Advancements in Life Sciences (E-Journal, University of the Punjab)
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Dog Coat Colour Genetics: A Review
Get PDFCanis lupus familiaris is one of the most beloved pet species with hundreds of world-wide recognized breeds, which can be differentiated from each other by specific morphological, behavioral and adoptive traits. Morphological characteristics of dog breeds get more attention which can be defined mostly by coat color and its texture, and considered to be incredibly lucrative traits in this valued species. Although the genetic foundation of coat color has been well stated in the literature, but still very little is known about the growth pattern, hair length and curly coat trait genes. Skin pigmentation is determined by eumelanin and pheomelanin switching phenomenon which is under the control of Melanocortin 1 Receptor and Agouti Signaling Protein genes. Genetic variations in the genes involved in pigmentation pathway provide basic understanding of melanocortin physiology and evolutionary adaptation of this trait. So in this review, we highlighted, gathered and comprehend the genetic mutations, associated and likely to be associated variants in the genes involved in the coat color and texture trait along with their phenotypes. Moreover, genetic diversity of other associated genes were also pointed out to understand this phenomena in detail along with their genotypes for better understanding the expression and mode of inheritance of this trait for describing dog breeds with more accuracy.Keywords: Dog breeds; Dog color variants; Dog texture genetics; Dog breed differentiation
Assessing the life quality in a Moroccan population of diabetics by the General Quality of Life Questionnaire SF36
Get PDFBackground: The quality of life assessment reflects the impact of chronic diseases on patients. The objective of our study is to assess the life quality of diabetic patients and to determine the factors that affect it.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2019 in the Hygiene Service of the Sidi-Othmane district (Casablanca) in 526 diabetic patients. Quality of life was estimated using the SF-36 questionnaire to determine factors that affect mental or physical health. We used Pearson's correlation test for continuous variables and ANOVA for discontinuous variables.Results: Our patients have an average of life quality considering PCS and MCS respectively (38.47 ± 9.28; 41.15 ± 10.55). Association analyses showed on the one hand associations between the PCS and the gender (p = 0.0001), professional activity (p = 0.0001), marital status (p = 0.0001) and with chronic complications (p = 0.0001). On the other hand, between physical activity and PCS (p = 0.0001) and with MCS (p = 0.0001), between the level of instruction and the PCS and MCS dimensions respectively (p = 0.0001; p = 0.011) between acute complications and PCS and MCS dimensions respectively (p = 0.0001; p = 0.001). The correlation study showed inverse correlations between PCS and age (p = 0.0001), the diabetes duration (p = 0.0001), HbA1c (p = 0.037), and BMI (p = 0.008), and between MCS, and BMI (p = 0.0001).Conclusion: The presence of one of these factors (female, advanced age, high diabetes duration, complications, and unbalanced diabetes, low level of education, physical inactivity, and professional inactivity) leads to poor life quality.Keywords: Diabetes; Life quality; Physical health; Mental healt
Amino acid consumption and secretion patterns of Staphylococcus aureus following growth in sub-optimal environmental conditions
Get PDFBackground: Staphylococcus aureus is highly associated with nosocomial infections due to its ability to adapt to wide range of environmental parameters. The aim of this study was to evaluate amino acids consumption and secretion by S. aureus at mid-exponential and stationary phases under growth in sub-optimal conditions, including changes in pH, temperature and osmolality.Methods: The consumption and secretion of amino acids were determined by subtracting the original concentrations of the free amino acids in the media from those estimated at both mid-exponential and stationary phases of growth.Results: The analysis revealed that the consumption and secretion profiles were substantially different between cells grown under optimal control conditions, when compared with those exposed to sub-optimal conditions. The analyses of the supernatants harvested at mid-exponential phase revealed that the total consumption of amino acids was increased by 1.2 and 1.7 times by cells grown at either pH 6 or 8 and 35°C with additional of 5 % NaCl, respectively. However, the final levels of amino acids consumed at stationary phase were significantly reduced in the cells grown in sub-optimal conditions compared with bacteria cells grown under optimal conditions.Conclusion: It was evident that various environmental conditions led to differential profiles of amino acid consumption and secretion.Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus; Amino acid metabolism; Stress response
Alternative approaches for the treatment of Asthma and COPD: Focus on Cell-based therapies, Epigenetics, and Gene silencing approaches
Get PDFDespite many organized health initiatives and critically acclaimed guidelines for proper management of asthma therapy, there is still a large population of severe asthmatics having an uncontrolled disease. Severe persistent asthma, characterized by chronic airway inflammation, increased eosinophils and serum IgE is currently managed by using inhaled corticosteroids. It is quite challenging to get the best treatment guidelines for bronchial asthma in severe asthmatics, particularly in the presence of steroid resistance and the non-responsiveness to β-agonists. For that purpose, other methodologies are required to reverse the uncontrolled airway remodeling in steroid-resistant severe asthma. These advanced alternative approaches should be able to treat asthma symptoms and to improve the inflammatory conditions underlying characteristic pathological features of asthma. The current review focuses and summarizes the alternative approaches used in severe asthma patients. Agents targeting inflammatory cytokines, phosphodiesterase inhibitors, antibodies, oligonucleotides, stem cells, and target drug delivery using gene silencing, offer promise in treating severe asthma.Keywords: Asthma; COPD; Therapies; Epigenetics; Gene silencin
Prevalence of MRSA colonization among healthcare-workers and effectiveness of decolonization regimen in ICU of a Tertiary care Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan
Get PDFBackground: The objectives of this study were to evaluate the prevalence of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in the nasal cavity and to determine the effectiveness of decolonization regimen among health care workers working in the Intensive care unit (ICU) at a Tertiary care hospital in Lahore, Pakistan.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out during the period of June, 2018 to August, 2018. A total of 46 healthcare workers were screened to see the prevalence of MRSA in the nasal cavity. Samples from the nasal cavity were collected using sterile swabs, and processed for bacterial cultures. The samples were inoculated on Blood agar and chocolate agar and then incubated at 37℃ for 24 hours. After the incubation period, petri plates were checked for the growth of S. aureus (MRSA). After identification of colonizers, five days decolonization regimen of nasal mupirocin ointment and Chlorhexidine based body wash was used and repeated cultures were done to check the effectiveness of this regimen. IBM SPSS version 25 was used to check the statistically significant relationship between prevalence of MRSA colonization with profession and gender.Results: Among the total 46 participants, 6 (13%) were found MRSA colonizers, 12 (26.08%) showed Methicillin-Susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) and remaining 28 (60.8%) showed no growth of S. aureus. The prevalence of MRSA colonization was found highest in nurses i.e. 66.67%, 16.67% in doctor and 16.67% were in respiratory therapists. The success rate of treatment regimen was 83.33%.Conclusion: Results of the present study showed that the prevalence of MRSA was high in our setting but effectiveness of decolonization treatment regimen is similar to the worldwide success rate.Keywords: MRSA; healthcare-workers (HCWs); Colonization; Decolonizatio
Benefit Cost Ratio of Buds Chips Planting and its Effects on Yield and Quality of Sugarcane
Get PDFBackground: High price and poor quality of seed material is a great concern to Farmers. Sugarcane seed is 20% of total cost of production. Cane Growers used setts having 2-3 buds with 8-10 t ha-1 cane stalk as Seed. The large quantity of seed carriages a great problematic in handling, transport, seed treatment for diseases, storage , viability of buds and their germination. The use of bud chips is less bulky, easily handling in seed treatment, storage and transportation.Methods: In this view, a research experiment was designed at Sugarcane Research Institute, Faisalabad during 2016 and 2017, to study the feasibility of bud chips as an alternate to conventional planting in sugarcane crop. The experiment was planted with sugarcane variety CPF-252 in randomized complete block design with split plot arrangement having three replications.Results: The results of study revealed that setts planting on 15 April gave maximum cane (61 t ha-1) and sugar yield (7.15 t ha-1). While bud chips sown on 15 April produced higher yield. The benefit cost ratio (BCR) was high in bud chips planting (1.63) than setts planting of sugarcane.Conclusion: The study concludes that bud chip planting on 15 April is an improved technique with greater potential to provide disease free seed, improve the yield with minimum quantity of seed than conventional planting.Keywords: Bud chips; Seedling; Setts; Benefit cost rati
Introduction to Galaxy Platform for NGS Variant Calling Pipeline
Get PDFBackground: Galaxy web-based platform for Next Generation Sequence (NGS) data analysis provides unprecedented opportunities to characterize, analyze and computationally visualize genomic landscapes with limited-resources. An initiative was taken to explore this pipeline for NGS data-analysis by using Galaxy platform, for its relative accessibility, reproducibility, transparency and scalability. Methods: Variant calling and associated workflows were executed on NGS pooled-seq data of 12 Pakistani Teddy goats. Different tools used in this pipeline are FastQC for quality checks, Trimmomatic for trimming data, SAM/BAM tools for conversion of file formats, Picard tools for marking deduplicates, VCFtools/FreeBayes for genomic variant detection and SnpSift to annotate the variants.Results: Highly associated functionally untrivial 43,712 loci were percolated having 87,510 alleles. Besides, 1,548 variants with 1,134 SNPs, 23 mixed variants, 76 MNP, 183 insertions and 132 deletions were observed in Teddy breed using San Clement ARS1 reference genome. Furthermore, 1,283 homozygous and 265 heterozygous variant were also divulged out of 43,447 loci. These variants are likely to be liable for general phenotypic traits of Teddy with smaller body-size, tender meat quality and agility along with other breed specific traits. Conclusion: Galaxy fulfills the core function of reproducibility and easy accessibility by removing the gaps between large data analysis and its interpretations. This variant calling pipeline reveals the genomic differences of Teddy specific characteristics as compare to ARS1 reference genome.Keywords: Galaxy platform; NGS data; Teddy goat; Variant calling; Bioinformatic
Isolation, Identification and Characterization of Salmonella spp. from Chicken purchased at Wad Madani City, Gezira State, Sudan
Get PDFBackground: Salmonella is a potential human pathogen that causes salmonellosis, a food-borne disease. Addressing these major food safety and public health issues with effective monitoring of food-borne pathogens and dietary measures.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the local markets of Alsug Alkabeer (AB), Alsug Ashabi (AK), and Alsug Alsageer (AS) sites in Wad Madani state, Sudan to detect and assess Salmonella infection in raw and cooked chicken samples.Results: The results showed that the maximum number of different Salmonella species was recovered from raw and cooked specimens of chicken obtained from AB, AK and AS which were 6.5, 4.4, and 4cfu/g, respectively. In addition, Salmonella spp. in the locally reared chicken is significantly (p < 0.05) higher than that of farm poultry. On the other hand, the highest Salmonella count was recorded in AS, AK and AB egg samples which were 5.9, 3.5, and 2.3cfu/g, respectively. Interestingly, eggs from local sources of chicken had significantly (p < 0.05) higher numbers of Salmonella spp. compared to those from farm sources. Six species of Salmonella were described, namely: Salmonella typhi, S. cheers, S. arizonae, S. enteritidis, S. pullorum, and S. gallinarum.Conclusion: High occurrence of Salmonella spp. in this study might be attributed to the low hygienic measures in the poultry retail markets during slaughtering and/or handling processes. Further studies are required and should be conducted within Gezira state to assess food safety.Keywords: Food-borne disease; Pathogens; Biochemical test; Contamination; Food safety; Microbial growth; Food poisonin
Characterization of carboxymethyl cellulase produced by Trichoderma asperellum
Get PDFBackground: The present study characterized extracellular carboxymethyl cellulase (CMCase), an enzyme catalyzes the hydrolysis of the cellulose, from Trichoderma asperellum PQ34 that was isolated from agricultural cultivation soil in Thua Thien Hue, Vietnam.Methods: CMCase was produced by culturing T. asperellum PQ34 on Czapek-Dox medium supplemented with carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) at 28ºC for 96 h at a shaking speed of 150 rpm. Enzyme activity was spectrophotometerically determined with CMC used as a substrate and the absorbance was measured at 540 nm. The molecular weight of CMCase was determined by zymogram based on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis with 0.2% CMC.Results: CMCase achieved the highest activity after 4 days of culture with the optimal pH and temperature at 4 and 55°C. The enzyme maintains pH and thermal stability in the range of 4-5 and 10-40°C and the relative activity of both is more than 90%. The presence of metal ions at 5 mM such as Ca2+, Al3+, or Co2+ increased the enzyme activity up to 133%, 124%, and 217%, respectively. CMCase was stable with 1 mM ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid and 1 M urea, but inhibited by 5% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and 5% Triton-X100. Zymographic analysis showed that CMCase from T. asperellum PQ34 consists of two enzymes with a molecular weight of about 31 and 66 kDa.Conclusion: CMCases from T. asperellum PQ34 exhibited characteristics of an acidic and thermostable enzyme. The interaction of Co2+ and CMCase resulted in a significant increase in enzyme activity, however they were strongly inhibited by 5% SDS.Keywords: Carboxymethyl cellulase; Cellulase; Endo-β-1,4-glucanase, Trichoderma asperellu
The effect of wildfires on wood-decay fungi in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Get PDFBackground: In late November and early December of 2019, wildfires occurred over portions of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. More than 4,000 ha were affected by the wildfires. The objective of the research reported herein was to access the impact of these wildfires on the assemblages of wood-decay fungi associated with the study areas in the park.Methods: The investigated fungi were confined to two study areas; the first subjected to a relatively high intensity burn and the second subjected to a relatively low intensity burn. In addition to specimens of fungi obtained in the field, small pieces of coarse woody debris were assembled, brought back to the laboratory and placed in plastic chambers for incubation and kept moist. Over the course of two months, fruiting bodies appearing in these incubation chambers were observed and collected. All specimens from both the field and incubation chambers were identified from sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal DNA.Results: A total of 31 different taxa were identified along with nine taxa reported previously as unknown and uncultured. However, almost all of these records were from the study area subjected to the relatively low intensity burn.Conclusion: The relatively high intensity burn site was almost completely devoid of wood-decay fungi.Keywords: Great Smoky Mountains National Park; ITS ribosomal DNA region; Wood-decay fung