Trends in Notifiable Infectious Diseases in China: Implications for Surveillance and Population Health Policy

This study aimed to analyse trends in notifiable infectious diseases in China, in their historical context. Both English and Chinese literature was searched and diseases were categorised according to the type of disease or transmission route. Temporal trends of morbidity and mortality rates were calculated for eight major infectious diseases types. Strong government commitment to public health responses and improvements in quality of life has led to the eradication or containment of a wide range of infectious diseases in China. The overall infectious diseases burden experienced a dramatic drop during 1975–1995, but since then, it reverted and maintained a gradual upward trend to date. Most notifiable diseases are contained at a low endemic level; however, local small-scale outbreaks remain common. Tuberculosis, as a bacterial infection, has re-emerged since the 1990s and has become prevalent in the country. Sexually transmitted infections are in a rapid, exponential growth phase, spreading from core groups to the general population. Together human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), they account for 39% of all death cases due to infectious diseases in China in 2008. Zoonotic infections, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), rabies and influenza, pose constant threats to Chinese residents and remain the most deadly disease type among the infected individuals. Therefore, second-generation surveillance of behavioural risks or vectors associated with pathogen transmission should be scaled up. It is necessary to implement public health interventions that target HIV and relevant coinfections, address transmission associated with highly mobile populations, and reduce the risk of cross-species transmission of zoonotic pathogens

Mechanisms of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) regulation: clinical impacts in cancer

Background Limitless self-renewal is one of the hallmarks of cancer and is attained by telomere maintenance, essentially through telomerase (hTERT) activation. Transcriptional regulation of hTERT is believed to play a major role in telomerase activation in human cancers. Main body The dominant interest in telomerase results from its role in cancer. The role of telomeres and telomere maintenance mechanisms is well established as a major driving force in generating chromosomal and genomic instability. Cancer cells have acquired the ability to overcome their fate of senescence via telomere length maintenance mechanisms, mainly by telomerase activation. hTERT expression is up-regulated in tumors via multiple genetic and epigenetic mechanisms including hTERT amplifications, hTERT structural variants, hTERT promoter mutations and epigenetic modifications through hTERT promoter methylation. Genetic (hTERT promoter mutations) and epigenetic (hTERT promoter methylation and miRNAs) events were shown to have clinical implications in cancers that depend on hTERT activation. Knowing that telomeres are crucial for cellular self-renewal, the mechanisms responsible for telomere maintenance have a crucial role in cancer diseases and might be important oncological biomarkers. Thus, rather than quantifying TERT expression and its correlation with telomerase activation, the discovery and the assessment of the mechanisms responsible for TERT upregulation offers important information that may be used for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment monitoring in oncology. Furthermore, a better understanding of these mechanisms may promote their translation into effective targeted cancer therapies. Conclusion Herein, we reviewed the underlying mechanisms of hTERT regulation, their role in oncogenesis, and the potential clinical applications in telomerase-dependent cancers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An enigma in the genetic responses of plants to salt stresses

Soil salinity is one of the main factors restricting crop production throughout the world. Various salt tolerance traits and the genes controlling these traits are responsible for coping with salinity stress in plants. These coping mechanisms include osmotic tolerance, ion exclusion, and tissue tolerance. Plants exposed to salinity stress sense the stress conditions, convey specific stimuli signals, and initiate responses against stress through the activation of tolerance mechanisms that include multiple genes and pathways. Advances in our understanding of the genetic responses of plants to salinity and their connections with yield improvement are essential for attaining sustainable agriculture. Although a wide range of studies have been conducted that demonstrate genetic variations in response to salinity stress, numerous questions need to be answered to fully understand plant tolerance to salt stress. This chapter provides an overview of previous studies on the genetic control of salinity stress in plants, including signaling, tolerance mechanisms, and the genes, pathways, and epigenetic regulators necessary for plant salinity tolerance