Fucosylated human milk oligosaccharides vary between individuals and over the course of lactation.

Specific human milk oligosaccharides, especially fucosylated neutral oligosaccharides, protect infants against specific microbial pathogens. To study the concentrations of individual neutral oligosaccharides during lactation, a total of 84 milk samples were obtained from 12 women at 7 time periods during weeks 1-49 postpartum. The neutral oligosaccharides from each sample were isolated, perbenzoylated, resolved, and quantified by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The resultant oligosaccharide peaks, identified by co-elution with authentic standards and mass spectrometry, ranged in size from tri- to octasaccharides. The total concentration of oligosaccharides declined over the course of lactation; the mean concentration at 1 year was less than half that in the first few weeks postpartum. One of the 12 donors produced milk fucosyloligosaccharides that were essentially devoid of alpha1,2 linkages (but contained alpha1,3- and alpha1,4-linked fucose) until late in lactation, consistent with the nonsecretor phenotype. In milk samples from the remaining 11 donors, fucosyloligosaccharides containing alpha1,2-linked fucose were prevalent, and their profiles were distinct from those of fucosyloligosaccharides devoid of alpha1,2-linked fucose. The ratio of alpha1,2-linked oligosaccharide concentrations to oligosaccharides devoid of alpha1,2-linked fucose changed during the first year of lactation from 5:1 to 1:1. Furthermore, the absolute and the relative concentrations of individual oligosaccharides varied substantially, both between individual donors and over the course of lactation for each individual. The patterns of milk oligosaccharides among individuals suggest the existence of many genotype subpopulations. This variation in individual oligosaccharide concentrations suggests that the protective activities of human milk could also vary among individuals and during lactation.     

Estimation of Linear Regression Model with Random Coefficients Ensuring Almost Non-Negativity of Variance Estimators

For a linear regression model with random coefficients, this paper considers the estimation of the mean of coefficient vector which, in turn, involves the estimation of variances of random coefficients. The conventional estimation methods for it sometimes provides negative estimates. In order to circumvent this kind of difficulty, a proposal is forwarded and is examined in the light of existing ones.     

Epigenetic silencing of TIMP4 in heart failure

Tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloprotease 4 (TIMP4) is endogenously one of the key modulators of matrix metalloprotease 9 (MMP9) and we have reported earlier that cardiac specific TIMP4 instigates contractility and helps in differentiation of cardiac progenitor cells. Although studies show that the expression of TIMP4 goes down in heart failure but the mechanism is unknown. This study aims to determine the mechanism of silencing of TIMP4 in heart failure progression created by aorta‐vena cava (AV) fistula. We hypothesize that there is epigenetic silencing of TIMP4 in heart failure. To validate this hypothesis, we created heart failure model by creating AV fistula in C57BL/6 mice and looked into the promoter methylation (methylation specific PCR, high resolution melting, methylation sensitive restriction enzyme and Na bisulphite treatment followed by sequencing), histone modification (ChIP assay) and microRNAs that regulate TIMP4 (mir122a) and MMP9 (mir29b and mir455‐5p). The physiological parameters in terms of cardiac function after AV fistula were assessed by echocardiography. We observed that there are 7 CpG islands in the TIMP4 promoter which get methylated during the progression of heart failure which leads to its epigenetic silencing. In addition, the up‐regulated levels of mir122a in part, contribute to regulation of TIMP4. Consequently, MMP9 gets up‐regulated and leads to cardiac remodeling. This is a novel report to explain the epigenetic silencing of TIMP4 in heart failure.     

Pollen morphology of Basmati cultivars (Oryza sativa race Indica) – exine surface ultrastructure

Pollen morphological studies using LM and SEM have been carried out on six cultivars of Basmati – a variety of cultivated species Oryza sativa race Indica. SEM study at a magnification of ×20,000 revealed distinct variations in pollen exine surface patterns, in relation to the arrangements of fine surface excrescences (spinules or granules) and their clustering patterns forming small areas or insulae. Three distinctly different insular patterns occur in cultivars Basmati-370, Karnal local and Type-9. Cultivar Bakul Joha is characterized by free spinules. Mixed type i.e. both free and fused excrescences were observed in cultivars Bengali Joha and Bhog Maniki but they can be differentiated on the basis of the dimensions of the excrescences.