Although the role of metastatic cancer stem cells (mCSCs) in tumor progression has been well documented, our study reveals a hitherto unidentified role of tumorigenic intrinsic CSCs (iCSCs) in breast ...cancer metastasis. We show that unlike highly migratory mCSCs residing in the breast tumor disseminating/peripheral regions, iCSCs populate the inner mass of the tumor and are non-migratory. However iCSCs, via paracrine signaling, induce conversion of non-stem cancer cells to CSCs that (i) are identical to the previously reported mCSCs, and (ii) in contrast to iCSCs, express chemokine receptor, chemokine (C-X-C motif) receptor 4 (CXCR4), which is crucial for their metastatic potential. These mCSCs also demonstrate high in vivo tumorigenicity. Physical non-participation of iCSCs in metastasis is further validated in vivo, where only mCSCs are found to exist in the metastatic sites, lymph nodes and bone marrow, whereas the primary tumor retains both iCSCs and mCSCs. However, iCSCs ensure metastasis since their presence is crucial for deliverance of highly metastatic CXCR4(+) mCSCs to the migrating fraction of cells. Cumulatively, these results unveil a novel role of iCSCs in breast cancer metastasis as parental regulators of CXCR4(+) mCSCs, and highlight the therapeutic requisite of targeting iCSCs, but not CXCR4(+) mCSCs, to restrain breast cancer metastasis from the root by inhibiting the generation of mCSCs from iCSCs. Considering the pivotal role of iCSCs in tumor metastasis, the possibility of metastasis to be a 'stem cell phenomena' is suggested.
Summary
Malaria, being an epidemic disease, demands its rapid and accurate diagnosis for proper intervention. Microscopic image‐based characterization of erythrocytes plays an integral role in ...screening of malaria parasites. In practice, microscopic evaluation of blood smear image is the gold standard for malaria diagnosis; where the pathologist visually examines the stained slide under the light microscope. This visual inspection is subjective, error‐prone and time consuming. In order to address such issues, computational microscopic imaging methods have been given importance in recent times in the field of digital pathology. Recently, such quantitative microscopic techniques have rapidly evolved for abnormal erythrocyte detection, segmentation and semi/fully automated classification by minimizing such diagnostic errors for computerized malaria detection. The aim of this paper is to present a review on enhancement, segmentation, microscopic feature extraction and computer‐aided classification for malaria parasite detection.
Lay description
Malaria is one of the parasitic infections, which transmits from one infected patient to healthy person through the bite of an Anopheles mosquito. Plasmodium species are responsible for malaria infection. Being an epidemic disease, malaria demands its rapid and accurate diagnosis for proper intervention. The most common and frequently followed diagnostic procedure is the visual assessment of microscopic images of peripheral blood smears and this is adopted as the gold standard for malaria characterization. This kind of manual analysis introduces inter‐observer variability leading to miss diagnosis. As a result delayed diagnosis happens. Apart from the limitations in conventional diagnosis process, it is very hard to get clinicians around the clock in rural areas. Scientists have shown an alternate way of diagnosis through computational evaluation of microscopic images which can help the medical community to overcome the aforesaid restrictions of conventional method. The technological advancement can also aid the tele‐diagnosis. Hence, the implementations and development of advanced computer vision techniques for microscopic image computing has become a popular field of research in digital pathology in recent times. Besides this research issue deals with real life problem and the outcome of this research has direct impact on mankind, which encourages researchers to get engaged in a pursuit. From the viewpoint of machine learning and pattern classification, automatically identifying the different malaria parasite infections and their sub‐types from light microscopic blood smear images is the challenging and essential task. The noisy interference, typical shape of infected erythrocytes (different types and sub‐types) and limited imaging characteristics make the computational analysis very challenging. Researchers have followed various computer vision approaches to deal with the difficulties and finally have come up with desired outcomes through minimizing diagnostic errors.
In this paper, authors represent a systematic chronological review of existing techniques of malarial characterization from microscopic images through addressing different stages of image processing methodology viz. pre‐processing (reducing staining variation, noise reduction etc.), segmentation (erythrocytes and chromatin detection), features extraction, potential feature set selection and pattern classification (characterization of malaria) and also comparing the performance of algorithms as per the information reported in literature. This review paper will certainly help new researchers to get a complete overview on microscopic image analysis for malaria screening and also assist them to find the gaps in existing literature, so that they can find some suitable approach for further modification to develop robust technique.
The major hindrance in the development and sustainability of aquaculture industry is the occurrence of various diseases in the farming systems. Today, preventive and management measures are central ...concern to overcome such outbreak of diseases. Immunostimulants are considered as an effective tool for enhancing immune status of cultured organisms. Among different immunostimulants used in aquaculture practices, β-glucan is one of the promising immunostimulant, which is a homopolysaccharide of glucose molecule linked by the glycoside bond. It forms the major constituents of cell wall of some plants, fungi, bacteria, mushroom, yeast, and seaweeds. Major attention on β-glucan was captivated with the gain in knowledge on its receptors and the mechanism of action. The receptor present inside the animal body recognizes and binds to β-glucan, which in turn renders the animal with high resistance and enhanced immune response. This review highlights β-glucan as an immunostimulant, its effective dosages, and route of administration and furthermore provides an outline on role of β-glucan in enhancing growth, survival, and protection against infectious pathogens pertaining to fishes and shellfishes. Study also summarizes the effect of β-glucan on its receptors, recognition of proteins, immune-related enzymes, immune-related gene expression and their mechanisms of action.
Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) for child contacts of TB patients, a globally accepted intervention, needs to be evaluated in diverse geographical regions.
To assess the extent of IPT coverage and ...adherence, to ascertain its sociodemographic and programmatic correlates and to explore existing constraints from service providers and beneficiaries´ perspectives.
A mixed-method study was conducted in January-June 2021 in Paschim Bardhaman District, West Bengal, India. Quantitative assessment was done among 280 child contacts of TB cases registered between January and December 2020 in all TB units in the district. Primary caregivers were interviewed using a pre-designed questionnaire. Two focus group discussions with all senior treatment supervisors of the district and in-depth interviews with 12 purposively selected caregivers of the children were undertaken. Qualitative data were analysed thematically.
Only 48.9% (137/280) of child contacts were screened; 58.9% (165/280) were initiated on IPT and 40% (66/165) adhered to a full course. Coverage of the full 6-month IPT among total study participants was 23.6% (66/280). Household visits by health personnel and initial screening significantly predicted increased coverage. Programmatic inadequacies, poor understanding, social stigma and COVID situation were major constraints.
Coverage of IPT remains unacceptably low and requires health system strengthening for effectively implementing current recommendations of TB preventive treatment.
Treatment of delayed union, malunion, and nonunion is a challenge to the orthopaedic surgeons in veterinary and human fields. Apart from restoration of alignment and stable fixation, in many cases ...adjunctive measures such as bone-grafting or use of bone-graft substitutes are of paramount importance. Bone-graft materials usually have one or more components: an osteoconductive matrix, which acts as scaffold to new bone growth; osteoinductive proteins, which support mitogenesis of undifferentiated cells; and osteogenic cells, which are capable of forming bone in the appropriate environment. Autologous bone remains the "gold standard" for stimulating bone repair and regeneration, but its availability may be limited and the procedure to harvest the material is associated with complications. Bone-graft substitutes can either substitute autologous bone graft or expand an existing amount of autologous bone graft. We review the currently available bone graft and graft substitutes for the novel therapeutic approaches in clinical setting of orthopaedic surgery.
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•Undoped and Co doped anatase TiO2 NPs are prepared by low cost sol-gel co-precipitation.•Redshift of the most intense Raman peak supports non-stoichiometry endorsing the creation of ...oxygen vacancies by Co doping.•Co doping causes significant diminution of band gap from 3.51 to 3.25 eV which is supported by DFT calculations.•Intrinsic weak ferromagnetism due to oxygen vacancies is dominated by paramagnetism giving rise to mixed magnetic phases.•Interacting BMPs culminate in the largest ferromagnetic contribution under the mixed magnetic phases.
The study is an attempt to bridge the gap between experimental observations and the theoretical predictions on cobalt (Co) doped TiO2 nanoparticles prepared by low cost sol-gel method. Single phase anatase TiO2 nanocrystals with particle size ranging between 16 and 32 nm observed minor distortions in TiO2 unit cell, after cobalt substitution (3 and 5 at.%), due to its larger ionic radius, which leads to creation of oxygen vacancies. Doped TiO2 showed significant diminution from 3.51 to 3.25 eV in the band gap, supported by density functional theory. Presence of nonlinear magnetization within lower field region was also observed which indicate the existence of weak ferromagnetism dominated by paramagnetic behaviour at high field region, suggesting a mixed magnetic phase. Magnetic observations are well supported with bound magnetic polaron (BMP) model. The observed band gap shrinkage and magnetic behaviour both are associated to the oxygen vacancies created by Co doping.
Hundreds of variants associated with atopic dermatitis (AD) and psoriasis, 2 common inflammatory skin disorders, have previously been discovered through genome-wide association studies (GWASs). The ...majority of these variants are in noncoding regions, and their target genes remain largely unclear.
We sought to understand the effects of these noncoding variants on the development of AD and psoriasis by linking them to the genes that they regulate.
We constructed genomic 3-dimensional maps of human keratinocytes during differentiation by using targeted chromosome conformation capture (Capture Hi-C) targeting more than 20,000 promoters and 214 GWAS variants and combined these data with transcriptome and epigenomic data sets. We validated our results with reporter assays, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats activation, and examination of patient gene expression from previous studies.
We identified 118 target genes of 82 AD and psoriasis GWAS variants. Differential expression of 58 of the 118 target genes (49%) occurred in either AD or psoriatic lesions, many of which were not previously linked to any skin disease. We highlighted the genes AFG1L, CLINT1, ADO, LINC00302, and RP1-140J1.1 and provided further evidence for their potential roles in AD and psoriasis.
Our work focused on skin barrier pathology through investigation of the interaction profile of GWAS variants during keratinocyte differentiation. We have provided a catalogue of candidate genes that could modulate the risk of AD and psoriasis. Given that only 35% of the target genes are the gene nearest to the known GWAS variants, we expect that our work will contribute to the discovery of novel pathways involved in AD and psoriasis.
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) promulgated a clear message that there have been many extreme weather and climate events observed globally since 1950, and these changes occurred ...mainly due to anthropogenic causes and emission of greenhouse gases. A computation study was carried out to assess the extreme temperature and rainfall events for the period 1984–2015 at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi by using ETCCDI indices through RClimDex software. The statistical significance of time series data and various calculated indices was done by linear regression as well as by Mann-Kendall test. Results indicated that annual mean maximum temperature decreased significantly at 0.019 °C/year and annual mean minimum temperature showed an increasing trend but without statistical significance. Alteration has happened in atmospheric properties, both physical and chemical over Delhi region during the period because of rapid urbanization and, increased concentration of aerosol. Fossil fuel/biomass waste burning, transportation of sand dust from Thar Desert, and reduction in incoming solar radiation have contributed both for fall in daytime temperature and rise in nighttime temperature. The changes in temperature would affect agricultural production through reduction in the rate of photosynthesis and excessive nocturnal respiration. Frequency and magnitude of coolest day (maximum temperature < 15 °C) and night (minimum temperature < 5 °C) have been rising at IARI, New Delhi. In the case of rainfall-based indices, annual rainfall (PRCPTOT), consecutive wet days (CWD), and number of days with rainfall ≥ 20 mm (R20) showed significant increasing tendency. Increasing trend in simple daily intensity index (SDII), rainy days (R2.5), and declining trend of consecutive dry days (CDD) indicates better distribution of rainfall. Nevertheless, increasing tendency in RX1day, RX5day, and R99p indicates possibilities of heavy rainfall events although the trend has been found insignificant.
Earlier diagnosis and treatment of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in preterm infants, before clinical deterioration, might improve outcomes. A monitor that measures abnormal heart rate ...characteristics (HRC) of decreased variability and transient decelerations was developed as an early warning system for sepsis. As NEC shares pathophysiologic features with sepsis, we tested the hypothesis that abnormal HRC occur before clinical diagnosis of NEC.
Retrospective review of Bells stage II to III NEC cases among infants <34 weeks gestation enrolled in a prospective randomized clinical trial of HRC monitoring at three neonatal intensive care units.
Of 97 infants with NEC and HRC data, 33 underwent surgical intervention within 1 week of diagnosis. The baseline HRC index from 1 to 3 days before diagnosis was higher in patients who developed surgical vs medical NEC (2.06±1.98 vs 1.22±1.10, P=0.009). The HRC index increased significantly 16 h before the clinical diagnosis of surgical NEC and 6 h before medical NEC. At the time of clinical diagnosis, the HRC index was higher in patients with surgical vs medical NEC (3.3±2.2 vs 1.9±1.7, P<0.001).
Abnormal HRC occur before clinical diagnosis of NEC, suggesting that continuous HRC monitoring may facilitate earlier detection and treatment.
Every year the horticultural sector of India faces huge quantity of food wastage due to lack of processing, value addition and post-harvest handling. Farmers Producer Company (FPC) can mitigate the ...loss through ensuring better value chain management. There are several horticulture based FPCs established in different parts of India. They have grown very fast and competing with agro-industries. The present study aimed to assess the performance of FPCs working in horticulture sector. The study was conducted in Maharashtra State of India by selecting three FPCs working in horticultural sector. Performance of these FPCs was assessed through Effectiveness Index developed for this study. Seven components viz. functional effectiveness, increase in income, increase in farmers share in consumers rupees, inclusiveness, sustainability of company, farmers satisfaction and empowerment were included in the index by following standard index forming protocol. Sahyadri Farms was found the best performing one among the selected FPCs, regarding effectiveness with a mean index score of 63.69 followed by Vasundhara Agro Producer Company Limited (50.20) and Junnar Taluka FPC Ltd. (41.29).
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