Associated factors for maternal-foetal complications in pregnant women with sickle cell disease at the departmental University Hospital of Borgou and Alibori (Benin)

Background: Sickle cell disease is one of the most common genetic disorders in the world, with a high prevalence in Africa. It is a pathology that threatens the maternal-fetal prognosis in case of pregnancy. The objective of this study was to describe the maternal-foetal complications and to identify the factors associated with maternal-foetal complications in sickle cell pregnant women (SP).Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study with retrospective data collection over a period of 4 years (01 January 2015 to 31 August 2019). The study population was All SP who had given birth in the maternity ward of the UH of Borgou/Alibori.Results: We recorded 130 SP out of 10087 admissions, either a frequency of 1.3%. There were 119/130 exploitable files. Maternal complications during pregnancy were: vaso-occlusive crises 79%; severe anaemia 27.7%; hyponatremia 10.1%; vasculo-renal syndromes 18.4%; infections 74.8%. The foetal complications during pregnancy were: Preterm births 38.6%, in utero deaths 17.6%, low birth weight 54.7%. Early neonatal mortality was 8.4% (8/95). There was a 4.2% (5/119) of maternal deaths. Low educational level of the SP, SS genotype, insufficient antenatal follow-up and antenatal follow-up outside the specialized center for the care of sickle cell pregnant women (SCCSP) were the factors associated with maternal-foetal complications in the SP.Conclusions: The association of pregnancy and sickle cell disease is frequent in West Africa, particularly in Benin, and is characterised by numerous maternal-foetal complications that are associated with certain factors

Cloning and heterologous expression of bovine pyroglutamyl peptidase type-1 in Escherichia coli : purification , biochemical and kinetic characterisation

We describe the cloning, expression and purification of the bovine XM866409 form of pyroglutamyl-aminopeptidase I. The amino acid sequence, deduced from the nucleotide sequence, revealed that it consists of 209 amino acid residues and showed to have 98% homology with the human AJ278828 form of the enzyme. Three amino acid residues at positions 81, 205 and 208 were found to vary among the two sequences. The bovine enzyme was expressed in XL10-gold Esherichia coli cells. Immobilizied Ni-ion affinity chromatography was used to purify the expressed protein resulting in a yield of 3.3mg of PAP1 per litre culture. The purified enzyme had a specific activity of 1700 units/ml. SDS-PAGE produced a single band for bovine PAP1 with a molecular weight of ~23-24 kDa which is in good agreement with previously reported data on PAP1. Kinetic constants Km and Kcat were 59μΜ and 3.5s-1, respectively. It possessed an optimum pH between 9-9.5, a temperature of 37°C and showed an absolute requirement for a thiol-reducing agent (10mM DTT). EDTA didn’t prove to have an effect on enzyme activity. Competitive inhibition was seen with pyroglutamyl peptides pGlu-His-Pro-NH2 (TRH; Ki= 44.1 uM), pGlu-Ala- OH (Ki=141 uM) and pGlu-Val-OH (Ki=652.17)

Prediction of Protein Modification Sites of Pyrrolidone Carboxylic Acid Using mRMR Feature Selection and Analysis

Pyrrolidone carboxylic acid (PCA) is formed during a common post-translational modification (PTM) of extracellular and multi-pass membrane proteins. In this study, we developed a new predictor to predict the modification sites of PCA based on maximum relevance minimum redundancy (mRMR) and incremental feature selection (IFS). We incorporated 727 features that belonged to 7 kinds of protein properties to predict the modification sites, including sequence conservation, residual disorder, amino acid factor, secondary structure and solvent accessibility, gain/loss of amino acid during evolution, propensity of amino acid to be conserved at protein-protein interface and protein surface, and deviation of side chain carbon atom number. Among these 727 features, 244 features were selected by mRMR and IFS as the optimized features for the prediction, with which the prediction model achieved a maximum of MCC of 0.7812. Feature analysis showed that all feature types contributed to the modification process. Further site-specific feature analysis showed that the features derived from PCA's surrounding sites contributed more to the determination of PCA sites than other sites. The detailed feature analysis in this paper might provide important clues for understanding the mechanism of the PCA formation and guide relevant experimental validations

Análise da dinâmica de fragmentos florestais no município de Carandaí, MG, para fins de restauração florestal

A busca de conhecimento sobre fragmentos florestais nas propriedades rurais permite a aplicação de uma correta gestão agroambiental, favorecendo a sua conservação e restauração em áreas degradadas. Utilizando os softwares SPRING e FRAGSTATS, caracterizou-se a paisagem, com ênfase nos fragmentos de Floresta Estacional Semidecidual Secundária, localizada no Município de Carandaí, MG, e região de entorno, considerando sua evolução durante o período de 1984 a 2007. Concluiu-se que ocorreu aumento de quase 8% na área total de floresta nativa devido ao surgimento de 46 novos fragmentos, e a área individual de cada fragmento apresentou tendência de redução (31,9 para 30,6 ha), o que proporcionou aumento da densidade de borda (17,1 para 19,7 m/ha), diminuindo a porcentagem de cada fragmento, que é a área central (33,8 para 30,2%) durante o intervalo de tempo avaliado. Apesar da vantagem de predominância de fragmentos de forma geométrica simples (índice de forma médio de 1,738), com redução do efeito de borda, a qualidade da paisagem apresentou-se comprometida, por ser constituída predominantemente por pequenos fragmentos. Os fragmentos florestais mostraram-se ainda muito distanciados entre si (mais que 200 m), apresentando pequena tendência de aglomeração (reflexo do aumento no número de fragmentos), porém ainda insuficiente. Portanto, apesar de a cobertura de floresta nativa ter apresentado aumento de área total, de modo geral esta perdeu em qualidade no intervalo de tempo estudado. Essas informações podem ser utilizadas para uma gestão ambiental correta quanto ao manejo florestal nessa região.The knowledge on forest patches in rural properties allows the application of a correct environmental administration, promoting their conservation and restoration in degraded areas. By using the softwares SPRING and FRAGSTATS, the landscape was characterized with emphasis on the patches of secondary Seasonal Semidecidual Forest, located in the municipal district of Carandaí, MG, and the area around it, considering its evolution from the period of 1984 to 2007. It could be concluded that progressive increase in the total area of native forest occurred due to the appearance of new patches, and the individual area of each patch presented reduction tendency, what provided increase of the edge area, reducing the percentage of each patch which is the core area during the gap of the evaluated time. Despite the advantage of predominance of patches in simple geometric ways, with reduction of the edge effect, the quality of the landscape got threatened because it was predominantly constituted by small patches. The forest patches were still so distant one from the others (more than 200 meters), presenting small gathering tendency (result of the increase of the number of patches), however, still insufficient. Therefore, although the covering of native forest has presented increase of total area, in general, it lost in quality in the gap of the time considered

Breaking Functional Connectivity into Components: A Novel Approach Using an Individual-Based Model, and First Outcomes

Landscape connectivity is a key factor determining the viability of populations in fragmented landscapes. Predicting ‘functional connectivity’, namely whether a patch or a landscape functions as connected from the perspective of a focal species, poses various challenges. First, empirical data on the movement behaviour of species is often scarce. Second, animal-landscape interactions are bound to yield complex patterns. Lastly, functional connectivity involves various components that are rarely assessed separately. We introduce the spatially explicit, individual-based model FunCon as means to distinguish between components of functional connectivity and to assess how each of them affects the sensitivity of species and communities to landscape structures. We then present the results of exploratory simulations over six landscapes of different fragmentation levels and across a range of hypothetical bird species that differ in their response to habitat edges. i) Our results demonstrate that estimations of functional connectivity depend not only on the response of species to edges (avoidance versus penetration into the matrix), the movement mode investigated (home range movements versus dispersal), and the way in which the matrix is being crossed (random walk versus gap crossing), but also on the choice of connectivity measure (in this case, the model output examined). ii) We further show a strong effect of the mortality scenario applied, indicating that movement decisions that do not fully match the mortality risks are likely to reduce connectivity and enhance sensitivity to fragmentation. iii) Despite these complexities, some consistent patterns emerged. For instance, the ranking order of landscapes in terms of functional connectivity was mostly consistent across the entire range of hypothetical species, indicating that simple landscape indices can potentially serve as valuable surrogates for functional connectivity. Yet such simplifications must be carefully evaluated in terms of the components of functional connectivity they actually predict

Análise espacial de fragmentos florestais na Bacia do Rio Itapemirim, ES

Os objetivos deste trabalho foi mapear e analisar a estrutura da paisagem florestal em uma área representativa da Bacia do Rio Itapemirim, ES, por meio de índices de ecologia da paisagem. O mapeamento dos fragmentos florestais foi obtido utilizando técnicas de fotointerpretação na escala de 1:1500 do ortofotomosaico do ano 2007. Para o cálculo dos índices de ecologia, foi utilizada a extensão Patch Analyst dentro do aplicativo computacional ArcGIS 9.3. Foram encontrados 3.285 fragmentos florestais em toda a área, representando 17% de cobertura florestal. Os fragmentos mapeados foram divididos em classes de tamanho, sendo fragmentos pequenos aqueles menores que 5 ha; de tamanho médio aqueles entre 5 e 50 ha; e grandes os maiores que 50 ha. Os fragmentos pequenos encontravam-se em maior número (2.236), seguidos pelos fragmentos de tamanho médio (749) e, por último, pelos fragmentos grandes, que compreenderam apenas 100 manchas. O número de fragmentos de cada classe de tamanho possui relação inversa com a contribuição em área dessa classe dentro da fragmentação florestal. As análises quantitativas por meio de métricas da paisagem foram feitas com os grupos de índices de área; densidade e tamanho, forma; proximidade e área central, sendo este último obtido em diferentes simulações de efeito de borda (20,40, 60, 80, 100, 140 e 200 m). Para todos os índices houve diferenciações com relação às classes de tamanho dos fragmentos florestais. A maior parte dos fragmentos florestais da bacia, são pequenos, menores que 5 ha, sendo que a distância de borda de 100 metros elimina completamente a área central desses fragmentos. Apesar dos fragmentos grandes apresentarem os formatos mais irregulares, estes possuem maior índice de área central, mesmo sob o efeito da maior distância de efeito de borda

Dynamics of the large-scale tropospheric circulation During summer monsoon and tropical droughts

Fourier analysis has been used for monthly mean geopotential height for 700 mb and 300 mb levels for the months April through August for the years 1967, 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1977. The years 1967, 1973, 1977 are good monsoon years and 1972, 1974 are drought years. From the Fourier coefficients the transport of momentum and of sensible heat, wave to wave and wave to zonal interactions have been computed in wave number domain.&#x0D;  &#x0D; Waves 1 to 3 show contrasting features in years of good and bad monsoons. Northward transport of momentum across subtropical latitudes is large in good monsoon years while northward transport of sensible heat is large in bad monsoon years. In drought years there is large divergence of flux of sensible heat in subtropics, while there is large divergence of momentum in good monsoon years. In good monsoon years waves 1 and 2 are greater source of energy to other waves via both wave-wave interactions and wave to zonal mean flow interactions during monsoon months in the upper troposphere.</jats:p