The triphenylmethane dye brilliant blue G is only moderately effective at inhibiting amyloid formation by human amylin or at disaggregating amylin amyloid fibrils, but interferes with amyloid assays; Implications for inhibitor design.

The development of inhibitors of islet amyloid formation is important as pancreatic amyloid deposition contributes to type-2 diabetes and islet transplant failure. The Alzheimer's Aβ peptide and human amylin (h-amylin), the polypeptide responsible for amyloid formation in type-2 diabetes, share common physio-chemical features and some inhibitors of Aβ also inhibit amyloid formation by h-amylin and vice versa. Thus, a popular and potentially useful strategy to find lead compounds for anti-amylin amyloid agents is to examine compounds that have effects on Aβ amyloid formation. The triphenylmethane dye, brilliant blue G (BBG, Sodium;3-[[4-[(E)-[4-(4-ethoxyanilino)phenyl]-[4-[ethyl-[(3-sulfonatophenyl)methyl]azaniumylidene]-2-methylcyclohexa-2,5-dien-1-ylidene]methyl]-N-ethyl-3-methylanilino]methyl]benzenesulfonate) has been shown to modulate Aβ amyloid formation and inhibit Aβ induced toxicity. However, the effects of BBG on h-amylin have not been examined, although other triphenylmethane derivatives inhibit h-amylin amyloid formation. The compound has only a modest impact on h-amylin amyloid formation unless it is added in significant excess. BBG also remodels preformed h-amylin amyloid fibrils if added in excess, however BBG has no significant effect on h-amylin induced toxicity towards cultured β-cells or cultured CHO-T cells except at high concentrations. BBG is shown to interfere with standard thioflavin-T assays of h-amylin amyloid formation and disaggregation, highlighting the difficulty of interpreting such experiments in the absence of other measurements. BBG also interferes with ANS based assays of h-amylin amyloid formation. The work highlights the differences between inhibition of Aβ and h-amylin amyloid formation, illustrates the limitation of using Aβ inhibitors as leads for h-amylin amyloid inhibitors, and reinforces the difficulties in interpreting dye binding assays of amyloid formation

Interventions to prevent burnout in high risk individuals: evidence review

Although there is existing evidence on what works to treat burnout and work-related stress, there is less on what works to prevent it from occurring in the first place. This report provides an overview of literature covering how to prevent burnout and work-related stress in individuals and within organisations

Bacterial Isolates and Antimicrobial Susceptibility in Children with Acute Diarrhea at Ibn Sina Medical College, Bangladesh

Backround: Infectious diarrhea is one of common cause of children diarrhea causing mortality and morbidity worldwide. This study was performed to identify the common bacteria and their antimicrobial susceptibility in children with diarrhea. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted from April 2014 to March 2016 at IBN SINA Medical College Hospital, Bangladesh. Stool samples were cultured on MacConkey agar and blood agar. A standard biochemical procedure was used for full identification of bacterial isolates. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests were done on Mueller-Hinton agar by using disc diffusion method. Data were entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 20 and a p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 186 stool samples were tested for bacterial isolation and 55 (29.57%) cases were found to have bacterial isolates. From the total bacterial isolates, the predominant isolate was E. coli 39 (70.91%) followed by Salmonella 9 (16.36%) and Shigella Spp.7 (12.73%). As much as 84.62% E. coli were resistant to co-trimoxazole and cefuroxime while 92.31% E. coli were sensitive to amikacin and 71.79% were sensitive to cefepime and gentamicin. Salmonella were 100% sensitive to cefepime, ceftriaxone, cefixime, ceftazidime, and ciprofloxacin. Shigella were 85.71% sensitive to amikacin and cefepime. Conclusion: The results show that E. coli were the most frequently isolated pathogen in children. The majority of the bacterial isolates were resistant to multiple antibiotics. Hence, antibiotics susceptibility test is mandatory before prescribing any antibiotics

Effects of locally produced bacterial phytase on humoral immunity, live body weight and blood characteristics in broilers vaccinated against Newcastle disease

Immune responses in association with body weight performance and hemato-biochemical constituents might influence the Newcastle disease (ND) vaccination by dietary phytase supplementation (Enterobacter sakazakii ASUA273). The objective of the study was to determine the effects of bacterial phytase supplementation on humoral immunity in association with live body weight and blood characteristics of broilers. Male-day-old Cobb broilers (n=180) were assigned into four phytase treatments (0, 500, 1000 and 1500 FTU/kg-1 of diet) with 12 cages comprised of 3 replicates and each cage contained 15 birds. Birds were maintained on formulated basal diet based with available phosphorus (0.19%) that lasted up to six weeks in feed. Birds were vaccinated with a live ND vaccine at day-old and 21 day-old. Two birds were randomly selected from each treatment weekly. Specific antibody to ND, non-specific immunoglobins (IgM, IgG, and IgA) and live body weight were measured weekly. At the end of experiment, the complete haemato-biochemical constituents were determined. Data of humoral immunity with live body weight and haemato- biochemical values were analysed based on factorial arrangement (treatments×weeks) of completely randomized design (CRD), respectively. Response of the humoral immunity shown that although serum-antibody of ND, IgM, and IgG levels were not improved, the mucosal IgA contents were increased with the increasing phytase doses. The live body weights of broilers were significantly increased (P<0.05) to the graded levels of phytase supplementation throughout the experimental period. Cumulative effects of mucosal IgA contents and live body weights of broilers showed significant (P<0.05) interaction between the effects of phytase levels and effects of weeks. Overall, phytase dose at 1500 FTU/kg-1 of diet over the age of 6 weeks-old showed the best performance. Conversely, no significant, sequential, and consistent treatment effects were observed on hemato-biochemical constituents in broiler chickens. It is therefore, concluded that the efficacy of this local phytase was flourished in respective to mucosal IgA contents and live body weights of broilers

Chitosan for Plant Growth Promotion and Disease Suppression against Anthracnose in Chilli

Chitosan is naturally occurring compound potentially used in sustainable agriculture to control plant diseases and enhance growth. An attempt was made to control anthracnose or ripen fruit rot of chilli caused by Colletotrichum capsici in the field under inoculated condition and to increase the growth and yield of chilli by different concentrations of chitosan as seed treatment and foliar application methods. C. capsici isolate “So” was found to be the most virulent against chilli at the time of pathogenicity test. Chitosan at 1% concentration was found to be most effective against the radial growth of C. capsici. Subsequently, seed treatment or foliar spray was done with C. capsici spore suspension (5×106 ml-1) and different concentrations of chitosan as per requirement of the treatments. Anthracnose or ripen fruit rot of chilli and post-harvest disease incidence (DI) and percent disease index (PDI) were significantly lowest in the treatment T8, where seeds were treated with 1% chitosan combination with foliar spray of chitosan (0.5%) in pathogen inoculated condition. On the contrary, anthracnose or ripen fruit rot of chilli and post-harvest DI and PDI were significantly highest in the treatment T1, where seeds were treated with C. capsici. Germination percentage, growth promoting components, yield and thousand seed weight (TSW) were also highest in treatment T8 compared to all other treatments. As a result, the combined use of chitosan as seed treatment (1%) and foliar spray (0.5%) appeared to be most effective in controlling anthracnose of chilli and increased yield and yield contributing characters

Impact of sequence variation in the ul128 locus on production of human cytomegalovirus in fibroblast and epithelial cells

The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) virion envelope contains a complex consisting of glycoproteins gH and gL plus proteins encoded by the UL128 locus (UL128L): pUL128, pUL130, and pUL131A. UL128L is necessary for efficient infection of myeloid, epithelial, and endothelial cells but limits replication in fibroblasts. Consequently, disrupting mutations in UL128L are rapidly selected when clinical isolates are cultured in fibroblasts. In contrast, bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC)-cloned strains TB40-BAC4, FIX, and TR do not contain overt disruptions in UL128L, yet no virus reconstituted from them has been reported to acquire mutations in UL128L in vitro. We performed BAC mutagenesis and reconstitution experiments to test the hypothesis that these strains contain subtle mutations in UL128L that were acquired during passage prior to BAC cloning. Compared to strain Merlin containing wild-type UL128L, all three strains produced higher yields of cell-free virus. Moreover, TB40-BAC4 and FIX spread cell to cell more rapidly than wild-type Merlin in fibroblasts but more slowly in epithelial cells. The differential growth properties of TB40-BAC4 and FIX (but not TR) were mapped to single-nucleotide substitutions in UL128L. The substitution in TB40-BAC4 reduced the splicing efficiency of UL128, and that in FIX resulted in an amino acid substitution in UL130. Introduction of these substitutions into Merlin dramatically increased yields of cell-free virus and increased cell-to-cell spread in fibroblasts but reduced the abundance of pUL128 in the virion and the efficiency of epithelial cell infection. These substitutions appear to represent mutations in UL128L that permit virus to be propagated in fibroblasts while retaining epithelial cell tropism

The burden of diabetes mellitus during pregnancy in low- and middle-income countries : a systematic review

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Efficient Cell Phone Keypad Designing for Bangla SMS Using English Alphabets

Mobile phone networks are increasingly supporting the transmission of textual message between individuals. In this paper we have introduced a new approach that will enhance the speed of typing process in Bangla by using English mobile keypad. An example of making Bangla sentences using English keypad could be “Ami valo achiâ€. Traditional cell phone keypad is not suitable for Bangla typing using English alphabets and number of key pressing is high to make such Bangla SMS (Short Message Service). The proposed approach has been explored to speed up the typing process in Bangla using English alphabets. The alphabets are rearranged according to the priority of frequencies. The frequency of alphabet is appeared by most used letter in SMS. The letters which are mostly used are recognized as higher frequency. The proposed design consumes less time for typing Bangla SMS using English letter format. Keywords: Mobile keypad, unitap, multitap, Bangla SMS, frequency