Reaching Community Through School Going Children for Sickle Cell Disease in Zankhvav Village of Surat District, Western India

Objectives: The objective of the study was to explore a method to reach the community via school going adolescents for screening tribal people for Sickle Cell disease. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a total of 1023 school going adolescents for Sickle Cell Disease screening by Dithionite Tube Turbidity (DTT) test with subsequent Hemoglobin Electrophoresis for confirmation among those testing positive for DTT. They were then advised to get their family members tested for the same. Results: 24.41% of school going adolescents tested positive by DTT test. 152 family members of those positive school children came forward for testing. On performing the DTT test on the family members, 53.94% tested positive. Out of those who tested positive, 61% belonged to Vasava caste; 36.6% belonged to Chaudhari caste followed by Gamit and Dhodhia Patel. On the subsequent Hemoglobin electrophoresis, 52.63% of the family members were found to be positive for Sickle Cell Trait and 1.97% tested positive for Sickle Cell Disease. Conclusions: School going children can be an effective medium to approach the community for the screening of Sickle Cell Disease

Effect of alpha-tocopherol on pulmonary antioxidant defence system and lipid peroxidation in cigarette smoke inhaling mice

BACKGROUND: Free radicals generated in biological systems by cigarette smoke (CS) inhalation can cause oxidative stress in tissues, resulting in lipid peroxidation (LPO). In view of the antioxidant properties of α-tocopherol (AT), in the present study, effects of AT on antioxidant defence system and LPO were investigated in mice inhaling CS for different time intervals. RESULTS: Male Balb/c mice were fed orally with AT (5 I.U./Kg.b.wt.) and /or exposed to CS for 2, 4, 6 or 8 weeks. No effect was observed on body growth, diet consumption, water intake and lung weight due to AT and /or CS treatment in any of the groups as compared to their control counterparts. After two weeks of treatment, no change in LPO, reduced glutathione (GSH) levels and antioxidant enzymes were observed except for glutathione reductase (GR) which increased in all the treated groups. A significant increase in pulmonary LPO levels was observed in mice exposed to CS inhalation for 4, 6 or 8 weeks. There was a gradual increase in the LPO levels as the extent of CS inhalation increased from 4 to 8 weeks. However, the extent of increase in LPO levels due to CS exposure for 4, 6 or 8 weeks in the mice treated with AT was comparatively less. A significant decrease in the GSH levels was also observed in all the animals exposed to CS for 4, 6 or 8 weeks. There was a significant increase in the activities of catalase, glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and GR observed in all the groups exposed to CS for 4,6 or 8 weeks. The increase in above antioxidant enzymes seems to be insufficient to combat the oxidative stress posed by CS inhalation. There was a marked decrease observed in the LPO levels in the animals treated with AT alone for 4, 6, or 8 weeks, when compared to their control counterparts. However, the supplementation of AT for 4, 6 or 8 weeks demonstrated a significant increase in GSH levels. CONCLUSION: It appears from our studies that AT exhibits its antioxidant role either directly by scavenging the oxidative species or indirectly by modulating the GSH levels

Annexin-A5 assembled into two-dimensional arrays promotes cell membrane repair

Eukaryotic cells possess a universal repair machinery that ensures rapid resealing of plasma membrane disruptions. Before resealing, the torn membrane is submitted to considerable tension, which functions to expand the disruption. Here we show that annexin-A5 (AnxA5), a protein that self-assembles into two-dimensional (2D) arrays on membranes upon Ca2+ activation, promotes membrane repair. Compared with wild-type mouse perivascular cells, AnxA5-null cells exhibit a severe membrane repair defect. Membrane repair in AnxA5-null cells is rescued by addition of AnxA5, which binds exclusively to disrupted membrane areas. In contrast, an AnxA5 mutant that lacks the ability of forming 2D arrays is unable to promote membrane repair. We propose that AnxA5 participates in a previously unrecognized step of the membrane repair process: triggered by the local influx of Ca2+, AnxA5 proteins bind to torn membrane edges and form a 2D array, which prevents wound expansion and promotes membrane resealing

Intra- and inter-individual genetic differences in gene expression

Genetic variation is known to influence the amount of mRNA produced by a gene. Given that the molecular machines control mRNA levels of multiple genes, we expect genetic variation in the components of these machines would influence multiple genes in a similar fashion. In this study we show that this assumption is correct by using correlation of mRNA levels measured independently in the brain, kidney or liver of multiple, genetically typed, mice strains to detect shared genetic influences. These correlating groups of genes (CGG) have collective properties that account for 40-90% of the variability of their constituent genes and in some cases, but not all, contain genes encoding functionally related proteins. Critically, we show that the genetic influences are essentially tissue specific and consequently the same genetic variations in the one animal may up-regulate a CGG in one tissue but down-regulate the same CGG in a second tissue. We further show similarly paradoxical behaviour of CGGs within the same tissues of different individuals. The implication of this study is that this class of genetic variation can result in complex inter- and intra-individual and tissue differences and that this will create substantial challenges to the investigation of phenotypic outcomes, particularly in humans where multiple tissues are not readily available.

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Evolution through segmental duplications and losses : A Super-Reconciliation approach

The classical gene and species tree reconciliation, used to infer the history of gene gain and loss explaining the evolution of gene families, assumes an independent evolution for each family. While this assumption is reasonable for genes that are far apart in the genome, it is not appropriate for genes grouped into syntenic blocks, which are more plausibly the result of a concerted evolution. Here, we introduce the Super-Reconciliation problem which consists in inferring a history of segmental duplication and loss events (involving a set of neighboring genes) leading to a set of present-day syntenies from a single ancestral one. In other words, we extend the traditional Duplication-Loss reconciliation problem of a single gene tree, to a set of trees, accounting for segmental duplications and losses. Existency of a Super-Reconciliation depends on individual gene tree consistency. In addition, ignoring rearrangements implies that existency also depends on gene order consistency. We first show that the problem of reconstructing a most parsimonious Super-Reconciliation, if any, is NP-hard and give an exact exponential-time algorithm to solve it. Alternatively, we show that accounting for rearrangements in the evolutionary model, but still only minimizing segmental duplication and loss events, leads to an exact polynomial-time algorithm. We finally assess time efficiency of the former exponential time algorithm for the Duplication-Loss model on simulated datasets, and give a proof of concept on the opioid receptor genes

Differential trends in the rising incidence of endometrial cancer by type: data from a UK population-based registry from 1994 to 2006

BACKGROUND: Endometrial cancer is the most common gynaecological cancer in the western world, the incidence increasing in the United Kingdom by over 40 % since 1993. Two types of endometrial cancer exist – oestrogen-dependent type 1 with good prognosis and non-oestrogen-dependent type 2 with poor prognosis. The histopathological distribution of the increase in endometrial cancer is unknown. This study investigates the observed incidence trends of the two types, the age, stage, and socioeconomic distribution of this increase and survival outcome. METHODS: Data were analysed from 6867 women with endometrial cancer registered between 1994 and 2006, at a UK population-based cancer registry. RESULTS: Increased endometrial cancer incidence is confined to type 1 cancers with a significant increase in age standardised incidenc

Identification of conserved gene clusters in multiple genomes based on synteny and homology

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Uncovering the relationship between the conserved chromosomal segments and the functional relatedness of elements within these segments is an important question in computational genomics. We build upon the series of works on <it>gene teams</it> and <it>homology teams.</it></p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our primary contribution is a local sliding-window SYNS (SYNtenic teamS) algorithm that refines an existing family structure into orthologous sub-families by analyzing the neighborhoods around the members of a given family with a locally sliding window. The neighborhood analysis is done by computing conserved gene clusters. We evaluate our algorithm on the existing homologous families from the Genolevures database over five genomes of the Hemyascomycete phylum.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The result is an efficient algorithm that works on multiple genomes, considers paralogous copies of genes and is able to uncover orthologous clusters even in distant genomes. Resulting orthologous clusters are comparable to those obtained by manual curation.</p

Reduced expression of monocyte CD200R is associated with enhanced proinflammatory cytokine production in sarcoidosis

In sarcoidosis, the proinflammatory cytokines interferon gamma, tumour necrosis factor and interleukin-6 are released by monocyte-derived macrophages and lymphocytes in the lungs and other affected tissues. Regulatory receptors expressed on monocytes and macrophages act to suppress cytokine production, and reduced expression of regulatory receptors may thus promote tissue inflammation. The aim of this study was to characterise the role of regulatory receptors on blood monocytes in patients with sarcoidosis. Cytokine release in response to stimulation of whole blood was measured in healthy controls and Caucasian non-smoking patients with sarcoidosis who were not taking disease modifying therapy. Expression of the regulatory molecules IL-10R, SIRP-α/β, CD47, CD200R, and CD200L was measured by flow cytometry, and functional activity was assessed using blocking antibodies. Stimulated whole blood and monocytes from patients with sarcoidosis produced more TNF and IL-6 compared with healthy controls. 52.9% of sarcoidosis patients had monocytes characterised by low expression of CD200R, compared with 11.7% of controls (p < 0.0001). Patients with low monocyte CD200R expression produced higher levels of proinflammatory cytokines. In functional studies, blocking the CD200 axis increased production of TNF and IL-6. Reduced expression of CD200R on monocytes may be a mechanism contributing to monocyte and macrophage hyper-activation in sarcoidosis

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT