Correlation between length-weight and age in Barbus sharpeyi and Barbus grypus broodstocks in artificial propagation

This study was carried out to identify proper broodstock of Barbus sharpeyi and Barbus grypus using working fecundity indices. For Barbus sharpeyi three female groups were chosen based on previous experiences that included treatment 1: 650±300g, 1±0.5 years, (T.L) 40.68±2.7cm, treatment 2: 1350±350g, 2.5±0.5 years, (T.L) 47.92±4.63cm and treatment 3: 2200±400g, 4±0.4 years, and (T.L) 59.62±3.56cm. The same male broodstock (700±80g) and 2 year old fish were used for all treatments. For Barbus grypus three female groups were chosen using previous experiences that included treatment 1: 2212.5±780g, 2.5±0.5 years, (T.L) 62.68±6.7cm, treatment 2: 4518±780g, 4±1 years (T.L) 79.12±4.36cm and treatment 3: 7712.5±171g, 7.7±1.3 years and (T.L) 92.62±3.13cm. The same male broodstock (1400±100g) and 2 year old fish were used for all treatments. Female broodstock of the two species were injected 3mg/kg of PG hormone two times at an interval of 10 hours and males were injected 2mg/kg. The maximum working fecundity was seen in treatment 2 for Barbus sharpeyi (33000±1450) and Barbus grypus and (13000.37±4651.57). Functional fecundity were calculated for Barbus sharpeyi in all treatments which was significantly different between treatment 2 and other treatments for the two species. After this stage, the working fecundity was decreased in treatments. We conclude that treatment 2 is the best for selection of broodstocks in the two fish species

The reproduction biology of Barbus esocinus in Dez dam reservoir

This study was carried out from April 1999 to March 2000 in Dez dam reservoir located at North Khouzestan province. From the total number of 607 specimen of collected fish, 267 and 64 were males and females respectively, and276 specimen were immature. Samples were caught by hooks and gill nets. Length range of females was 156-1350 mm and their weight range was 31.7-26500 g. Males ranged 183-1065mm in length and 48-12208g in weight. The males showed more ranges in length and weight comparing to females. The spawning period is very short and occurring in spring after flooding of the river and increase in the reservoir water level. This species is a total spawner and eggs are release in upstream regions and reservoir shallow waters on bottoms gravels. Spawning occurs in 24°C. Fecundity was intermediate. Sex ratio was 4.2:1.0 (male/female). Males show a faster maturation. According to the ratio of gut length to the body length, it seems to be an omnivorous species, but all samples were found to have fish in their stomachs (100%). Feeding intensity was higher in males. Annual growth is slow and asymptomatic length is more than 2m. Relative growth in weight is not in accordance with growth in length for various length groups, and relative growth in weight is increased with increasing of fish length. Growth of this species is positive allometric type. Various length groups were observed in examined specimens. It I seems that it has a longer reproductive life comparing to its pre-maturation life. Relative fatness is higher in females

Effect of protein and energy levels of diet on the growth parameters of shirbot (Barbus grypus) in the grow out stage

This study was done is two phases, to determine required suitable level of protein and energy for Barbus grypus to get maximum growth to market size. Phase 1-finger ling phase Treatments with triplicate in different level of protein (25, 30, 35 percentage) and different level of digestible energy (kcal/100 gr 250,300,350) were used. Also the effect of mentioned diets on fish growth by calculating (WG, FER, FCR, SVR, PER, SGR) was studied. 9 treatments with triplicate random group of 15 fish per 300 liter tank the mean of were stuclied for 60 days. Body weight was (29.68±0.19gr). The results showed that in constant protein levels growth parameters improved to a special level with in Creasing energy level but in constant. Protein decrease with in crase in energy level. The result of caracass showed energy, protein, fiber and lipid caracass increased with increase in protein and energy, ash level of diet, on the other hand the mentioned diets had meaningfull effect on biochemical composition of caracass except (protein and ash). The best protein level was (%30) and suitable energy level was (250 Kcal/100gr). Phase 2: Grow out stage The best diets (P30%) and (250Kcal/100gr) and (p350%),(300kcal/100gr),(p35%)(350Kcal/100gr)was determind of second phase. These three suitable diets 3 treament in a soil pond 160m² with primary weight 98.3±23 in 60 day. Siqnificant different bet ween treatments were obsereved based on WG,FER,FCR,SVR,PER,SGR Indices. There were no Siqnificant different in (fish body composition)in second phases of experiment. The level of energy,protein,fiber and lipid. In fishes body were increased with in increasing the diet protein. Finally, according to mean valves,30% protein level and (250 Kcal/100gr) energy for barbus grypus are suggestedias the best levels

Irestigation limnological in Bahmanshir River

Bahmanshir River derived from Karoon River and finally connected to Arvandrood that passed from Abadan and then flow into the Persian Gulf. Because of low slope of Bahmanshir River from Ahwaz to Abadan, tidal flow intrusion long distance in Bahmanshir, Arvandrood and Karoon. Sampling from physical and chemical parameters and phytoplankton were done by Nansen sampler, benthic sampling, heavy metals, TOM and grain size sampling were done by grab. Samplings of zooplankton were done by filtering 20 liters water in 100μ mesh size net from middepth of river water. Fish sampling were done by gill net, Trawl net, sobor gill net and stable net with 20, 27, 30, 35, 39, 40 mesh sizes. Physical and Chemical parameters were more similar from station one to four but there were some differences with station five in mouth of river in the sea. Nitrate showed same variations in all studied stations and maximum concentration of nitrite was observed in station five in June and July. The highest value of Total hardness and salinity were observed in station five. The range of pH was 7.2 to 8.5. Cd and Zn were found to be the lowest and the highest concentration in sediments respectively. Annual average following as: Cd < Co < Cu < Pb = Ni < Zn According to ISQGs and river water quality standards, chemical and physical parameters and sediment heavy metals were in acceptable range. Only Cd and Zn values were found higher than acceptable ranges. No significant difference was observed between stations for heavy metal concentrations. In general, 44 phytoplankton species were identified Bacillariophycea (77.74%), Cyanophycea( 10.39%), (Chlorophycae 8.88%) and (Dinophycea 2.99%) were the dominant phytoplankton classes in this study. Shannon index have shown the highest species diversity during one year in January and the lowest was in fourth station. 110 Phytoplankton species composition in Bahmanshir have shown that Bacillariophycea became higher from river to estuary and among zooplanktons Rotifera and Tintinida were the most frequent groups in estuary region with 83% of total abundance. Copepoda, Rotifera and Protozoa (especially Tintinida) were the most frequent zooplankton groups. The highest frequency of zooplankton with 40.6% was observed in the station one in Khoramshahr. 16 macrobenthic groups were identified during the study. Polycheate worms, Isopoda and Oligocheate worms have shown the 83.5%, 5.4% and 3% frequencies respectively. 43 fish species that included in 26 families were identified. Cyprinidae with 12 species and Clupeidae with 2 species were the highest and the lowest species frequencies respectively. Among the identified fish species Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, Barbus esocinus, Crrassius auratus were exotic species and rest of them were local species. Seasonal changes were affected directly by quantitative and qualitative variations in Karoon water and planktonic species composition in estuary region were affected by tidal flow and advances of seawater. Cyprinidae and Barbus geniuses were the most frequent fresh water fish species. Migrant species like Johnius dussumeieri, Acanthophagus latus, Hilsa ilisha were captured in most stations and months, presence of these species is important for reproduction. Fish species of this river have different diet that included soft sediments, planktons, benthos, macroscopic plants, small fishes and shrimps

The polygenic nature of telomere length and the anti-ageing properties of lithium

Telomere length is a promising biomarker for age-related disease and a potential anti-ageing drug target. Here, we study the genetic architecture of telomere length and the repositioning potential of lithium as an anti-ageing medication. LD score regression applied to the largest telomere length genome-wide association study to-date, revealed SNP-chip heritability estimates of 7.29%, with polygenic risk scoring capturing 4.4% of the variance in telomere length in an independent cohort (p = 6.17 × 10-5). Gene-enrichment analysis identified 13 genes associated with telomere length, with the most significant being the leucine rich repeat gene, LRRC34 (p = 3.69 × 10-18). In the context of lithium, we confirm that chronic use in a sample of 384 bipolar disorder patients is associated with longer telomeres (p = 0.03). As complementary evidence, we studied three orthologs of telomere length regulators in a Caenorhabditis elegans model of lithium-induced extended longevity and found all transcripts to be affected post-treatment (p  0.05). Consequently, this suggests that lithium may be catalysing the activity of endogenous mechanisms that promote telomere lengthening, whereby its efficacy eventually becomes limited by each individual's inherent telomere maintenance capabilities. Our work indicates a potential use of polygenic risk scoring for the prediction of adult telomere length and consequently lithium's anti-ageing efficacy

A multimodal approach to cardiovascular risk stratification in patients with type 2 diabetes incorporating retinal, genomic and clinical features

Cardiovascular diseases are a public health concern; they remain the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes. Phenotypic information available from retinal fundus images and clinical measurements, in addition to genomic data, can identify relevant biomarkers of cardiovascular health. In this study, we assessed whether such biomarkers stratified risks of major adverse cardiac events (MACE). A retrospective analysis was carried out on an extract from the Tayside GoDARTS bioresource of participants with type 2 diabetes (n = 3,891). A total of 519 features were incorporated, summarising morphometric properties of the retinal vasculature, various single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), as well as routine clinical measurements. After imputing missing features, a predictive model was developed on a randomly sampled set (n = 2,918) using L1-regularised logistic regression (lasso). The model was evaluated on an independent set (n = 973) and its performance associated with overall hazard rate after censoring (log-rank p < 0.0001), suggesting that multimodal features were able to capture important knowledge for MACE risk assessment. We further showed through a bootstrap analysis that all three sources of information (retinal, genetic, routine clinical) offer robust signal. Particularly robust features included: tortuousity, width gradient, and branching point retinal groupings; SNPs known to be associated with blood pressure and cardiovascular phenotypic traits; age at imaging; clinical measurements such as blood pressure and high density lipoprotein. This novel approach could be used for fast and sensitive determination of future risks associated with MACE

A comprehensive 1000 Genomes-based genome-wide association meta-analysis of coronary artery disease

Existing knowledge of genetic variants affecting risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) is largely based on genome-wide association studies (GWAS) analysis of common SNPs. Leveraging phased haplotypes from the 1000 Genomes Project, we report a GWAS meta-analysis of 185 thousand CAD cases and controls, interrogating 6.7 million common (MAF>0.05) as well as 2.7 million low frequency (0.005<MAF<0.05) variants. In addition to confirmation of most known CAD loci, we identified 10 novel loci, eight additive and two recessive, that contain candidate genes that newly implicate biological processes in vessel walls. We observed intra-locus allelic heterogeneity but little evidence of low frequency variants with larger effects and no evidence of synthetic association. Our analysis provides a comprehensive survey of the fine genetic architecture of CAD showing that genetic susceptibility to this common disease is largely determined by common SNPs of small effect siz

A 19-SNP coronary heart disease gene score profile in subjects with type 2 diabetes: the coronary heart disease risk in type 2 diabetes (CoRDia study) study baseline characteristics

Background The coronary risk in diabetes (CoRDia) trial (n = 211) compares the effectiveness of usual diabetes care with a self-management intervention (SMI), with and without personalised risk information (including genetics), on clinical and behavioural outcomes. Here we present an assessment of randomisation, the cardiac risk genotyping assay, and the genetic characteristics of the recruits. Methods Ten-year coronary heart disease (CHD) risk was calculated using the UKPDS score. Genetic CHD risk was determined by genotyping 19 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using Randox’s Cardiac Risk Prediction Array and calculating a gene score (GS). Accuracy of the array was assessed by genotyping a subset of pre-genotyped samples (n = 185). Results Overall, 10-year CHD risk ranged from 2–72 % but did not differ between the randomisation groups (p = 0.13). The array results were 99.8 % concordant with the pre-determined genotypes. The GS did not differ between the Caucasian participants in the CoRDia SMI plus risk group (n = 66) (p = 0.80) and a sample of UK healthy men (n = 1360). The GS was also associated with LDL-cholesterol (p = 0.05) and family history (p = 0.03) in a sample of UK healthy men (n = 1360). Conclusions CHD risk is high in this group of T2D subjects. The risk array is an accurate genotyping assay, and is suitable for estimating an individual’s genetic CHD risk. Trial registration This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov; registration identifier NCT0189178

Meta-Analysis of Gene Level Tests for Rare Variant Association

The vast majority of connections between complex disease and common genetic variants were identified through meta-analysis, a powerful approach that enables large sample sizes while protecting against common artifacts due to population structure, repeated small sample analyses, and/or limitations with sharing individual level data. As the focus of genetic association studies shifts to rare variants, genes and other functional units are becoming the unit of analysis. Here, we propose and evaluate new approaches for performing meta-analysis of rare variant association tests, including burden tests, weighted burden tests, variable threshold tests and tests that allow variants with opposite effects to be grouped together. We show that our approach retains useful features of single variant meta-analytic approaches and demonstrate its utility in a study of blood lipid levels in ∼18,500 individuals genotyped with exome arrays