A Novel Variant Of Regenerating Iα Gene (REG) In Type II Diabetics Among Pakistani Targeted Population

Abstract Objective: Regeneration of pancreatic β-cells, is an essential step towards diabetes management. The regenerating (REG) Iα gene is secreted from damaged β-cell for the synthesis of β-cell. This study aimed to identify REG Iα gene polymorphisms and their association with Type II diabetes (T2DM). Methods: Patients (110) with T2DM and age-related controls were selected from PNS Shifa Hospital, Karachi. DNA was extracted PCR was performed and amplified products were sequenced to identify polymorphisms. For six exons of the REG 1a gene, 6 sets of primers were designed. The selected (51) samples were amplified and sequenced for 306 (51x6) times. Odds ratios were calculated through logistic regression analysis. The correlation was used to find an association between REG Iα and diseases. p< 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Blood samples were drawn from 90 finalized patients, including 70 diabetics and 20 controls with an M: F ratio of 12:8. Twenty patients opted to withdraw. The REG Iα and disease duration in type II diabetics showed a negative correlation (r= -0.355, p=0.005). The single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of eight sites were detected: g.-385T>C, g.-243T>G, g.-145G>A, g.+142A, g.+209G>T, g.+226A>G, g.+2199G>A, g.+2360A>G.  The novel SNP g.-145G>A was found in all patients (controls, T2DM). Among all SNPs, only g.+209G>T showed a positive association (OR= 2.4, p=0.01) with T2DM. Whereas, g.-243T>G showed a positive association (OR=8.06, p=0.0003) with smoking. Conclusion: A novel variant g.-145G>A REG Iα gene was found among all participants. The SNPs g.+209G>T had a significant positive association with T2DM and SNP g.-243T>G showed an increased risk of the disease among smokers

Synthesis and characterization of some new Schiff base derivatives of gabapentin, and assessment of their antibacterial, antioxidant and anticonvulsant activities

Purpose: To synthesize and characterize some new gabapentin Schiff base derivatives, and to assess their antibacterial, antioxidant and antiepileptic activities.Methods: Four Schiff base derivatives of gabapentin, termed G1, G2, G3 and G4, were synthesized by condensation with benzoin, vanillin, acetophenone, and benzophenone, respectively. Their chemical identities were established by FTIR, 1 H NMR and 13C NMR techniques. The new compounds were screened for antibacterial activity using agar well method, antioxidant activity by DPPH assay, and anticonvulsant activity against pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) induced seizures in mice.Results: All the compounds showed antibacterial activity against the test strains to variable degrees, while the parent drug did not exhibit antibacterial activity. The zones of inhibition of compound G2 against Micrococcus luteus (36.2 ± 1.0 mm) and Serratia marcescens (28.2 ± 1.0 mm), and of compound G4 against Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (36.8 ± 1.0 mm) were larger compared to thestandard drug, doxycycline, exhibiting zones of inhibition 28.2 ± 1.3, 28.2 ± 0.9 and 20.0 ± 0.9 mm, respectively. In addition, compounds G1 and G2 possessed significantly greater (p < 0.05) radical scavenging activity (82.3 ± 1.8 and 92.3 ± 2.2 %, respectively) than the precursor drug, gabapentin (63.2± 2.6 %). The seizure scores for compounds G1 (0.7 ± 0.06) and G2 (0.9 ± 0.07) were comparable(p ˃ 0.05) with gabapentin (0.8 ± 0.06), while compounds G3 and G4 were less active (p < 0.05) than gabapentin.Conclusion: Compounds G1 and G2 exhibit good antibacterial and antioxidant activities while retaining the anticonvulsant activity of the parent drug, gabapentin, thus making them suitable candidates for further development for the treatment of neurodegenerative pathologies associated with bacterial infections. Keywords: Gabapentin, Antibacterial, Seizures, Antioxidant, Anticonvulsan

Caries Spine: A Comparative Study between Medical Management Alone with Combined Medical and Surgical Management

Objective:  To compare short term outcome of combined surgical and medical management versus medical management alone in caries spine.Material and Methods:  This study was conducted from August 2015 to August 2018, on 68 patients randomly divided into two groups of 34 each. All were diagnosed cases of Caries spine based on history, clinical examination, ESR and imaging appearances. Group A underwent surgical intervention along with Anti-Tuberculous Treatment (ATT) while Group B received medical treatment (ATT) alone.  Results:  There were 37 (54.41%) males and 31 (45.59%) females with mean age of 34.84 ± 10.6 years. The thoracic spine was the commonest site in 33 (48.5%) patients, followed by lumbar in 20 (20.8%), dorso-lumbar in seven (10.3%) and cervical in four (5.88%) patients. The ESR fell from 85mm/hr to 24.46mm/hr in Group A and to 41.92mm/hr in Group B (p = 0.0124). Overall improvement in Frankel grade was seen in 25 (73.5%) patients in Group A and 12 (35.3%) in group B. In group A, improvement seen from grade A in two (8%), grade B in three (12%), grade C in 12(48%), Grade D in seven (28%) patients, (p = 0.000) while eight (23.5%) patients remained same and only one (2.5%) deteriorated from baseline neurological status. In Group B, 16 (47%) patients remained same and six (17.6%) deteriorated. Conclusion:  Surgery combined with antituberculous therapy was found to be beneficial in patients suffering from caries spine and to be recommended to patients desiring rapid recover

Detecting High-Risk Factors and Early Diagnosis of Diabetes Using Machine Learning Methods

Diabetes is a chronic disease that can cause several forms of chronic damage to the human body, including heart problems, kidney failure, depression, eye damage, and nerve damage. There are several risk factors involved in causing this disease, with some of the most common being obesity, age, insulin resistance, and hypertension. Therefore, early detection of these risk factors is vital in helping patients reverse diabetes from the early stage to live healthy lives. Machine learning (ML) is a useful tool that can easily detect diabetes from several risk factors and, based on the findings, provide a decision-based model that can help in diagnosing the disease. This study aims to detect the risk factors of diabetes using ML methods and to provide a decision support system for medical practitioners that can help them in diagnosing diabetes. Moreover, besides various other preprocessing steps, this study has used the synthetic minority over-sampling technique integrated with the edited nearest neighbor (SMOTE-ENN) method for balancing the BRFSS dataset. The SMOTE-ENN is a more powerful method than the individual SMOTE method. Several ML methods were applied to the processed BRFSS dataset and built prediction models for detecting the risk factors that can help in diagnosing diabetes patients in the early stage. The prediction models were evaluated using various measures that show the high performance of the models. The experimental results show the reliability of the proposed models, demonstrating that k-nearest neighbor (KNN) outperformed other methods with an accuracy of 98.38%, sensitivity, specificity, and ROC/AUC score of 98%. Moreover, compared with the existing state-of-the-art methods, the results confirm the efficacy of the proposed models in terms of accuracy and other evaluation measures. The use of SMOTE-ENN is more beneficial for balancing the dataset to build more accurate prediction models. This was the main reason it was possible to achieve models more accurate than the existing ones

Withering timings affect the total free amino acids and mineral contents of tea leaves during black tea manufacturing

AbstractThe aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of withering timings (i.e. 0, 21, 22, 23 and 24h) on the moisture, total free amino acids, ash, essential and toxic mineral element contents of tea (Camellia sinensis L.) leaves during black tea manufacturing. Moisture, ash, Na, P, Mg, Cu, Zn, Mn, Al, Ni and Pb contents were significantly (P<0.05) affected by withering, whereas non-significant (P>0.05) results were noted for total free amino acids, K, Fe and Cd contents. The highest moisture content (76.4%) was examined in fresh leaves that progressively decreased to 63.8% in 24h withering. Total free amino acid contents gradually increased up to 23h and then decreased. Ash, P, Cu, Zn and Mn contents showed an increasing trend with withering time. Conversely, significantly lowered amounts of Na (162.5mg/kg) and Mg (803mg/kg) were recorded in tea leaves after 24h withering. Among the toxic elements, Al, Ni and Pb contents were progressively increased over withering time. It was concluded that tea is a potential source of essential chemical constituents and during processing proper care should be taken to produce high quality black tea

Motion synchronization for the SHA/EMA hybrid actuation system by using an optimization algorithm

The current research develops a mathematical model and control strategies to address two major problems force fighting and precise position tracking for a hybrid actuation system composed of servo-hydraulic actuator and electro-mechanical actuator (SHA/EMA). The force fighting and desired position tracking are two essential problems of the SHA/EMA actuation system for a large civil aircraft. The trajectory-based fractional order proportional integral derivative (FOPID) control for the SHA/EMA actuation system is proposed, tuned with the help of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique and implemented with the support of the FOMCON toolbox in Matlab. The experiments are performed under different external aerodynamic loads that the aircraft usually experiences during flight operations. The results show that the proposed method shows better results for tracking performance, force fighting and load rejection ability

Impact of duration of therapy on side effect profile of anti-HCV protocol: A retrospective cohort study from two tertiary health facilities in Pakistan

Purpose: To evaluate the plausible risks and adverse effects related to the duration of therapy in hepatitis C (HCV) patients in Lahore, Pakistan.Method: A retrospective observational study involving 250 HCV patients who received combination therapy with ribavirin and interferon was conducted. The patients were segregated into two groups on the basis of duration of therapy (≤ 6 months and &gt; 6 months). Adverse effect profiles of patients under treatment were collected using a pre-validated questionnaire and compared using Pearson’s Chi- Square Test/Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit tests and unpaired t-test.Results: Patients who underwent treatment for ≤ 6 months frequently encountered side-effects such as GIT disturbance (23.77 %) and joint pains (29.63 %). Additionally, diabetes mellitus (27.86 %) and frequent injections (74.59 %) were the most commonly observed co-morbid condition and disease risk, respectively. On the other hand, in patients who underwent therapy for &gt; 6 months, skin disorders (30.46 %) and gastric acidity (10.15 %) were the most frequently observed side-effects with less frequent reporting on co-morbid conditions and disease risk factors. Moreover, there was a significant reduction in body weight (p = 0.03), serum bilirubin (p = 0.0005), albumin (p = 0.003) and triglycerides (p = 0.006) levels due to longer duration of treatment.Conclusion: The data suggest that treatment-related risks are higher among HCV patients on shorter treatment duration whereas adverse events subside in patients on longer duration of therapy (&gt;6 months). Changes in biochemical profile were also more evident in those receiving treatment for periods &gt;6 months.Keywords: Interferon, Ribavirin, Side effects, Duration of therapy, Outcomes of therap

Gas exchange and morpho-physiological response of soybean to straw mulching under drought conditions

A pot experiment was conducted to investigate the morphological, physiological and biochemical straw mulch-induced response of soybean under water-deficit conditions. Soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill) variety “Xidou 7” was treated with varying quantity of wheat straw mulch viz: (control (no straw mulch), 3750, 7500, 11000 and 14750 kg/ha) under water-deficit conditions. The experimental results indicate that the varying quantity of straw mulch significantly improved the plant growth in terms of plant height, leaf area, number of leaves/plant and stem diameter. Mulch treatment also significantly enhanced the photosynthesis (PN), intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci), transpiration rate (E) and stomatal conductance (gs) over the control. The gas exchange parameters were improved depending on the quantity of wheat straw mulch; significantly highPN and E was observed in the treatment where wheat straw was applied at the rate of 11000 kg/ha. Wheat straw mulch treatments led to noticeable reduction in malondialdehyde (MDA) contents, which protected the drought stressed soybean plants from membrane damage. Furthermore, the free proline contents linearly increased with increase in straw mulch quantity. It is evident that wheat straw mulch can considerably modulate growth, photosynthetic and physio-biochemical attributes of soybean under drought. The research will effectively solve seasonal drought problem and can provide technical assistance for sustainable agriculture development.Keywords: Soybean, growth, water-deficit, wheat straw mulchAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(18), pp. 2360-236