Maternal and fetal outcome in cardiac disease in pregnancy: a retrospective study at tertiary care center

Background: Cardiac disease in pregnancy is a high-risk pregnancy and major problem worldwide particularly developing countries. In present scenario the incidence of pregnancy with congenital heart disease is high in developed countries and they are landing with favourable outcome due to advance surgical correction of the defects. In developing countries, the incidence of RHD is still high. Therefore, in this study we aim to analyse the incidence of cardiac disease in pregnancy in our hospital and to assess the obstetric outcome.Methods: A retrospective study carried out in 22 number of patients with cardiac disease at tertiary care center during the period of 2 years.Results: In present study the incidence of cardiac disease in pregnancy was observed to be 0.15%.Among them the prevalence of RHD was high (68.1%).Out of which the most common valvular lesion was mitral stenosis (46.6%) followed by mitral stenosis with mitral regurgitation (26.6%).50% of the patients were in NYHA class 2.Majority delivered vaginally with instrumental application in second stage (95.4%).Obstetric complications observed in form of anaemia, preeclampsia, abruption placentae and preterm labour and one maternal  mortality. Perinatal morbidities observed in form of prematurity, SGA, birth asphyxia, MSAF, NICU admission.Conclusions: cardiac disease has major impact on pregnancy and its outcome. It is a team effort by obstetrician, cardiologist, neonatologist to achieve successful pregnancy. Regular antenatal checkup and strict vigilance during the risk period when patient may develop complications as a result of haemodynamic changes can avoid the complications

Optimization by nonhierarchical asynchronous decomposition

Large scale optimization problems are tractable only if they are somehow decomposed. Hierarchical decompositions are inappropriate for some types of problems and do not parallelize well. Sobieszczanski-Sobieski has proposed a nonhierarchical decomposition strategy for nonlinear constrained optimization that is naturally parallel. Despite some successes on engineering problems, the algorithm as originally proposed fails on simple two dimensional quadratic programs. The algorithm is carefully analyzed for quadratic programs, and a number of modifications are suggested to improve its robustness

Cross sectional study on analysis of reasons for refusal of PPIUCD at GIMS, Gadag

Background: Women are highly motivated and receptive to accept Family Planning (FP) methods during the postpartum period. Intrauterine Contraceptive Device (IUCD) is one of the commonly used reversible methods of contraception and provide very effective, safe and long-term protection against pregnancy and the health risks associated with the method are negligible. Taking advantage of the immediate postpartum period for counselling on family planning and IUCD insertion, overcomes multiple barriers to service provision. The increased institutional deliveries are opportunity to provide women easy access to immediate PPIUCD services. Objective-The aim of the study was to determine proportion of women accepting postplacental intrauterine contraceptive device insertion, and to describe the factors associated with acceptability and non-acceptance.Methods: Cross-sectional study conducted from September 2021 to October 2021 in 250 women admitted for delivery at Gadag institute of medical sciences, Gadag. The respondents were interviewed using structured interviewer administered questionnaire.Results: In the study, it is found that overall awareness regarding PPIUCD in the study population is only 32% which is comparable with the study findings of Rajasthan where the 8 awareness was 20.2%. The readiness rate for PPIUCD insertion after the counselling in present study was 8% which is similar the study report from Government Medical College, Trissur, Kerala where the acceptance rate 1 was 10.5%. The major factors associated with nonacceptance were refusal by patient (50%) and relatives.Conclusions: The emerging factors for less acceptance of PPIUCD are low literacy rate among women and infrequent counselling and education during antenatal period. Integration of a PPIUCD counselling service at every delivery point with provision of couple counselling can improve the success of this programme

Toxic effects of chromium on the aquatic cyanobacterium Oscillatoria sp and removal of chromium by biosorption

“Chromium” is a non-essential metal for microorganisms and plants and a serious pollutant in diverse environment conditions. The hexavalent form of the metal Cr (IV) is considered to be more toxic than relatively harmless Cr(III) form. Certain microorganisms in the environment are able to tolerate high levels of Cr due to their resistance mechanism. In the present work we report the toxic effect of chromium on Oscillatoria sp and the removal of hexavalent using the cyanobacterium Oscillatoria sp., by biosorption method. Oscillatoria sp., was grown in BG-11 medium containing different concentration of Cr. Effect of Cr on cellular metabolism was studied by estimating the amount of chlorophyll a, carotenoids,  c. phycocyanin, allophycocyanin, sugars, free amino acids and proteins at various metal concentration. An increase in metal concentration caused a decrease in the growth of the Oscillatoria sp., and also decreased the cellular contents like chlorophyll a, carotenoids, c.phycocyanin, allophycocyanin, sugars, free amino acids and proteins. Biosorption of chromium by Oscillatoria sp., was carried out using living cells, heat killed cells and pre-treated cells. Results showed that high amount of metal were adsorbed by heat killed and living cells of Oscillatoria sp. The experimental conditions used in the present work are simple and have low operational cost. The proposed biosorption method is economically feasible and eco-friendly in nature

IN VITRO EVALUATION OF GLYCOLIPOPROTEIN POWDER FROM EARTHWORM EUDRILUS EUGENIAE

Objective: The researchers are searching for innate bioactive compounds, competent of curing various diseases. In the present study, the cytotoxicity and the angiogenic nature of the glycolipoprotein powder from the earthworm were considered for its pharmaceutical and biological uses.Methods: The in vitro MTT (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) assay of the glycolipoprotein powder (GLP) of the earthworm in the Murine embryonic fibroblast cell line (NIH 3T3) was performed. Further the haemolytic assay of the GLP was also tested. The angiogenic potential was also evaluated by the (in vitro) chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model in 9 days old fertilized chick eggs.Results: The MTT assay was performed wherein the cell response to extract was by dose-dependent manner and great cytotoxic effect was not shown for the tested concentrations. In the MTT assay increased cell viability (84%) was found at concentrations of 100 µg/ml. The hemolytic activity of the extract was also determined, wherein it showed insignificant lytic activity compared to the control. On performing the CAM assay, 500 μl extract (25 μg/ml) was found to increase the number of capillaries on the treated CAM surfaces after 72 hours of incubation.Conclusion: These findings suggested that the earthworm powder possesses the significant angiogenic potential, which may be beneficial in the treatment of wound healing.Â

New microsatellite markers for pigeonpea (cajanus cajan (L.) millsp.)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pigeonpea is a nutritious tropical legume with several desirable characteristics but has been relatively neglected in terms of research. More efficient improvement can be achieved in this crop through molecular breeding but adequate molecular markers are lacking and no linkage map has been developed so far. Microsatellites remain the markers of choice due to their high polymorphism and their transferability from closely related genera. The overall objective of this study was to develop microsatellite markers from an enriched library of pigeonpea as well as testing the transferability of soybean microsatellites in pigeonpea.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Primers were designed for 113 pigeonpea genomic SSRs, 73 of which amplified interpretable bands. Thirty-five of the primers revealed polymorphism among 24 pigeonpea breeding lines. The number of alleles detected ranged from 2 to 6 with a total of 110 alleles and an average of 3.1 alleles per locus. GT/CA and GAA class of repeats were the most abundant di-nucleotide and tri-nucleotide repeats respectively. Additionally, 220 soybean primers were tested in pigeonpea, 39 of which amplified interpretable bands.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Despite the observed morphological diversity, there is little genetic diversity within cultivated pigeonpea as revealed by the developed microsatellites. Although some of the tested soybean microsatellites may be transferable to pigeonpea, lack of useful polymorphism may hinder their full use. A robust set of markers will still have to be developed for pigeonpea genome if molecular breeding is to be achieved.</p

Pif1-family helicases cooperatively suppress widespread replication-fork arrest at tRNA genes

Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes two distinct Pif1-family helicases – Pif1 and Rrm3 – which have been reported to play distinct roles in numerous nuclear processes. Here, we systematically characterize the roles of Pif1 helicases in replisome progression and lagging-strand synthesis in S. cerevisiae. We demonstrate that either Pif1 or Rrm3 redundantly stimulate strand-displacement by DNA polymerase δ during lagging-strand synthesis. By analyzing replisome mobility in pif1 and rrm3 mutants, we show that Rrm3, with a partially redundant contribution from Pif1, suppresses widespread terminal arrest of the replisome at tRNA genes. Although both head-on and codirectional collisions induce replication fork arrest at tRNA genes, head-on collisions arrest a higher proportion of replisomes. Consistent with this observation, we find that head-on collisions between tRNA transcription and replication are under-represented in the S. cerevisiae genome. We demonstrate that tRNA-mediated arrest is R-loop independent, and propose that replisome arrest and DNA damage are mechanistically separable

An unusual suicidal interaction in Escherichia coli involving nucleoid protein H-NS

A conditional-lethal mutation (rpoB364) mapping to the gene that encodes the &#946; -subunit of RNA polymerase was obtained in Escherichia coli. This mutation caused cell filamentation at the restrictive growth temperature and partial derepression of the osmotically regulatedproU operon at the permissive growth temperature. Even under the latter condition, transformants of therpoB364 mutant strain carrying the plasmid vector pACYC184, but not those carrying other polA-dependent multicopy plasmids such as pACYC177 or pBR322, were killed in early stationary phase; one class of suppressor mutants isolated as survivors within these transformant colonies were further derepressed forproU-lac expression, and the mutation in each of several independent clones of this class was mapped tohns, the gene that encodes the protein H-NS of theE. coli nucleoid. Thehns mutations did not suppress the conditional-lethal growth phenotype of therpoB364 mutant itself. On the other hand, intracellular overproduction of guanosine 3', 5'-bispyrophosphate (ppGpp) in therpoB364 strain alleviated both the growth inhibition at the restrictive temperature and the pACYC184-mediated stationary-phase lethality. Upon subcloning into pUC19 or into pACYC177, a 105-bpXbal-HindIII fragment from pACYC184 was shown to be sufficient to confer therpoB364 hns +-dependent lethal phenotype. We suggest that the level in stationary-phase cultures of a gene product(s) that interacts with the pACYC184 DNA fragment is altered in therpoB364 hns+derivative (compared to that inrpoB+ orrpoB364 hns strains) and that this results in cell suicide