4 research outputs found
Wheat Pore-Forming Toxin-Like Protein Confers Broad-Spectrum Resistance to Fungal Pathogens in Arabidopsis
No full textFusarium head blight (FHB), caused by the hemibiotrophic fungus Fusarium graminearum, is one of the major threats to global wheat productivity. A wheat pore-forming toxin-like (PFT) protein was previously reported to underlie Fhb1, the most widely used quantitative trait locus in FHB breeding programs worldwide. In the present work, wheat PFT was ectopically expressed in the model dicot plant Arabidopsis. Heterologous expression of wheat PFT in Arabidopsis provided a broad-spectrum quantitative resistance to fungal pathogens including F. graminearum, Colletotrichum higginsianum, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and Botrytis cinerea. However, there was no resistance to bacterial or oomycete pathogens Pseudomonas syringae and Phytophthora capsici, respectively in the transgenic Arabidopsis plants. To explore the reason for the resistance response to, exclusively, the fungal pathogens, purified PFT protein was hybridized to a glycan microarray having 300 different types of carbohydrate monomers and oligomers. It was found that PFT specifically hybridized with chitin monomer, N-acetyl glucosamine (GlcNAc), which is present in fungal cell walls but not in bacteria or oomycete species. This exclusive recognition of chitin may be responsible for the specificity of PFT-mediated resistance to fungal pathogens. Transfer of the atypical quantitative resistance of wheat PFT to a dicot system highlights its potential utility in designing broad-spectrum resistance in diverse host plants. [Graphic: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license
IAPSM’s Position Paper on Typhoid Vaccines for Adult Immunization in India
No full textTyphoid is a major public health concern in India, particularly among those dwelling in urban slums with poor sanitation. The disease caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi spread majorly through contaminated food and water. The economic burden of the disease is catastrophic and affects both families and the government making a strong case for including typhoid vaccines in the national immunization schedule. The World Health Organization has prequalified several vaccines and has recommended their use in endemic areas. While there is robust evidence for vaccination of children from India and other LMICs, the case for adult vaccination remains less clear. The Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine acknowledges the necessity to adopt a widespread typhoid immunization program, along with other preventive strategies, especially in the vulnerable pockets. IAPSM recommends focusing on newer-generation Typhoid Conjugate Vaccines (TCVs), which provide long-lasting and superior immunological benefits, and are effective across all ages including adults. IAPSM suggests routine use of Typbar-TCV™ for adults up to 45 years old in India. The organization also highlights the necessity for post-marketing surveillance of these vaccines, to monitor the long-term safety and effectiveness of various vaccines in different communities. IAPSM encourages members to take front-line efforts in their community health service areas, and finally appeals for the development of vaccines to cover a more extensive range of Salmonella infections so that control over typhoid can be strengthened
Antimicrobial susceptibility trends of S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi in a post-COVID-19 pandemic India, from a multicenter surveillance network
No full textAbstract We conducted a multicenter surveillance study to identify changes in antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Salmonella Typhi and S. Paratyphi in India since the COVID-19 pandemic began. We collected S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi isolates from blood or bone marrow culture-confirmed enteric fever cases at eight sites in seven cities across India between 2021 and 2024. We tested the antibiotic susceptibility of 1150 S. Typhi isolates and 265 S. Paratyphi isolates via disc diffusion and determined their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of ceftriaxone and azithromycin via broth dilution. We identified 18 S. Typhi isolates from Ahmedabad that were resistant to ceftriaxone, indicating a larger emergence of third-generation cephalosporin-resistant S. Typhi in Western India with a novel plasmid profile. Furthermore, we observed yearly increases in the mean, median and 90th percentile of azithromycin MICs for S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi isolates throughout India between 2021 and 2023. Finally, we found that only 0.70% of S. Typhi isolates and 1.13% of S. Paratyphi isolates exhibited susceptibility to ciprofloxacin. Our results indicate the necessity for a shift from ciprofloxacin in the treatment of enteric fever, and the importance of implementing long-term monitoring of resistance to alternative antibiotics such as azithromycin and ceftriaxone
Mapping Violence: Developing an Extensive Framework to Build a Bangla Sectarian Expression Dataset from Social Media Interactions
No full textCommunal violence in online forums has become extremely prevalent in South
Asia, where many communities of different cultures coexist and share resources.
These societies exhibit a phenomenon characterized by strong bonds within their
own groups and animosity towards others, leading to conflicts that frequently
escalate into violent confrontations. To address this issue, we have developed
the first comprehensive framework for the automatic detection of communal
violence markers in online Bangla content accompanying the largest collection
(13K raw sentences) of social media interactions that fall under the definition
of four major violence class and their 16 coarse expressions. Our workflow
introduces a 7-step expert annotation process incorporating insights from
social scientists, linguists, and psychologists. By presenting data statistics
and benchmarking performance using this dataset, we have determined that, aside
from the category of Non-communal violence, Religio-communal violence is
particularly pervasive in Bangla text. Moreover, we have substantiated the
effectiveness of fine-tuning language models in identifying violent comments by
conducting preliminary benchmarking on the state-of-the-art Bangla deep
learning model
