Immunizing California's children. Effects of current policies on immunization levels.

Data collected by the Immunization Unit of the California Department of Health Services from 1979 to 1987 were analyzed to determine the effects of changes in state policy on the immunization levels of children in California. By December 1986, 90% of all children entering kindergarten in California were adequately immunized, representing a 15% increase from 1979. Although California has shown substantial improvements, it still lags behind the national weighted average. Even with high levels of immunization at kindergarten entry, many toddlers of 7 months and 2 years old remain inadequately immunized. Children immunized solely in the private sector were more adequately immunized than those served by public health clinics; the public-private difference for infants aged 7 months was nearly twofold.     

Tissue culture and transient transformation of Marestail (Conyza canadensis (L.) Cronquist)

Glyphosate resistant crops are useful to agriculture by facilitating the use of nonselective herbicides, such as RoundUp^®, that have low human and environmental toxicity. The occurrence of glyphosate resistant weeds, however, has raised concern about the future utility of these crops. Conyza canadensis (L.) Cronquist (marestail or horseweed) is one such glyphosate resistant weed that has yet to be fully analyzed or established in tissue culture. Tissue culture enables the examination of physiological characteristics of a plant in an aseptic and controlled environment. For the present study, mairstail was cultured on a Murashige and Skoog based medium supplemented with 6-benzylaminopurine, and α-naphthaleneacetic acid. Plant regeneration was achieved on the same basal medium supplemented with only gibberellic acid. Glyphosate resistance could be demonstrated in the cultured tissues. The cultures could also be transformed with Agrobacterium tumefaciens without chemically inducing virulence using phenolics or glucose and resulting in a transformation frequency (transgenic events per total number of explants used) of about 13%. The tissue culture growth, preliminary glyphosate resistance data and genetic transformation data gathered in this project provide the means to further evaluate the mode of glyphosate resistance expressed by marestail.     

Association Analysis of Genetic Variants in the Myosin IXB Gene in Acute Pancreatitis

Introduction

Impairment of the mucosal barrier plays an important role in the pathophysiology of acute pancreatitis. The myosin IXB (MYO9B) gene and the two tight-junction adaptor genes, PARD3 and MAGI2, have been linked to gastrointestinal permeability. Common variants of these genes are associated with celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease, two other conditions in which intestinal permeability plays a role. We investigated genetic variation in MYO9B, PARD3 and MAGI2 for association with acute pancreatitis.

Methods

Five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in MYO9B, two SNPs in PARD3, and three SNPs in MAGI2 were studied in a Dutch cohort of 387 patients with acute pancreatitis and over 800 controls, and in a German cohort of 235 patients and 250 controls.

Results

Association to MYO9B and PARD3 was observed in the Dutch cohort, but only one SNP in MYO9B and one in MAGI2 showed association in the German cohort (p < 0.05). Joint analysis of the combined cohorts showed that, after correcting for multiple testing, only two SNPs in MYO9B remained associated (rs7259292, p = 0.0031, odds ratio (OR) 1.94, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.35-2.78; rs1545620, p = 0.0006, OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.16-1.53). SNP rs1545620 is a non-synonymous SNP previously suspected to impact on ulcerative colitis. None of the SNPs showed association to disease severity or etiology.

Conclusion

Variants in MYO9B may be involved in acute pancreatitis, but we found no evidence for involvement of PARD3 or MAGI2.     

The RAS subfamily Evolution – tracing evolution for its utmost exploitation

In the development of multicellularity, signaling proteins has played a very important role. Among them, RAS family is one of the most widely studied protein family. However, evolutionary analysis has been carried out mainly on super family level leaving sub family information in scanty. Thus, a subfamily evolutionary study on RAS evolutionary expansion is imperative as it will aid in better drug designing against dreadful diseases like Cancer and other developmental diseases. The present study was aimed to understand RAS evolution on both holistic as well as reductive level. All human RAS family genes and protein were subjected to BLAST tools to find orthologs and paralogs with different parameters followed by phylogenetic tree generation. Our results clearly showed that H-RAS is the most primitive RAS in higher eukaryotes and then diverged into other RAS family members due to different gene modification events. Furthermore, a site specific selection pressure analysis was carried out using SELECTON server which showed that H-RAS, M-RAS and N-RAS are evolving faster than K-RAS and R-RAS. Thus, the results ascertain a new ground to cancer biologists to exploit negatively selected K-RAS and R-RAS as potent drug targets in cancer therapeutics.     

Interaction of (benzylidene-hydrazono)-1,4-dihydropyridines with β-amyloid,acetylcholine, and butyrylcholine esterases

Approved drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease belong to the group of inhibitors of the acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and NMDA receptor inhibitors. However none of the drugs is able to combat or reverse the progression of the disease. Thus, the recently reported promising multitarget-directed molecule approach was applied here. Using the lead compound DUO3, which was found to be a potent inhibitor of the AChE and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) as well as an inhibitor of the formation of the amyloid (Aβ) plaque, new non-permanently positively charged derivatives were synthesized and biologically characterized. In contrast to DUO3 the new bisphenyl-substituted pyridinylidene hydrazones 5 are appropriate to cross the blood–brain barrier due to their pK_a values and lipophilicity, and to inhibit both the AChE and BuChE. More important some of the pyridinylidene hydrazones inhibit the Aβ fibril formation completely and destruct the already formed fibrils significantly.     

Motor training programs of arm and hand in patients with MS according to different levels of the ICF: a systematic review

Background

Breast cancer survivors, particularly those treated with chemotherapy, are at significantly increased risk for long-term cognitive and neurobiologic impairments. These deficits tend to involve skills that are subserved by distributed brain networks. Additionally, neuroimaging studies have shown a diffuse pattern of brain structure changes in chemotherapy-treated breast cancer survivors that might impact large-scale brain networks.

Methods

We therefore applied graph theoretical analysis to compare the gray matter structural networks of female breast cancer survivors with a history of chemotherapy treatment and healthy age and education matched female controls.

Results

Results revealed reduced clustering coefficient and small-world index in the brain network of the breast cancer patients across a range of network densities. In addition, the network of the breast cancer group had less highly interactive nodes and reduced degree/centrality in the frontotemporal regions compared to controls, which may help explain the common impairments of memory and executive functioning among these patients.

Conclusions

These results suggest that breast cancer and chemotherapy may decrease regional connectivity as well as global network organization and integration, reducing efficiency of the network. To our knowledge, this is the first report of altered large-scale brain networks associated with breast cancer and chemotherapy.     

Juvenile greylag geese (Anser anser) discriminate between individual siblings

Social species that maintain individualised relationships with certain others despite continuous changes in age, reproductive status and dominance rank between group members ought to be capable of individual recognition. Tests of "true" individual recognition, where an individual recognises unique features of another, are rare, however. Often kinship and/or familiarity suffice to explain dyadic interactions. The complex relationships within a greylag goose flock suggest that they should be able to recognise individuals irrespective of familiarity or kinship. We tested whether six-week-old hand-raised greylags can discriminate between two of their siblings. We developed a new experimental protocol, in which geese were trained to associate social siblings with geometrical symbols. Subsequently, focals were presented with two geometrical symbols in the presence of a sibling associated with one of the symbols. Significant choice of the geometrical symbol associated with the target present indicated that focals were able to distinguish between individual targets. Greylag goslings successfully learned this association-discrimination task, regardless of genetic relatedness or sex of the sibling targets. Social relationships within a goose flock thus may indeed be based on recognition of unique features of individual conspecifics.     

Two cortical systems for reaching in central and peripheral vision

Parietal lesions in humans can produce a specific disruption of visually guided hand movement, termed optic ataxia. The fact that the deficit mainly occurs in peripheral vision suggests that reaching in foveal and extrafoveal vision rely on two different neural substrates. In the present study, we have directly tested this hypothesis by event-related fMRI in healthy subjects. Brain activity was measured when participants reached toward central or peripheral visual targets. Our results confirm the existence of two systems, differently modulated by the two conditions. Reaching in central vision involved a restricted network including the medial intraparietal sulcus (mIPS) and the caudal part of the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd). Reaching in peripheral vision activated in addition the parieto-occipital junction (POJ) and a more rostral part of PMd. These results show that reaching to the peripheral visual field engages a more extensive cortical network than reaching to the central visual field.