Climate change is causing soil salinization, resulting in crop losses throughout the world. The ability of plants to tolerate salt stress is determined by multiple biochemical and molecular pathways. Here we discuss physiological, biochemical, and cellular modulations in plants in response to salt stress. Knowledge of these modulations can assist in assessing salt tolerance potential and the mechanisms underlying salinity tolerance in plants. Salinity-induced cellular damage is highly correlated with generation of reactive oxygen species, ionic imbalance, osmotic damage, and reduced relative water content. Accelerated antioxidant activities and osmotic adjustment by the formation of organic and inorganic osmolytes are significant and effective salinity tolerance mechanisms for crop plants. In addition, polyamines improve salt tolerance by regulating various physiological mechanisms, including rhizogenesis, somatic embryogenesis, maintenance of cell pH, and ionic homeostasis. This research project focuses on three strategies to augment salinity tolerance capacity in agricultural crops: salinity-induced alterations in signaling pathways; signaling of phytohormones, ion channels, and biosensors; and expression of ion transporter genes in crop plants (especially in comparison to halophytes).

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This study was conducted to get an insight into the knowledge, attitude, and practices of the people of Pakistan regarding organ donation (OD), and to understand the various factors that influence these. Systematic sampling was used to generate a sample size of 357. Data collection was carried out via a questionnaire in the outpatient units of our hospital. All kinds of medical and surgical patients were interviewed. Knowledge of ODs that occur in Pakistan and the rest of the world was found to be 65.5 and 72.8%, respectively. The percentage of those willing to donate their organ/s was 59.9%. Knowledge of OD was significantly associated with education and socioeconomic status. Willingness to donate had a significant association with gender. It also had a moderate association with education and socioeconomic status. Awareness of OD and the knowledge that OD can save lives was also significantly associated with the willingness to donate.

The Philadelphia chromosome (Ph) derives from the balanced translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22. This chromosomal translocation results in the fusion between the 5' part of the BCR gene, normally located on chromosome 22, and the 3' part of the ABL gene on chromosome 9 giving origin to a BCR-ABL fusion gene which is transcribed and then translated into a hybrid protein. In general, three breakpoint cluster regions in the BCR gene have been described: major (M-BCR), minor (m-BCR) and micro (μ-BCR). Three main variants of the BCR-ABL gene have been described depending on the length of the sequence of the BCR gene included that encode for the P190, P210, P230 proteins. Most patients (95 %) were found to have P210 protein that resulted from rearrangement in the M-BCR region in the BCR gene and thus gives rise to b2a2 or b3a2 variants. The incidence of one or other rearrangement in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients varies in different reported series. These two variants are associated with distinct clinical types of human leukemias. In this study, we report the frequencies of M-BCR-ABL fusion transcripts in 44 CML patients and we review the data on the correlations between the type of M-BCR/ABL variant and the corresponding sex, age and biological features. Forty-four untreated chronic phase CML patients were studied. The type of BCR-ABL fusion transcripts was determined by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). More than half of them showed b3a2 fusion transcript (64 %), while (36 %) showed b2a2 transcript. No patients coexpressed b3a2/b2a2. Correlation between biological data demonstrated that: (a) M-BCR rearrangements were not associated with the sex of the patients. (b) Patients with b3a2 rearrangements were older than patients with b2a2 transcripts. (c) M-BCR rearrangements were influenced neither by the white blood count (WBC) nor with hemoglobin levels. However, platelet level is more elevated in patients with b3a2 transcript (681.2/L vs. 207/L; P = 0.001). In conclusion, we observed significant correlations between age, platelet level and M-BCR-ABL transcript, these observations deserve further investigations.