Effect of α-Tocopherol in the vitrification medium on the viability, lipid peroxidation, expression of key developmental, apoptotic and stress-related genes in ovine secondary follicles

The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of α-tocopherol on viability, lipid peroxidation, and the expression of apoptosis, stress, and development related genes in the vitrified sheep secondary follicles. Ovarian secondary follicles (200-300 μm) were isolated and distributed separately to the vitrification treatment and supplemented with 5 mM, 10 mM, 20 mM and 30 mM of α-tocopherol (while the control fresh group was without vitrification and supplementation of α-tocopherol). After a week, the follicles were thawed and evaluated for follicular viability by trypan blue dye exclusion method, lipid peroxidation and gene expression studies. The results showed that the vitrification with 10 and 20 mM of α-tocopherol positively affected (P<0.05) the viability of vitrified follicles in comparison with vitrified ones without α-tocopherol but the higher concentration of α-tocopherol, i.e., 30 mM negatively affected the viability (P<0.05) in comparison with the 10 and 20 mM of α-tocopherol groups. The malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were significantly (P<0.05) higher in the vitrified without α-tocopherol group in comparison to the vitrified with 20 mM of α-tocopherol group. The expression of apoptotic-related gene, BCL2L1 was significantly higher in 10 mM α-tocopherol group compared to the control fresh and CASPASE 3, 9 expressions were significantly higher in the vitrified group when compared to the vitrified with 10 mM α-tocopherol group. Expressions of BAX, BAD, BAK, BMP-15 and GDF-9 showed no significant difference among the groups. The mRNA expression of SOD1 was significantly higher in the vitrified without α-tocopherol group when compared to other groups. We conclude that the supplementation of 10 and 20 mM α-tocopherol in vitrification solution was the efficient vitrification procedure for the vitrification of ovine secondary follicles.

Integrating EM and Patch-seq data: Synaptic connectivity and target specificity of predicted Sst transcriptomic types

Neural circuit function is shaped both by the cell types that comprise the circuit and the connections between those cell types ¹ . Neural cell types have previously been defined by morphology ^{2, 3} , electrophysiology ^{4, 5} , transcriptomic expression ^6-8 , connectivity ^9-13 , or even a combination of such modalities ^14-16 . More recently, the Patch-seq technique has enabled the characterization of morphology (M), electrophysiology (E), and transcriptomic (T) properties from individual cells ^17-20 . Using this technique, these properties were integrated to define 28, inhibitory multimodal, MET-types in mouse primary visual cortex ²¹ . It is unknown how these MET-types connect within the broader cortical circuitry however. Here we show that we can predict the MET-type identity of inhibitory cells within a large-scale electron microscopy (EM) dataset and these MET-types have distinct ultrastructural features and synapse connectivity patterns. We found that EM Martinotti cells, a well defined morphological cell type ^{22, 23} known to be Somatostatin positive (Sst+) ^{24, 25} , were successfully predicted to belong to Sst+ MET-types. Each identified MET-type had distinct axon myelination patterns and synapsed onto specific excitatory targets. Our results demonstrate that morphological features can be used to link cell type identities across imaging modalities, which enables further comparison of connectivity in relation to transcriptomic or electrophysiological properties. Furthermore, our results show that MET-types have distinct connectivity patterns, supporting the use of MET-types and connectivity to meaningfully define cell types.

To evaluate the diagnostic value of protein: creatinine ratio in a single voided urine sample for quantitation of proteinuria compared to those of a 24-hour urine sample in patients with preeclampsia

Objective: This study was done to evaluate the diagnostic value of protein: creatinine ratio in a single voided urine sample for quantitation of proteinuria compared to those of a 24 hour urine sample in patients with preeclampsia. Methods: A prospective simple random sample study was done on the hypertensive pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic or admitted in Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It included all women being evaluated for preeclampsia, regardless of the alerting sign or symptom, suspected severity or co-morbid conditions. The main measures were the urinary protein to urinary creatinine ratio by random (spot) direct measurement and the 24-h urinary protein excretion by a 24-h urine collection. The data obtained was statistically analyzed. Results: Out of the 78 patients with gestational hypertension included in our study 48 patients had significant proteinuria (e”300mg/day). Only 2 patients had proteinuria of the range of greater than 3500mg. Among the patients, 50 had a positive protein: creatinine ratio (e”0.3) while 28 patients had a negative protein: creatinine ratio (<0.3). The P: C ratio was able to correctly identify 44 out of 48 patients with significant proteinuria (when the comparison is made with the gold-standard test; i.e., 24-hour urine protein). It could also identify 24 out of 30 patients without significant proteinuria as compared to the gold-standard test. In this study, the Protein: Creatinine ratio with a sensitivity of 91.67%, a specificity of 80%, positive predictive values 88% and the negative predictive values 85.71%. Conclusions: Our data suggests that the protein: creatinine ratio in single voided urine is a highly accurate test (p value < 0.0000001) for discriminating between insignificant and significant proteinuria. Based on the above findings we conclude that a random urine protein excretion predicts the amount of 24- hour urine protein excretion with high accuracy. This could be a reasonable alternative to the 24-hour urine collection for detection of significant proteinuria in hospitalised pregnant women with suspected preeclampsia. Journal of College of Medical Sciences-Nepal, 2013, Vol-9, No-2, 45-53 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jcmsn.v9i2.9687