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Shiv Nadar University

(SoNS) School of Natural Sciences

Serologic characterization of autoantibodies helps in the management and monitoring of the course of autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA). The purpose of this study was to evaluate gel centrifugation test (GCT) cards for immunoglobulin G (IgG) titer and determination of IgG subclasses IgG1 and IgG3 and their influence on hemolysis. Eighty direct antiglobulin test (DAT)-positive patients were examined with the help of GCT cards for IgG titer and IgG subclasses. The results were correlated with the presence and absence of hemolysis. A statistically significant (p < 0.005) association of hemolysis with increasing anti-IgG titer was observed. When IgG titer was 30 or less, 28 (50.91%) patients had no hemolysis, whereas 15 (93.75%) patients had features of hemolysis when titer was at least 300. Statistically significant (p < 0.005) association of subclass of IgG (IgG1, IgG3) coating the red blood cells with intravascular hemolysis was also seen. Twenty-nine (80.56%) patients had evidence of hemolysis when IgG1 or IgG1-IgG3 both were present. Gel technology is helpful to demonstrate red blood cell-bound autoantibodies and their characterization with regard to class, subclass, and titer. This information is useful to identify patients with AIHA who are at risk of severe hemolysis with adverse prognosis.

Life Sciences

World University root node

Immunohematology

Demonstration of IgG subclass (IgG1 and IgG3) in patients with positive direct antiglobulin tests

Ionospheric perturbations in possible association with the earthquake occurred on 25 March 2013 in India-Oceania region (magnitudes ≈ 6.0) is investigated on the basis of subionospheric propagation data from the NWC transmitter(19.8 kHz) on the North West Cape, Australia to a VLF receiving station at Agra, India. The local nighttime VLF amplitude data are extensively investigated during the period, ±15 days of the earthquake, in which the trend (nighttime average amplitude), dispersion and nighttime fluctuation are analyzed. It is found that a clear precursory ionosphere perturbation is detected, about 12 days before the main shock, which is characterised by the simultaneous decrease in the trend and increase in nighttime fluctuation. Possible seismo-ionospheric mechanisms to demonstrate the physics that how ionosphere starts to feel these earthquakes are discussed. © 2014 IEEE.

2014 31th URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, URSI GASS 2014

Sub-ionospheric vlf propagation anomalies associated with the earthquake on 25 March 2013

Porteresia coarctata is a wild relative of rice with capability of high salinity and submergence tolerance. The transcriptome analyses of Porteresia can lead to the identification of candidate genes involved in salinity and submergence tolerance. We sequenced the transcriptome of Porteresia under different conditions using Illumina platform and generated about 375 million high-quality reads. After optimized assembly, a total of 152 367 unique transcript sequences with average length of 794 bp were obtained. Many of these sequences might represent fragmented transcripts. Functional annotation revealed the presence of genes involved in diverse cellular processes and 2749 transcription factor (TF)-encoding genes in Porteresia. The differential gene expression analyses identified a total of 15 158 genes involved in salinity and/or submergence response(s). The stress-responsive members of different TF families, including MYB, bHLH, AP2-EREBP, WRKY, bZIP and NAC, were identified. We also revealed key metabolic pathways, including amino acid biosynthesis, hormone biosynthesis, secondary metabolite biosynthesis, carbohydrate metabolism and cell wall structures, involved in stress tolerance in Porteresia. The transcriptome analyses of Porteresia are expected to highlight genes/pathways involved in salinity and submergence tolerance of this halophyte species. The data can serve as a resource for unravelling the underlying mechanism and devising strategies to engineer salinity and submergence tolerance in rice. © 2013 The Author.

Fulltext

DNA Research

Deep Transcriptome Sequencing of Wild Halophyte Rice, Porteresia coarctata, Provides Novel Insights into the Salinity and Submergence Tolerance Factors

Next-generation sequencing technologies provide opportunities to understand the genetic basis of phenotypic differences, such as abiotic stress response, even in the closely related cultivars via identification of large number of DNA polymorphisms. We performed whole-genome resequencing of three rice cultivars with contrasting responses to drought and salinity stress (sensitive IR64, drought-tolerant Nagina 22 and salinity-tolerant Pokkali). More than 356 million 90-bp paired-end reads were generated, which provided about 85% coverage of the rice genome. Applying stringent parameters, we identified a total of 1 784 583 nonredundant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 154 275 InDels between reference (Nipponbare) and the three resequenced cultivars. We detected 401 683 and 662 509 SNPs between IR64 and Pokkali, and IR64 and N22 cultivars, respectively. The distribution of DNA polymorphisms was found to be uneven across and within the rice chromosomes. One-fourth of the SNPs and InDels were detected in genic regions, and about 3.5% of the total SNPs resulted in nonsynonymous changes. Large-effect SNPs and InDels, which affect the integrity of the encoded protein, were also identified. Further, we identified DNA polymorphisms present in the differentially expressed genes within the known quantitative trait loci. Among these, a total of 548 SNPs in 232 genes, located in the conserved functional domains, were identified. The data presented in this study provide functional markers and promising target genes for salinity and drought tolerance and present a valuable resource for high-throughput genotyping and molecular breeding for abiotic stress traits in rice. © 2013 Society for Experimental Biology, Association of Applied Biologists and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Plant Biotechnology Journal

Genomewide discovery of DNA polymorphisms in rice cultivars with contrasting drought and salinity stress response and their functional relevance

In the recent and important context of Nevanlinna-Pick interpolation theory for classes of holomorphic functions with constraints, see [4],[5], and [14], the starting point has been to describe the common invariant subspaces of the operators of multiplication by S2 and S3 on the Hardy classes. In the same spirit this paper offers as a new result the charcterization of the common invariant subspaces of S2 and S3 on the space BMOA. In addition we present a new, elementary and short proof of the invariant subspace characterization of the operator S on BMOA and use this to give a new proof of the invariant subspace characterization of the backward shift on the Hardy space H1 that is also short and elementary. © 2014 University of Houston.

Mathematics

Houston Journal of Mathematics

Multiplication by monomials on BMOA

With a rapidly growing population, development of new materials, techniques and devices which can provide safe potable water continues to be one of the major research emphases of the scientific community. While the development of new metal oxide catalysts is progressing, albeit at a slower pace, the concurrent and rapid development of high surface area catalyst supports such as graphene and its functionalised derivatives has provided unprecedented promise in the development of multifunctional catalysts. Recent works have shown that metal oxide/graphene composites can perform multiple roles including (but not limited to): photocatalysts, adsorbents and antimicrobial agents making them an effective agent against all major water pollutants including organic molecules, heavy metal ions and water borne pathogens, respectively. This article presents a comprehensive review on the application of metal oxide/graphene composites in water treatment and their role as photocatalyst, adsorbent and disinfectant in water remediation. Through this review, we discuss the current state of the art in metal oxide/graphene composites for water purification and also provide a comprehensive analysis of the nature of interaction of these composites with various types of pollutants which dictates their photocatalytic, adsorptive and antimicrobial activities. The review concludes with a summary on the role of graphene based materials in removal of pollutants from water and some proposed strategies for designing of highly efficient multifunctional metal oxide/graphene composites for water remediation. A brief perspective on the challenges and new directions in the area is also provided for researchers interested in designing advanced water treatment strategies using graphene based advanced materials. © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Physics

RSC Advances

Role of graphene/metal oxide composites as photocatalysts, adsorbents and disinfectants in water treatment: A review

Room temperature irradiation of GaSb by 60keV Ar+-ions at an oblique incidence of 60° leads to simultaneous formation of a nanoporous layer and undulations at the interface with the underlying substrate. Interestingly, with increasing ion fluence, a gradual embedding of the dense nanoporous layer takes place below ridge-like structures (up to the fluence of 1×1017 ions cm-2), which get extended to form a continuous layer (at fluences ×1017 ions cm-2). Systematic compositional analyses reveal the co-existence of Ga 2O3 and Sb2O3 in the surface layer. The results are discussed in terms of a competition between ion-induced defect accumulation and re-deposition of sputtered atoms on the surface. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.

Journal of Applied Physics

Temporal evolution of nanoporous layer in off-normally ion irradiated GaSb

Ketol-isomerases catalyze the reversible isomerization between aldoses and ketoses. d-Xylose isomerase carries out the first reaction in the catabolism of d-xylose, but is also able to convert d-glucose to d-fructose. The first step of the reaction is an enzyme-catalyzed ring opening of the cyclic substrate. The active-site amino-acid acid/base pair involved in ring opening has long been investigated and several models have been proposed. Here, the structure of the xylose isomerase E186Q mutant with cyclic glucose bound at the active site, refined against joint X-ray and neutron diffraction data, is reported. Detailed analysis of the hydrogen-bond networks at the active site of the enzyme suggests that His54, which is doubly protonated, is poised to protonate the glucose O5 position, while Lys289, which is neutral, promotes deprotonation of the glucose O1H hydroxyl group via an activated water molecule. The structure also reveals an extended hydrogen-bonding network that connects the conserved residues Lys289 and Lys183 through three structurally conserved water molecules and residue 186, which is a glutamic acid to glutamine mutation. © 2014 International Union of Crystallography.

Chemistry

Acta Crystallographica Section D: Biological Crystallography

Neutron structure of the cyclic glucose-bound xylose isomerase E186Q mutant

The relevance of parity and time reversal (PT)-symmetric structures in optical systems has been known for some time with the correspondence existing between the Schrödinger equation and the paraxial equation of diffraction, where the time parameter represents the propagating distance and the refractive index acts as the complex potential. In this paper, we systematically analyze a normalized form of the nonlinear Schrödinger system with two new families of PT-symmetric potentials in the presence of competing nonlinearities. We generate a class of localized eigenmodes and carry out a linear stability analysis on the solutions. In particular, we find an interesting feature of bifurcation characterized by the parameter of perturbative growth rate passing through zero, where a transition to imaginary eigenvalues occurs. © Czech Technical University in Prague, 2014.

Acta Polytechnica

Tracking down localized modes in pt-symmetric hamiltonians under the influence of a competing nonlinearity

We propose new backgrounds of extra dimensions to lead to four-dimensional chiral models with three generations of matter fermions, that is T 2 /Z N twisted orbifolds with magnetic fluxes. We consider gauge theory on six-dimensional space-time, which contains the T 2 /Z N orbifold with magnetic flux, Scherk-Schwarz phases and Wilson line phases. We classify all the possible Scherk-Schwarz and Wilson line phases on T 2 /Z N orbifolds with magnetic fluxes. The behavior of zero modes is studied. We derive the number of zero modes for each eigenvalue of the Z N twist, showing explicitly examples of wave functions. We also investigate Kaluza-Klein mode functions and mass spectra. © 2014 The Author(s).