Spinal myxomas: review of a rare entity.

Intramuscular myxomas are rare, benign mesenchymal tumours, occurring predominantly in large skeletal muscles as large, slow-growing and painless masses. Spinal occurrence is rare, and may present incidentally, or diagnosed via localized symptoms secondary to local infiltration of surrounding structures. Differential diagnosis based on imaging includes sarcomas, meningiomas and lipomas. We discuss two contrasting cases presenting with well-circumscribed cystic paraspinal lesions indicative of an infiltrative tumour and discuss the radiological and histological differences that distinguish myxomas from similar tumours. Surgical resection of the tumour was performed in both cases, however one patient required surgical fixation due to bony erosion secondary to tumour infiltration. Immuno-histopathological analysis confirmed the diagnosis of a cellular myxoma. Follow up imaging at 6 months confirmed no symptomatic or tumour recurrence in both cases. Histological analysis is the definitive means for diagnosis to differentiate myxomas from other tumours. Recurrence is rare if full resection is achieved

Analysis of Population Structure and Genetic Diversity in Rice Germplasm Using SSR Markers: An Initiative Towards Association Mapping of Agronomic Traits in Oryza Sativa

Background Genetic diversity is the main source of variability in any crop improvement program. It serves as a reservoir for identifying superior alleles controlling key agronomic and quality traits through allele mining/association mapping. Association mapping based on LD (Linkage dis-equilibrium), non-random associations between causative loci and phenotype in natural population is highly useful in dissecting out genetic basis of complex traits. For any successful association mapping program, understanding the population structure and assessing the kinship relatedness is essential before making correlation between superior alleles and traits. The present study was aimed at evaluating the genetic variation and population structure in a collection of 192 rice germplasm lines including local landraces, improved varieties and exotic lines from diverse origin. Results A set of 192 diverse rice germplasm lines were genotyped using 61 genome wide SSR markers to assess the molecular genetic diversity and genetic relatedness. Genotyping of 192 rice lines using 61 SSRs produced a total of 205 alleles with the PIC value of 0.756. Population structure analysis using model based and distance based approaches revealed that the germplasm lines were grouped into two distinct subgroups. AMOVA analysis has explained that 14 % of variation was due to difference between with the remaining 86 % variation may be attributed by difference within groups. Conclusions Based on these above analysis viz., population structure and genetic relatedness, a core collection of 150 rice germplasm lines were assembled as an association mapping panel for establishing marker trait associations

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Lung Cancer: Underlying Pathophysiology and New Therapeutic Modalities

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer are major lung diseases affecting millions worldwide. Both diseases have links to cigarette smoking and exert a considerable societal burden. People suffering from COPD are at higher risk of developing lung cancer than those without, and are more susceptible to poor outcomes after diagnosis and treatment. Lung cancer and COPD are closely associated, possibly sharing common traits such as an underlying genetic predisposition, epithelial and endothelial cell plasticity, dysfunctional inflammatory mechanisms including the deposition of excessive extracellular matrix, angiogenesis, susceptibility to DNA damage and cellular mutagenesis. In fact, COPD could be the driving factor for lung cancer, providing a conducive environment that propagates its evolution. In the early stages of smoking, body defences provide a combative immune/oxidative response and DNA repair mechanisms are likely to subdue these changes to a certain extent; however, in patients with COPD with lung cancer the consequences could be devastating, potentially contributing to slower postoperative recovery after lung resection and increased resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Vital to the development of new-targeted therapies is an in-depth understanding of various molecular mechanisms that are associated with both pathologies. In this comprehensive review, we provide a detailed overview of possible underlying factors that link COPD and lung cancer, and current therapeutic advances from both human and preclinical animal models that can effectively mitigate this unholy relationship

Effect of different growth parameters on chitinase enzyme activity

The degradation of chitin is mediated primarily by bacterial chitinases. Bacteria produce several chitinases, probably to hydrolyze the diversity of chitins found in nature. Chitinases have shown numerous applications in waste treatment and management of shellfish processing industries. Therefore, in the present study, an attempt was made to optimize chitinase production by one of the shrimp’s gut mutant bacterial flora, Pseudomonas alcaligenes. Optimization of culture conditions revealed that the enzyme production was maximum in pH 7.5 (107.4 ± 0.50 U/ml), temperature 35°C (103.15 ± 1.74 U/ml) when the carbon and the nitrogen sources used were CMC (106.0 ± 1.89 U/ml) and KNO3 (91.2 ± 1.51 U/ml), respectively. The total chitinase production for all optimum conditions is 105.07 ± 1.33 U/ml.Keywords: Chitinase, shrimp gut, mutant, Pseudomonas alcaligenes, optimization conditionAfrican Journal of Biotechnology, Vol 13(23) 2336-234

A simplified elliptical function solution for coupled nonlinear vibration of multilayer graphene sheets

This paper presents a simple exact solution for coupled nonlinear free vibration analysis of Multilayer Graphene Sheets (MLGS) using elliptical functions. Though elliptical functions are used in nonlinear dynamics, they are employed to find the exact solution of a coupled system for the first time. The nonlinear dynamic equation including geometric nonlinearity and Eringen nonlocal theory is uncoupled by elliptical functions, and exact solutions for simply supported boundary conditions are obtained. The results are compared with the harmonic balance method. The nonlinear frequency of MLGS is studied for its effects with a small scale parameter, and the linear and nonlinear van der Waals force