechanisms of NPR2 missense variants: insights into the genotype-associated severity in acromesomelic dysplasia and short stature

Introduction: Natriuretic peptide receptor 2 (NPR2 or NPR-B) plays a central role in growth development and bone morphogenesis and therefore loss-of-function variations in NPR2 gene have been reported to cause Acromesomelic Dysplasia, Maroteaux type 1 and short stature. While several hypotheses have been proposed to underlie the pathogenic mechanisms responsible for these conditions, the exact mechanisms, and functional characteristics of many of those variants and their correlations with the clinical manifestations have not been fully established.Methods: In this study, we examined eight NPR2 genetic missense variants (p.Leu51Pro, p.Gly123Val, p.Leu314Arg, p.Arg318Gly, p.Arg388Gln, p.Arg495Cys, p.Arg557His, and p.Arg932Cys) Acromesomelic Dysplasia, Maroteaux type 1 and short stature located on diverse domains and broadly classified as variants of uncertain significance. The evaluated variants are either reported in patients with acromesomelic dysplasia in the homozygous state or short stature in the heterozygous state. Our investigation included the evaluation of their expression, subcellular trafficking and localization, N-glycosylation profiles, and cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) production activity.Results and Discussion: Our results indicate that variants p.Leu51Pro, p.Gly123Val, p.Leu314Arg, p.Arg388Gln have defective cellular trafficking, being sequestered within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and consequently impaired cGMP production ability. Conversely, variants p.Arg318Gly, p.Arg495Cys, and p.Arg557His seem to display a non-statistically significant behavior that is slightly comparable to WT-NPR2. On the other hand, p.Arg932Cys which is located within the guanylyl cyclase active site displayed normal cellular trafficking profile albeit with defective cGMP. Collectively, our data highlights the genotype-phenotype relationship that might be responsible for the milder symptoms observed in short stature compared to acromesomelic dysplasia. This study enhances our understanding of the functional consequences of several NPR2 variants, shedding light on their mechanisms and roles in related genetic disorders which might also help in their pathogenicity re-classification

मैंग्रोव पर्यावरण प्रणाली : भारत में एक निराशाजनक संसाधन

मैंग्रोव पर्यावरण प्रणाली : भारत में एक निराशाजनक संसाध

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Fine Tuning of Hepatocyte Differentiation from Human Embryonic Stem Cells: Growth Factor vs. Small Molecule-Based Approaches

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are being utilized in diverse areas of studies such as development and disease modeling, cell replacement therapy, or drug toxicity testing because of their potential to be differentiated into any cell type in the body. The directed differentiation of hESCs into hepatocytes could provide an invaluable source of liver cells for various liver-based applications. Therefore, several protocols have been established in the past for hESC-hepatocyte differentiation based on the knowledge of signaling pathways and growth factors involved in different stages of embryonic hepatogenesis. Although successful derivation of hepatocytes has been achieved through these protocols, the efficiency is not always ideal. Herein, we have tested several combinations of published protocols, for example, growth factor vs. small molecule and different time durations of treatment for definitive endoderm (DE) induction and further hepatocyte differentiation to develop an efficient DE induction and hepatocyte differentiation in a highly reproducible manner based on the stage-specific marker expression and functional analysis

Saturated fatty acid regulated lncRNA dataset during in vitro human embryonic neurogenesis

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) were used as a model of embryonic neurogenesis to identify the effect of excess fat uptake on neurodevelopment (Ardah et al., 2018). Herein, by directed differentiation of hESCs into neurons using established protocols, this data was generated for expression profiles of select lncRNAs during in vitro embryonic neurogenesis and their differential expression due to excess fat (palmitate) uptake. The undifferentiated hESCs were treated with 250 µM palmitate after identifying it as the highest concentration which is non-toxic to these cells. The palmitate treated hESCs were differentiated towards neurons keeping the levels of palmitate consistent throughout the differentiation process and fat uptake was confirmed by Oil Red O staining. The expression analysis of lncRNAs was performed by RT-qPCR on vehicle control and palmitate treated cells from 4 stages of differentiation, D0 (undifferentiated hESCs), D12 (neural stem cells), D44 (neural progenitors) and D70 (neurons) using lncRNAs array plates from Arraystar Inc. which contains 372 functionally identified lncRNAs found to be associated with lipid metabolism and other pathways (Cat# AS-NR-004)