comEditorial comment on: “Ureteritis cystica: Arare benign lesion”

No abstract

Molecular diagnosis of MDR-TB using GenoType MTBDRplus 96 assay in Ibadan, Nigeria

Summary: Multidrug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is of great public health importance worldwide. This three month laboratory- based study (1st September-30th November, 2011) was carried out at the TB laboratories of the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria to determine the magnitude of MDR-TB using molecular based GenoType MTBDRplus 96 assay. Two sputum samples were collected from each subject. These were processed using Ziehl -Neelsen (ZN) reagents. The sputa were cultured on Loewenstein-Jensen egg –based medium and incubated at 370C for eight weeks. Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) was confirmed by colonial morphology and repeat ZN staining. All the Acid-fast bacill (AFB) positive smears and culture positive isolates were tested for genetic identification and drug susceptibility testing (DST) using PCR- based GenoType MTBDRplus 96 assay (HAINs Lifesciences, GmbH, Nehren, Germany) according to manufacturers’ instructions. Of the 68 samples processed, 11 (16.2%) were AFB positive while six (8.8%) were positive for culture. Eleven (64.7%) out of the 17 samples tested for genetic identification were MTBC while six were Non Tuberculosis  Mycobacteria (NTM). All NTM were from AFB positive sputum while none was from culture positive isolates. Of the six culture isolates tested for DST, three (33.3%) were susceptible to isoniazid and rifampicin; one (16.7%) showed mono-resistance to isoniazid while two (30.0%) were resistant to the two drugs. This study shows that MDR-TB is present in Ibadan. There is a need to make DST diagnostic facilities more available and accessible in Nigeria.Keywords: Molecular diagnosis, MDR-TB, GenoType MTBDRplus 96assay, Ibadan, Nigeri

Somatic chromosome counts and yield performance of some accessions of ‘egusi’ melon (Citrullus lanatus)

Investigation in 20 accessions of Citrullus lanatus (‘egusi’ melon) revealed somatic chromosome counts ranging from 18 to 24 with 2n = 22 being the most frequent. Polyploid counts of 2n = 40 and 2n =44 were made for accessions DD98/4 and L6, respectively. Diploid chromosome counts varying from 2n = 22 suggest aneuploid changes in chromosome number or can be attributed to counting difficulties caused by the overlapping of the sticky small chromosomes. The polyploid counts were exact multiples of the diploid numbers, suggesting occurrence of polyploid forms/cultivars of the species. The high yield performance observed for L6 as reflected in the fruit size and weight is a reflection of gigas effect that is characteristic of polyploid genomes. The study reveals that knowledge of chromosome counts and character expression will be useful in the selection of genotypes for hybridization purposes

The protective effect of ischemic preconditioning on rat testis

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Cancer Biomarker Discovery: The Entropic Hallmark

Background: It is a commonly accepted belief that cancer cells modify their transcriptional state during the progression of the disease. We propose that the progression of cancer cells towards malignant phenotypes can be efficiently tracked using high-throughput technologies that follow the gradual changes observed in the gene expression profiles by employing Shannon's mathematical theory of communication. Methods based on Information Theory can then quantify the divergence of cancer cells' transcriptional profiles from those of normally appearing cells of the originating tissues. The relevance of the proposed methods can be evaluated using microarray datasets available in the public domain but the method is in principle applicable to other high-throughput methods. Methodology/Principal Findings: Using melanoma and prostate cancer datasets we illustrate how it is possible to employ Shannon Entropy and the Jensen-Shannon divergence to trace the transcriptional changes progression of the disease. We establish how the variations of these two measures correlate with established biomarkers of cancer progression. The Information Theory measures allow us to identify novel biomarkers for both progressive and relatively more sudden transcriptional changes leading to malignant phenotypes. At the same time, the methodology was able to validate a large number of genes and processes that seem to be implicated in the progression of melanoma and prostate cancer. Conclusions/Significance: We thus present a quantitative guiding rule, a new unifying hallmark of cancer: the cancer cell's transcriptome changes lead to measurable observed transitions of Normalized Shannon Entropy values (as measured by high-throughput technologies). At the same time, tumor cells increment their divergence from the normal tissue profile increasing their disorder via creation of states that we might not directly measure. This unifying hallmark allows, via the the Jensen-Shannon divergence, to identify the arrow of time of the processes from the gene expression profiles, and helps to map the phenotypical and molecular hallmarks of specific cancer subtypes. The deep mathematical basis of the approach allows us to suggest that this principle is, hopefully, of general applicability for other diseases

Somatic chromosome counts and yield performance of some accessions of ‘EGUSI\' melon (Citrus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum & Nakai)

No Abstract.Nigerian Journal of Genetics Vol. 20 2006: pp. 54-6

Germination and In-Vitro Regeneration in ‘Egusi’ Melon, Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. and Nakai

This study was carried out in order to determine the germination and in-vitro regeneration of five accessions of “egusi’ melon. Seeds from de-coated melon were used for germination and in-vitro regeneration was carried out on excised pregerminated cotyledons in MS medium (4.43g of MS, 30g of sucrose, water of pH 5.8, 1M NaOH and 3.5g Gelzan). The highest germination percentages after five days were observed for the accessions DD98/4 and A22. Regenerated cotyledon explants 14 days after plating in MS medium showed accession A22 producing the highest regeneration frequency. The study revealed that DD98/4 and A22 had the highest germination and best regeneration frequency in the Murashige and Skooge (MS) medium, thus making them useful materials for genetic transformation.Keywords: Regeneration, ‘egusi’ melon, cotyledonNig J. Biotech. Vol. 24 (2012) 35-4