Multi-omics of the gut microbial ecosystem in inflammatory bowel diseases.

Inflammatory bowel diseases, which include Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, affect several million individuals worldwide. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are complex diseases that are heterogeneous at the clinical, immunological, molecular, genetic, and microbial levels. Individual contributing factors have been the focus of extensive research. As part of the Integrative Human Microbiome Project (HMP2 or iHMP), we followed 132 subjects for one year each to generate integrated longitudinal molecular profiles of host and microbial activity during disease (up to 24 time points each; in total 2,965 stool, biopsy, and blood specimens). Here we present the results, which provide a comprehensive view of functional dysbiosis in the gut microbiome during inflammatory bowel disease activity. We demonstrate a characteristic increase in facultative anaerobes at the expense of obligate anaerobes, as well as molecular disruptions in microbial transcription (for example, among clostridia), metabolite pools (acylcarnitines, bile acids, and short-chain fatty acids), and levels of antibodies in host serum. Periods of disease activity were also marked by increases in temporal variability, with characteristic taxonomic, functional, and biochemical shifts. Finally, integrative analysis identified microbial, biochemical, and host factors central to this dysregulation. The study's infrastructure resources, results, and data, which are available through the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Multi'omics Database ( http://ibdmdb.org ), provide the most comprehensive description to date of host and microbial activities in inflammatory bowel diseases

Tropomyosin controls sarcomere-like contractions for rigidity sensing and suppressing growth on soft matrices

Cells test the rigidity of the extracellular matrix by applying forces to it through integrin adhesions. Recent measurements show that these forces are applied via local micrometre-scale contractions, but how contraction force is regulated by rigidity is unknown. Here we performed high temporal- and spatial-resolution tracking of contractile forces by plating cells on sub-micron elastomeric pillars. We found that actomyosin-based sarcomere-like contractile units (CUs) simultaneously moved opposing pillars in net steps of ~2.5 nm, independent of rigidity. What correlated with rigidity was the number of steps taken to reach a force level that activated recruitment of α-actinin to the CUs. When we removed actomyosin restriction by depleting tropomyosin 2.1, we observed larger steps and higher forces that resulted in aberrant rigidity sensing and growth of non-transformed cells on soft matrices. Thus, we conclude that tropomyosin 2.1 acts as a suppressor of growth on soft matrices by supporting proper rigidity sensing

Does early enteral feeding delay the gastric emptying?- A prospective randomized controlled trial in post gastrojejunostomy patients

Introduction: Postoperative early enteral feeding has become a very common application in the present day surgical practice. Enteral nutrition has been found to increase the blood supply to the intestines, increase the gut secretions like hormones, various peptides and enzymes, which increases the gut motility and thereby enhances gastric emptying. Materials & Methods: This is prospective and observational study conducted at Tertiary care teaching hospital and research center over a period of 18monthswere included in the study. Patients included in the study were those who underwent gastric bypass (Gastrojejunostomy) for gastric outlet obstruction either due to benign or malignant condition. Results: Total of 138 patients entered into the study, out of which 94 were excluded. The age of the patients ranged from 14 to 74 years with a mean (±SD) of 47.71(16.729) years in Early Feeding (EF) group and 44.95 (16.694) in No early Feeding (NEF) group. 15 patients were men and 9 were women in EF and 15 patients were men and 5 were women in NEF group. The NasoGastric tube was inserted for an average of 6.04 days in the Enteral feeding group and an average of 6.40 days in the No Enteral feeding group. Conclusion: Present study concludes that post operative enteral nutrition has no impact on DGE after gastric bypass and Ileal brake mechanism might not be clinically relevant. Most of patients who had enteral nutrition gained weight as compared to no Enteral feeding group

Diversity of toxic and phytopathogenic Fusarium species occurring on cereals grown in Karnataka state, India

A total of 198 cereal samples (53 maize, 54 sorghum, 37 paddy and 54 wheat) were collected from 11 districts of Karnataka to understand the percent infection (PI), relative density (RD) and their frequency (Fr) caused by Fusarium spp. All samples were screened by agar plating method using MGA 2.5 agar media and incubated at 25 ± 2 °C for 3–5 days. The study revealed the association of 10 different Fusarium species known trichothecene producers such as Fusarium acuminatum, F. avenaceum, F. crookwellense, F. culmorum, F. equiseti, F. graminearum, F. nivale, F. poae, F. sambucinum and F. sporotrichioides along with non-trichothecene producers like F. anthophilum, F. oxysporaum, F. proliferatum, F. semitectum, F. solani, and F. verticillioides. All the ten isolated potential trichothecene producing Fusarium species were analyzed for their ability to produce trichothecenes by using thin layer chromatography method. The highest infection of Fusarium spp. in maize was by F. verticillioides with PI of (2.95 %), with RD of (15.16 %) and highest Fr was by F. graminearum (79.24 %) and the lowest was F. avenasium with PI of (0.13 %). For sorghum maximum PI was by F. verticillioides (3.02 %), with F. graminearum having highest RD (14.39 %) and with F. verticillioides highest Fr. (72.22 %). In paddy highest PI was by F. verticillioides (3.21 %) and the least was by F. avenaceum (0.09 %). Similarly in wheat the highest PI was by F. verticillioides (2.76 %) while lowest was by F. avenaceum (0.10 %). The highest Fr was with F. graminearum (79.62 %) while the lowest was by F. avenaceum (3.70 %) and the highest RD was by F. graminearum (22.04 %) and lowest was by F. solani (0.72 %). The manually identified Fusarium spp. were further confirmed by PCR-based detection using ITS1 and ITS4 primers followed by sequencing of the PCR amplicons. PCR studies confirmed that all the tested fungal isolates belongs to Fusarium spp. with the amplicon size of 600 bp. Sequencing and the blast data from NCBI data base confirmed the sequence similarity of 99 % to the genus Fusarium and accession numbers were obtained. Chemotyping studies showed that the isolated Fusarium species are known to produce different types of trichothecenes. The study revealed the diversity in phytopathogenic Fusarium spp. in major cereal crops growing in different agro-climatic regions of Karnataka, India

Diagnosis and management of liver abscess in SCB medical college & hospital: A clinical study

Aim: The present research aims to study clinical presentation of liver abscess in relation to demographic features, risk factors as well as effectiveness of treatment methods. Methodology: This present study was carried out in 60 patients suffering from liver abscess. Patients who were above 18 years of age were included in the present study for a period of one and half years (October 2018 to March 2020). They were treated by medical/image guided drainage/surgical (open drainage) based on the site, size and other clinical parameters of lesion. Follow up was done once in 2 weeks for first 2 months and then on a monthly basis after discharge. Results: In this study, out of 60 patients, liver abscess are present in 47 males (78.3%) and 13 are females (21.7%). Overall, most common presentation of liver abscess in our institution was abdominal pain (44%), then fever (31%). Abscess was mostly located in right lobe was 53 cases (88.3%) and most of the abscesses were solitary (90%). Conclusion: Intensive  care, and use of effective antibiotic therapy have resulted in a decline in the mortality rates of liver abscess in India from  24%  in  earlier  series to  1%  to  3%  in  more recent  studies

Ovarian cysts and tumors in infancy and childhood

Aim: Review of the clinical presentation, types (histology), and stages of presentation and overall outcome of ovarian tumors. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective study. Forty nine girls from 3 days to 12 years were included in the study. Results: Fourteen girls had benign and thirty three had malignant ovarian tumors. One girl had bilateral ovarian non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Dysgerminoma (40%) was the commonest malignant tumor followed by malignant teratoma (16.6%). Conclusion: Pain and abdominal lump are the most common modes of presentation. Prognosis depends on the size of the tumor, stage and histology of the tumor. Conservative surgery should be the aim. Multidisciplinary management gives good prognosis

Principal Component Analysis for Quality Traits in Indigenous Moringa (Moringa oleifera L.) Germplasm Lines

The present investigation was carried out at Department of Vegetable Crops, Horticultural College and Research Institute (HC&RI), Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Periyakulam during 2016 -2017 with twenty genotypes in order to study the genetic diversity for different Quality characters of Moringa by principal component analysis. In this study, out of five principal components (PC), only three components exhibited eigenvalues greater than 0.5 and accounted for 84.12% variability. The PC1 accounted for the highest variability (52.53% of) the total variability, followed by PC2 (17.66%) then PC3 with 13.93%. Thus the results of the principal component analysis revealed, wide genetic variability exists in this Moringa genotype accessions

5-(1-Aryl-3-(thiophen-2-yl)-1H-pyrazol-4-yl)-1H-tetrazoles: Synthesis, structural characterization, Hirshfeld analysis, anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial studies

A series of novel 5-(1-aryl-3-(thiophen-2-yl)-1H-pyrazol-4-yl)-1H-tetrazoles 7(h-s) were designed and synthesized. Structural characterization was done by spectral and single crystal X-ray studies. The intermolecular interactions of compound 7n were quantified and visualized using Hirshfeld surface analysis. Structures of newly synthesized compounds were docked into active site of COX-2 enzyme PDB: 1CX2, 3.0 Å X-ray resolution and plausible binding modes were compared with standard drug Celecoxib. The results of molecular docking prompted the pharmacological studies for further optimization of identified selective inhibition. The compounds 7k, 7m, 7n, and 7q-s have shown excellent anti-inflammatory activity and compounds 7i, 7k, 7l, 7n, and 7s have exhibited anti-bacterial inhibitory potency in enzyme based assays