Prevalence of dog erythrocyte antigen (DEA) 1 amongst the dog blood donors at Tamil Nadu veterinary and animal sciences university animal blood bank (TABB), India

The study of dog blood groups has increased in the last years. Inherited antigens on the RBC surface define blood groups. There are 7 blood groups in the canine DEA system. Amongst these blood groups, DEA 1 blood group is highly immunogenic and consequently has greater clinical importance. A retrospective study was conducted in 125 purebred and mongrel dog blood donors at the TANUVAS Animal Blood Bank, Madras Veterinary College, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai, India during the period from January 2010 to January 2011. Donor dogs were screened and typed for the presence of DEA 1 using the monoclonal antibody kit. The prevalence of DEA 1 was 61.6%. The prevalence of DEA 1 dogs in India agrees with most of the data reported in the literature

Early response to antibiotic treatment in European patients hospitalized with complicated skin and soft tissue infections: analysis of the REACH study

Background: The treatment of complicated skin and soft tissue infections (cSSTI) is challenging and many patients do not receive adequate first-line therapy. REACH (REtrospective Study to Assess the Clinical Management of Patients With Moderate-to-Severe cSSTI or Community-Acquired Pneumonia in the Hospital Setting) was a retrospective observational study of cSSTI patients in real-life settings in European hospitals. In this analysis, we review characteristics and outcomes of patients with an early response (<= 72 hours) compared with those without an early response to treatment. We also compare the results according to two differing definitions of early response, one of which (Definition 1) requires resolution of fever within 72 hours, in line with previous US FDA guidelines. Methods: Patients were adults hospitalized with cSSTIs 2010-2011 and requiring treatment with intravenous antibiotics. Clinical management, clinical outcomes and healthcare resource use were assessed using a descriptive analysis approach. Results: The analysis set included 600 patients, of which 363 showed early response with Definition 1 and 417 with Definition 2. Initial treatment modification was frequent, and highest in patients without early response (48.1% with Definition 1). Patients without early response were more likely to have diabetes than those with early response (31.6% vs. 22.9%,respectively) and to suffer from more severe disease (e.g. skin necrosis: 14.8% and 7.7%,respectively), to be infected with difficult-to-treat microorganisms and to have recurrent infections. Furthermore, patients without early response had a higher rate of adverse clinical outcomes (e.g. septic shock) and higher use of healthcare resources. The results obtained with the two definitions for early response were largely similar. Conclusions: This study highlights the significance of early evaluation of patients in hospitals, in potentially preventing prolonged use of inappropriate or ineffective antibacterial therapy

Gauge-Higgs Dark Matter

When the anti-periodic boundary condition is imposed for a bulk field in extradimensional theories, independently of the background metric, the lightest component in the anti-periodic field becomes stable and hence a good candidate for the dark matter in the effective 4D theory due to the remaining accidental discrete symmetry. Noting that in the gauge-Higgs unification scenario, introduction of anti-periodic fermions is well-motivated by a phenomenological reason, we investigate dark matter physics in the scenario. As an example, we consider a five-dimensional SO(5)\timesU(1)_X gauge-Higgs unification model compactified on the $S^1/Z_2$ with the warped metric. Due to the structure of the gauge-Higgs unification, interactions between the dark matter particle and the Standard Model particles are largely controlled by the gauge symmetry, and hence the model has a strong predictive power for the dark matter physics. Evaluating the dark matter relic abundance, we identify a parameter region consistent with the current observations. Furthermore, we calculate the elastic scattering cross section between the dark matter particle and nucleon and find that a part of the parameter region is already excluded by the current experimental results for the direct dark matter search and most of the region will be explored in future experiments.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure

An Investigation into the Cognition Behind Spontaneous String Pulling in New Caledonian Crows

The ability of some bird species to pull up meat hung on a string is a famous example of spontaneous animal problem solving. The “insight” hypothesis claims that this complex behaviour is based on cognitive abilities such as mental scenario building and imagination. An operant conditioning account, in contrast, would claim that this spontaneity is due to each action in string pulling being reinforced by the meat moving closer and remaining closer to the bird on the perch. We presented experienced and naïve New Caledonian crows with a novel, visually restricted string-pulling problem that reduced the quality of visual feedback during string pulling. Experienced crows solved this problem with reduced efficiency and increased errors compared to their performance in standard string pulling. Naïve crows either failed or solved the problem by trial and error learning. However, when visual feedback was available via a mirror mounted next to the apparatus, two naïve crows were able to perform at the same level as the experienced group. Our results raise the possibility that spontaneous string pulling in New Caledonian crows may not be based on insight but on operant conditioning mediated by a perceptual-motor feedback cycle

Identification of Novel Predictor Classifiers for Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Gene Expression Profiling

BACKGROUND: Improvement of patient quality of life is the ultimate goal of biomedical research, particularly when dealing with complex, chronic and debilitating conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This is largely dependent on receiving an accurate and rapid diagnose, an effective treatment and in the prediction and prevention of side effects and complications. The low sensitivity and specificity of current markers burden their general use in the clinical practice. New biomarkers with accurate predictive ability are needed to achieve a personalized approach that take the inter-individual differences into consideration. METHODS: We performed a high throughput approach using microarray gene expression profiling of colon pinch biopsies from IBD patients to identify predictive transcriptional signatures associated with intestinal inflammation, differential diagnosis (Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis), response to glucocorticoids (resistance and dependence) or prognosis (need for surgery). Class prediction was performed with self-validating Prophet software package. RESULTS: Transcriptional profiling divided patients in two subgroups that associated with degree of inflammation. Class predictors were identified with predictive accuracy ranging from 67 to 100%. The expression accuracy was confirmed by real time-PCR quantification. Functional analysis of the predictor genes showed that they play a role in immune responses to bacteria (PTN, OLFM4 and LILRA2), autophagy and endocytocis processes (ATG16L1, DNAJC6, VPS26B, RABGEF1, ITSN1 and TMEM127) and glucocorticoid receptor degradation (STS and MMD2). CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that using analytical algorithms for class prediction discovery can be useful to uncover gene expression profiles and identify classifier genes with potential stratification utility of IBD patients, a major step towards personalized therapy

Rapid Detection of the H275Y Oseltamivir Resistance Mutation in Influenza A/H1N1 2009 by Single Base Pair RT-PCR and High-Resolution Melting

Introduction: We aimed to design a real-time reverse-transcriptase-PCR (rRT-PCR), high-resolution melting (HRM) assay to detect the H275Y mutation that confers oseltamivir resistance in influenza A/H1N1 2009 viruses.Findings: A novel strategy of amplifying a single base pair, the relevant SNP at position 823 of the neuraminidase gene, was chosen to maintain specificity of the assay. Wildtype and mutant virus were differentiated when using known reference samples of cell-cultured virus. However, when dilutions of these reference samples were assayed, amplification of nonspecific primer-dimer was evident and affected the overall melting temperature (Tm) of the amplified products. Due to primer-dimer appearance at .30 cycles we found that if the cycle threshold (CT) for a dilution was .30, the HRM assay did not consistently discriminate mutant from wildtype. Where the CT was ,30 we noted an inverse relationship between CT and Tm and fitted quadratic curves allowed the discrimination of wildtype, mutant and 30:70 mutant:wildtype virus mixtures. We compared the CT values for a TaqMan H1N1 09 detection assay with those for the HRM assay using 59 clinical samples and demonstrated that samples with a TaqMan detection assay CT.32.98 would have an H275Y assay CT.30. Analysis of the TaqMan CT values for 609 consecutive clinical samples predicted that 207 (34%) of the samples would result in an HRM assay CT.30 and therefore not be amenable to the HRM assay.Conclusions: The use of single base pair PCR and HRM can be useful for specifically interrogating SNPs. When applied to H1N1 09, the constraints this placed on primer design resulted in amplification of primer-dimer products. The impact primer-dimer had on HRM curves was adjusted for by plotting Tm against CT. Although less sensitive than TaqMan assays, the HRM assay can rapidly, and at low cost, screen samples with moderate viral concentrations

Disparities and risks of sexually transmissible infections among men who have sex with men in China: a meta-analysis and data synthesis.

BACKGROUND: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including Hepatitis B and C virus, are emerging public health risks in China, especially among men who have sex with men (MSM). This study aims to assess the magnitude and risks of STIs among Chinese MSM. METHODS: Chinese and English peer-reviewed articles were searched in five electronic databases from January 2000 to February 2013. Pooled prevalence estimates for each STI infection were calculated using meta-analysis. Infection risks of STIs in MSM, HIV-positive MSM and male sex workers (MSW) were obtained. This review followed the PRISMA guidelines and was registered in PROSPERO. RESULTS: Eighty-eight articles (11 in English and 77 in Chinese) investigating 35,203 MSM in 28 provinces were included in this review. The prevalence levels of STIs among MSM were 6.3% (95% CI: 3.5-11.0%) for chlamydia, 1.5% (0.7-2.9%) for genital wart, 1.9% (1.3-2.7%) for gonorrhoea, 8.9% (7.8-10.2%) for hepatitis B (HBV), 1.2% (1.0-1.6%) for hepatitis C (HCV), 66.3% (57.4-74.1%) for human papillomavirus (HPV), 10.6% (6.2-17.6%) for herpes simplex virus (HSV-2) and 4.3% (3.2-5.8%) for Ureaplasma urealyticum. HIV-positive MSM have consistently higher odds of all these infections than the broader MSM population. As a subgroup of MSM, MSW were 2.5 (1.4-4.7), 5.7 (2.7-12.3), and 2.2 (1.4-3.7) times more likely to be infected with chlamydia, gonorrhoea and HCV than the broader MSM population, respectively. CONCLUSION: Prevalence levels of STIs among MSW were significantly higher than the broader MSM population. Co-infection of HIV and STIs were prevalent among Chinese MSM. Integration of HIV and STIs healthcare and surveillance systems is essential in providing effective HIV/STIs preventive measures and treatments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO NO: CRD42013003721

Genome-wide association filtering using a highly locus-specific transmission/disequilibrium test

Multimarker transmission/disequilibrium tests (TDTs) are powerful association and linkage tests used to perform genome-wide filtering in the search for disease susceptibility loci. In contrast to case/control studies, they have a low rate of false positives for population stratification and admixture. However, the length of a region found in association with a disease is usually very large because of linkage disequilibrium (LD). Here, we define a multimarker proportional TDT (mTDTP) designed to improve locus specificity in complex diseases that has good power compared to the most powerful multimarker TDTs. The test is a simple generalization of a multimarker TDT in which haplotype frequencies are used to weight the effect that each haplotype has on the whole measure. Two concepts underlie the features of the metric: the ‘common disease, common variant’ hypothesis and the decrease in LD with chromosomal distance. Because of this decrease, the frequency of haplotypes in strong LD with common disease variants decreases with increasing distance from the disease susceptibility locus. Thus, our haplotype proportional test has higher locus specificity than common multimarker TDTs that assume a uniform distribution of haplotype probabilities. Because of the common variant hypothesis, risk haplotypes at a given locus are relatively frequent and a metric that weights partial results for each haplotype by its frequency will be as powerful as the most powerful multimarker TDTs. Simulations and real data sets demonstrate that the test has good power compared with the best tests but has remarkably higher locus specificity, so that the association rate decreases at a higher rate with distance from a disease susceptibility or disease protective locus

Molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the evolution of form and function in the amniote jaw.

The amniote jaw complex is a remarkable amalgamation of derivatives from distinct embryonic cell lineages. During development, the cells in these lineages experience concerted movements, migrations, and signaling interactions that take them from their initial origins to their final destinations and imbue their derivatives with aspects of form including their axial orientation, anatomical identity, size, and shape. Perturbations along the way can produce defects and disease, but also generate the variation necessary for jaw evolution and adaptation. We focus on molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate form in the amniote jaw complex, and that enable structural and functional integration. Special emphasis is placed on the role of cranial neural crest mesenchyme (NCM) during the species-specific patterning of bone, cartilage, tendon, muscle, and other jaw tissues. We also address the effects of biomechanical forces during jaw development and discuss ways in which certain molecular and cellular responses add adaptive and evolutionary plasticity to jaw morphology. Overall, we highlight how variation in molecular and cellular programs can promote the phenomenal diversity and functional morphology achieved during amniote jaw evolution or lead to the range of jaw defects and disease that affect the human condition