High frequency plant regeneration from shoot tip explants of Citrullus colocynthis (Linn.) Schrad. – An important medicinal herb

A high frequency and rapid regeneration protocol was developed from shoot tip explants of Citrullus colocynthis on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with N6-benzylamino-purine (BAP, 0.5 mg/l) and α-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA, 0.5 mg/l). Highest number of shoots (23.0 ± 0.567) was obtained on MS medium containing BAP (0.5 mg/l) and NAA (0.5 mg/l). The regenerated shoots were further elongated on same medium. In vitro shoots were excised from shoot clumps and transferred to rooting medium containing indole-3-butyric acid (IBA, 4.0 mg/l) with 0.2% activated charcoal. The rooted plants were hardened in polycups containing sterile soil and vermiculite and finally well established in the field; survival rate was 60%. This is the first report of direct in vitro plantlet regeneration in C. colocynthis from shoot tip explant.Key words: Citrullus colocynthis, regeneration, shoot tip

Reported exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and relative perceived importance of different settings for SARS-CoV-2 acquisition in England and Wales: Analysis of the Virus Watch Community Cohort [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]

We aimed to assess the relative importance of different settings for SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a large community cohort based on perceived location of infection for self-reported confirmed SARS-COV-2 cases. We demonstrate the importance of home, work and education as perceived venues for transmission. In children, education was most important and in older adults essential shopping was of high importance. Our findings support public health messaging about infection control at home, advice on working from home and restrictions in different venues

Household overcrowding and risk of SARS-CoV-2: analysis of the Virus Watch prospective community cohort study in England and Wales

Background: Household overcrowding is associated with increased risk of infectious diseases across contexts and countries. Limited data exist linking household overcrowding and risk of COVID-19. We used data collected from the Virus Watch cohort to examine the association between overcrowded households and SARS-CoV-2. // Methods: The Virus Watch study is a household community cohort of acute respiratory infections in England and Wales. We calculated overcrowding using the measure of persons per room for each household. We considered two primary outcomes: PCR-confirmed positive SARS-CoV-2 antigen tests and laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. We used mixed-effects logistic regression models that accounted for household structure to estimate the association between household overcrowding and SARS-CoV-2 infection. // Results: 26,367 participants were included in our analyses. The proportion of participants with a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR result was highest in the overcrowded group (9.0%; 99/1,100) and lowest in the under-occupied group (4.2%; 980/23,196). In a mixed-effects logistic regression model, we found strong evidence of an increased odds of a positive PCR SARS-CoV-2 antigen result (odds ratio 2.45; 95% CI:1.43–4.19; p-value=0.001) and increased odds of a positive SARS-CoV-2 antibody result in individuals living in overcrowded houses (3.32; 95% CI:1.54–7.15; p-value<0.001) compared with people living in under-occupied houses. // Conclusion: Public health interventions to prevent and stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2 should consider the risk of infection for people living in overcrowded households and pay greater attention to reducing household transmission

Altered adipocyte differentiation and unbalanced autophagy in type 2 Familial Partial Lipodystrophy: an in vitro and in vivo study of adipose tissue browning

Type-2 Familial Partial Lipodystrophy is caused by LMNA mutations. Patients gradually lose subcutaneous fat from the limbs, while they accumulate adipose tissue in the face and neck. Several studies have demonstrated that autophagy is involved in the regulation of adipocyte differentiation and the maintenance of the balance between white and brown adipose tissue. We identified deregulation of autophagy in laminopathic preadipocytes before induction of differentiation. Moreover, in differentiating white adipocyte precursors, we observed impairment of large lipid droplet formation, altered regulation of adipose tissue genes, and expression of the brown adipose tissue marker UCP1. Conversely, in lipodystrophic brown adipocyte precursors induced to differentiate, we noticed activation of autophagy, formation of enlarged lipid droplets typical of white adipocytes, and dysregulation of brown adipose tissue genes. In agreement with these in vitro results indicating conversion of FPLD2 brown preadipocytes toward the white lineage, adipose tissue from FPLD2 patient neck, an area of brown adipogenesis, showed a white phenotype reminiscent of its brown origin. Moreover, in vivo morpho-functional evaluation of fat depots in the neck area of three FPLD2 patients by PET/CT analysis with cold stimulation showed the absence of brown adipose tissue activity. These findings highlight a new pathogenetic mechanism leading to improper fat distribution in lamin A-linked lipodystrophies and show that both impaired white adipocyte turnover and failure of adipose tissue browning contribute to disease.We thank FPLD2 patients for donating biological samples. We thank the Italian Network for Laminopathies and the European Consortium of Lipodystrophies (ECLip) for support and helpful discussion. We thank Aurelio Valmori for the technical support. The studies were supported by Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute “5 per mille” 2014 project to MC, AIProSaB project 2016 and Fondazione Del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna grant 2015–2016 “New pharmacological approaches in bone laminopathies based on the use of antibodies neutralizing TGF beta 2” to GL. GL is also supported by PRIN MIUR project 2015FBNB5Y.S

Evaluation of skin absorption of drugs from topical and transdermal formulations

ABSTRACT The skin barrier function has been attributed to the stratum corneum and represents a major challenge in clinical practice pertaining to cutaneous administration of drugs. Despite this, a large number of bioactive compounds have been successfully administered via cutaneous administration because of advances in the design of topical and transdermal formulations. In vitro and in vivo evaluations of these novel drug delivery systems are necessary to characterize their quality and efficacy. This review covers the most well-known methods for assessing the cutaneous absorption of drugs as an auxiliary tool for pharmaceutical formulation scientists in the design of drug delivery systems. In vitro methods as skin permeation assays using Franz-type diffusion cells, cutaneous retention and tape-stripping methods to study the cutaneous penetration of drugs, and in vivo evaluations as pre-clinical pharmacokinetic studies in animal models are discussed. Alternative approaches to cutaneous microdialysis are also covered. Recent advances in research on skin absorption of drugs and the effect of skin absorption enhancers, as investigated using confocal laser scanning microscopy, Raman confocal microscopy, and attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, are reviewed

Towards detection of abnormal event and reporting for pedestrian video surveillance

An Anomaly can be defined as an observation that does follow the normal activities with respect to others. Anomaly is polysemy that varies in a different context. For video sequences, an anomaly can be defined in terms of motion or state of motion that obtrude concerning to state and time. This work is based on Pedestrian Video Surveillance, having a normal event as a pedestrian and abnormal event as cars, skaters, bikers, wheelchairs, etc. i.e., non-pedestrian. A comprehensive study has been carried out of many existing systems for the Anomaly detection system. Based on many existing techniques we select a method called optical flow for the feature presentation of the detection of motion and Histogram of optical flow (HOOF) for the action contour of optical flow for every time instant irrespective of scale and direction of motion. As HOOF represents the motion of an object in a region, so there may be cases that the information related to the motion is not well represented. We used these two techniques along with the labelling of the frame inorderto overcome the problem of HOOF for the classifier. And gives the improved results.&nbsp