Genome-wide association study for type 2 diabetes in Indians identifies a new susceptibility locus at 2q21.

Indians undergoing socioeconomic and lifestyle transitions will be maximally affected by epidemic of type 2 diabetes (T2D). We conducted a two-stage genome-wide association study of T2D in 12,535 Indians, a less explored but high-risk group. We identified a new type 2 diabetes-associated locus at 2q21, with the lead signal being rs6723108 (odds ratio 1.31; P = 3.32 × 10⁻⁹). Imputation analysis refined the signal to rs998451 (odds ratio 1.56; P = 6.3 × 10⁻¹²) within TMEM163 that encodes a probable vesicular transporter in nerve terminals. TMEM163 variants also showed association with decreased fasting plasma insulin and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance, indicating a plausible effect through impaired insulin secretion. The 2q21 region also harbors RAB3GAP1 and ACMSD; those are involved in neurologic disorders. Forty-nine of 56 previously reported signals showed consistency in direction with similar effect sizes in Indians and previous studies, and 25 of them were also associated (P < 0.05). Known loci and the newly identified 2q21 locus altogether explained 7.65% variance in the risk of T2D in Indians. Our study suggests that common susceptibility variants for T2D are largely the same across populations, but also reveals a population-specific locus and provides further insights into genetic architecture and etiology of T2D

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THEIR SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CORRELATES: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY FROM VARANASI

Research question: What is the nutritional status of primary school children in rural area of Varanasi and what factors are associated with malnutrition? Objective: To assess the nutritional status of primary school children in rural Varanasi and to find out various socio-demographic correlates of nutritional status. Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional study. Setting: Four primary schools from Chiraigaon Community Development Block of Varanasi were selected for study purpose. Participants: Eight hundred and sixteen students from four schools were involved in the study. Results: Out of total 816 study subjects 429 or 52.6% (201 boys and 228 girls) were underweight and 75 or 9.2% (39 boys and 36 girls) were stunted. Educational status of the parents was found to be significantly associated with the nutritional status of school children Conclusion: As the literacy status of the parents has been revealed to be strongly associated with nutritional status of children, there is an increasing need to focus the efforts towards the parents to improve the nutritional status of primary school children

NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF RURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THEIR SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CORRELATES: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY FROM VARANASI

Research question: What is the nutritional status of primary school children in rural area of Varanasi and what factors are associated with malnutrition? Objective: To assess the nutritional status of primary school children in rural Varanasi and to find out various socio-demographic correlates of nutritional status. Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional study. Setting: Four primary schools from Chiraigaon Community Development Block of Varanasi were selected for study purpose. Participants: Eight hundred and sixteen students from four schools were involved in the study. Results: Out of total 816 study subjects 429 or 52.6% (201 boys and 228 girls) were underweight and 75 or 9.2% (39 boys and 36 girls) were stunted. Educational status of the parents was found to be significantly associated with the nutritional status of school children Conclusion: As the literacy status of the parents has been revealed to be strongly associated with nutritional status of children, there is an increasing need to focus the efforts towards the parents to improve the nutritional status of primary school children

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Not AvailableWorldwide, global databases on fishes lack fish diversity information at regional scale of a country, which hasfascinated many fishery workers to know the regional scale fish diversity. Databases are essential part of thebiodiversity science and have been used widely in the biological research. The present study discusses development,services and utility of the database application (UPFBase) providing information on the freshwater fish biodiversityof Uttar Pradesh. To develop UPFBase, data on the fish biodiversity of this region was compiled from differentsources that include primary data generated from different projects and secondary data from published literatures.The collected data were screened and then digitized. Microsoft ACCESS relational database and Visual Basiclanguage technologies were used for designing and implementing the standalone database application with the datamanagement capability. Presently, UPFBase provides taxonomy, synonyms, local name, common name, morphology,biology, distribution, habitat, economic importance, conservation status and other fishery information on 129 fishesbelonging to 11 orders and 27 families. UPFBase is user friendly and provides ease in working through search,query and action command button tools. It can easily be deployed on the mobile storages devices like CD-ROM,Pen drive, PCMCIA etc and can be installed on any Windows based Intel x86 machines. This version of UPFBasewas built for countries, where computational hardware and software resources are in scare and it is expected that itmight play imperious role in knowing and managing the indigenous fish diversity for decision making and posterity.Not Availabl

Levels of interleukins 2, 6, 8, and 10 in patients with irritable bowel syndrome

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) was previously considered as a psychosomatic disorder. But recent studies indicate that inflammation plays a significant role. The present study was undertaken to evaluate role of pro-inflammatory (IL 2, IL 6 and IL 8) and anti-inflammatory (IL 10) cytokines in clinically diagnosed patients of IBS. 51 patients and 29 controls were included in this study. On the basis of history of gastrointestinal infection, patients were divided into Post Infectious (PIIBS) and Non Post Infectious (NPIIBS) groups. All subsequently underwent colonoscopy and a rectosigmoid biopsy as well as measurement of levels of IL 2, 6, 8 and 10. The levels of IL 2 and IL 8 were significantly raised in IBS patients compared to controls with the mean level of IL 2,6 and 8 higher in PIIBS group than NPIIBS group but statistically significant for IL 8 only. The mean level IL-10 was reduced in patients compared to controls but statistically insignificant. Present study shows that Interleukin levels are altered in patients suffering from IBS and may have a key role in its pathogenesis

Morbidity pattern and their socio-demographic co-relates among rural primary school children in eastern Uttar Pradesh: A cross-sectional study

Research question: What is the morbidity pattern among primary school children in rural area of Varanasi and what their socio-demographic co-relates are? Objective: To study the morbidity pattern among of primary school children in rural Varanasi and to find out various socio-demographic correlates associated with morbidity. Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional study. Setting: Four primary schools from Chiraigaon Community Development Block of Varanasi were selected for study purpose. Participants: Eight hundred and sixteen students from four schools were included in the study by total enumeration of the students present on the day of survey. Results: The present cross-sectional study revealed overall more prevalence of morbidity among female students (86.1%) as compared to their male counterparts (84.4%). Children belonging to scheduled caste, socio-economic status class IV, those whose parents were illiterate and those belonging to joint family had higher prevalence of any morbidity. Caste, socio-economic status, parents’ education and type of family were significantly associated with morbidity among school children. Conclusion:  Prevalence of morbidities was found to be 2.3 morbidities per child (prevalence) and 2.8 morbidities per sick child. Female students suffered more in comparison to their male counterparts. Nutritional deficiencies were most prevalent. Socio-economic status, caste, literacy of parents and type of family had significant association with morbidity

Renal Denervation Helps Preserve the Ejection Fraction by Preserving Endocardial-Endothelial Function during Heart Failure

Renal denervation (RDN) protects against hypertension, hypertrophy, and heart failure (HF); however, it is not clear whether RDN preserves ejection fraction (EF) during heart failure (HFpEF). To test this hypothesis, we simulated a chronic congestive cardiopulmonary heart failure (CHF) phenotype by creating an aorta-vena cava fistula (AVF) in the C57BL/6J wild type (WT) mice. Briefly, there are four ways to create an experimental CHF: (1) myocardial infarction (MI), which is basically ligating the coronary artery by instrumenting and injuring the heart; (2) trans-aortic constriction (TAC) method, which mimics the systematic hypertension, but again constricts the aorta on top of the heart and, in fact, exposes the heart; (3) acquired CHF condition, promoted by dietary factors, diabetes, salt, diet, etc., but is multifactorial in nature; and finally, (4) the AVF, which remains the only one wherein AVF is created ~1 cm below the kidneys in which the aorta and vena cava share the common middle-wall. By creating the AVF fistula, the red blood contents enter the vena cava without an injury to the cardiac tissue. This model mimics or simulates the CHF phenotype, for example, during aging wherein with advancing age, the preload volume keeps increasing beyond the level that the aging heart can pump out due to the weakened cardiac myocytes. Furthermore, this procedure also involves the right ventricle to lung to left ventricle flow, thus creating an ideal condition for congestion. The heart in AVF transitions from preserved to reduced EF (i.e., HFpEF to HFrEF). In fact, there are more models of volume overload, such as the pacing-induced and mitral valve regurgitation, but these are also injurious models in nature. Our laboratory is one of the first laboratories to create and study the AVF phenotype in the animals. The RDN was created by treating the cleaned bilateral renal artery. After 6 weeks, blood, heart, and renal samples were analyzed for exosome, cardiac regeneration markers, and the renal cortex proteinases. Cardiac function was analyzed by echocardiogram (ECHO) procedure. The fibrosis was analyzed with a trichrome staining method. The results suggested that there was a robust increase in the exosomes’ level in AVF blood, suggesting a compensatory systemic response during AVF-CHF. During AVF, there was no change in the cardiac eNOS, Wnt1, or β-catenin; however, during RDN, there were robust increases in the levels of eNOS, Wnt1, and β-catenin compared to the sham group. As expected in HFpEF, there was perivascular fibrosis, hypertrophy, and pEF. Interestingly, increased levels of eNOS suggested that despite fibrosis, the NO generation was higher and that it most likely contributed to pEF during HF. The RDN intervention revealed an increase in renal cortical caspase 8 and a decrease in caspase 9. Since caspase 8 is protective and caspase 9 is apoptotic, we suggest that RDN protects against the renal stress and apoptosis. It should be noted that others have demonstrated a role of vascular endothelium in preserving the ejection by cell therapy intervention. In the light of foregoing evidence, our findings also suggest that RDN is cardioprotective during HFpEF via preservation of the eNOS and accompanied endocardial-endothelial function

New biogeographical distribution of fish Glyptothorax conirostris, G. telchitta and G. cavia (Siluriformes: Sisoridae) in northern plain tributaries of the Ganges basin, India

ABSTRACT: Sisorid catfish of the genus Glyptothorax are widely distributed, with as many as 40 nominal species reported from India, where they typically inhabit fast-flowing hill streams and faster flowing stretches of larger rivers and streams. We recorded new biogeographical distribution of three species of Glyptothorax from the tributaries of northern plains in the Ganges basin. The specimens were collected during experimental fishing for biodiversity studies using cast nets (2010-2012). While G. conirostris were collected from the Ganges canal, G. cavia and G. telchitta were captured from the river Gomti. Previous descriptions were based on preserved specimens; we present diagnostic features and an illustrated redescription based on fresh specimens.KEY WORDS: new distribution, Glyptothorax conirostris, G. telchitta, G. cavia, tributary,Ganges basin, IndiaRESUMEN: Los peces bagre del género Glyptothorax se distribuyen ampliamente, con nada menos que 40 especies nominales reportadas en India, donde normalmente habitan en arroyos de montaña con corrientes rápidas y tramos que fluyen más rápido en ríos y arroyos mas grandes. Registramos una nueva distribución biogeográfica de tres especies de Glyptothorax de las afluentes de las llanuras del norte de la cuenca del Ganges. Los especímenes se recolectaron durante la pesca experimental para estudios de biodiversidad con atarraya (2010-2012). Mientras que G. conirostris se capturó en el canal del río Ganges, G. cavia y G. telchitta fueron capturados en el río Gomti. Descripciones anteriores son basadas en especímenes preservados, presentamos características diagnósticas y redescripción ilustrada basada en especímenes frescos.PALABRAS CLAVE: nueva distribución, Glyptothorax conirostris, G. telchitta, G. cavia, cuenca Ganges, Indi