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Changing the Culture of “Ding”: Education, Legislation and Research on Concussive Brain Injury in Youth Athletics
No full textThe number of emergency department visits concerning sport related TBI in youth increased 57% from 2001 to 2009 and while a fraction of that increase may be attributed to injuries that were once missed now being identified due to greater general awareness, the fact remains that there are nearly 200,000 children every year who suffer sport related concussion or other TBI serious enough to prompt a visit to the ED. 40% of sports related concussions involve children between the ages of 8 and 13, and in this group the rate of concussion doubled between 1997 and 2007. The risk of concussion is highest in football and there are nearly 67,000 diagnosed concussions in high school football every year. In other sports that males and females play, such as basketball, girls seem to be at a higher risk. In high schools, concussions account for 15% of all sports related injuries resulting in at least one day of play lost. The risk of a suffering a concussion when participating in a contact sport may be as high as 20% per season. In both girls’ and boys’ soccer and basketball 20% of the concussions were repeat concussions. These statistics just further illustrate the gravity of the problem of sport related concussions. Here we describe the need for more work on education, legislation and research in order to change in the concussion/mTBI culture
Double burden of malnutrition among urban Bengalee adolescent boys in Midnapore, West Bengal, India
Get PDFMalnutrition is an important public health problem worldwide. Therefore a study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of adolescent thinness, overweight and obesity in Midnapore town, West Bengal, India. A total of 974 adolescent boys aged 10-18 years were selected following multistage cluster sampling method from three higher secondary schools. Data was collected using pretested questionnaire following standard technique. Presence of thinness was evaluated using the cut-off values of international survey as suggested by Cole et al (2007). While overweight and obesity was determine by using international cut-off values develop by Cole et al (2000) based on international surveys as recommended by IOTF. Overall the prevalence of thinness, overweight and obesity were 20.8%, 14.9% and 3.8%, respectively. This study developed age specific smooth BMI percentile values using LMS method. Moreover, the study also developed BMI cut-off values to define thinness, overweight and obesity. In conclusion, the present analyses indicated that the prevalence of adolescent undernutrition is still a major problem. In addition, there was also an emerging trend for overweight/obesity, thereby indicating a double burden of malnutrition as observed in other developing countries
Integrative concept of homeostasis: translating physiology into medicine
Get PDFTo truly understand living systems they must be viewed as a whole. In order to achieve this and to come to some law to which living systems obey, data obtained on cells, tissues and organs should be integrated. Because there are no such laws yet, there is usually a long path for physiological findings obtained by reductionist approaches to be translated into medical practice. The concept and accompanying equations of homeostasis presented here are aimed to develop biological laws and to bridge this gap between physiology and medicine. The concept of homeostasis takes into account energy input and output, enlisting all relevant contributors. In homeostasis, changes in the input should equal changes in the output within any specific period of time. What I suggest here is that if the system is out of homeostasis, the homeostasis may be regained by changing any of the input or output components in a proper manner, not only the one that has been changed first. It is important to note that the concept is primary addressing adult human physiology. Proposed equation should enable for the new lab findings regarding any pathophysiological conditions to find a more direct use in medicine. It should also ease ‘decision making’ in medicine and make therapy development and treatment outcome more straightforward and predictable. Finally, to recognize the basic laws of living systems enables for evolutionary adaptations and processes to be understood better
Comparative functional genomics approach for the annotation of proteins in Unclassified Halophilic archaeon DL31
Get PDFThe structure, function and sub-cellular location prediction for the unknown proteins from Unclassified Halophilic archaeon DL31 were carried out for characterization of the proteins in their respective families. The 991 genes for hypothetical proteins in Halophilic archaeon DL31 chromosome were predicted by the application of computational methods and Bioinformatics web tools. The structure predictions for 206 unknown proteins were possible whereas functions were predicted in 825 protein sequences. The function prediction for the proteins were done by using Bioinformatics web tools like CDD-BLAST, INTERPROSCAN and PFAM by searching protein databases for the presence of conserved domains. The Sub-cellular location predictions were done for all the unknown proteins by using CELLO v 2.5 server. While tertiary structures were constructed using PS2 Server- Protein Structure Prediction server. This study revealed structural, functional and Sub-cellular localization of unknown proteins in Unclassified Halophilic archaeon DL31chromosome
USP4 is regulated by Akt phosphorylation and deubiquitylates TGF-beta type I receptor
Get PDFStability and membrane localization of Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) type I receptor (TβRI) is essential for controlling TGF-β signaling. TβRI is targeted for ubiquitination-mediated degradation by Smad7/Smurf2 complex. However, it is unclear whether polyubiquitin modified TβRI can be reversed. Here we performed a genome-wide gain of function screen and identified ubiquitin-specific protease (USP) 4 as a strong inducer of TGF-β signaling. Putative oncogenic USP4 was found to interact with TβRI as deubiquitinating enzyme thus maintains TβR1 levels at the plasma membrane. Depletion of USP4 mitigates TGF-β-induced breast cancer cell migration, epithelial to mesenchymal transition and metastasis. Importantly, Akt/Protein kinase B (PKB), which has been associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer, associates with and phosphorylates USP4. Akt mediated phosphorylation relocates USP4 to cytoplasm and membrane and is required for maintaining its protein stability. Moreover, Akt-induced breast cancer cell migration was inhibited by USP4 depletion and TβRI kinase inhibition. Our results identified USP4 as an important determinant for crosstalk between TGF-β and Akt, which provides new opportunities for cancer treatment
Plasmodium falciparum has rare correlation properties
Get PDFA plot of the correlation function of a given DNA sequence has certain characteristic features common to almost all organisms. One common feature is that the correlation values at distances that are multiples of three is higher than correlation values at other distances. Because of this such a correlation plot can be divided into two or three curves with different scalings. P. falciparum has a rare correlation property which is probably unique. I have analyzed genomes of many bacteria, fungi and protozoa and found that P. falciparum is the only organism whose DNA sequence correlation plot can be divided into four curves with different scalings. This property is neither shared by other species of the Plasmodium genus nor by other AT rich genomes. This could be a hint that the DNA sequence of P. falciparum has undergone certain rare mutational events.

Suppression of 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate-induced ornithine decarboxylase activity by resveratrol derivatives
Get PDFAs demonstrated previously, resveratrol (3,4',5-trihydroxy-trans-stilbene) inhibits 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-induced ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), the key rate limiting enzyme in mammalian polyamine synthesis. Using human bladder epithelial carcinoma HTB-24 cells in culture where resveratrol inhibits induction with an IC50 of 8.8 µM, we now report potential metabolites demonstrate greater activity [tetrabutylammonium (E)-4-(3,5-dihydroxystyryl)phenyl sulfate (IC50 1.2 µM), resveratrol tripotassium 3,5,4'-trisulfate (IC50 1.8 µM), resveratrol tripotassium 3,4'-disulfate (IC50 1.8 µM), and resveratrol tripotassium 3,5-disulfate (IC50 2.3 µM)]. Based on RT-PCR studies, ODC inhibition occurs at the transcriptional level, but this was not due to direct inhibition of protein kinase C (e.g., resveratrol IC50, 79 µM; resveratrol tripotassium 3,5-disulfate IC50, 49 µM). Additional work is underway to more fully investigate this potentially important observation. [This work was supported by program project P01 CA48112 awarded by the National Cancer Institute. SL acknowledges Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF), New Delhi for a Research Fellowship]
Biodiversity is a cauliflower under the sunlight
Get PDFFor a long time ecologists have questioned the variations of biodiversity across the latitudinal gradient. Recently it has emerged that the changes in [beta]-diversity are caused simply by changes in the sizes of species pools. I combined the species pool size and the fractal nature of ecosystems to clarify some general patterns of this gradient. Considering temperature, humidity and NPP as the main variables of an ecosystem niche and as the axis of the polygon in the Cartesian plane, it is possible to build fractal hypervolumes, whose the fractal dimension rises up to three, moving towards the equator. It follows that the best figure that graphically synthesizes the evolutionary forces that fit this ecosystem hypervolume is the fractal cauliflower
_Trichoderma pseudokoningii_ Rifai isolation from Egyptian immunocompromised cattle with _Mycobacterium bovis_ infection
Get PDFRecently, _Trichoderma_ species have emerged as potent fungal pathogens in immunocompromised humans. We report the first three cases of _Trichoderma pseudokoningii_ Rifai pulmonary infection in the Egyptian tuberculous dairy cattle with _Mycobacterium bovis_, from the heart of a generalized bovine TB in a cow over 5 years old, a mediastinal lymph node of pulmonary TB in a cow of 3 years old, and a lung of mixed pulmonary and digestive BTB in a cow of 4 years old. We have also developed a pathogenisity test technique for _Trichoderma pseudokoningii_ Rifai infection in 3 G. pigs by intraperitoneal injection of 2 G. pigs with mixed infection of _Mycobacterium bovis_ and _Trichoderma pseudokoningii_ Rifai; death of both animals 14 days, thereafter, and by injection of 1 G. pig with single infection of _Trichoderma pseudokoningii_ Rifai; death of animal 21 days, thereafter. We did not report any animal case along review of literature
In silico design of potent agonists for human PPAR γ
Get PDFPeroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR γ) acts as a key regulator on adipocyte differentiation and glucose homeostasis. PPAR γ has been implicated in the pathology of type 2 diabetes. As human PPAR γ activity is considered important in improving insulin sensitivity, in silico screening was carried out to find potent agonists for human PPAR γ protein. The co-crystal structure of PPAR γ, solved through X-Ray diffraction method was retrieved from the protein data bank. Four PPAR γ agonists selected from literature were submitted to subsequent 2D searching protocol using Ligand.Info, which yielded 1699 structural analogs. The PPAR γ co-crystal structure and ligand dataset were preprocessed using protein preparation wizard and LigPrep, respectively. Further, docking was performed by using three phased docking protocol of Maestro v9.2 that implements Glide v5.7. The obtained thirteen leads through docking were compared with the existing inhibitors and seven leads with good binding affinity with PPAR γ were proposed. The binding orientations of the seven leads were coinciding well with the native co-crystal structure of human PPAR γ. Thus, the proposed seven leads can be suggested as potential agonists for improving insulin sensitivity in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus if synthesized and validated in animal model