Structural and antigenic variance between novel influenza A/H1N1/2009 and influenza A/H1N1/2008 viruses

BACKGROUND: The emergence of influenza A/H1N1/2009 is alarming. The severity of previous epidemics suggests that the susceptibility of the human population to H1N1 is directly proportional to the degree of changes in hemagglutinin/HA and neuraminidase/NA; therefore, H1N1/2009 and H1N1/2008 were analyzed for their sequence as well as structural divergence. METHODOLOGY: The structural and sequence divergence of H1N1/2009 and H1N1/2008 strains were analyzed by aligning HA and NA amino acid sequences by using ClustalW and ESyPred3D software. To determine the variations in sites of viral attachment to host cells, a comparison between amino acid sequences of HA and NA glycosylation sites was performed with NetNGlyc software. The antigenic divergence was executed by CTL epitope prediction method. RESULTS: The amino acid homology levels of H1N1/2009 were 20.32% and 18.73% compared to H1N1/2008 for HA and NA genes, respectively. In spite of the high variation in HA and NA amino acid composition, there was no significant difference in their structures. Antigenic analysis proposes that great antigenic differences exist between both the viral strains, but no addition of a new site of glycosylation was observed. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first report suggesting that the circulating novel influenza virus A/H1N1/2009 attaches to the same glycosylation receptor sites as its predecessor influenza A/H1N1/2008 virus, but is antigenically different and may have the potential for initiating a significant pandemic. Our study may facilitate the development of better therapeutics and preventive strategies, as well as impart clues for novel H1N1 diagnostic and vaccine development

Monthly palliative pelvic radiotherapy in advanced carcinoma of uterine cervix

Background: Patients with locally advanced cervical cancer are often severely distressed with incessant vaginal bleeding, offensive discharge and pelvic pain and are in some instances are beyond curative potential. At our institution we routinely use monthly palliative pelvic radiotherapy for these patients. Methods and Material: One hundred patients treated between 2000 & 2004 were included in this analysis. Patients were treated with parallel-opposed pelvic portals with megavoltage radiation monthly up to a maximum of three fractions (10Gy/ fraction). Patients with good response after second fraction were considered for intracavitary brachytherapy delivering 30Gy to point A. Response was documented with regard to relief of bleeding, vaginal discharge and pelvic pain. The other aspects evaluated were patient compliance, disease response, toxicity and survival. Results: Sixty-eight percent had FIGO stage IIIB, 12% had stage IVA and 14% had IVB disease. Twenty patients had metastatic disease. The median symptom duration was 5 months. Majority (67%) presented with vaginal bleeding, followed by discharge (69%) and pelvic pain (48%). All patients received at least one fraction of palliative pelvic radiotherapy. Sixty-one patients received the second fraction and 33 the third. Five patients received an intracavitary application. The overall response rates in terms of control of bleeding, discharge and pain were 100%, 49% and 33% respectively. The treatment was generally well tolerated with a median survival of 7 months. Conclusions: Monthly palliative pelvic radiotherapy results in satisfactory control of symptoms in patients with locally advanced carcinoma of cervix with acceptable complications

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Designing Performance Testing Software for Cloud Based Enterprise Applications

The paper presents the design and implementation of performance testing software designed for cloud-based enterprise applications. With the increasing adoption of cloud computing in enterprise environments, ensuring the performance and scalability of these cloud-based applications is crucial. Traditional performance testing tools may not fully address the unique challenges posed by cloud environments as these tools are, generally speaking, usually designed as load generators. Therefore, we propose a comprehensive approach to designing performance testing software specifically for cloud-based enterprise applications in which load generation is one component of it’s architecture</p

Malignant eccrine poroma of the vulva: An intriguing case of a rare tumor at an unusual site

Malignant eccrine poroma is a rare malignancy of the eccrine sweat glands, occurring most frequently on the lower extremities. It affects both sexes equally usually in the 6 th to 7 th decade of life. Metastasis to regional lymph nodes may occur in 20% that may be fatal in 60% cases. Its aggressive nature, rarity of occurrence, and unusual presentations make it very important to be evaluated properly by the clinician. We hereby report a case of a 75-year-old female presenting with two exophytic tumors over her vulva with local extension. On histopathological examination, it was diagnosed as malignant eccrine poroma. On magnetic resonance imaging of the pelvic region, metastatic extension in regional lymph nodes was found. She was treated by radical vulvectomy with bilateral inguinal and femoral lymph node dissection followed by radiotherapy

Experience of varied presentation of chronic progressive disseminated histoplasmosis in immunocompetent patients: A diagnostic conundrum

We report two cases of chronic progressive disseminated histoplasmosis with unusual and rare clinical picture in a patient with no underlying risk factor. One 50-year-old male, presented with hoarseness of voice, chronic cough, with a history of nonresponding anti-tubercular therapy, revealed mucocutaneous lesions on examination. Fungating vocal cord lesions were visualized on bronchoscopy, raised suspicion of carcinoma. The second case, a 22-year-old female, referred to hospital with suspected vasculitis, with complaints of “off and on” fever with decreased oral intake, arthralgia, who later developed generalized nodular skin eruptions. On investigation, human immunodeficiency virus test was found to be negative in both the cases. Histopathological findings of skin biopsy, adrenal and bone marrow aspirates raised suspicion, whereas fungal cultures confirmed Histoplasma infection. Although diagnosis was delayed, but both of them were successfully treated with amphotericin B

Asymptomatic papules over central and pericentral areas of the face

We report the case of a 24-year-old college girl, presenting with numerous acneiform papular eruptions over the central part of the face

How Histopathologic Tumor Extent and Patterns of Recurrence Data Inform the Development of Radiation Therapy Treatment Volumes in Solid Malignancies

The ability to deliver highly conformal radiation therapy using intensity-modulated radiation therapy and particle therapy provides for new opportunities to improve patient outcomes by reducing treatment-related morbidities following radiation therapy. By reducing the volume of normal tissue exposed to radiation therapy (RD, while also allowing for the opportunity to escalate the dose of RT delivered to the tumor, use of conformal RT delivery should also provide the possibility of expanding the therapeutic index of radiotherapy. However, the ability to safely and confidently deliver conformal RT is largely dependent on our ability to clearly define the clinical target volume for radiation therapy, which requires an in-depth knowledge of histopathologic extent of different tumor types, as well as patterns of recurrence data. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of the histopathologic and radiographic data that provide the basis for evidence-based guidelines for clinical tumor volume delineation. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved