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BackgroundFungal keratitis (FK) is the leading cause of unilateral blindness in the developing world. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been shown to play an important role on human ocular surface (OS) during bacterial, viral and protozoan infections. In this study, our aim was to profile a spectrum of AMPs in corneal tissue from patients with FK during the active pase of infection and after healing.MethodsOS samples were collected from patients at presentation by impression cytology and scraping. Corneal button specimens were collected from patients undergoing therapeutic penetrating keratoplasty for management of severe FK or healed keratitis. Gene expression of human beta-defensin (HBD)-1, -2, -3 and -9, S100A7, and LL-37 was determined by quantitative real-time PCR.ResultsMessenger RNA expression (mRNA) for all AMPs was shown to be significantly upregulated in FK samples. The levels of HBD-1 and -2 mRNA were found to be elevated in 18/20 FK samples. Whereas mRNA for HBD-3 and S100A7 was upregulated in 11/20 and HBD9 was increased in 15/20 FK samples. LL-37 mRNA showed moderate upregulation in 7/20 FK samples compared with controls. In healed scar samples, mRNA of all AMPs was found to be low and matching the levels in controls.ConclusionAMP expression is a consistent feature of FK, but not all AMPs are equally expressed. HBD-1 and -2 are most consistently expressed and LL-37 the least, suggesting some specificity of AMP expression related to FK. These results will help to identify HBD sequence templates for designing FK-specific peptides to test for therapeutic potential.

In the last few decades, gravastars have been proposed as an alternative to black holes. The stability of the gravastar has been studied in many modified theories of gravity along with Einstein's GR. The $f(Q, T)$ gravity, a successful modified theory of gravity for describing the current accelerated expansion of the Universe has been used in this article to study gravastar in different aspects. According to Mazur and Mottola \cite{mazur,mottola} it has three regions with three different equations of state. Here in this work, we have studied the interior of the gravastar by considering the $p=-\rho$ EoS to describe the dark sector for the interior region. The next region is a thin shell of ultrarelativistic stiff fluid, in which we have investigated several physical properties viz. the proper length, energy, entropy, surface energy density, etc. In addition, we have studied the surface redshift and speed of sound to check the potential stability of our proposed thin-shell gravastar model. Apart from that, we have used the entropy maximization technique to verify the stability of the gravastar model. The gravastar's outer region is completely vacuum which is described by exterior Schwarzschild geometry. Finally, we have presented a stable gravastar model which is singularity-free and it devoid of any kind of incompleteness in classical black hole theory.

Aquatic animals are usually vulnerable to a complex range of life-threatening pathogenic organisms which cause enormous losses in the aquaculture industry. In the present study, the probiotic bacteria, Bacillus subtilis, isolated from the mangrove forest of Bhitarakanika, Odisha, India, was used to determine the efficacy of its subcellular component on the immune system of Labeo rohita and also to evaluate its effectiveness against the fish pathogen, Aeromonas hydrophila. The subcellular component of bacteria was separated and immunized intraperitoneally at a dose of 4 µl, i.e. 40.4 µg protein/ µl in healthy L. rohita (average weight 50 ± 5g). A dose of 0.1 ml phosphate buffer saline (PBS) was injected as a replacement of subcellular component in the control. After 1 month of immunization, various haematological parameters including RBC and WBC, non-specific immune factors such as respiratory burst activity, lysozyme, bactericidal activity and serum biochemical activity (i.e. total protein, albumin, globulin, and A/G ratio) were evaluated. The immunized and control fish were infected experimentally with virulent A. hydrophila. Bacterial cell suspension (20 µl) in PBS containing 10 6 CFU/ ml injected intraperitoneally. The mortality rate was observed after the infection. After infection with A. hydrophila, the blood and serum samples were again obtained at 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h for assessment of the above parameters to estimate the efficacy of subcellular component. Our result revealed that the WBC, NBT and bactericidal activity were increased significantly (p ≤ 0.05) in the immunized fish as compared to that of the control fish. After being infected with A. hydrophila, the total WBC count and NBT levels of immunized fish were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) risen at 72 h. Likewise, the levels of total protein, albumin, globulin and A/G in the immunized fish were increased than in the control fish. However, albumin and A/G ratio were significantly (p ≤ 0.05) decreased after infected with A. hydrophila, but the highest globulin level was observed at 72 h of post-challenged. Due to its better effect on the non-specific immune function, e.g. respiratory burst (0.44 ± 0.01 ΔOD/min), lysozyme (4.13 ± 0.17 U/min) and bactericidal (88.80% ± 0.18%) activities of fish, this sub-cellular component can be useful as a potential vaccine for bacterial septicaemia caused by Aeromonas hydrophila in aquaculture.

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