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Grafts made from human amniotic membrane are used to prevent recurrence of pterygium after excision. The success of the procedure can be affected by the quality of preparation and preservation of the grafts. We prospectively evaluated the safety and efficacy of cryopreserved amniotic membrane prepared at the research tissue bank of the Biotechnology Research Center in Tripoli, Libya, and used as adjunct therapy in primary pterygium excision. Twenty-six patients (15 males and 11 females) aged 21-78 years and indicated for primary pterygium excision were transplanted at the Tripoli Eye Hospital with the amniotic membrane grafts. Sixteen patients (62 %) were available for all three follow-up visits scheduled at 1, 3 and 6 months post-surgery. By the third visit, two patients (12.5 %) developed granuloma and three (18.8 %) had pterygium recurrence. The grafts were used after cryopreservation for ≤180 days or >180 days, but statistical analysis showed that the complications were not associated with the length of storage. Moreover, the high rate of complications in this study was not caused by use of cryopreserved AM. In conclusion, locally produced cryopreserved AM is safe as an adjunct therapy for treatment of primary pterygium excision.

The genetic diversity within and among 124 accessions of Opuntia spp. collected from different regions of Morocco was assessed using morphological descriptors and molecular markers. Based on 10 morphological traits, the accessions were separated into 3 main clusters; each cluster was containing accessions from different regions and species. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was then performed on 22 accessions from different regions and species, with 10 inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers and one random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) primer. ISSR primers produced 66 bands overall, 64 (96.9 %) of which were polymorphic while 6 bands were generated by the RAPD marker, all polymorphic. The polymorphic information content (PIC) values ranged from 0.62 to 0.97, with an average of 0.82. The dendrogram of genetic differences generated using the unweighted pair-group method using arithmetic averages (UPGMA) method showed 7 different clusters at a similarity of 0.76, which was confirmed by the principal component analysis (PCA). The main conclusion of our work is the high genetic similarity between Opuntia ficus indica and Opuntia megacantha species in Morocco. Our results will be useful for plant breeding and genetic resource conservation programs.

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