Clinicoepidemiological profile of thermal burn injuries and its mortality risk factors in a tertiary care center in Uttarakhand

Introduction: Burns are a major burden to the society in terms of lives lost, treatment costs, and postburn deformities. This study aims to identify the incidence, causes of burns, associated risk factors, and mortality in a tertiary care center in Uttarakhand. Patients and Methods: This study was an observational study conducted from October 2018 to April 2021 at a tertiary care center in Uttarakhand. It includes the patients with thermal burns who were admitted in the burns unit of the hospital. The interrelationship between various risk factors and mortality was studied. Results: A total of 247 patients were included in the study. Males outnumbered females constituting 55.47% of the population. Most of the patients were of age group 21–40 years and were from rural backgrounds, belonging to lower socioeconomic class. The literacy rate was 76.52%. Farming was the predominant occupation. Major cause of burns was flame burns with second-degree burns being the most common. Accidental burns were common, and mostly (39.68%) patients sustained burns with total burn surface area (TBSA) <25%. The mortality rate was 11.34%. Majority (56.68%) of the patients belonged to Class IV socioeconomic class (modified BG Prasad classification). Conclusions: Young males of rural background and low socioeconomic strata were the most common victim of burn injuries. The majority of cases were accidental thermal burns. The mortality rate was high in patients with TBSA >60%, third-degree burns and housewives. Appropriate measures need to be taken regarding the education of the public for prevention of burns and improvement in healthcare to decrease the incidence and improve the outcome of burn patients

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among adults in India: A primary study based on health behavior theories and 5C psychological antecedents model.

Despite the significant success of India's COVID-19 vaccination program, a sizeable proportion of the adult population remains unvaccinated or has received a single dose of the vaccine. Despite the recommendations of the Government of India for the two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and the precautionary booster dose, many people were still hesitant towards the COVID-19 full vaccination. Hence, this study aimed to identify the primary behavioral and psychological factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy. Cross-sectional data was collected via a multi-stage sampling design by using a scheduled sample survey in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India, between 15 July 2022 to 30 September 2022. This study has utilized three health behavior models-the Health Belief Model (HBM), the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and the 5C Psychological Antecedents of vaccination, and employed bivariate and multivariable binary logistic regression model to assess the level of vaccine hesitancy and predictive health behavior of the respondents. Results indicate that among the constructs of the HBM and 5C Antecedents models, "perceived benefits", "confidence" and "collective responsibility" showed a lesser likelihood of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. However, in the TPB model constructs, a 'negative attitude towards the vaccine' showed a four times higher likelihood of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. From the future policy perspective, this study suggested that addressing the issue of 'negative attitudes towards the vaccine' and increasing the trust or confidence for the vaccine through increasing awareness about the benefits of the vaccination in India may reduce vaccine hesitancy

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Not AvailableMicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small endogenous RNAs of ~22 nucleotides that have been shown to play regulatory role by negatively affecting the expression of genes at the post-transcriptional level. Information of miRNAs on some important crops like soybean, Arabidopsis, and rice, etc. are available, but no study on heat-responsive novel miRNAs has yet been reported in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). In the present investigation, a popular wheat cultivar HD2985 was used in small RNA library construction and Illumina HiSeq 2000 was used to perform high-throughput sequencing of the library after cluster generation; 110,896,604 and 87,743,861 reads were generated in the control (22 °C) and heat-treated (42 °C for 2 h) samples, respectively. Forty-four precursor and mature miRNAs were found in T. aestivum from miRBase v 19. The frequencies of the miRNA families varied from 2 (taemiR1117) to 60,672 (tae-miR159b). We identify 1052 and 902 mature miRNA sequences in HD2985 control and HStreated samples by mapping on reference draft genome of T. aestivum. Maximum identified miRNAs were located on IWGSC_CSS_3B_scaff (chromosome 3B).We could identify 53 and 46 mature miRNA in the control and HS samples and more than 516 target genes by mapping on the reference genome of Oryza sativa, Zea mays, and Sorghum bicolor. Using different pipelines and plant-specific criteria, 37 novel miRNAs were identified in the control and treated samples. Six novel miRNA were validated using qRT-PCR to be heatresponsive. A negative correlation was, however, observed between the expression of novel miRNAs and their targets. Target prediction and pathway analysis revealed their involvement in the heat stress tolerance. These novel miRNAs are new additions to miRNA database of wheat, and the regulatory network will be made use of in deciphering the mechanism of thermotolerance in wheatNot Availabl

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Not AvailableWheat is a staple food worldwide and provides 40% of the calories in the diet. Climate change and global warming pose a threat to wheat production, however, and demand a deeper understanding of how heat stress might impact wheat production and wheat biology. However, it is difficult to identify novel heat stress associated genes when the genomic information is not available. Wheat has a very large and complex genome that is about 37 times the size of the rice genome. The present study sequenced the whole transcriptome of the wheat cv. HD2329 at the flowering stage, under control (22°±3° C) and heat stress (42° C, 2 h) conditions using Illumina HiSeq and Roche GS-FLX 454 platforms. We assembled more than 26.3 and 25.6 million high-quality reads from the control and HS-treated tissues transcriptome sequences respectively.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableWheat is a staple food worldwide and provides 40% of the calories in the diet. Climate change and global warming pose a threat to wheat production, however, and demand a deeper understanding of how heat stress might impact wheat production and wheat biology. However, it is difficult to identify novel heat stress associated genes when the genomic information is not available. Wheat has a very large and complex genome that is about 37 times the size of the rice genome. The present study sequenced the whole transcriptome of the wheat cv. HD2329 at the flowering stage, under control (22 – 3C) and heat stress (42C, 2 h) conditions using Illumina HiSeq and Roche GS-FLX 454 platforms. We assembled more than 26.3 and 25.6 million high-quality reads from the control and HS-treated tissues transcriptome sequences respectively. About 76,556 (control) and 54,033 (HS-treated) contigs were assembled and annotated de novo using different assemblers and a total of 21,529 unigenes were obtained. Gene expression profile showed significant differential expression of 1525transcripts under heat stress, of which 27 transcripts showed very high (>10) fold upregulation. Cellular processes such as metabolic processes, protein phosphorylation, oxidations-reductions, among others were highly influenced by heat stress. In summary, these observations significantly enrich the transcript dataset of wheat available on public domain and show a de novo approach to discover the heat-responsive transcripts of wheat, which can accelerate the progress of wheat stress-genomics as well as the course of wheat breeding programs in the era of climate change.Not Availabl

Identification of putative RuBisCo activase (TaRca1) ˗ the catalytic chaperone regulating carbon assimilatory pathway in wheat (Triticum aestivum) under the heat stress

RuBisCo activase (Rca) is a catalytic chaperone involved in modulating the activity of RuBisCo (key enzyme of photosynthetic pathway). Here, we identified eight novel transcripts from wheat through data mining predicted to be Rca and cloned a transcript of 1.4 kb from cv. HD2985, named as TaRca1 (GenBank acc. no. KC776912). Single copy number of TaRca1 was observed in wheat genome. Expression analysis in diverse wheat genotypes (HD2985, Halna, PBW621 and HD2329) showed very high relative expression of TaRca1 in Halna under control and HS-treated, as compared to other cultivars at different stages of growth. TaRca1 protein was predicted to be chloroplast-localized with numerous potential phosphorylation sites. Nothern blot analysis showed maximum accumulation of TaRca1 transcript in thermotolerant cv. during mealy-ripe stage, as compared to thermosusceptible. Decrease in the photosynthetic parameters was observed in all the cultivars, except PBW621 in response to HS. We observed significant increase in the Rca activity in all the cultivars under HS at different stages of growth. HS causes decrease in the RuBisCo activity; maximum reduction was observed during pollination stage in thermosusceptible cvs. as validated through immunoblotting. We observed uniform carbon distribution in different tissues of thermotolerant cvs., as compared to thermosusceptible. Similarly, tolerance level of leaf was observed maximum in Halna having high Rca activity under HS. A positive correlation was observed between the transcript and activity of TaRca1 in HS-treated Halna. Similarly, TaRca1 enzyme showed positive correlation with the activity of RuBisCo. There is, however, need to manipulate the thermal stability of TaRca1 enzyme through protein engineering for sustaining the photosynthetic rate under HS – a novel approach towards development of ‘climate-smart’ crop

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Not AvailableRuBisCo activase (Rca) is a catalytic chaperone involved in modulating the activity of RuBisCo (key enzyme of photosynthetic pathway). Here, we identified eight novel transcripts from wheat through data mining predicted to be Rca and cloned a transcript of 1.4 kb from cv. HD2985, named as TaRca1 (GenBank acc. no. KC776912). Single copy number of TaRca1 was observed in wheat genome. Expression analysis in diverse wheat genotypes (HD2985, Halna, PBW621, and HD2329) showed very high relative expression of TaRca1 in Halna under control and HS-treated, as compared to other cultivars at different stages of growth. TaRca1 protein was predicted to be chloroplast-localized with numerous potential phosphorylation sites. Northern blot analysis showed maximum accumulation of TaRca1 transcript in thermotolerant cv. during mealy-ripe stage, as compared to thermosusceptible. Decrease in the photosynthetic parameters was observed in all the cultivars, except PBW621 in response to HS. We observed significant increase in the Rca activity in all the cultivars under HS at different stages of growth. HS causes decrease in the RuBisCo activity; maximum reduction was observed during pollination stage in thermosusceptible cvs. as validated through immunoblotting. We observed uniform carbon distribution in different tissues of thermotolerant cvs., as compared to thermosusceptible. Similarly, tolerance level of leaf was observed maximum in Halna having high Rca activity under HS. A positive correlation was observed between the transcript and activity of TaRca1 in HS-treated Halna. Similarly, TaRca1 enzyme showed positive correlation with the activity of RuBisCo. There is, however, need to manipulate the thermal stability of TaRca1 enzyme through protein engineering for sustaining the photosynthetic rate under HS—a novel approach toward development of “climate-smart” crop.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableHeat stress is one of the major problems in agriculturally important cereal crops, especially wheat. Here, we have constructed a subtracted cDNA library from the endosperm of HS-treated (42°C for 2 h) wheat cv. HD2985 by suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH). We identified ~550 recombinant clones ranging from 200 to 500 bp with an average size of 300 bp. Sanger's sequencing was performed with 205 positive clones to generate the differentially expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Most of the ESTs were observed to be localized on the long arm of chromosome 2A and associated with heat stress tolerance and metabolic pathways. Identified ESTs were BLAST search using Ensemble, TriFLD, and TIGR databases and the predicted CDS were translated and aligned with the protein sequences available in pfam and InterProScan 5 databases to predict the differentially expressed proteins (DEPs). We observed eight different types of post-translational modifications (PTMs) in the DEPs corresponds to the cloned ESTs-147 sites with phosphorylation, 21 sites with sumoylation, 237 with palmitoylation, 96 sites with S-nitrosylation, 3066 calpain cleavage sites, and 103 tyrosine nitration sites, predicted to sense the heat stress and regulate the expression of stress genes. Twelve DEPs were observed to have transmembrane helixes (TMH) in their structure, predicted to play the role of sensors of HS. Quantitative Real-Time PCR of randomly selected ESTs showed very high relative expression of HSP17 under HS; up-regulation was observed more in wheat cv. HD2985 (thermotolerant), as compared to HD2329 (thermosusceptible) during grain-filling. The abundance of transcripts was further validated through northern blot analysis. The ESTs and their corresponding DEPs can be used as molecular marker for screening or targeted precision breeding program. PTMs identified in the DEPs can be used to elucidate the thermotolerance mechanism of wheat—a novel step toward the development of “climate-smart” wheat.Not Availabl