Medicinal Plants of India

Crude extracts of fruits, herbs, vegetables, cereals and other plant materials rich in phenolics and antioxidant activity are of prime interest to the food industry because of their ability to retard oxidative degradation of lipids and hence improve the quality and nutritional value of functional food. Concomitantly, the importance of antioxidant constituents of plant materials in the maintenance of health and protection from coronary heart disease and cancer is also raising interest among scientists, food manufacturers and consumers as part of the current trend towards the use of herbal medicine. In addition, the use of complementary alternative medicine (CAM) by patients suffering from chronic disorders, such as cancers, heart, stroke and immune disorders has been well documented. CAMs are either used on their own (alternative treatments) or in addition to conventional medicine (complementary treatments). CAMs can be grouped into herbal medicines derived from medicinal plants, food supplements that include vitamin preparations, trace elements and other substances such as omega-3 fatty acid

A large genome-wide association study of age-related macular degeneration highlights contributions of rare and common variants

Advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly, with limited therapeutic options. Here we report on a study of >12 million variants, including 163,714 directly genotyped, mostly rare, protein-altering variants. Analyzing 16,144 patients and 17,832 controls, we identify 52 independently associated common and rare variants (P < 5 × 10 -8) distributed across 34 loci. Although wet and dry AMD subtypes exhibit predominantly shared genetics, we identify the first genetic association signal specific to wet AMD, near MMP9 (difference P value = 4.1 × 10 -10). Very rare coding variants (frequency <0.1%) in CFH, CFI and TIMP3 suggest causal roles for these genes, as does a splice variant in SLC16A8. Our results support the hypothesis that rare coding variants can pinpoint causal genes within known genetic loci and illustrate that applying the approach systematically to detect new loci requires extremely large sample sizes. © 2016 Nature America, Inc

A transcriptome-wide association study based on 27 tissues identifies 106 genes potentially relevant for disease pathology in age-related macular degeneration

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for late stage age-related macular degeneration (AMD) have identified 52 independent genetic variants with genome-wide significance at 34 genomic loci. Typically, such an approach rarely results in the identification of functional variants implicating a defined gene in the disease process. We now performed a transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) allowing the prediction of effects of AMD-associated genetic variants on gene expression. The TWAS was based on the genotypes of 16,144 late-stage AMD cases and 17,832 healthy controls, and gene expression was imputed for 27 different human tissues which were obtained from 134 to 421 individuals. A linear regression model including each individuals imputed gene expression data and the respective AMD status identified 106 genes significantly associated to AMD variants in at least one tissue (Q-value < 0.001). Gene enrichment analysis highlighted rather systemic than tissue- or cell-specific processes. Remarkably, 31 of the 106 genes overlapped with significant GWAS signals of other complex traits and diseases, such as neurological or autoimmune conditions. Taken together, our study highlights the fact that expression of genes associated with AMD is not restricted to retinal tissue as could be expected for an eye disease of the posterior pole, but instead is rather ubiquitous suggesting processes underlying AMD pathology to be of systemic nature. © 2020, The Author(s)

Properties of jets in Z boson events from 1.8 TeV p\u304p collisions

We present a study of events with Z bosons and hadronic jets produced in p\uafp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.8 TeV. The data consist of 6708 Z\u2192e+e 12 decays from 106pb 121 of integrated luminosity collected using the CDF detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The Z+ 65n jet cross sections and jet production properties have been measured for n=1 to 4. The data are compared to predictions of leading-order QCD matrix element calculations with added gluon radiation and simulated parton fragmentation

Inclusive jet cross section in p\u304p collisions at 1as = 1.8 TeV

The inclusive jet differential cross section has been measured for jet transverse energies, ET, from 15 to 440 GeV, in the pseudorapidity region 0.1 64|\u3b7| 640.7. The results are based on 19.5pb 121 of data collected by the CDF Collaboration at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. The data are compared with QCD predictions for various sets of parton distribution functions. The cross section for jets with ET>200GeV is significantly higher than current predictions based on O(\u3b13s) perturbative QCD calculations. Various possible explanations for the high- ET excess are discussed

Measurement of the \u3b3 + D*\ub1 cross section in p\u304p collisions at 1as = 1.8 TeV

We have measured the cross section of gamma + D-*+/- production in &lt;(p)over bar p&gt; collisions at root s = 1.8 TeV using the Collider Detector at Fermilab. In this kinematic region, the Compton scattering process (g(c) --&gt; gamma(c)) is expected to dominate and thus provide a direct link to the charm quark density in the proton. From the 45 +/- 18 gamma + D-*+/- candidates in a 16.4 pb(-1) data sample, we have determined the production cross section to be 0.38 +/- 0.15(stat) +/- 0.11(syst) nb for the rapidity range y(D-*+/-) &lt; 1.2 and y(gamma) &lt; 0.9, and for the transverse momentum range p(T)(D-*+/-) &gt; 6 GeV/c and 16 &lt; p(T)(gamma) &lt; 40 GeV/c. The measured cross section is compared to a theoretical prediction