Comprehensive spatio-temporal benchmarking of surface water quality of Hindon River, a tributary of river Yamuna, India: Adopting multivariate statistical approach

The Hindon River is the main tributary of river Yamuna and it is a significant source of surface water, which flows through the major cities of western Uttar Pradesh, India. The indiscriminate development of industries and urbanization along river basin coupled with rapid population growths contribute various amounts of pollutant in the river. Therefore, the present study was conducted to assess the spatial-temporal variability of river water quality (seventeen physicochemical parameters and eight heavy metals) during pre- and post-monsoon seasons for 5 years data at 19 sampling sites along the river stretch. Indices associated with water quality and heavy metals were computed to scale the accurate state of risk associated to its use for drinking and irrigation. During the pre- and post-monsoon seasons, only four sites were found having safe water quality index (WQI) values. The mean heavy metal concentrations are found in order of Zn > Fe > Pb > Cu > Cr > Cd > Ni > Mn. Considering the spatial and temporal distribution, the study benchmarked the water quality of Hindon River for priority attention.

Use of pre-operative hemoglobin a1c to predict early post-operative renal failure and infection risks in patients who are not diabetics and undergoing elective off pump coronary artery bypass graft surgery

Background

Recent studies have indicated that patients, both with and without diabetes with an increased HbA1c, have a higher rate of adverse outcomes following cardiac surgeries. Our study is focused on to evaluate the prognostic impact of admission value of HbA1c in non-diabetic patients for postoperative renal failure and infections.

Materials and Methods

Plasma HbA1c levels were collected from 200 consecutive nondiabetic patients who got admitted for elective off pump coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedure over a 2-year period under two groups, Group A whose HbA1c was < 6% at admission and Group B whose HbA1c was ≥6% and ≤6.4% at admission. After surgery, patients were followed up to see if they have got infection or renal failure as postoperative complication. Student's unpaired t test was used to test the significance of difference between the quantitative variables, Yate's and Fisher's chi square tests were used for qualitative variables.

Results

We found early postoperative renal failure in 14 (3/96 in Group A and 11/104 in Group B) out of 200 patients (7%) and infection in 21 (8/96 in Group A and 13/104 in Group B) out of 200 patients (10.5%). After data analysis, it was noted that there is a positive correlation between HbA1c and postoperative renal failure (P = 0.0213) whereas no association was found between HbA1c and postoperative infections (P = 0.175) in patients undergoing off-pump CABG surgery.

Conclusion

In patients without diabetes, a plasma HbA1c ≥6% was a significant independent predictor for early postoperative renal failure.

A Clinical Study of Efficacy of Autologous Platelet-Rich Fibrin (PRF) in Chronic Non-Healing Ulcers

Background

Chronic ulcers are defined as the breakdown of the epidermal and dermal tissue lasting for more than 6 weeks. There will be a lack of necessary growth factors in chronic non-healing ulcers. This study is aimed at accessing the efficacy of autologous platelet-rich fibrin in chronic non-healing ulcers.

Aims and Objectives

To determine the efficacy of autologous platelet-rich fibrin in chronic non-healing ulcers and to compare the rate of healing in different ulcers based on aetiology.

Methods

A hospital-based prospective study was conducted at the Department of Dermatology, Venereology, and Leprosy, at a tertiary care centre in Central Karnataka with 50 cases of chronic non-healing ulcers over 2 years. In each case baseline data including age and gender was collected and thorough general physical, local, and systemic examinations were done with the help of a predesigned proforma. PRF dressing was done weekly for 4 weeks with ulcer volume measured each time and improvement accessed.

Results

In this study, the mean age of the study population was 43.56 ± 14.06 years, with 84% males. Good improvement in the volume of the ulcer was seen in 6 patients out of 50, moderate improvement was seen in 20 out of 50 patients and mild in the rest of the 24 patients. Improvement was more in the educated sector, more so in females and patients with trauma as the cause of ulcers without any comorbidities. Leprosy followed by diabetes was the main cause of chronic non-healing ulcers.

Conclusions

This study shows that autologous platelet-rich fibrin therapy provides faster wound healing in chronic non-healing ulcers with no adverse events.

Land use and land cover dynamics with special emphasis on shifting cultivation in Eastern Ghats Highlands of India using remote sensing data and GIS

Continual, historical, and accurate information about the land use/land cover (LULC) changes of the earth's surface is extremely important for sustainable management of natural resources. In this study, historical topographic sheets, IRS P6 LISS-III, and LANDSAT TM images were used to provide recent and historical LULC conditions of the Eastern Ghats Highlands of east India. The supervised classification results were further improved by employing image enhancement and visual interpretation. Ratio Vegetation Index with fuzzy-based possibilistic c-means classification approach has improved the classification accuracy of the shifting cultivated area. Post-classification comparisons of the classified images indicated that the major change consisted of barren land and forestland changing into agricultural land and scrubland. Between 1931 and 2008, forest cover was decreased from 52.7% to 29.6% of total area. There was an increase in the scrub area from 874 (10.4%) to 1269 km² (15.2%), and agricultural land from 978 (11.7%) to 2864 km² (34.2%) during the same period. The rate of deforestation was found to be 0.65 km² per year for reserve forest and 24.50 km² per year for mixed forest. The shifting cultivated area in the district was 308.7 km² during 2004, and that has been reduced since then and now is stabilized to 186.4 km² area. Among this 186.4 km² area, nearly half is covered by abandoned shifting cultivation. The decadal rate of decrease of shifting cultivated area is 0.15% per year. The shifting cultivated areas were mainly distributed at elevations 580-810 and 810-907 m and slopes 20-30 and 30-40%. Southeast and south facing slopes were preferred for shifting cultivation. Based on the identified causes of the change in shifting cultivation, policy recommendations for their better management were made.

Genetic mapping of Z chromosome and identification of W chromosome-specific markers in the silkworm, Bombyx mori

In the silkworm, Bombyx mori, the female is the heterogametic (ZW) sex and the male is homogametic (ZZ). The female heterogamety is a typical situation in the insect order Lepidoptera. Although the W chromosome in silkworm is strongly female determining, no W-linked gene for a morphological character has been found on it. The Z chromosome carries important traits of economic value as well as genes for various phenotypic traits, but only 2% of molecular information based on its relative size is known. Studies conducted so far indicate that the Z-linked genes are not dosage compensated. In the present study, we constructed a genetic map of randomly amplified polymorphic DNA fragments (RAPD), simple sequence repeats (SSR), and fluorescent intersimple sequence repeat PCR (FISSR) markers for the Z chromosome using a backcross mapping population. A total of 16 Z-linked markers were identified, characterized, and mapped using od, a recessive trait for translucent skin as an anchor marker yielding a total recombination map of 334.5 cM. The linkage distances obtained suggested that the markers were distributed throughout the Z chromosome. Four RAPD and four SSR markers that were linked to W chromosome were also identified. The proposed mapping approach should be useful to identify and map sex-linked traits in the silkworm. The economic and evolutionary significance of Z- and W-linked genes in silkworm, in particular, and lepidopterans, in general, is discussed.

SilkSatDb: a microsatellite database of the silkworm, Bombyx mori

The SilkSatDb (silkmoth microsatellite database) (http://www.cdfd.org.in/silksatdb) is a relational database of microsatellites extracted from the available expressed sequence tags and whole genome shotgun sequences of the silkmoth, Bombyx mori. The database has been rendered with a simple and robust web-based search facility, developed using PHP. The SilkSatDb also stores information on primers developed and validated in the laboratory. Users can retrieve information on the microsatellite and the protocols used, along with informative figures and polymorphism status of those microsatellites. In addition, the interface is coupled with Autoprimer, a primer-designing program, using which users can design primers for the loci of interest.

Survey and analysis of microsatellites in the silkworm, Bombyx mori: frequency, distribution, mutations, marker potential and their conservation in heterologous species

We studied microsatellite frequency and distribution in 21.76-Mb random genomic sequences, 0.67-Mb BAC sequences from the Z chromosome, and 6.3-Mb EST sequences of Bombyx mori. We mined microsatellites of >/=15 bases of mononucleotide repeats and >/=5 repeat units of other classes of repeats. We estimated that microsatellites account for 0.31% of the genome of B. mori. Microsatellite tracts of A, AT, and ATT were the most abundant whereas their number drastically decreased as the length of the repeat motif increased. In general, tri- and hexanucleotide repeats were overrepresented in the transcribed sequences except TAA, GTA, and TGA, which were in excess in genomic sequences. The Z chromosome sequences contained shorter repeat types than the rest of the chromosomes in addition to a higher abundance of AT-rich repeats. Our results showed that base composition of the flanking sequence has an influence on the origin and evolution of microsatellites. Transitions/transversions were high in microsatellites of ESTs, whereas the genomic sequence had an equal number of substitutions and indels. The average heterozygosity value for 23 polymorphic microsatellite loci surveyed in 13 diverse silkmoth strains having 2-14 alleles was 0.54. Only 36 (18.2%) of 198 microsatellite loci were polymorphic between the two divergent silkworm populations and 10 (5%) loci revealed null alleles. The microsatellite map generated using these polymorphic markers resulted in 8 linkage groups. B. mori microsatellite loci were the most conserved in its immediate ancestor, B. mandarina, followed by the wild saturniid silkmoth, Antheraea assama.

Mucin coding sequences are remarkably conserved

Mucins are complex glycoproteins expressed by glandular epithelia and the carcinoma which develop from these tissues. The core protein is aberrantly glycosylated in cancers, and some antibodies show specificity in their reactions with the cancer-associated mucins, which also contains epitopes recognized by T-cells from pancreatic and breast cancer patients. Based on the PCR amplification of the mucin coding sequences, hybridization analysis and determination of the sequence divergence we present the evidence that mucin coding sequences are conserved in a number of species. A broad series of organisms were examined for analogous sequences. Data show that mucin-type sequences are present in a variety of mammals, but less apparent in chicken and yeast. Divergence increased in the order human, monkey, rabbit/rat/cow, mouse; chicken and yeast exhibited minimal homology. Furthermore, nucleotide sequences not included in the tandem repeats, a common feature of mucin core structure, are more conserved than the flanking sequences which also suggests that the flanking sequences may be functionally significant while repeats are structurally important. The hybridization bands showed different restriction patterns (suggesting for the existence of the restriction fragment length polymorphism). Northern analysis indicates message polydispersity, commonly seen with this class of RNA. The major features of the protein appear broadly conserved in the different mammalian species examined. The evolutionary significance of the above studies has been discussed.