Effect of nifedipine with and without sildenafil citrate for the management of preterm labor in pregnant women: A randomized clinical trial

Background: Preterm labor is one of the main causes of neonatal mortality and its treatment is still challenging. Objective: The study aimed to compare the effectiveness of nifedipine (Nif) with and without sildenafil citrate (SC) for the treatment of preterm labor in pregnant women. Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial study, 126 pregnant women referred to the Fatemieh hospital, Hamadan, Iran with a complaint of preterm labor were evaluated. Participants were randomly divided into 2 groups of Nif 20 mg orally (single dose), then 10 mg every 6-hr, and at the same time vaginal SC 25 mg every 8 hr (Nif + SC) or Nif alone. Treatment was continued for 48-72 hr if uterine contractions did not resolve in both groups. Delivery rates at the time of hospitalization and neonatal outcome were compared between the 2 groups. Results: No statistically significant difference was observed between the 2 study groups in terms of mean age, gestational age, body mass index, and parity. 76.2% of Nif + SC participants in the first 72 hr of hospitalization and 57.2% of Nif participants remained without delivery (p = 0.02). The neonatal hospitalization rate of the Nif + SC group in the neonatal intensive care unit was 25.4% and in the Nif group was 42.9% (p = 0.03). Conclusion: Nif with SC is superior to Nif alone in women at risk of preterm labor due to increasing gestational age and better neonatal outcomes. Key words: Nifedipine, preterm labor, Sildenafil citrate, Randomized trial

An efficient annotation and gene-expression derivation tool for Illumina Solexa datasets

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The data produced by an Illumina flow cell with all eight lanes occupied, produces well over a terabyte worth of images with gigabytes of reads following sequence alignment. The ability to translate such reads into meaningful annotation is therefore of great concern and importance. Very easily, one can get flooded with such a great volume of textual, unannotated data irrespective of read quality or size. CASAVA, a optional analysis tool for Illumina sequencing experiments, enables the ability to understand INDEL detection, SNP information, and allele calling. To not only extract from such analysis, a measure of gene expression in the form of tag-counts, but furthermore to annotate such reads is therefore of significant value.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>We developed TASE (Tag counting and Analysis of Solexa Experiments), a rapid tag-counting and annotation software tool specifically designed for Illumina CASAVA sequencing datasets. Developed in Java and deployed using jTDS JDBC driver and a SQL Server backend, TASE provides an extremely fast means of calculating gene expression through tag-counts while annotating sequenced reads with the gene's presumed function, from any given CASAVA-build. Such a build is generated for both DNA and RNA sequencing. Analysis is broken into two distinct components: DNA sequence or read concatenation, followed by tag-counting and annotation. The end result produces output containing the homology-based functional annotation and respective gene expression measure signifying how many times sequenced reads were found within the genomic ranges of functional annotations.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>TASE is a powerful tool to facilitate the process of annotating a given Illumina Solexa sequencing dataset. Our results indicate that both homology-based annotation and tag-count analysis are achieved in very efficient times, providing researchers to delve deep in a given CASAVA-build and maximize information extraction from a sequencing dataset. TASE is specially designed to translate sequence data in a CASAVA-build into functional annotations while producing corresponding gene expression measurements. Achieving such analysis is executed in an ultrafast and highly efficient manner, whether the analysis be a single-read or paired-end sequencing experiment. TASE is a user-friendly and freely available application, allowing rapid analysis and annotation of any given Illumina Solexa sequencing dataset with ease.</p

Assessing Awareness Level about Warning Signs of Cancer and its Determinants in an Iranian General Population

The present study was aimed at investigating the awareness level about warning signs of cancer and its determinants in an Iranian general population. This cross-sectional interview-based survey investigated 2,500 people aged 18 years and over, as a representative sample of Tehran population. Latent class regression was applied for analyzing data. A small (18.8%) proportion of the respondents had high level of knowledge, and 54.5% had moderate awareness, and 26.7% had low level of awareness. Most effective predictors for awareness were educational attainment, sex, and marital status. The findings suggest that the overall level of knowledge about warning signs of cancer among the public is low, particularly about some specific signs. Accordingly, educational and intervention programmes, with special attention placed on particular at-risk populations, to increase awareness about the disease leading to its early diagnosis are needed

MAPT and PAICE: Tools for time series and single time point transcriptionist visualization and knowledge discovery

With the advent of next-generation sequencing, -omics fields such as transcriptomics have experienced increases in data throughput on the order of magnitudes. In terms of analyzing and visually representing these huge datasets, an intuitive and computationally tractable approach is to map quantified transcript expression onto biochemical pathways while employing datamining and visualization principles to accelerate knowledge discovery. We present two cross-platform tools: MAPT (Mapping and Analysis of Pathways through Time) and PAICE (Pathway Analysis and Integrated Coloring of Experiments), an easy to use analysis suite to facilitate time series and single time point transcriptomics analysis. In unison, MAPT and PAICE serve as a visual workbench for transcriptomics knowledge discovery, data-mining and functional annotation. Both PAICE and MAPT are two distinct but yet inextricably linked tools. The former is specifically designed to map EC accessions onto KEGG pathways while handling multiple gene copies, detection-call analysis, as well as UN/annotated EC accessions lacking quantifiable expression. The latter tool integrates PAICE datasets to drive visualization, annotation, and data-mining

Population-specific gene expression in the plant pathogenic nematode Heterodera glycines exists prior to infection and during the onset of a resistant or susceptible reaction in the roots of the Glycine max genotype Peking

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A single <it>Glycine max </it>(soybean) genotype (Peking) reacts differently to two different populations of <it>Heterodera glycines </it>(soybean cyst nematode) within the first twelve hours of infection during resistant (R) and susceptible (S) reactions. This suggested that <it>H. glycines </it>has population-specific gene expression signatures. A microarray analysis of 7539 probe sets representing 7431 transcripts on the Affymetrix^®soybean GeneChip^®were used to identify population-specific gene expression signatures in pre-infective second stage larva (pi-L2) prior to their infection of Peking. Other analyses focused on the infective L2 at 12hours post infection (i-L2_12h), and the infective sedentary stages at 3days post infection (i-L2_3d) and 8days post infection (i-L2/L3_8d).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Differential expression and false discovery rate (FDR) analyses comparing populations of pi-L2 (i.e., incompatible population, NL1-RHg to compatible population, TN8) identified 71 genes that were induced in NL1-RHg as compared to TN8. These genes included putative gland protein G23G12, putative esophageal gland protein Hgg-20 and arginine kinase. The comparative analysis of pi-L2 identified 44 genes that were suppressed in NL1-RHg as compared to TN8. These genes included a different Hgg-20 gene, an EXPB1 protein and a cuticular collagen. By 12 h, there were 7 induced genes and 0 suppressed genes in NL1-RHg. By 3d, there were 9 induced and 10 suppressed genes in NL1-RHg. Substantial changes in gene expression became evident subsequently. At 8d there were 13 induced genes in NL1-RHg. This included putative gland protein G20E03, ubiquitin extension protein, putative gland protein G30C02 and β-1,4 endoglucanase. However, 1668 genes were found to be suppressed in NL1-RHg. These genes included steroid alpha reductase, serine proteinase and a collagen protein.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These analyses identify a genetic expression signature for these two populations both prior to and subsequently as they undergo an R or S reaction. The identification of genes like steroid alpha reductase and serine proteinase that are involved in feeding and nutritional uptake as being highly suppressed during the R response at 8d may indicate genes that the plant is targeting. The analyses also identified numerous putative parasitism genes that are differentially expressed. The 1668 genes that are suppressed in NL1-RHg, and hence induced in TN8 may represent genes that are important during the parasitic stages of <it>H. glycines </it>development. The potential for different arrays of putative parasitism genes to be expressed in different nematode populations may indicate how <it>H. glycines </it>evolve mechanisms to overcome resistance.</p