Objectives: The aims of the study were to help generate information and knowledge regarding the causes and complications leading to maternal deaths (MDs) in an urban tertiary care hospital, to find if any of them are potentially preventable, and to use information thus generated to save lives. Methods: The medical records of all MDs occurring over a period of 4 years between January 2003 and December 2006 were reviewed and correlated with maternal age, antenatal registration, mode of delivery, parity, admission death interval, and causes of death. Results: The maternal mortality rate (MMR) ranged between 926 and 377/100,000 births in the study period. The causes of deaths were sepsis 23.84%, eclampsia /pregnancy-induced hypertension 17.69%, hemorrhage 13.84%, hepatitis 13.84%, anemia 13.07%, respiratory infections 8.46%, other indirect obstetrical causes 6.15%, and unrelated causes 4.61%. Maximum deaths (71.53%) occurred in women between 21 and 30 years of age while multigravida had MMR of 51.53%. Mortality was highest in postnatal mothers 63.06%.Unbooked cases constituted 92.31% of MDs and included 25% referred cases. Conclusion: Overall maternal mortality was 690/100,000. MDs due to direct obstetric causes were 55.38%, indirect obstetric deaths 40%, and unrelated deaths 4.61%. The causes of potentially preventable deaths include deaths due to anemia, sepsis, hemorrhage, DIC, and anesthesia complication, and accounted for 25.38% of all deaths.

Menaquinone 7 (MK-7) is nutritionally important metabolite found by fermentation mainly using B. subtilis species. In this study, soybean medium was modified to improve the MK-7 production using Bacillus subtilis NCIM 2708 under solid state fermentation. The objective of this study was to produce large amount of MK-7 within a short period of time. Nine nutritional components viz. glycerol, mannitol, dextrose, sucrose, yeast extract, malt extract, K 2 HPO 4 , MgSO 4 .7H 2 O and CaCl 2 were investigated to obtain the maximum MK-7 concentration. The highest MK-7 concentration 39.039 μg/g was obtained after 24 h of fermentation in the following optimised medium components: soybean 20 g, glycerol 40 ml/kg, mannitol 60 g/kg, yeast extract 4 g/kg, malt extract 8 g/kg and calcium chloride 4 g/kg. The maximum production of MK-7 56.757 μg/g was predicted by point prediction tool of Design Expert 7.1 software (Statease Inc. USA). This data shows 68.78 % validity of the predicted model.

A rapid, sensitive and specific high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method was developed and validated for determination of gliotoxin in Aspergillus infected immunocompromised patients with invasive aspergillosis (IA). Densitometric analysis of gliotoxin was carried out in the absorbance mode at 254 nm after single-step extraction with chloroform. The method uses TLC aluminum plates pre-coated with silica gel 60F-254 as a stationary phase and toluene-isoamyl alcohol-methanol (10:0.5:0.5, v/v/v) as mobile phase, which gives compact spot of gliotoxin (R(f) = 0.51). The calibration curve was linear (r(2) > or = 0.994) between peak area and concentration in the tested range of 100-1000 ng spot(-1) with minimum detectable range 0.025 ng mu(-1) of serum sample. The mean +/- SD value of slope and intercept of the standard chromatogram of gliotoxin were found to be 523.2 +/- 1.555635 and 915.8 +/- 30.68843, respectively. The developed method is simple, rapid, precise and less costly than earlier diagnostic methods, and different serum samples can be run on a single TLC plate for comparative analysis. The proposed method can be used to analyze gliotoxin in patient serum for easy, rapid and cost-effective diagnosis of IA.

A simple, accurate and rapid high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method for the simultaneous quantification of three glycosidic isoflavones (daidzin, genistin and glycitin) in soybean (Glycine max L.) has been established and validated. Chromatography was performed on aluminum foil-backed silica gel 60 F254 HPTLC plates and found compact spots for daidzin, genistin and glycitin (Rf value of 0.39, 0.51 and 0.32, respectively) with mobile phase toluene : ethyl acetate : formic acid : acetic acid in the ratio of 1 : 8 : 1 : 0.5, v/v/v/v. Ultraviolet detection was performed densitometrically at the maximum absorbance wavelength, 260 nm. The method was validated for precision, recovery, robustness, specificity, limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ), in accordance with the ICH guidelines. The LOD (2.9, 19.3 and 3.5 µg mL(-1)), LOQ (9.03, 58.6 and 10.7 µg mL(-1)), recovery (95.9-106.66, 86.97-106.56 and 98.54-105.65%) and precision (≤2.12, ≤0.722 and ≤0.066) were satisfactory for glycosidic form of isoflavones daidzin, genistin and glycitin, respectively. Soybean variety Kh-09 bragg was found to have relatively higher amount of glycosidic isoflavones, namely daidzin, genistin and glycitin 278, 597.5 and 109.4 µg g(-1), respectively, and after fermentation the glycosidic isoflavones concentration in soybean fermented with Bacillus subtilis strain were decreased significantly after 24 h of incubation; conversely, aglycone isoflavones were increased significantly. The method for quantification of isoflavones in unfermented and fermented soybeans, with good resolution has been developed.

Long grains of Hordeum vulgare and Sorghum bicolor were individually fermented with Monascus purpureus MTCC 369 under solid state fermentation. The aqueous extract of Monascus which fermented H. vulgare and S. bicolor was found to contain five different new metabolites. Silica gel column chromatography of the aqueous extract with a linear gradient of ethyl acetate, acetonitrile and carbon tetrachloride (v/v) yielded five new metabolites named benzopranyl capriate (9H-1-isoprenyl-benzopyran-5-isopropanoic acid-6-ol-6-n-decanoate), shorghumoic acid (n-octadec-8,11-dien-7α-ol-1-oic acid) and sorghumflavin A (2-n-butyloxo-6-β-hydroxy-7-β-isoprenyl ankaflavin) from Monascus-fermented S. bicolor, while hordeumflavin B (2-n-undecanyloxo-7-β-isoprenyl ankaflavin) and vulgaredilone (2-dodecanyl-7-β isopranyl monoscodilone) from Monascus-fermented H. vulgare.