ASSOCIATION OF OBESITY WITH RS1421085 AND RS9939609 POLYMORPHISMS OF FTO GENE WITH T2DM IN EGYPTIAN FEMALES

Objective: Obesity has been described as a worldwide increasing health problem and risk factor of various disorders including type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). So, our study aim to determine of common variants of fat mass and obesity associated gene polymorphisms rs1421085 and rs 9939609; confers risk of obesity and type 2 diabetic mellitus in Egyptian females.Methods: In this population rs1421085 and rs9939609 polymorphisms of fat mass and obesity (FTO) gene were genotyped in 105 obese patients and 100 healthy controls with ages 14-60 y were collected from Medicine Specialized Hospital, Mansoura University, Egypt during the period between Jul.-Oct. 2016, genotyping of SNPs was performed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) assay, fasting blood glucose, homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA IR), body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) lipid profile was determined.Results: There was the significantly higher frequency of the AA compared to controls p=0.0001) of genotypers9939609. Also, cases have shown a significantly higher frequency of the C allele, p<0.00001) of rs1421085 genotype polymorphisms increased the risks of obesity. On the other hand, there were no significant correlations between genotypes and obesity-related (anthropometric body composition) parameters. Only the fasting blood glucose was significantly higher in the TA p=0.004).Conclusion: The FTO rs9939609 and rs1421085 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was associated with increased risk of obesity in type 2 diabetic populations on Egyptian females

Caracterización estructural y actividad biológica de sulfolípidos de algas marinas seleccionadas

The sulfolipid classes (SLs) in the total lipids of five species of marine algae, two species of Rhodophyta (Laurencia popillose, Galaxoura cylindriea), one species of Chlorophyta (Ulva fasciata), and two species of Phaeophyta (Dilophys fasciola, Taonia atomaria) were separated and purified on DEAE-cellulose column chromatography. The SLs component was identified by IR, gas chromatography MS/MS and liquid chromatography MS/MS. The level of SLs contents va ried from 1.25% (in L. papillose) to 11.82% (in D. fasciola) of the total lipid contents. However, no significant differences in sulfate content (0.13 – 0.21%) were observed among all these algae species. All SLs were characterized by high contents of palmitic acid (C 16:0), which ranged from 30.91% in G. cylindriea to 63.11% in T. atomatia. The main constitutes of algal sulfolipids were identified as sulfoquinovosyl-di-acylglycerol and sulfoquinovosyl acylglycerol. The sulfolipids of different algal species exhibited remarkable antiviral activity against herps simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) with an IC50 ranging from 18.75 to 70. 2 μg mL–1. Moreover, algal sulfolipid inhibited the growth of the tumor cells of breast and liver human cancer cells with IC50 values ranging from 0.40 to 0.67 μg mL–1 for human breast adenocarcinoma cells (MCF7).Se separaron diferentes clases sulfolípidos (SL) a partir de los lípidos totales de cinco especies de algas marinas: una especie de Chlorophyta (Ulva fasciata), dos especies de Phaeophyta (Dilophys fasciola, Taonia atomaria) y dos especies de Rhodophyta (Laurencia popillose, Galaxoura cylindriea) que se purificaron mediante cromatografía en columna de DEAE-celulosa. Los components de SLs fueron identificados por IR, cromatografía de gases MS/MS y cromatografía líquida MS/ MS. Los contenidos de SL en relación al total de lípidos varió de 1,25% (en L. papilosa) al 11,82% (en D. fasciola). Sin embargo, no hay diferencias significativas en el contenido de sulfato observado entre todas estas especies de algas (desde 0,13 hasta 0,21%). Todos los SL se caracterizaron por un alto contenido de ácido palmítico (C16:0), que osciló entre 30,91% en G. cylindriea a 63,11% en T. atomatia. Sulfoquinovosyl-di-acilglicerol y acilglicerol sulfoquinovosyl fueron identificados como los principales constituyentes de los sulfolípidos de estas algas. Los sulfolípidos de las diferentes especies de algas estudiadas mostraron una notable actividad antiviral contra el virus del herpes simple tipo 1 (VHS-1) con una IC50 que osciló entre 18,75 y 70. 2 g mL–1. Por otra parte, los sulfolípidos de estas algas inhibieron el crecimiento de células tumorales de mama y células de cáncer de hígado humano con valores de IC50 que van desde 0,40 hasta 0,67 g mL–1 para las células de adenocarcinoma de mama humano (MCF7)

10 A noninvasive approach for the early detection of diabetic retinopathy

This chapter introduces one of the most critical problems in ophthalmology, specifically the diagnosis and detection of diabetic retinopathy (DR). Developing a fast, accurate, and reliable method for the early detection of DR is of great clinical importance to prevent blindness in patients. For this reason, various methods for early detection of DR have been investigated and used such as a dilated eye examination, tonometry, fluorescein angiography, optical coherence tomography, and ultrawide-field retinal imaging. With the increased popularity of machine learning, researchers have formulated their own algorithms and methods to detect DR with various rates of success. This chapter overviews past and current diagnostic methods that have been developed for DR. In addition, this chapter addresses new methodologies being developed/researched and some challenges that researchers face in developing fast, accurate, and reliable diagnosis

Isolation and Identification Studies on Potential Xylanase Producing Strain Trichoderma sp. WICC F46 Isolated from Tropical Soil

Trichoderma is one of few fungal species of high potential application as bio factory for xylanase production. During last few years increased demand have been observed on the need to isolate high efficient strains from soil sample and to use different microbiological and bioprocess engineering approaches to increase the production yield. In this work, efficient xylanase producer strain was isolated from soil and fully identified using phylogeny analysis. In order to develop an efficient submerged medium for xylanase production, media screening was carried out followed by optimization using one factor at a time (OFAT) method. After optimization of medium composition, the maximal xylanase volumetric production reached 311.71 UmL-1. This medium was composed of corn cob, peptone, magnesium sulphate, calcium chloride, and ammonium sulphate

Computer Aided Autism Diagnosis Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging

© 2013 IEEE. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), commonly known as autism, is a lifelong developmental disorder associated with a broad range of symptoms including difficulties in social interaction, communication skills, and restricted and repetitive behaviors. In autism spectrum disorder, numerous studies suggest abnormal development of neural networks that manifest itself as abnormalities of brain shape, functionality, and/ or connectivity. The aim of this work is to present our automated computer aided diagnostic (CAD) system for accurate identification of autism spectrum disorder based on the connectivity of the white matter (WM) tracts. To achieve this goal, two levels of analysis are provided for local and global scores using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data. A local analysis using the Johns Hopkins WM atlas is exploited for DTI atlas-based segmentation. Furthermore, WM integrity is examined by extracting the most notable features representing WM connectivity from DTI. Interactions of WM features between different areas in the brain, demonstrating correlations between WM areas were used, and feature selection among those associations were made. Finally, a leave-one-subject-out classifier is employed to yield a final per-subject decision. The proposed system was tested on a large dataset of 263 subjects from the National Database of Autism Research (NDAR) with their Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) scores and diagnosis (139 typically developed: 66 males, and 73 females, and 124 autistics: 66 males, and 58 females), with ages ranging from 96 to 215 months, achieving an overall accuracy of 73%. In addition to this achieved global accuracy, diagnostically-important brain areas were identified, allowing for a better understanding of ASD-related brain abnormalities, which is considered as an essential step towards developing early personalized treatment plans for children with autism spectrum disorder

Gender Differences in Presentation, Management, and In-Hospital Outcomes for Patients with AMI in a Lower-Middle Income Country: Evidence from Egypt

BACKGROUND: Many studies in high-income countries have investigated gender differences in the care and outcomes of patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, little evidence exists on gender differences among patients with AMI in lower-middle-income countries, where the proportion deaths stemming from cardiovascular disease is projected to increase dramatically. This study examines gender differences in patients in the lower-middle-income country of Egypt to determine if female patients with AMI have a different presentation, management, or outcome compared with men. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Using registry data collected over 18 months from 5 Egyptian hospitals, we considered 1204 patients (253 females, 951 males) with a confirmed diagnosis of AMI. We examined gender differences in initial presentation, clinical management, and in-hospital outcomes using t-tests and χ(2) tests. Additionally, we explored gender differences in in-hospital death using multivariate logistic regression to adjust for age and other differences in initial presentation. We found that women were older than men, had higher BMI, and were more likely to have hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation. Women were less likely to receive aspirin upon admission (p<0.01) or aspirin or statins at discharge (p = 0.001 and p<0.05, respectively), although the magnitude of these differences was small. While unadjusted in-hospital mortality was significantly higher for women (OR: 2.10; 95% CI: 1.54 to 2.87), this difference did not persist in the fully adjusted model (OR: 1.18; 95% CI: 0.55 to 2.55). CONCLUSIONS: We found that female patients had a different profile than men at the time of presentation. Clinical management of men and women with AMI was similar, though there are small but significant differences in some areas. These gender differences did not translate into differences in in-hospital outcome, but highlight differences in quality of care and represent important opportunities for improvement

Semiclassical Mechanics of the Wigner 6j-Symbol

The semiclassical mechanics of the Wigner 6j-symbol is examined from the standpoint of WKB theory for multidimensional, integrable systems, to explore the geometrical issues surrounding the Ponzano-Regge formula. The relations among the methods of Roberts and others for deriving the Ponzano-Regge formula are discussed, and a new approach, based on the recoupling of four angular momenta, is presented. A generalization of the Yutsis-type of spin network is developed for this purpose. Special attention is devoted to symplectic reduction, the reduced phase space of the 6j-symbol (the 2-sphere of Kapovich and Millson), and the reduction of Poisson bracket expressions for semiclassical amplitudes. General principles for the semiclassical study of arbitrary spin networks are laid down; some of these were used in our recent derivation of the asymptotic formula for the Wigner 9j-symbol.Comment: 64 pages, 50 figure

An empirical approach towards the efficient and optimal production of influenza-neutralizing ovine polyclonal antibodies demonstrates that the novel adjuvant CoVaccine HT(TM) is functionally superior to Freund's adjuvant

Passive immunotherapies utilising polyclonal antibodies could have a valuable role in preventing and treating infectious diseases such as influenza, particularly in pandemic situations but also in immunocompromised populations such as the elderly, the chronically immunosuppressed, pregnant women, infants and those with chronic diseases. The aim of this study was to optimise current methods used to generate ovine polyclonal antibodies. Polyclonal antibodies to baculovirus-expressed recombinant influenza haemagglutinin from A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 H1N1 (PR8) were elicited in sheep using various immunisation regimens designed to investigate the priming immunisation route, adjuvant formulation, sheep age, and antigen dose, and to empirically ascertain which combination maximised antibody output. The novel adjuvant CoVaccine HT™ was compared to Freund’s adjuvant which is currently the adjuvant of choice for commercial production of ovine polyclonal Fab therapies. CoVaccine HT™ induced significantly higher titres of functional ovine anti-haemagglutinin IgG than Freund’s adjuvant but with fewer side effects, including reduced site reactions. Polyclonal hyperimmune sheep sera effectively neutralised influenza virus in vitro and, when given before or after influenza virus challenge, prevented the death of infected mice. Neither the age of the sheep nor the route of antigen administration appeared to influence antibody titre. Moreover, reducing the administrated dose of haemagglutinin antigen minimally affected antibody titre. Together, these results suggest a cost effective way of producing high and sustained yields of functional ovine polyclonal antibodies specifically for the prevention and treatment of globally significant diseases.Natalie E. Stevens, Cara K. Fraser, Mohammed Alsharifi, Michael P. Brown, Kerrilyn R. Diener, John D. Haybal

3D pic simulations of collisionless shocks at lunar magnetic anomalies and their role in forming lunar swirls

The authors would like to thank the Science and Technology Facilities Council for fundamental physics and computing resources that were provided by funding from STFC’s Scientific Computing Department, and would like to thank the European Research Council (ERC 2010 AdG Grant 267841) and FCT (Portugal) grants SFRH/BD/75558/2010 for support.Investigation of the lunar crustal magnetic anomalies offers a comprehensive long-term data set of observations of small-scale magnetic fields and their interaction with the solar wind. In this paper a review of the observations of lunar mini-magnetospheres is compared quantifiably with theoretical kinetic-scale plasma physics and 3D particle-in-cell simulations. The aim of this paper is to provide a complete picture of all the aspects of the phenomena and to show how the observations from all the different and international missions interrelate. The analysis shows that the simulations are consistent with the formation of miniature (smaller than the ion Larmor orbit) collisionless shocks and miniature magnetospheric cavities, which has not been demonstrated previously. The simulations reproduce the finesse and form of the differential proton patterns that are believed to be responsible for the creation of both the "lunar swirls" and "dark lanes." Using a mature plasma physics code like OSIRIS allows us, for the first time, to make a side-by-side comparison between model and space observations. This is shown for all of the key plasma parameters observed to date by spacecraft, including the spectral imaging data of the lunar swirls. The analysis of miniature magnetic structures offers insight into multi-scale mechanisms and kinetic-scale aspects of planetary magnetospheres.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe