Social phobia following maprotiline: the first case report

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Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Children and adolescents are more vulnerable to the affects of war and violence than adults. At the time of initiation of this study, nothing was known about the prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders. The aim of the present study is to measure the point prevalence of mental disorders among children of 1–15 years age in the city of Mosul, Iraq.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional study design was adopted. Four primary health care centers were chosen consecutively as a study setting. The subjects of the present study were mothers who came to the primary health care center for vaccination of their children. The chosen mothers were included by systematic sampling randomization. All children (aged 1–15) that each mother had were considered in the interview and examination.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Out of 3079 children assessed, 1152 have childhood mental disorders, giving a point prevalence of 37.4%, with a male to female ratio of to 1.22:1. The top 10 disorders among the examined children are post-traumatic stress disorder (10.5%), enuresis (6%), separation anxiety disorder (4.3%), specific phobia (3.3%) stuttering and refusal to attend school (3.2% each), learning and conduct disorders (2.5% each), stereotypic movement (2.3%) and feeding disorder in infancy or early childhood (2.0%). Overall, the highest prevalence of mental disorders was among children 10–15 years old (49.2%) while the lowest was among 1–5 year olds (29.1%). Boys are more affected than girls (40.2% and 33.2%, respectively).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Childhood mental disorders are a common condition highly prevalent amongst the children and early adolescents in Mosul. Data from the present study mirrors the size of the problem in local community. Several points deserve attention, the most important of which include giving care at the community level, educating the public on mental health, involving communities and families, monitoring community mental health indicators, and providing treatment at primary health care level.</p

Investigation of the Origin and Spread of a Mammalian Transposable Element Based on Current Sequence Diversity

Almost half the human genome consists of mobile DNA elements, and their analysis is a vital part of understanding the human genome as a whole. Many of these elements are ancient and have persisted in the genome for tens or hundreds of millions of years, providing a window into the evolution of modern mammals. The Golem family have been used as model transposons to highlight computational analyses which can be used to investigate these elements, particularly the use of molecular dating with large transposon families. Whole-genome searches found Golem sequences in 20 mammalian species. Golem A and B subsequences were only found in primates and squirrel. Interestingly, the full-length Golem, found as a few copies in many mammalian genomes, was found abundantly in horse. A phylogenetic profile suggested that Golem originated after the eutherian–metatherian divergence and that the A and B subfamilies originated at a much later date. Molecular dating based on sequence diversity suggests an early age, of 175 Mya, for the origin of the family and that the A and B lineages originated much earlier than expected from their current taxonomic distribution and have subsequently been lost in some lineages. Using publically available data, it is possible to investigate the evolutionary history of transposon families. Determining in which organisms a transposon can be found is often used to date the origin and expansion of the families. However, in this analysis, molecular dating, commonly used for determining the age of gene sequences, has been used, reducing the likelihood of errors from deleted lineages

Attachment of Salmonella strains to a plant cell wall model is modulated by surface characteristics and not by specific carbohydrate interactions

Background: Processing of fresh produce exposes cut surfaces of plant cell walls that then become vulnerable to human foodborne pathogen attachment and contamination, particularly by Salmonella enterica. Plant cell walls are mainly composed of the polysaccharides cellulose, pectin and hemicelluloses (predominantly xyloglucan). Our previous work used bacterial cellulose-based plant cell wall models to study the interaction between Salmonella and the various plant cell wall components. We demonstrated that Salmonella attachment was favoured in the presence of pectin while xyloglucan had no effect on its attachment. Xyloglucan significantly increased the attachment of Salmonella cells to the plant cell wall model only when it was in association with pectin. In this study, we investigate whether the plant cell wall polysaccharides mediate Salmonella attachment to the bacterial cellulose-based plant cell wall models through specific carbohydrate interactions or through the effects of carbohydrates on the physical characteristics of the attachment surface. Results: We found that none of the monosaccharides that make up the plant cell wall polysaccharides specifically inhibit Salmonella attachment to the bacterial cellulose-based plant cell wall models. Confocal laser scanning microscopy showed that Salmonella cells can penetrate and attach within the tightly arranged bacterial cellulose network. Analysis of images obtained from atomic force microscopy revealed that the bacterial cellulose-pectin-xyloglucan composite with 0.3 % (w/v) xyloglucan, previously shown to have the highest number of Salmonella cells attached to it, had significantly thicker cellulose fibrils compared to other composites. Scanning electron microscopy images also showed that the bacterial cellulose and bacterial cellulose-xyloglucan composites were more porous when compared to the other composites containing pectin. Conclusions: Our study found that the attachment of Salmonella cells to cut plant cell walls was not mediated by specific carbohydrate interactions. This suggests that the attachment of Salmonella strains to the plant cell wall models were more dependent on the structural characteristics of the attachment surface. Pectin reduces the porosity and space between cellulose fibrils, which then forms a matrix that is able to retain Salmonella cells within the bacterial cellulose network. When present with pectin, xyloglucan provides a greater surface for Salmonella cells to attach through the thickening of cellulose fibrils

Comparative Analysis of DNA Replication Timing Reveals Conserved Large-Scale Chromosomal Architecture

Recent evidence suggests that the timing of DNA replication is coordinated across megabase-scale domains in metazoan genomes, yet the importance of this aspect of genome organization is unclear. Here we show that replication timing is remarkably conserved between human and mouse, uncovering large regions that may have been governed by similar replication dynamics since these species have diverged. This conservation is both tissue-specific and independent of the genomic G+C content conservation. Moreover, we show that time of replication is globally conserved despite numerous large-scale genome rearrangements. We systematically identify rearrangement fusion points and demonstrate that replication time can be locally diverged at these loci. Conversely, rearrangements are shown to be correlated with early replication and physical chromosomal proximity. These results suggest that large chromosomal domains of coordinated replication are shuffled by evolution while conserving the large-scale nuclear architecture of the genome

Natural Single-Nucleosome Epi-Polymorphisms in Yeast

Epigenomes commonly refer to the sequence of presence/absence of specific epigenetic marks along eukaryotic chromatin. Complete histone-borne epigenomes have now been described at single-nucleosome resolution from various organisms, tissues, developmental stages, or diseases, yet their intra-species natural variation has never been investigated. We describe here that the epigenomic sequence of histone H3 acetylation at Lysine 14 (H3K14ac) differs greatly between two unrelated strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Using single-nucleosome chromatin immunoprecipitation and mapping, we interrogated 58,694 nucleosomes and found that 5,442 of them differed in their level of H3K14 acetylation, at a false discovery rate (FDR) of 0.0001. These Single Nucleosome Epi-Polymorphisms (SNEPs) were enriched at regulatory sites and conserved non-coding DNA sequences. Surprisingly, higher acetylation in one strain did not imply higher expression of the relevant gene. However, SNEPs were enriched in genes of high transcriptional variability and one SNEP was associated with the strength of gene activation upon stimulation. Our observations suggest a high level of inter-individual epigenomic variation in natural populations, with essential questions on the origin of this diversity and its relevance to gene x environment interactions

Bacterial cellulose production by Gluconacetobacter xylinus by employing alternative culture media

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is used in different fields as a biological material due to its unique properties. Despite there being many BC applications, there still remain many problems associated with bioprocess technology, such as increasing productivity and decreasing production cost. New technologies that use waste from the food industry as raw materials for culture media promote economic advantages because they reduce environmental pollution and stimulate new research for science sustainability. For this reason, BC production requires optimized conditions to increase its application. The main objective of this study was to evaluate BC production by Gluconacetobacter xylinus using industry waste, namely, rotten fruits and milk whey, as culture media. Furthermore, the structure of BC produced at different conditions was also determined. The culture media employed in this study were composed of rotten fruit collected from the disposal of free markets, milk whey from a local industrial disposal, and their combination, and Hestrin and Schramm media was used as standard culture media. Although all culture media studied produced BC, the highest BC yield60 mg/mLwas achieved with the rotten fruit culture. Thus, the results showed that rotten fruit can be used for BC production. This culture media can be considered as a profitable alternative to generate high-value products. In addition, it combines environmental concern with sustainable processes that can promote also the reduction of production cost.The authors would like to acknowledge the Brazil National Council of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq, FAPESP, and CAPES), the financial support from FAPESP 2009/14897-7, and Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT)/Portugal through the project PTDC/EBB-EBI/112170/2009 for the financial support and scholarship. Special thanks to Talita Almeida Vicentin for technical support

Equity in utilization of antiretroviral therapy for HIV-infected people in South Africa: a systematic review

INTRODUCTION: About half a million people in South Africa are deprived of antiretroviral therapy (ART), and there is little systematic knowledge on who they are – e.g. by severity of disease, sex, or socio-economic status (SES). We performed a systematic review to determine the current quantitative evidence-base on equity in utilization of ART among HIV-infected people in South Africa. METHOD: We conducted a literature search based on the Cochrane guidelines. A study was included if it compared for different groups of HIV infected people (by sex, age, severity of disease, area of living, SES, marital status, ethnicity, religion and/or sexual orientation (i.e. equity criteria)) the number initiating/adhering to ART with the number who did not. We considered ART utilization inequitable for a certain criterion (e.g. sex) if between groups (e.g. men versus women) significant differences were reported in ART initiation/adherence. RESULTS: Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria. For sex, 2 out of 10 studies that investigated this criterion found that men are less likely than women to utilize ART, while the other 8 found no differences. For age, 4 out of 8 studies found inequities and reported less utilization for younger people. For area of living, 3 out of 4 studies showed that those living in rural areas or certain provinces have less access and 2 out of 6 studies looking at SES found that people with lower SES have less access. One study which looked at the marital status found that those who are married are less likely to utilize ART. For severity of disease, 5 out of 6 studies used more than one outcome measure for disease stage and reported within their study contradicting results. One of the studies reported inconclusive findings for ethnicity and no study had looked at religion and sexual orientation. CONCLUSION: It seems that men, young people, those living in certain provinces or rural areas, people who are unemployed or with a low educational level, and those being unmarried have less access to ART. As studies stem from different contexts and use different methods conclusions should be taken with caution

Differential Coupling of Self-Renewal Signaling Pathways in Murine Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

The ability to reprogram somatic cells to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), exhibiting properties similar to those of embryonic stem cells (ESCs), has attracted much attention, with many studies focused on improving efficiency of derivation and unraveling the mechanisms of reprogramming. Despite this widespread interest, our knowledge of the molecular signaling pathways that are active in iPSCs and that play a role in controlling their fate have not been studied in detail. To address this shortfall, we have characterized the influence of different signals on the behavior of a model mouse iPSC line. We demonstrate significant responses of this iPSC line to the presence of serum, which leads to profoundly enhanced proliferation and, depending on the medium used, a reduction in the capacity of the iPSCs to self-renew. Surprisingly, this iPSC line was less sensitive to withdrawal of LIF compared to ESCs, exemplified by maintenance of expression of a Nanog-GFP reporter and enhanced self-renewal in the absence of LIF. While inhibition of phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) signaling decreased iPSC self-renewal, inhibition of Gsk-3 promoted it, even in the absence of LIF. High passages of this iPSC line displayed altered characteristics, including genetic instability and a reduced ability to self-renew. However, this second feature could be restored upon inhibition of Gsk-3. Collectively, our data suggest modulation of Gsk-3 activity plays a key role in the control of iPSC fate. We propose that more careful consideration should be given to characterization of the molecular pathways that control the fate of different iPSC lines, since perturbations from those observed in naïve pluripotent ESCs could render iPSCs and their derivatives susceptible to aberrant and potentially undesirable behaviors