Favorable Changes in Fasting Glucose in a 6-month Self-Monitored Lifestyle Modification Programme Inversely Affects Spexin Levels in Females with Prediabetes

Spexin (SPX) is a novel peptide thought to have a role in various metabolic regulations. Given its presumed body-weight regulatory functions, we aimed to determine whether lifestyle intervention programs on weight loss and fasting glucose (FG) improvement among people with impaired glucose regulation also alter levels of circulating SPX. A total of 160 Saudi adult males and females with prediabetes were randomly selected from a larger cohort (N = 294) who underwent a 6-month lifestyle modification program to improve their glycemic status. Participants were split into two groups based on differences in glucose levels post-intervention, with the first 50% (improved group) having the most significant reduction in FG. SPX was measured at baseline and after 6 months. Changes in SPX was significant only in the improved group [baseline: median (Q1\u2013Q3) of 164 pg/ml (136\u2013227) vs follow-up: 176 pg/ml (146\u2013285); p < 0.01]. When stratified by sex, the significant increase was observed only in females [159 pg/ml (127\u2013252) vs 182.5 (152,369.1); p < 0.01]. Furthermore, SPX levels showed a significant inverse association with FG (\u3b2 = 120.22, p = 0.003) even after adjustment with age and BMI, again only in females. Circulating SPX levels increase over time in people with prediabetes, particularly women who responded favorably in a 6-month lifestyle intervention program. Whether an unknown mechanism regulating the sexual disparity seen in SPX levels post-intervention exists should be further investigated using a larger sample size

In vitro evaluation of electroporated gold nanoparticles and extremely-low frequency electromagnetic field anticancer activity against Hep-2 laryngeal cancer cells

Introduction. The extremely-low frequency electromagnetic field (ELFEMF) has been proposed for use in cancer therapy since it was found that magnetic waves interfere with many biological processes. Gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) have been widely used for drug delivery during cancer in vitro studies due to their low cytotoxity and high biocompatibility. The electroporation of cancer cells in a presence of Au-NPs (EP Au-NPs) can induce cell apoptosis, alterations of cell cycle profile and morphological changes. The impact of ELFEMF and EP Au-NPs on morphology, cell cycle and activation of apoptosis-associated genes on Hep-2 laryngeal cancer cell line has not been studied yet. Materials and methods. ELFEMF on Hep-2 cells were carried out using four different conditions: 25/50 mT at 15/30 min, while Au-NPs were used as direct contact (DC) or with electroporation (EP, 10 pulses at 200V, equal time intervals of 4 sec). MTT assay was used to check the toxicity of DC Au-NPs. Expression of CASP3, P53, BAX and BCL2 genes was quantified using qPCR. Cell cycle was analyzed by flow cytometry. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining was used to observe cell morphology. Results. Calculated IC50 of DC Au-NPs 24.36 μM (4.79 μg/ml) and such concentration was used for further DC and EP AuNPs experiments. The up-regulation of pro-apoptotic genes (CASP3, P53, BAX) and decreased expression of BCL2, respectively, was observed for all analyzed conditions with the highest differences for EP AuNPs and ELFEMF 50 mT/30 min in comparison to control cells. The highest content of cells arrested in G2/M phase was observed in ELFEMF-treated cells for 30 min both at 25 or 50 mT, while the cells treated with EP AuNPs or ELFEMF 50 mT/15 min showed highest ratios of apoptotic cells. HE staining of electroporated cells and cells exposed to ELFEMF’s low and higher frequencies for different times showed nuclear pleomorphic cells. Numerous apoptotic bodies were observed in the irregular cell membrane of neoplastic and necrotic cells with mixed euchromatin and heterochromatin. Conclusions. Our observations indicate that treatment of Hep-2 laryngeal cancer cells with ELFEMF for 30 min at 25–50 mT and EP Au-NPs can cause cell damage inducing apoptosis and cell cycle arrest

International consensus statement on nomenclature and classification of the congenital bicuspid aortic valve and its aortopathy, for clinical, surgical, interventional and research purposes

This International Consensus Classification and Nomenclature for the congenital bicuspid aortic valve condition recognizes 3 types of bicuspid valves: 1. The fused type (right-left cusp fusion, right-non-coronary cusp fusion and left-non-coronary cusp fusion phenotypes); 2. The 2-sinus type (latero-lateral and antero-posterior phenotypes); and 3. The partial-fusion (forme fruste) type. The presence of raphe and the symmetry of the fused type phenotypes are critical aspects to describe. The International Consensus also recognizes 3 types of bicuspid valve-associated aortopathy: 1. The ascending phenotype; 2. The root phenotype; and 3. Extended phenotypes.Cardiolog

New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/'proxy' AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted microglia implication. Gene prioritization in the new loci identified 31 genes that were suggestive of new genetically associated processes, including the tumor necrosis factor alpha pathway through the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex. We also built a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future AD/dementia or progression from mild cognitive impairment to AD/dementia. The improvement in prediction led to a 1.6- to 1.9-fold increase in AD risk from the lowest to the highest decile, in addition to effects of age and the APOE ε4 allele

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

أثر سياسات وبرامج الإصلاح الاقتصادى على محصولى القمح والبرسيم المصرى

The economic reform policies included some programs in the agriculture sector since 1987. These programs have some production and economic impacts especially on wheat and Egyptian clover crops. This study dealt with investigating and measuring these impacts on some economic variables and the economic efficiency indicators for wheat and clover crops. The study depends on secondary date published by ministry of agriculture during the period 1974-2012. This period divided to three stages (1974-1986). (1987-1997) and (1998-2012) using the descriptive statistical analysis methods. The results indicated that meanwhile the economic reform policies and programs increased wheat area by 1011.6%, they decreased clover area by 4.22%, also they increasing the productivity for the two crops by 87.58% and 21.74%, consequently wheal production increased by 293% than before applying the economic reform programs. Self-sufficiency of wheat increased inspire of increasing of the population growth rates. Clover production increased by 16.6% in spite of area decreasing but increasing productivity with rate greater than area decreasing rate resulted in increasing clover production. The results indicated that economic reform policies and programs increased the wheat and clover total revenue by 1331% and 602% respectively, while the 101111 cost increased by 1121% and 501% for tho two crops respectively. These policies increased the net return per faddan for wheat and clover by 1752% and 660%. The total margin per faddan increased by 2111% and 763%, and the ratio between the total revenue and the total cost increased by 17.2% and 16.8%, and the return on invested pound increased by 51.7°,{, and 26.4% for the two crops, respectively. The average production cost per ton reached 555% and 393%, while the net revenue per Ion increased by 984% and 524%, respectively. At least, the economic reformation policies increased the incentive for clover producers by 8.23%, while decreased wheat producers incentives by 13.21%. The study depending on the results recommended the following: Adjusting the agricultural policy and the cropping and consider wheat the most important crop to face the population increase and to decrease the gap between production and consumption. Provide incentives for producers by supporting production inputs or by providing high prices to increase profits. Cultivate new fodder crops instead of clover. Activate the role of the agricultural research station especially seed research stations to produce high yield varieties from wheat and clover crops

Delineation and modeling of seawater intrusion into the Nile Delta Aquifer: A new perspective

A comprehensive conceptual regional model for the Nile Delta aquifer has been composed in terms of the actual perspective of aquifer heterogeneity using all the new field data of drilled quality monitoring points in the Nile Delta aquifer. The study used the recently acquired configuration of the aquifer system which shows that the northern part the quaternary aquifer is devolved into multi-layered aquifer system while in the southern part; the aquifer consist of sand and gravel facies. The numerical modeling uses the finite difference SEAWAT program. The model is calibrated, both in terms of hydraulic heads and salt concentration, for the 2013 field data. The calibrated model is validated for the period 2013⿿2015. The model water balance reveals that seawater intrusion into the aquifer takes place at shallow to medium depths (up to 400 m), whereas groundwater fluxes in the deeper layers are moving toward the sea. The majority of the fluxes toward the sea help retaining old brine water in the deep zones and thus preventing seawater intrusion in these deep layers of the aquifer. This emphasizes the conclusion that the Nile Delta aquifer is not losing fresh groundwater flux to the sea. The study has achieved reliable necessary baseline simulation modeling and delineation of fresh/saline water interfaces as basis for decision-making and future management scenarios for controlled development of groundwater in the Nile Delta coastal aquifer. Keywords: Nile Delta aquifer, Sea water intrusion modeling, SEAWAT, Aquifer heterogeneity, Multi-layered aquifer syste