Membrane-bound β-catenin degradation is enhanced by ETS2-mediated Siah1 induction in Helicobacter pylori-infected gastric cancer cells.

β-catenin has two different cellular functions: intercellular adhesion and transcriptional activity. The E3 ubiquitin ligase Siah1 causes ubiquitin-mediated degradation of the cytosolic β-catenin and therefore, impairs nuclear translocation and oncogenic function of β-catenin. However, the effect of Siah1 on the cell membrane bound β-catenin has not been studied. In this study, we identified that the carcinogenic bacterium H. pylori increased ETS2 transcription factor-mediated Siah1 protein expression in gastric cancer cells (GCCs) MKN45, AGS and Kato III. Siah1 protein level was also noticeably higher in gastric adenocarcinoma biopsy samples as compared to non-cancerous gastric epithelia. Siah1 knockdown significantly decreased invasiveness and migration of H. pylori-infected GCCs. Although, Siah1 could not increase degradation of the cytosolic β-catenin and its nuclear translocation, it enhanced degradation of the membrane-bound β-catenin in the infected GCCs. This loss of membrane-bound pool of β-catenin was not associated with the proteasomal degradation of E-cadherin. Thus, this work delineated the role of Siah1 in increasing invasiveness of H. pylori-infected GCCs

Diamond electro-optomechanical resonators integrated in nanophotonic circuits

Diamond integrated photonic devices are promising candidates for emerging applications in nanophotonics and quantum optics. Here we demonstrate active modulation of diamond nanophotonic circuits by exploiting mechanical degrees of freedom in free-standing diamond electro-optomechanical resonators. We obtain high quality factors up to 9600, allowing us to read out the driven nanomechanical response with integrated optical interferometers with high sensitivity. We are able to excite higher order mechanical modes up to 115 MHz and observe the nanomechanical response also under ambient conditions.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Heat and mass transfer on MHD flow through a porous medium over a stretching surface with heat source

An attempt has been made to study the heat and mass transfer effect on the flow over a stretching sheet in the presence of a heat source. The novelty of the present study is to consider the span wise variation of magnetic field strength, heat source and heat flux. It is also considered the effect of viscous dissipation. The method of solution involves similarity transformation which leads to an exact solution of velocity field. The coupled non-linear and non homogeneous heat equation has been solved by applying Kummer’s function. The non-homogeneity of the heat equation is contributed by the consideration of viscous dissipative energy. KYEWORDS: Heat source, Viscous dissipation, Porous medium, Kummer’s function

arrayMap 2014: an updated cancer genome resource.

Somatic copy number aberrations (CNA) represent a mutation type encountered in the majority of cancer genomes. Here, we present the 2014 edition of arrayMap (http://www.arraymap.org), a publicly accessible collection of pre-processed oncogenomic array data sets and CNA profiles, representing a vast range of human malignancies. Since the initial release, we have enhanced this resource both in content and especially with regard to data mining support. The 2014 release of arrayMap contains more than 64,000 genomic array data sets, representing about 250 tumor diagnoses. Data sets included in arrayMap have been assembled from public repositories as well as additional resources, and integrated by applying custom processing pipelines. Online tools have been upgraded for a more flexible array data visualization, including options for processing user provided, non-public data sets. Data integration has been improved by mapping to multiple editions of the human reference genome, with the majority of the data now being available for the UCSC hg18 as well as GRCh37 versions. The large amount of tumor CNA data in arrayMap can be freely downloaded by users to promote data mining projects, and to explore special events such as chromothripsis-like genome patterns

Prevalence and identification of Candida sp. in pregnant women using VITEK-2

Background: Candida sp. is seen in several areas of body such as, mouth, groin area including vagina and digestive tract as thrush or gastroenteritis. The slide-culture technique and the VITEK-2 automated system were used for species-identification of the fungus; nonetheless, a gold standard or any first identification method would have inherent errors in arriving at a correct identification of a microorganism at species level.Methods: Morphological fungal criteria were ascertained with germ tubes, glucose agar, sugar fermentation and sugar assimilation tests Candida from vaginal swabs and other clinical samples of 85 infected pregnant women with diabetes, by growing swab lots on Sabouraud’s Dextrose Agar (SDA) plates, the slide culture technique and the VITEK-2 automated system.Results: Of 85 patients, 122 isolates in SDA culture were determined as 7 Candida sp.  with number of isolates of each species, as follows: 47 C. albicans, 9 C. famata, 11 C. glabrata, 13 C. guilliermondii, 8 C. krusei, 3 C. parapsilosis and 37 C. tropicalis from vaginal swabs. From 60 vaginal swabs, 46 urine samples and 12 throat swabs it was seen that C. albicans was most prevalent. However, withVITEK-2, 201 fungal strains were identified; Candida sp. was isolated in all samples: 59 C. albicans, 19 C. famata, 21 C. glabrata, 23 C. guilliermondii,18 C. krusei, 13 C. parapsilosis and 48 C. tropicalis.Conclusions: The most prevalent species among the isolated fungi was C. albicans, causing VC in diabetic pregnant women

New limit for the half-life of double beta decay of 94^{94}Zr to the first excited state of 94^{94}Mo

Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay is a phenomenon of fundamental interest in particle physics. The decay rates of double beta decay transitions to the excited states can provide input for Nuclear Transition Matrix Element calculations for the relevant two neutrino double beta decay process. It can be useful as supplementary information for the calculation of Nuclear Transition Matrix Element for the neutrinoless double beta decay process. In the present work, double beta decay of $^{94}$Zr to the $2^{+}_{1}$ excited state of $^{94}$Mo at 871.1 keV is studied using a low background $\sim$ 230 cm$^3$ HPGe detector. No evidence of this decay was found with a 232 g.y exposure of natural Zirconium. The lower half-life limit obtained for the double beta decay of $\rm^{94}Zr$ to the $2^{+}_{1}$ excited state of $\rm^{94}Mo$ is $T_{1/2} (0\nu + 2\nu)> 3.4 \times 10^{19}$ y at 90% C.L., an improvement by a factor of $\sim$ 4 over the existing experimental limit at 90\% C.L. The sensitivity is estimated to be $T_{1/2} (0\nu + 2\nu) > 2.0\times10^{19}$ y at 90% C.L. using the Feldman-Cousins method.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, Accepted in Eur. Phys. J.

Drug utilization pattern of antimicrobials in intensive care unit of a tertiary care teaching hospital

Background: The intensive care unit is a setting where the multiple medications are prescribed to patients. Antimicrobials are heavily prescribed in the ICUs, which in turn enhance the risk of antimicrobial resistance, increase the side effects and increases the cost of treatment. Drug utilization study is a component of medical auditing that aims to monitor and evaluate the drug prescription patterns and to suggest necessary modifications in the prescribing practices to achieve rational therapeutic practice.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in which data of patients admitted to ICU during the period from June 2019 to August 2019 was collected from the Medical Record Section of the hospital. Drug utilization pattern of antimicrobials in ICU was analyzed.Results: Out of 90 patients, 60 were males and 30 were females. The average duration of stay in ICU was 7.53 days. The most common antibiotic prescribed was ceftriaxone followed by piperacillin and tazobactam with DDD/100 bed days of 24.2 and 17.3 respectively.Conclusions: In this study, the results appeared to be similar to those reported in previous studies. However, prescription protocols need to be addressed to guide appropriate use of antimicrobials in the ICU setting. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct drug utilization research to understand the drug consumption and for implementation of protocols to improve the quality of healthcare.