Huntington's disease: An immune perspective

Copyright © 2011 Annapurna Nayaketal. This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Huntington's disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is caused by abnormal expansion of CAG trinucleotide repeats. Neuroinflammation is a typical feature of most neurodegenerative diseases that leads to an array of pathological changes within the affected areas in the brain. The neurodegeneration in HD is also caused by aberrant immune response in the presence of aggregated mutant huntingtin protein. The effects of immune activation in HD nervous system are a relatively unexplored area of research. This paper summarises immunological features associated with development and progression of HD.U. Kishore acknowledges funding via BRIEF and Brunel University’s strategic funding for the Centre of Infection, Immunity and Disease Mechanisms

Activity Guided Isolation and Characterization of Antiplasmodial Agents of some Local medicinal Plants

Combined Plant Mixture (CPM) in ratio of 1:1 (Vitex doniana, Diospyros mesipiliformis, Acacia polyacantha, Parinari macrophylla, Ficus sycomorus and Parkia biglobosa) was extracted with methanol and screened for antimalarial activity. The CPM Methanol extract residue was suspended in water and fractionated with Hexane (HX), Ethylacetate (EA) and n-Butanol (BUT). The Methanolic CPM extract has shows some antimalarial activity with Mean Survival Times (MST) of 10.16 to 12.16 days. All the mice in control group were found dead on 14th day of study and one mice was still alive on 14th day in both the groups with 15% and 30% parasitaemia against Plasmodium yoelli nigeriensis N67 and Plasmodium berghei K173 respectively. The EA fraction was the most active against P. yoelli nigeriensis N67 having 2 mice surviving up to 14th day with 5.5% parasitaemia and MST of 13.4 days. Fractions of water (WT), HX and BUT have 12.5, 25, and 100% (dead) parasitaemia with mean survival times of 12.6, 9.33 and 8.5 days against 100% (dead) parasitaemia and 8.20 days of MST when compared with control. HX fraction was the most active against P. berghei K173 followed by BUT fraction with one mice surviving up to 14th day without parasitaemia but with MST of 15.0 and 13.5 days respectively. EA and WT fractions have 22.66 and 100% (dead) parasitaemia with mean survival times of 11.80 and 10.80 days respectively. Chromatographic separation of EA fraction of the CPM extract resulted in the isolation of Gallic acid (Figure 2, Fractions 79-83), 3β-OH-α-amyrin (Figure 3, Fractions 45-46), 5,7,3’,4’,5’- pentahydroxy-3-O-glucophyranoside flavones (Figure 4, Fractions 128-157)-[myricetin 3-O-β-rhamnopyranoside], 5,7,3’,4’ tetrahydroxy-3-o-glucopyranoside flavones(Figure 5, Fractions 126-141)-[quercetin 3-O-β-rhamnopyranoside], and 3,5,7,3’,4’-Pentahydroxy flavones (Figure 6, Fractions 87-112)-[quercetine]. The compounds were characterized using ESI-MS, IR, 1H 13C, HMBC/HSQC and COSY-NMR data. These findings suggest that the combined extracts possess antiplasmodial properties.Keywords: Antimalarial, combined plant mixture, 1H 13C NMR, activity guided fractionatio

Plant regeneration through organogenesis and shoot proliferation in Trichodesma indicum (Linn) R. Br. – a medicinal herb

Adhahpuspi (Trichodesma indicum, Family – Boraginaceae) is a cross-pollinated species. Its complete regeneration was accomplished through in vitro techniques. The zygotic embryos placed on MS (Murashige and Skoog) medium fortified either with kinetin, BA (N6-benzyl Aminopurine) or NAA (&#8733-naphthalene acetic acid) produced callus and adventitious shoots; whereas those placed on MS medium supplemented with 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) formed callus. On subculture, thenodal pieces produced axillary shoots that were suitable for further propagule proliferation. Rhizogenesis occurred in 60% micro shoots treated with IBA (indole-3-butyric acid) pulse. The regenerated plants successfully acclimatized and started flowering in green house maintained at 30 ± 2ºC temperature and 70% RH

Local perceptions and adaptation of indigenous communities to climate change: Evidences from High Mountain Pangi valley of Indian Himalayas

58-67The present study was undertaken with aim to understand the perceptions of indigenous communities about climate change pattern and its local impacts on climate variables, seasons, agriculture, biodiversity and adaptive strategies in geographical and technological-isolated Pangi valley situated in Chamba district, Himachal Pradesh. Randomly selected 120 respondents were interviewed and their perceptions were recorded on pre-designed questionnaire. The climate change impacts are experienced in the form of decreased snowfall (98.3%), temperature rise (97.5%), late onset of monsoon (90.8%), decreased rainfall (76.7%), reduced snow-melted water availability (86.7%) and increased drought incidences (85.8%) of over the years. Further, these climatic changes affecting agriculture through early shifts in crop season (80.8%), shorter growing season (91.7%), introduction of fruit and vegetable crops (90.8%), increased incidence of insect-pest (81.2%) and diseases (84.2%) and thereby decline in crop yield (70%). However, majority of the respondents undertaken adaptive strategies such as crop diversification, traditional mixed-cropping, mixed farming, crop rotation and agro-forestry/agro-horticulture systems to cope with climate change but they are either little or unaware of modern farming practices such as snow water/glacier runoff harvesting, agro advisory services, mulching and zero tillage as adaptation strategies

Data Driven Stochastic Game Network-Based Smart Home Monitoring System Using IoT-Enabled Edge Computing Environments

Edge computing plays a crucial role in the processing of Consumer Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled latency-sensitive applications. In smart homes, dynamic action strategies based on multiple IoT objects with edge processing can be the best solution for handling adverse events. To overcome these challenges, the use of Stochastic Game Net (SGN) forming IoT devices as players with predefined action sets is one of the feasible solutions. Relative to this context, the edge-assisted IoT-enabled data-driven SGN model is proposed to handle various events in the smart home environment. Stochastic Petri Nets (SPNs) and game theory are integrated into our proposed model to build data-driven dynamic SGNs for the smart home environment. Dynamic SGNs for a comprehensive smart home system are generated in real-time through transitions based on sensor data, enhancing interoperability and scalability in smart home environments. We use the Net logo tool and state-of-the-art smart home sensor datasets to generate dynamic SGNs for various events. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model within a data-driven smart home environment. It shows that the present work significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art techniques in terms of decision-making at the edge layer. Moreover, using the proposed system the energy efficacy increased to around 39mJ/K nodes, and the average temporal delay for different events was reduced significantly

Himalayan P waves in COPD - A Rare Feature

Himalayan or giant P-waves (amplitude =5 mm) are often known to be classically associated with congenital heart diseases with right to left shunt like tricuspid atresia, Ebstein anomaly, combined tricuspid and pulmonic stenosis, etc, where they indicate a dilated right atrium and tend to be persistent. These type P waves are rarely seen in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and in this condition it may be due to structural right atrial changes or hypoxemia or combination of both. Here we report a case of COPD with Himalayan P waves which is a rare entity

Intra-operative measurement of tumour size in breast cancer and its comparison with other methods: a prospective study

Accurate measurement of breast tumour size determines staging and prognosis. Discrepancies amongst clinical examination (CE), ultrasonography (USG), mammography, pathological examination (PE) and magnetic resonance imaging have been reported. However, few studies have evaluated changes in breast tumour size from the operating table to the laboratory

Linkage analysis for drought tolerance in kharif rice of Assam using microsatellite markers

371-375Drought stress in rainfed ecosystem significantly limits the production of Ranjit, the most predominant high yielding rice variety of Assam. A mapping population comprising 85 F4 individuals between Ranjit and a drought tolerant cultivar, ARC10372 was developed and genotyped with 80 microsatellite markers in order to understand the genetic basis of drought tolerance. The linkage map constructed based on a framework linkage map using these markers showed that the marker loci were distributed across 12 chromosomes spanning a distance of 273.4 cM with an average interval of 3.41 cM between marker loci. Most of the marker loci were found to be in good fit with the expected Mendelian segregation ratio; however, thirteen marker loci in total showed segregation distortion on six chromosomes. The linkage map generated in the study will facilitate mapping of quantitative trait loci imparting drought tolerance in rice of Assam and their map-based cloning