Efficacy of live attenuated and inactivated influenza vaccines among children in rural India: A 2-year,randomized, triple-blind,placebo-controlled trial

BackgroundInfluenza is a cause of febrile acute respiratory infection (FARI) in India; however, few influenza vaccine trials have been conducted in India. We assessed absolute and relative efficacy of live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) and inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) among children aged 2 to 10 years in rural India through a randomized, triple-blind, placebo-controlled trial conducted over 2 years.Methods and findingsIn June 2015, children were randomly allocated to LAIV, IIV, intranasal placebo, or inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in a 2:2:1:1 ratio. In June 2016, vaccination was repeated per original allocation. Overall, 3,041 children received LAIV (n = 1,015), IIV (n = 1,010), nasal placebo (n = 507), or IPV (n = 509). Mean age of children was 6.5 years with 20% aged 9 to 10 years.Through weekly home visits, nasal and throat swabs were collected from children with FARI and tested for influenza virus by polymerase chain reaction. The primary outcome was laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated FARI; vaccine efficacy (VE) was calculated using modified intention-to-treat (mITT) analysis by Cox proportional hazards model (PH) for each year.In Year 1, VE was 40.0% (95% confidence interval (CI) 25.2 to 51.9) for LAIV and 59.0% (95% CI 47.8 to 67.9) for IIV compared with controls; relative efficacy of LAIV compared with IIV was −46.2% (95% CI −88.9 to −13.1). In Year 2, VE was 51.9% (95% CI 42.0 to 60.1) for LAIV and 49.9% (95% CI 39.2 to 58.7) for IIV; relative efficacy of LAIV compared with IIV was 4.2% (95% CI −19.9 to 23.5). No serious adverse vaccine-attributable events were reported. Study limitations include differing dosage requirements for children between nasal and injectable vaccines (single dose of LAIV versus 2 doses of IIV) in Year 1 and the fact that immunogenicity studies were not conducted.ConclusionsIn this study, we found that LAIV and IIV vaccines were safe and moderately efficacious against influenza virus infection among Indian children.Trial registrationClinical Trials Registry of India CTRI/2015/06/005902.

Anand Krishnan and co-workers study the efficacy and safety of influenza vaccines for children in India.     

Recurrent gene loss correlates with the evolution of stomach phenotypes in gnathostome history

The stomach, a hallmark of gnathostome evolution, represents a unique anatomical innovation characterized by the presence of acid- and pepsin-secreting glands. However, the occurrence of these glands in gnathostome species is not universal; in the nineteenth century the French zoologist Cuvier first noted that some teleosts lacked a stomach. Strikingly, Holocephali (chimaeras), dipnoids (lungfish) and monotremes (egg-laying mammals) also lack acid secretion and a gastric cellular phenotype. Here, we test the hypothesis that loss of the gastric phenotype is correlated with the loss of key gastric genes. We investigated species from all the main gnathostome lineages and show the specific contribution of gene loss to the widespread distribution of the agastric condition. We establish that the stomach loss correlates with the persistent and complete absence of the gastric function gene kit—H⁺/K⁺-ATPase (Atp4A and Atp4B) and pepsinogens (Pga, Pgc, Cym)—in the analysed species. We also find that in gastric species the pepsinogen gene complement varies significantly (e.g. two to four in teleosts and tens in some mammals) with multiple events of pseudogenization identified in various lineages. We propose that relaxation of purifying selection in pepsinogen genes and possibly proton pump genes in response to dietary changes led to the numerous independent events of stomach loss in gnathostome history. Significantly, the absence of the gastric genes predicts that reinvention of the stomach in agastric lineages would be highly improbable, in line with Dollo''s principle.     

Sodium nitroprusside enhances callus induction and shoot regeneration in high value medicinal plant Canscora diffusa

Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC) - In different countries, mostly in EU, rules for strawberry nursery propagation impose the use of micropropagation only to produce stock virus free...     

Metabolic flux analysis of lactic acid fermentation: effects of pH and lactate ion concentration

A detailed metabolic flux analysis for lactic acid production by Streptococcus lactis has been carried out. A metabolic reaction set was constructed for the metabolism of S. lactis. Fluxes through these reactions were estimated by using accumulation rates of biomass, product and consumption rates of the substrate, which were obtained through experiments. The changes in the flux movement are shown for different pHs and initial lactate concentrations of the medium. The analysis indicated that pH only affected the uptake rates of lactose, whereas lactate ion concentration influenced the movement of flux through the network.