Epidemiology of Plasmodium falciparum infection and drug resistance markers in Ota Area, Southwestern Nigeria

Purpose: Effective routine monitoring and surveillance of parasite genes is a necessary strategy in the control of parasites’ resistance to antimalarial drugs, according to the WHO’s recommendation. This cross-sectional study therefore aimed at carrying out an epidemiological analysis on malaria incidence in Ado-Odo/Ota, Ogun State. Patients and methods: Blood and corresponding saliva samples were collected from 1,243 subjects of all ages and sex presenting with fever and a parasitemia level ≥2,000 between September 2016 and March 2018. Samples were collected from selected health facilities in the study area of Ogun state to establish the prevalence of falciparum malaria and determine resistance genes harbored by the parasites. The overall prevalence of falciparum malaria in the study site by microscopic examination was 45.86%. The highest incidence of 57.42% was recorded among male subjects. Point mutations of K76T and N86Y in the Pfcrt and pfmdr-1 genes, as well as non-synonymous mutations in Pfk13 genes, were screened for and sequenced for further analysis. Results: Pfcrt was detectable in 57.42% of blood and 51.02% of saliva samples, respectively. About 34.78% of the subjects that were confirmed microscopically harbored the Pfmdr-1 mutated gene while 26.67% of the saliva samples revealed Pfmdr-1. Epidemiological studies identified the presence of wild-type Pfk13 genes in 21.84% of blood and 44.44% of saliva samples correspondingly. For each of the genes evaluated, saliva portrayed great diagnostic performance when compared with blood. Conclusion: Findings from this study have established the prevalence of malaria and the resistance pattern of P. falciparum in the study area. The findings may help in formulating drug policies and suggest the use of saliva as a noninvasive point-of-care method of diagnosing malaria potentially deployable to rural endemic areas

The H1 Forward Proton Spectrometer at HERA

The forward proton spectrometer is part of the H1 detector at the HERA collider. Protons with energies above 500 GeV and polar angles below 1 mrad can be detected by this spectrometer. The main detector components are scintillating fiber detectors read out by position-sensitive photo-multipliers. These detectors are housed in so-called Roman Pots which allow them to be moved close to the circulating proton beam. Four Roman Pot stations are located at distances between 60 m and 90 m from the interaction point.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Nucl.Instr.and Method

String Matching and 1d Lattice Gases

We calculate the probability distributions for the number of occurrences $n$ of a given $l$ letter word in a random string of $k$ letters. Analytical expressions for the distribution are known for the asymptotic regimes (i) $k \gg r^l \gg 1$ (Gaussian) and $k,l \to \infty$ such that $k/r^l$ is finite (Compound Poisson). However, it is known that these distributions do now work well in the intermediate regime $k \gtrsim r^l \gtrsim 1$. We show that the problem of calculating the string matching probability can be cast into a determining the configurational partition function of a 1d lattice gas with interacting particles so that the matching probability becomes the grand-partition sum of the lattice gas, with the number of particles corresponding to the number of matches. We perform a virial expansion of the effective equation of state and obtain the probability distribution. Our result reproduces the behavior of the distribution in all regimes. We are also able to show analytically how the limiting distributions arise. Our analysis builds on the fact that the effective interactions between the particles consist of a relatively strong core of size $l$, the word length, followed by a weak, exponentially decaying tail. We find that the asymptotic regimes correspond to the case where the tail of the interactions can be neglected, while in the intermediate regime they need to be kept in the analysis. Our results are readily generalized to the case where the random strings are generated by more complicated stochastic processes such as a non-uniform letter probability distribution or Markov chains. We show that in these cases the tails of the effective interactions can be made even more dominant rendering thus the asymptotic approximations less accurate in such a regime.Comment: 44 pages and 8 figures. Major revision of previous version. The lattice gas analogy has been worked out in full, including virial expansion and equation of state. This constitutes the main part of the paper now. Connections with existing work is made and references should be up to date now. To be submitted for publicatio

Tale of two hearts: a TNNT2 hypertrophic cardiomyopathy case report

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a heritable cardiomyopathy that is predominantly caused by pathogenic mutations in sarcomeric proteins. Here we report two individuals, a mother and her daughter, both heterozygous carriers of the same HCM-causing mutation in cardiac Troponin T (TNNT2). Despite sharing an identical pathogenic variant, the two individuals had very different manifestations of the disease. While one patient presented with sudden cardiac death, recurrent tachyarrhythmia, and findings of massive left ventricular hypertrophy, the other patient manifested with extensive abnormal myocardial delayed enhancement despite normal ventricular wall thickness and has remained relatively asymptomatic. Recognition of the marked incomplete penetrance and variable expressivity possible in a single TNNT2-positive family has potential to guide HCM patient care

Epidemiology of Plasmodium falciparum infection and drug resistance markers in Ota Area, Southwestern Nigeria

Purpose: Effective routine monitoring and surveillance of parasite genes is a necessary strategy in the control of parasites’ resistance to antimalarial drugs, according to the WHO’s recommendation. This cross-sectional study therefore aimed at carrying out an epidemiological analysis on malaria incidence in Ado-Odo/Ota, Ogun State. Patients and methods: Blood and corresponding saliva samples were collected from 1,243 subjects of all ages and sex presenting with fever and a parasitemia level ≥2,000 between September 2016 and March 2018. Samples were collected from selected health facilities in the study area of Ogun state to establish the prevalence of falciparum malaria and determine resistance genes harbored by the parasites. The overall prevalence of falciparum malaria in the study site by microscopic examination was 45.86%. The highest incidence of 57.42% was recorded among male subjects. Point mutations of K76T and N86Y in the Pfcrt and pfmdr-1 genes, as well as non-synonymous mutations in Pfk13 genes, were screened for and sequenced for further analysis. Results: Pfcrt was detectable in 57.42% of blood and 51.02% of saliva samples, respectively. About 34.78% of the subjects that were confirmed microscopically harbored the Pfmdr-1 mutated gene while 26.67% of the saliva samples revealed Pfmdr-1. Epidemiological studies identified the presence of wild-type Pfk13 genes in 21.84% of blood and 44.44% of saliva samples correspondingly. For each of the genes evaluated, saliva portrayed great diagnostic performance when compared with blood. Conclusion: Findings from this study have established the prevalence of malaria and the resistance pattern of P. falciparum in the study area. The findings may help in formulating drug policies and suggest the use of saliva as a noninvasive point-of-care method of diagnosing malaria potentially deployable to rural endemic area

Potential for La Crosse virus segment reassortment in nature

The evolutionary success of La Crosse virus (LACV, family Bunyaviridae) is due to its ability to adapt to changing conditions through intramolecular genetic changes and segment reassortment. Vertical transmission of LACV in mosquitoes increases the potential for segment reassortment. Studies were conducted to determine if segment reassortment was occurring in naturally infected Aedes triseriatus from Wisconsin and Minnesota in 2000, 2004, 2006 and 2007. Mosquito eggs were collected from various sites in Wisconsin and Minnesota. They were reared in the laboratory and adults were tested for LACV antigen by immunofluorescence assay. RNA was isolated from the abdomen of infected mosquitoes and portions of the small (S), medium (M) and large (L) viral genome segments were amplified by RT-PCR and sequenced. Overall, the viral sequences from 40 infected mosquitoes and 5 virus isolates were analyzed. Phylogenetic and linkage disequilibrium analyses revealed that approximately 25% of infected mosquitoes and viruses contained reassorted genome segments, suggesting that LACV segment reassortment is frequent in nature