Chickpea

The narrow genetic base of cultivated chickpea warrants systematic collection, documentation and evaluation of chickpea germplasm and particularly wild Cicer species for effective and efficient use in chickpea breeding programmes. Limiting factors to crop production, possible solutions and ways to overcome them, importance of wild relatives and barriers to alien gene introgression and strategies to overcome them and traits for base broadening have been discussed. It has been clearly demonstrated that resistance to major biotic and abiotic stresses can be successfully introgressed from the primary gene pool comprising progenitor species. However, many desirable traits including high degree of resistance to multiple stresses that are present in the species belonging to secondary and tertiary gene pools can also be introgressed by using special techniques to overcome pre- and post-fertilization barriers. Besides resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses, the yield QTLs have also been introgressed from wild Cicer species to cultivated varieties. Status and importance of molecular markers, genome mapping and genomic tools for chickpea improvement are elaborated. Because of major genes for various biotic and abiotic stresses, the transfer of agronomically important traits into elite cultivars has been made easy and practical through marker-assisted selection and marker-assisted backcross. The usefulness of molecular markers such as SSR and SNP for the construction of high-density genetic maps of chickpea and for the identification of genes/QTLs for stress resistance, quality and yield contributing traits has also been discussed

ETHNIC VARIATION IN INTERLEUKIN-6 –174 (G/C) POLYMORPHISM IN THE MALAYSIAN POPULATION

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is one of the cytokines that has been well studied and implicated in many diseases including cancers. The frequency of the IL-6 -174 (G/C) polymorphism had been proven to differ in various populations. Malaysia is a country with three major ethnic populations, Malays, Chinese and Indians. In this study, we proposed to determine the G or C allele frequency of the IL-6 -174 polymorphism in these three populations. A total of 348 blood samples were available for analysis. The median age for the subjects was 31 years. There were a total of 245 males and 103 females. A total of 86 Malays (25.0%), 122 Chinese (33.0%) and 140 Indians (40.0%) were genotyped. The result showed a significant difference in the G or C allele frequency of the -174 polymorphism. The total frequencies for the G and C alleles were 91.0 and 9.0%, respectively. In the Malays, the allele frequency of the C allele was 4.0% compared with 19.0% in the Indians. The C allele was not detected in the Chinese population. This finding is the first reported on the Malaysian population and may be important in determining risk of diseases associated with the IL-6 polymorphism in these three population

CTLA-4 +49A/G and -318 C/T polymorphisms and cytokines level on inhibitors development of haemophilia A among different ethnicity in Malaysia

Introduction: Haemophilia A (HA) is an inherited X-chromosome recessive disorder characterized by the deficiency of factor VIII (FVIII). About 25-30% of HA patients which received FVIII concentrate developed inhibitors towards FVIII. Ethnicity has been associated as a predisposing factor for the formation of FVIII inhibitors. This study character- izes the polymorphism of +49A/G and -318C/T of Cytotoxic T-Lymphocytes Antigen 4 (CTLA-4) which relates to the development of inhibitors among Malaysian HA patients of Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicity. Cytokines level of tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), interleukin 4 (IL-4) and interleukin 10 (IL-10) were also measured to assess the link to inhibitors development. Method: Severe HA patients with and without inhibitor who were being treated at the National Blood Centre, Kuala Lumpur were recruited and consented where their collected blood was genotyped for both polymorphisms using the Polymerase Chain Reaction Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) and their cytokines levels were measured using the Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). Results: Analysis of the total 64 respondents who fulfilled the study criteria found polymorphisms of CTLA-4 +49A/G and CTLA-4 -318C/T were not significantly different among patients with and without inhibitors. However, HA patients without inhibitors revealed that the Chinese population exhibited a higher +49G allele which is protective towards inhibitors development. Indian patients expressed a higher level of inhibitors titre. Patients without inhibitors showed statistical differences between ethnicity for both genotypes and allele frequencies of CTLA-4 +49A/G (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The mixed pattern of polymorphisms and cytokine profiles were observed in multi-ethnicity. This finding requires further verification with a larger sample size involving multicenter for further confirmation

Vox Sanguinis International forum on the selection and preparation of blood components for intrauterine transfusion

no abstract availabl

Inventory management.

A critical aspect of blood transfusion is the timely provision of high quality blood products. This task remains a significant challenge for many blood services and blood systems reflecting the difficulty of balancing the recruitment of sufficient donors, the optimal utilization of the donor's gift, the increasing safety related restrictions on blood donation, a growing menu of specialized blood products and an ever-growing imperative to increase the efficiency of blood product provision from a cost perspective. As our industry now faces questions about our standard practices including whether or not the age of blood has a negative impact on recipients, it is timely to take a look at our collective inventory management practices. This International Forum represents an effort to get a snap shot of inventory management practices around the world, and to understand the range of different products provided for patients. In addition to sharing current inventory management practices, this Forum is intended to foster an exchange of ideas around where we see our field moving with respect to various issues including specialty products, new technologies, and reducing recipient risk from blood transfusion products