在一些地区开展新生儿听力普遍筛查的挑战

1背景 新生儿听力普遍筛查(universal neonatal hearing screening,UNHS)是早期发现听力损失的有效手段.一些发达国家,如美国,澳大利亚和英国等,已经或正在建立新生儿听力普遍筛查项目.有许多研究报道了开展该项目可能获得的效益[1～3],但是关于该项目在发展中国家可行性的报道却很少[4,5].     

The use of the mouse peritoneal cavity for screening for biocompatibility of polymers

The mouse peritoneal cavity was evaluated as a possible model for the preliminary screening of polymeric implant materials. The phagocytic cells of the cavity were stimulated prior to implant insertion by intraperitoneal injection of thioglycollate, glycogen, or sodium caseinate. Small, cylindrical polymeric implants of polyethylene, polychlorotrifluoroethylene, silicone, nylon-12, ethylene-chlorotrifluoroethylene copolymer, and polyethylene-silicone blend, were inserted and then retrieved at 1, 2, and 3 week intervals. The implants with attached cells were subsequently stained and evaluated as to the amount and type of cellular adherence. Results indicate that cell adherence varies according to the type of material used and therefore the mouse peritoneal cavity is a rapid and inexpensive method to evaluate cellular response to polymeric implant materials.     

Seroprevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi in North Eastern India

Background

There is paucity of data on Lyme disease in India. A seroprevalence study of B burgdorferi infection was carried out in North-Eastern states of India to assess the same.

Methods

Sera from 500 individuals of North-Eastern states of India were tested for IgG antibody by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay using commercial kits containing recombinant antigen.

Result

Out of 500 persons, 65 (13%) were positive for B burgdorferi specific lgG Females showed higher positivity rate as compared to males (15.86% vs 10.95%). Higher prevalence rate was observed in the age group of 15-30 years in both sexes (11.48% in male and 18.69% in female). Arunachal Pradesh showed higher seroprevalence rate (17.8%) as compared to other North-Eastern states (8.46-9.6%).

Conclusion

Seropositivity to B burgdorferi suggests infection by the organism and presence of Lyme disease in these areas. Further population and vector biology studies are required to find out the exact species involved in transmission of the organism.Key Words: Lyme Disease, Seroprevalence, Borrelia burgdorferi     

Genomic epidemiology of the Escherichia coli O104:H4 outbreaks in Europe, 2011

The degree to which molecular epidemiology reveals information about the sources and transmission patterns of an outbreak depends on the resolution of the technology used and the samples studied. Isolates of Escherichia coli O104:H4 from the outbreak centered in Germany in May-July 2011, and the much smaller outbreak in southwest France in June 2011, were indistinguishable by standard tests. We report a molecular epidemiological analysis using multiplatform whole-genome sequencing and analysis of multiple isolates from the German and French outbreaks. Isolates from the German outbreak showed remarkably little diversity, with only two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) found in isolates from four individuals. Surprisingly, we found much greater diversity (19 SNPs) in isolates from seven individuals infected in the French outbreak. The German isolates form a clade within the more diverse French outbreak strains. Moreover, five isolates derived from a single infected individual from the French outbreak had extremely limited diversity. The striking difference in diversity between the German and French outbreak samples is consistent with several hypotheses, including a bottleneck that purged diversity in the German isolates, variation in mutation rates in the two E. coli outbreak populations, or uneven distribution of diversity in the seed populations that led to each outbreak.     

Changes in serum concentrations of growth hormone, insulin, insulin- like growth factor and insulin-like growth factor-binding proteins 1 and 3 and urinary growth hormone excretion during the menstrual cycle

Few studies exist on the physiological changes in the concentrations of growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factors (IGF) and IGF-binding proteins (IGFBP) within the menstrual cycle, and some controversy remains. We therefore decided to study the impact of endogenous sex steroids on the GH-IGF-IGFBP axis during the ovulatory menstrual cycle in 10 healthy women (aged 18-40 years). Blood sampling and urinary collection was performed every morning at 0800 h for 32 consecutive days. Every second day the subjects were fasted overnight before blood sampling. Follicle stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone (LH), oestradiol, progesterone, IGF-I, IGFBP-3, sex hormone-binding globulin, dihydroepiandrosterone sulphate and GH were determined in all samples, whereas insulin and IGFBP-1 were determined in fasted samples only. Serum IGF-I concentrations showed some fluctuation during the menstrual cycle, with significantly higher values in the luteal phase compared to the proliferative phase (P < 0.001). Mean individual variation in IGF-I concentrations throughout the menstrual cycle was 13.2% (SD 4.3; range 0.1-18.3%). There were no cyclic changes in IGFBP-3 serum concentrations and no differences in IGFBP-3 concentrations between the luteal and the proliferative phases. Mean individual variation in IGFBP- 3 concentrations throughout the menstrual cycle was 8.8% (SD 2.7; range 3.2-14.1). IGFBP-1 concentrations were inversely associated with insulin concentrations, and showed a significant pre-ovulatory increase that returned to baseline at the day of the LH surge. Fasting insulin concentrations showed large fluctuations throughout the menstrual cycle without any distinct cyclic pattern. No cyclic changes in urinary GH excretion during menstrual cycle were detected. We conclude that, although IGF-I concentrations are dependent on the phase of the menstrual cycle, the variation in IGF-I concentrations throughout the menstrual cycle is relatively small. Therefore, the menstrual cycle does not need to be considered when evaluating IGF-I or IGFBP-3 serum values in women suspected to have GH deficiency.      

Sequence, annotation, and analysis of synteny between rice chromosome 3 and diverged grass species

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) chromosome 3 is evolutionarily conserved across the cultivated cereals and shares large blocks of synteny with maize and sorghum, which diverged from rice more than 50 million years ago. To begin to completely understand this chromosome, we sequenced, finished, and annotated 36.1 Mb (~97%) from O. sativa subsp. japonica cv Nipponbare. Annotation features of the chromosome include 5915 genes, of which 913 are related to transposable elements. A putative function could be assigned to 3064 genes, with another 757 genes annotated as expressed, leaving 2094 that encode hypothetical proteins. Similarity searches against the proteome of Arabidopsis thaliana revealed putative homologs for 67% of the chromosome 3 proteins. Further searches of a nonredundant amino acid database, the Pfam domain database, plant Expressed Sequence Tags, and genomic assemblies from sorghum and maize revealed only 853 nontransposable element related proteins from chromosome 3 that lacked similarity to other known sequences. Interestingly, 426 of these have a paralog within the rice genome. A comparative physical map of the wild progenitor species, Oryza nivara, with japonica chromosome 3 revealed a high degree of sequence identity and synteny between these two species, which diverged ~10,000 years ago. Although no major rearrangements were detected, the deduced size of the O. nivara chromosome 3 was 21% smaller than that of japonica. Synteny between rice and other cereals using an integrated maize physical map and wheat genetic map was strikingly high, further supporting the use of rice and, in particular, chromosome 3, as a model for comparative studies among the cereals.