Paenibacillus polymyxa as a water additive improved immune response of Cyprinus carpio and disease resistance against Aeromonas hydrophila

AbstractThe present study was undertaken to investigate the impact of Paenibacillus polymyxa as water additive probiotic bacterium in common carp, Cyprinus carpio based on water quality, survival, innate immune responses and disease resistance. The completely randomized experiment design was conducted for eight weeks and treatments consisted of three levels of P. polymyxa added in water at concentration of 103cfumL−1 (PP1), 104cfumL−1 (PP2) and 105cfumL−1 (PP3) and one control (Con, without any probiotic). No significant differences (p>0.05) in water quality parameters, such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonical nitrogen and nitrite nitrogen were observed throughout the experimental period among treatments. The influences of P. polymyxa at different concentrations significantly improved survival (p<0.05). Study of different innate immunological parameters viz. lysozyme activity, respiratory burst assay, myeloperoxidase content, catalase and superoxidase dismutase activities showed significant (p<0.05) improved immune responses in fish exposed to P. polymyxa as water additive at 103 (PP1) and 104 (PP2)cfumL−1. The supplementation of probiotic in challenge test significantly (p<0.05) enhanced the resistance of fish against A. hydrophila infection. In view of recent reports of antibiotic failure from many countries to stop spread of fish diseases, renewed interest in a more complete understanding of the fish immune response to infectious diseases will be critical in developing new eco-friendly control strategies for future. Therefore, the application of probiotic P. polymyxa as water additive could be applied in aquaculture to improve immune responses and disease resistance of C. carpio

Paenibacillus polymyxa as a water additive improved immune response of Cyprinus carpio and disease resistance against Aeromonas hydrophila

The present study was undertaken to investigate the impact of Paenibacillus polymyxa as water additive probiotic bacterium in common carp, Cyprinus carpio based on water quality, survival, innate immune responses and disease resistance. The completely randomized experiment design was conducted for eight weeks and treatments consisted of three levels of P. polymyxa added in water at concentration of 103 cfu mL−1 (PP1), 104 cfu mL−1 (PP2) and 105 cfu mL−1 (PP3) and one control (Con, without any probiotic). No significant differences (p > 0.05) in water quality parameters, such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonical nitrogen and nitrite nitrogen were observed throughout the experimental period among treatments. The influences of P. polymyxa at different concentrations significantly improved survival (p < 0.05). Study of different innate immunological parameters viz. lysozyme activity, respiratory burst assay, myeloperoxidase content, catalase and superoxidase dismutase activities showed significant (p < 0.05) improved immune responses in fish exposed to P. polymyxa as water additive at 103 (PP1) and 104 (PP2) cfu mL−1. The supplementation of probiotic in challenge test significantly (p < 0.05) enhanced the resistance of fish against A. hydrophila infection. In view of recent reports of antibiotic failure from many countries to stop spread of fish diseases, renewed interest in a more complete understanding of the fish immune response to infectious diseases will be critical in developing new eco-friendly control strategies for future. Therefore, the application of probiotic P. polymyxa as water additive could be applied in aquaculture to improve immune responses and disease resistance of C. carpio

Gene profiling in soft tissue sarcoma: predictive value of EGFR in sarcoma tumour progression and survival

Despite improvements in the clinical management of soft tissue sarcomas (STS), 50%of patients will die of metastatic disease that is largely unresponsive to conventionalchemotherapeutic agents.The aims of this study were to identify genes and pathways that are dysregulated inprogressive and metastatic STS. In addition to this, cell lines from fresh tumours wereinitiated and established, thus increasing the repository of cell lines available forfunctional studies. Recent advances in the understanding of the molecular biology ofSTS have thus far not resulted in the use of molecular markers for clinicalprognostication. Identifying novel genes and pathways will lead to moleculardiagnostic methods to better stratify prognostic groups and could identify cellulartargets for more efficacious treatments.Gene expression profiling of sarcoma cell lines of increasing metastatic potentialrevealed over-expression of genes involved in the epidermal growth factor (EGF) andtransforming growth factor beta (TGFb) pathways. Factors involved in invasion andmetastasis such as integrins and MMPs were over-expressed in the cell lines with highermetastatic potential. The developmental Notch pathway and cell cycle regulators werealso dysregulated. NDRG1 was significantly over-expressed in the high grade sarcomacell line, a novel finding in sarcomas. The expression of EGFR, NDRG1 and othergenes from the above pathways was validated using quantitative RT-PCR in real time(qRT-PCR).A tissue microarray (TMA) comprising STS of varying tumour grades was constructedfor high throughput assessment of target proteins. EGFR, its activated form and itssignal transducers were investigated using immunohistochemistry (IHC). ActivatedEGFR (HR 2.228, p < 0.001) and phosphorylated Akt (HR 2.032, p = 0.003) were foundto be independent predictors of overall survival and both correlated with tumour grade.Of the several STS cultures initiated and maintained, two of these cell lines were fullycharacterised in terms of cytogenetics, telomerase and alternate lengthening of5telomeres (ALT) status, KIT and TP53 mutation and the expression of certainbiomarkers using both qRT-PCR and IHC.In summary, transcript profiling identified several potential biomarkers of tumourprogression and metastasis in STS. Crucially, activated EGFR and pAkt were found in acohort of STS samples to correlate with clinical outcome, identifying them as potentialdiagnostic and therapeutic targets in the treatment of STS. Activated EGFR can be usedas a diagnostic marker for patient selection, as well as for target effect monitoring.Furthermore, the cell lines established in this project will serve as valuable tools infuture preclinical studies

Bengal and Italy Transcultural Encounters from the Mid-19th to the Early 21st Century

The ten chapters collected in this 235-page book manifest the current global interest in trans-border dialogues and trace the origins and development of Italian and Bengali internationalisms in the period from the mid-19th to the early 20th century. Despite having differing political statuses and lacking a shared geographical or historical space, Bengal and Italy remained uniquely connected and, at times, actively sought to transcend different kinds of constraints in their search for a significant dialogue and mutual enrichment in the fields of literature, music, architecture, art, cinema, diplomacy, entrepreneurship, travels, education and intellectual engagement. In this context, the volume confronts strategies of evaluation adopted by prominent representatives of the Bengali and Italian cultural environments with particular emphasis on readings embedded in the moment of contact. Both regions benefitted from this ‘elective affinity’ as they advanced along their respective paths towards a fuller awareness of their specific identity, and thus set a positive example of transcultural understanding which may inspire today’s world

DMS-MaPseq for genome-wide or targeted RNA structure probing in vivo

Coupling of structure-specific in vivo chemical modification to next-generation sequencing is transforming RNA secondary structure studies in living cells. The dominant strategy for detecting in vivo chemical modifications uses reverse transcriptase truncation products, which introduce biases and necessitate population-average assessments of RNA structure. Here we present dimethyl sulfate (DMS) mutational profiling with sequencing (DMS-MaPseq), which encodes DMS modifications as mismatches using a thermostable group II intron reverse transcriptase. DMS-MaPseq yields a high signal-to-noise ratio, can report multiple structural features per molecule, and allows both genome-wide studies and focused in vivo investigations of even low-abundance RNAs. We apply DMS-MaPseq for the first analysis of RNA structure within an animal tissue and to identify a functional structure involved in noncanonical translation initiation. Additionally, we use DMS-MaPseq to compare the in vivo structure of pre-mRNAs with their mature isoforms. These applications illustrate DMS-MaPseq's capacity to dramatically expand in vivo analysis of RNA structure

Cardiovascular Disease &amp; Cancer Risk Among South Asians: Impact of Sociocultural Influences on Lifestyle and Behavior

A comprehensive literature review revealed cultural beliefs, societal obligations, and gender roles within the South Asian community to be indirect contributors to the health of South Asian immigrants (SAIs). Health professionals need to increase their work with SAI communities to change less beneficial cultural elements such as misconceptions about health and exercise, and lack of communication when using alternative medicines. Community engaged efforts and continuing medical education are both needed to improve the health of the South Asian immigrant population in a culturally appropriate manner

Histology segmentation using active learning on regions of interest in oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma

In digital pathology, deep learning has been shown to have a wide range of applications, from cancer grading to segmenting structures like glomeruli. One of the main hurdles for digital pathology to be truly effective is the size of the dataset needed for generalization to address the spectrum of possible morphologies. Small datasets limit classifiers’ ability to generalize. Yet, when we move to larger datasets of whole slide images (WSIs) of tissue, these datasets may cause network bottlenecks as each WSI at its original magnification can be upwards of 100 000 by 100 000 pixels, and over a gigabyte in file size. Compounding this problem, high quality pathologist annotations are difficult to obtain, as the volume of necessary annotations to create a classifier that can generalize would be extremely costly in terms of pathologist-hours. In this work, we use Active Learning (AL), a process for iterative interactive training, to create a modified U-net classifier on the region of interest (ROI) scale. We then compare this to Random Learning (RL), where images for addition to the dataset for retraining are randomly selected. Our hypothesis is that AL shows benefits for generating segmentation results versus randomly selecting images to annotate. We show that after 3 iterations, that AL, with an average Dice coefficient of 0.461, outperforms RL, with an average Dice Coefficient of 0.375, by 0.086