R. Prasad

Glucocorticoids as prophylaxis against acute mountain sickness

Objective Acute mountain sickness (AMS) characterized by presence of symptoms including headache, nausea, excessive fatigue, loss of appetite, irritability and insomnia is a major impediment to work performance in human subjects who are rapidly inducted to high altitude (HA) during the initial phase of induction. The present study aims at to evaluate the efficacy of prophylactic administration of low dose glucocorticoids in prevention of AMS in normal healthy men who are inducted to HA by air.

Recombinant OMP28 antigen-based indirect ELISA for serodiagnosis of bovine brucellosis

Brucellosis is a zoonosis of both public health and economic importance in many developing countries including India. Early detection and segregation of the infected animals are important in order to control the disease. Serodiagnostic tests for brucellosis is mainly based on detection of antibodies developed against lipopolysaccharide (LPS) component of cell. In this study we evaluated a protein antigen, 28 kDa outer membrane protein (OMP28), of Brucella melitensis as an alternative to LPS. Recombinant OMP28 was produced in Escherichia coli system. The efficacy of purified OMP28 was studied in an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for diagnosis of brucellosis in field sera collected from different regions of country. Using known negative and known positive serum samples it was found that OMP28 is immunoreactive to Brucella infected cattle, sheep, goat and dog sera. Three hundred and eighty two cattle sera were screened by OMP28 antigen-based ELISA and the results were compared to rose Bengal plate agglutination Test (RBPT). Recombinant OMP28 antigen-based ELISA has shown sensitivity of 88.7%, specificity of 93.8% and accuracy of 92.9%. It was concluded that recombinant B. melitensis OMP28 could be used as a protein antigen for diagnosis of brucellosis in domestic animals.

Isoniazid- and ethambutol-induced psychosis

Most cases of antituberculous agent–associated psychoses were caused by isoniazid (INH), with ethambutol (EMB)-induced psychosis being rare. The concomitant occurrence of INH- and EMB- induced psychosis and in a single individual is extremely uncommon. We report a case of 28-year-old male who developed psychotic symptoms on start of EMB initially and later on INH also. He was prescribed rifampicin, pyrazinamide, and ofloxacin and had no further psychotic symptoms.

Exploitation of Heterosis and Combining ability for Yield and its Contributing traits in Crosses of Two-row and Six-row barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) under Rainfed Environment.

Combining ability for grain yield and its components in barley was studied in a set of four females (Testers 6 rowed), six males (lines 2 rowed) and their resultant F1’s with standard check k-603. Twenty two crosses, excluding BCU -4925 x K-603 and BCU-4922 x Karan-16, showed significant positive economic heterosis for grain yield per plant. Analysis for variance for combining ability analysis revealed that the variance due to General Combining Ability (GCA) and Specific Combing Ability (SCA) were highly significant for most of the traits studied. The estimated value of σ2A was higher than its σ2D for plant height and thousand seed weight which indicated the predominance of additive gene action as the ratio of σ2A/σ2D was more than unity, while rest of the traits showed preponderance of non-additive gene action. The value of average degree of dominance for plant height and thousand seed weight indicated partial dominance while rest of the traits viz., chlorophyll content, spike length, awn length, number of effective tillers, number of grains per spike, harvest index and grain yield per plant showed over-dominance. Two male parents (BCU-4925 and BCU-4927) and one male parent (Lakhan) had significant and positive effect for grain yield per plant. Five crosses were found to be good specific combiners for grain yield with maximum SCA effect in cross BCU-4922 x Lakhan.

Molecular Characterization of Parents and Genetic Study in their Cross Combinations for Drought Tolerance in Barley under Irrigated and Water Stressed Conditions

Molecular Characterization of Parents and Genetic Study in their Cross Combinations for Drought Tolerance in Barley under Irrigated and Water Stressed Conditions nIn pursuit of enhance the productivity along with drought tolerance level of barley cultivar, a generation means analysis of selected 10 cross combinations was conducted under two environments viz., irrigated (moisture non- stress) and rain fed (moisture stress) conditions in Rabi 2012-13 with aimed to estimate the nature and magnitude of gene action controlling the inheritance of drought tolerance, yield and its contributing traits. Before crossing program the degree of diversity of selected genotypes were tested using SSR markers for better outcome. Based ongeneration mean analysis, both additive and dominant types of gene effects were important for most of the traits studied. Moreover, dominance gene effects (h), in general were higher than additive gene effects (d) under both the conditions. In presence of epistasis, almost all the crosses showed duplicate type of gene interaction under both the irrigated and water deficit conditions. In such crosses, the selection should be mild in the earlier and intense in the later generations because it marks the progress through selection.As dominance gene effects (h) were in higher magnitude, it would be worthwhile to resort the methods which will exploit non-additive gene effect and take care of nonallelic interactions, such as, diallel selective mating or biparental mating in early segregating generations for the development of high yielding barley genotypes with desirable drought tolerance related traits. Dendrogram generated based on SSR marker reveals that 10 parents formed three major clusters in which second and third cluster further subdivided into two minor groups with 22 to 76 ranges of variation. Addition of this result before choosing the parents for genetic analysis of such complex traits could be more fruitful under breeding program for crop improvement..

A study to evaluate asbestos fiber burden in lung and pleural malignancies

BACKGROUNDnThere is scarcity of data on asbestos fiber burden in lung and pleural malignancies.nnnAIMnTo evaluate asbestos fiber burden in biopsy samples of suspected lung and pleural malignancies.nnnSTUDY DESIGNnThis was a single-centre, observational study.nnnSTUDY PERIODnFrom August 2010 to July 2010.nnnSETTINGnDepartment of Pulmonary Medicine, CSMMU, UP, Lucknow, a tertiary care hospital in India.nnnSTUDY POPULATIONnSuspected cases of lung and pleural malignancy.nnnMATERIALS AND METHODSnBiopsy tissues taken by computed tomography (CT)-guided biopsy, bronchoscopic biopsy, and pleural biopsy by Copes needle were analyzed for histopathology and asbestos burden by Haq et al.s method.nnnRESULTSn20 patients were studied. Mean fiber burden was 9.25 × 10 4 fibers/g. Average burden in lung malignancies (11 patients) was 9.178 × 10 4 fibers/g and in pleural tissue (9 patients) was 9.332 × 10 4fibers/g. Among the different cell types, mean fiber burden in squamous cell carcinoma was 8.99 × 10 4 fibers/g, in adenocarcinoma was 9.71 × 10 4 fibers/g, and in small cell carcinoma was 7.54 × 10 4 fibers/g. Mean fiber burden in bronchoscopic endobronchial biopsy tissue was 10.69 × 10 4 fibers/g, while in CT-guided biopsy was 8.60× 10 4fibers/g.nnnCONCLUSIONnMaximum number of fibers was found in adenocarcinoma.