Genetic predisposition to chikungunya – a blood group study in chikungunya affected families

Chikungunya fever is a viral disease transmitted to humans by the bite of CHIKV virus infected Aedes mosquitoes. During monsoon outbreak of chikungunya fever, we carried out the genetic predisposition to chikungunya in disease affected 100 families by doing blood group (ABO) tests by focusing on individuals who were likely to have a risk of chikungunya and identified the blood group involved in susceptibility/resistance to chikungunya. In the present study, based on blood group antigens, the individuals were kept in four groups – A (108), B (98), AB (20) and O (243). The result obtained was showed all Rh positive blood group individuals are susceptible to chikungunya fever. Among ABO group, the blood group O +ve individuals are more susceptible to chikungunya than other blood groups. No blood group with Rh negative was affected with chikungunya, it indicates Rh -ve more resistance to chikungunya

Measurement of lipid peroxidation in biology models using gas-chromatography-aass spectrometry

C2C12 mouse myoblast cells, grown in glass vials, were connected to a cryofocusing unit to trap volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The VOCs were eluted from the trap by capacitive discharge into a gas chromatograph with time-of-flight mass spectral capabilities (GC-TOFMS) and were found to include the lipid peroxidation product hexanal. The pro-oxidant cumene hydroperoxide elevated the levels of these lipid peroxidation products, whereas the anti-oxidant butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT) impaired their production. Derivatization of the aldehyde products of lipid peroxidation in the same myoblast cells with pentafluorobenzyl hydroxylamine hydrochloride (PFB) provided evidence for formation of non-volatile products of lipid peroxidation such as malondialdehyde and 4hydroxynonenal. Similar experiments with the human tracheal epithelial cells, 9-HTE cells treated with Haemophilus influenza bacteria, showed elevated levels of malondialdehyde at 8- hour incubation time intervals giving the initial evidence that the products of lipid peroxidation are formed long before the COX-1 enzyme is activated

Connective tissue metabolism in chikungunya patients

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

Facial Emotions and Behaviour Monitoring System using DNN

  In this paper, Machine Learning Algorithms are used to implement the proposed approach to identify social distance, face masks, drowsiness detection, age-gender detection, and emotion detection. While dealing with social distancing initially, we need to detect humans’ faces, which are available by using COCO (Common Objects in Context) datasets, and later on, polygon-shaped ROI (Rectangular-region of Interest) is warped with a rectangle, which helps to find the distance from each centroid (person). Similarly, we predict the facemask, age-gender, emotion, and drowsiness altogether using frontal-face detection and eye-detection via haarcascade dataset loaded into Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to train and test the models on colour mapped images. In the proposed model, we are using machine-learning techniques such as linear discriminant Analysis (LDA), Independent Component Analysis (ICA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for age-gender detection and emotion detection, K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) for Social Distancing, and Support Vector Machine (SVM) for facemask detection and drowsiness detection. The accuracy of proposed system depends on frame (i.e., 88.2%, 89.7%, 95.1% and 98.3% in 0~0.2s, 0.2~0.6s, 0.6~1s, >1s time windows respectively). The accuracy even depends upon the distance away from the camera (i.e., 60.4%, 73.9%, 89.3%, 95.2%, and 62.2% in >15, 15~10, 10~6, 6~0.5, <0.5 meters respectively). The resultant average accuracy of all the models is 96.3%, which is capable to predict various tasks as said above. This complete model is made accessible to users via a standalone software/Desktop GUI. The proposed approach is promising for performing all the tasks and activities more accurately and efficiently.the systemic health of the patient and avoiding possible drug interaction

Mitophagy and the therapeutic clearance of damaged mitochondria for neuroprotection

Mitochondria are the foremost producers of the cellular energy currency ATP. They are also a significant source of reactive oxygen species and an important buffer of intracellular calcium. Mitochondrial retrograde signals regulate energy homeostasis and pro-survival elements whereas anterograde stimuli can trigger programmed cell death. Maintenance of a healthy, functional mitochondria network is therefore essential, and several mechanisms of mitochondrial quality control have been described. Mitochondrial dysfunction is linked to several neurodegenerative conditions including Parkinson, and Huntingdon diseases as well as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Understanding the mechanisms governing mitochondrial quality control may reveal novel strategies for pharmacological intervention and disease therapy

Functional phosphatome requirement for protein homeostasis, networked mitochondria, and sarcomere structure in C. elegans muscle

Background: Skeletal muscle is central to locomotion and metabolic homeostasis. The laboratory worm C. elegans has been developed into a genomic model for assessing the genes and signals that regulate muscle development and protein degradation. Past work has identified a receptor tyrosine kinase signalling network that combinatorially controls autophagy, nerve signal to muscle to oppose proteasome based degradation, and extracellular matrix based signals that control calpain and caspase activation. The last two discoveries were enabled by following up results from a functional genomic screen of known regulators of muscle. Recently, a screen of the kinome requirement for muscle homeostasis identified roughly 40% of kinases as required for C. elegans muscle health; 80 have identified human orthologues and 53 are known to be expressed in skeletal muscle. To complement this kinome screen, here we screen most of the phosphatases in C. elegans. Methods: RNAi was used to knockdown phosphatase encoding genes. Knockdown was first conducted during development with positive results also knocked down only in fully developed adult muscle. Protein homeostasis, mitochondrial structure, and sarcomere structure were assessed using transgenic reporter proteins. Genes identified as being required to prevent protein degradation were also knocked down in conditions that blocked proteasome or autophagic degradation. Genes identified as being required to prevent autophagic degradation were also assessed for autophagic vesicle accumulation using another transgenic reporter. Lastly, bioinformatics were used to look for overlap between kinases and phosphatases required for muscle homeostasis and the prediction that one phosphatase was required to prevent MAPK activation was assessed by Western blot. Results: A little over half of all phosphatases are each required to prevent abnormal development or maintenance of muscle. 86 of these phosphatase have known human orthologues, 57 of which are known to be expressed in human skeletal muscle. Of the phosphatases required to prevent abnormal muscle protein degradation, roughly half are required to prevent increased autophagy. Conclusions: A significant portion of both the kinome and phosphatome are required for establishing and maintaining C. elegans muscle health. Autophagy appears to be the mostly commonly triggered form of protein degradation in response to disruption of phosphorylation based signalling. The results from these screens provide measurable phenotypes for analysing the combined contribution of kinases and phosphatases in a multi-cellular organism and suggest new potential regulators of human skeletal muscle for further analysis

Destructive arthritis in a patient with chikungunya virus infection with persistent specific IgM antibodies

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chikungunya fever is an emerging arboviral disease characterized by an algo-eruptive syndrome, inflammatory polyarthralgias, or tenosynovitis that can last for months to years. Up to now, the pathophysiology of the chronic stage is poorly understood.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the first case of CHIKV infection with chronic associated rheumatism in a patient who developed progressive erosive arthritis with expression of inflammatory mediators and persistence of specific IgM antibodies over 24 months following infection.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Understanding the specific features of chikungunya virus as well as how the virus interacts with its host are essential for the prevention, treatment or cure of chikungunya disease.</p

Persistent Arthralgia Induced by Chikungunya Virus Infection is Associated with Interleukin-6 and Granulocyte Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor

Background. Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection induces arthralgia. The involvement of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines has been suggested, but very little is known about their secretion profile in CHIKV-infected patients

Muscle Fiber Type-Dependent Differences in the Regulation of Protein Synthesis

This study examined fiber type-dependent differences in the regulation of protein synthesis in individual muscle fibers found within the same whole muscle. Specifically, the in vivo SUrface SEnsing of Translation (SUnSET) methodology was used to measure protein synthesis in type 1, 2A, 2X and 2B fibers of the mouse plantaris muscle, in response to food deprivation (FD), and mechanical overload induced by synergist ablation (SA). The results show that 48 h of FD induced a greater decrease in protein synthesis in type 2X and 2B fibers compared to type 1 and 2A fibers. Type 2X and 2B fibers also had the largest FD-induced decrease in total S6 protein and Ser240/244 S6 phosphorylation, respectively. Moreover, only type 2X and 2B fibers displayed a FD-induced decrease in cross-sectional area (CSA). Ten days of SA also induced fiber type-dependent responses, with type 2B fibers having the smallest SA-induced increases in protein synthesis, CSA and Ser240/244 S6 phosphorylation, but the largest increase in total S6 protein. Embryonic myosin heavy chain (MHCEmb) positive fibers were also found in SA muscles and the protein synthesis rates, levels of S6 Ser240/244 phosphorylation, and total S6 protein content, were 3.6-, 6.1- and 2.9-fold greater than that found in fibers from control muscles, respectively. Overall, these results reveal differential responses in the regulation of protein synthesis and fiber size between fiber types found within the same whole muscle. Moreover, these findings demonstrate that changes found at the whole muscle level do not necessarily reflect changes in individual fiber types

Impact of Chikungunya Virus Infection on Health Status and Quality of Life: A Retrospective Cohort Study

BACKGROUND:Persistent symptoms, mainly joint and muscular pain and depression, have been reported several months after Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection. Their frequency and their impact on quality of life have not been compared with those of an unexposed population. In the present study, we aimed to describe the frequency of prolonged clinical manifestations of CHIKV infection and to measure the impact on quality of life and health care consumption in comparison with that of an unexposed population, more than one year after infection. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:In a retrospective cohort study, 199 subjects who had serologically confirmed CHIKV infection (CHIK+) were compared with 199 sero-negative subjects (CHIK-) matched for age, gender and area of residence in La Réunion Island. Following an average time of 17 months from the acute phase of infection, participants were interviewed by telephone about current symptoms, medical consumption during the last 12 months and quality of life assessed by the 12-items Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) scale. At the time of study, 112 (56%) CHIK+ persons reported they were fully recovered. CHIK+ complained more frequently than CHIK- of arthralgia (relative risk = 1.9; 95% confidence interval: 1.6-2.2), myalgia (1.9; 1.5-2.3), fatigue (2.3; 1.8-3), depression (2.5; 1.5-4.1) and hair loss (3.8; 1.9-7.6). There was no significant difference between CHIK+ and CHIK- subjects regarding medical consumption in the past year. The mean (SD) score of the SF-12 Physical Component Summary was 46.4 (10.8) in CHIK+ versus 49.1 (9.3) in CHIK- (p = 0.04). There was no significant difference between the two groups for the Mental Component Summary. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:More than one year following the acute phase of infection, CHIK+ subjects reported more disabilities than those who were CHIK-. These persistent disabilities, however, have no significant influence on medical consumption, and the impact on quality of life is moderate