No abstract

We conducted a cohort study of tandoor workers to evaluate the relationship between the biomarkers of oxidative and genotoxic damage and exposure to polyaromatic hydrocarbons. A series of oxidative and genotoxic damage biomarkers, including urinary 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), malondialdehyde (MDA) content, and tail moment (TM) by comet assay, was studied. A total of 76 tandoor workers and 79 demographically matched healthy individuals as controls were included. Our results showed that the tandoor workers had significantly higher urinary levels of 1-hydroxypyrene, urinary 8-OHdG, MDA content, and TM compared with the control population. The concentration of all these biomarkers increased with age in the control population as well as tandoor workers. In tandoor workers, significant variation in MDA, 8-oxodG (8-oxo-2′-deoxyguanosine) and TM concentration was detected between smokers (5.08 ± 1.72 nmol/mL, 16.01 ± 4.94 ng/mg creatinine, and 5.87 ± 0.98 µm, respectively) and nonsmokers (3.84 ± 0.98 nmol/mL, 13.74 ± 3.60 ng/mg creatinine, and 5.32 ± 0.69 µm, respectively). A similar pattern was obtained for the control population. We did not obtain significant variations for alcoholics and tobacco chewers. A significant increase in all these three biomarkers was observed with the increase in the period of work exposure in tandoor workers. Multivariate regression analysis also revealed that urinary 8-oxodG, MDA, and TM were statistically significantly related to age and period of work exposure. Overall, the present study showed that the exposure to wood smoke in tandoor workers under occupational conditions led to increased DNA damage because of oxidative stress and genotoxicity. These biomarkers, therefore, are good indices to assess oxidative DNA damage in these workers exposed to occupational genotoxicants. It is also necessary to make preventive changes in work conditions and lifestyle, which will help these occupational workers to lead a healthy life.

Image filtering techniques have numerous potential applications in biomedical imaging and image processing. The design of filters largely depends on the a priori, knowledge about the type of noise corrupting the image. This makes the standard filters application specific. Widely used filters such as average, Gaussian, and Wiener reduce noisy artifacts by smoothing. However, this operation normally results in smoothing of the edges as well. On the other hand, sharpening filters enhance the high-frequency details, making the image nonsmooth. An integrated general approach to design a finite impulse response filter based on Hebbian learning is proposed for optimal image filtering. This algorithm exploits the interpixel correlation by updating the filter coefficients using Hebbian learning. The algorithm is made iterative for achieving efficient learning from the neighborhood pixels. This algorithm performs optimal smoothing of the noisy image by preserving high-frequency as well as low-frequency features. Evaluation results show that the proposed finite impulse response filter is robust under various noise distributions such as Gaussian noise, salt-and-pepper noise, and speckle noise. Furthermore, the proposed approach does not require any a priori knowledge about the type of noise. The number of unknown parameters is few, and most of these parameters are adaptively obtained from the processed image. The proposed filter is successfully applied for image reconstruction in a positron emission tomography imaging modality. The images reconstructed by the proposed algorithm are found to be superior in quality compared with those reconstructed by existing PET image reconstruction methodologies.

Purpose DPP-IV is a ubiquitously expressed cell surface protein that can be presented in soluble forms. It has recently gained medical importance as its inhibitors are widely being used as treatment of T2DM. The present research aims to resolve whether genetic variants of DPP-IV have association with susceptibility to T2DM. Method Two variants of DPP-IV were detected in 100 controls and 100 T2DM by PCR–RFLP technique. Demographic characteristics were recorded. Clinical characteristics were analyzed by enzymatic method. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS-21. Results Demographic and clinical characteristics differ significantly between two groups. The genetic variation in SNP rs3788979 and SNP rs7608798, both in case and control, were in accordance with Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium (p value > 0.05). Both SNPs rs3788979 and rs7608798 were significantly related to T2DM (p- < 0.05). Minor G allele of rs3788979 was linked with the susceptibility of T2DM ( p -value-0.000; OR- 4.235). T allele of SNP rs7608798 conferred the risk of diabetes with OR-2.235. Conclusion This is the first attempt to investigate the association of DPP-IV gene with T2DM in Indian population. The finding of study concludes that genetic variation in DPP-IV gene may considerably increase the risk of developing T2DM.

A single-nucleotide promoter region polymorphism (-108C/T) of the paraoxonase (PON1) gene had been suggested to influence an individual's susceptibility to coronary artery disease (CAD). No data is available on this polymorphism from India. One hundred seventy-eight healthy individuals and 204 angiographically proven CAD patients were recruited to get baseline data on the frequency distribution of the -108C/T polymorphism in normal people of Asian Indian ethnicity and its relation with the risk of CAD. Polymerase chain reaction followed by restriction fragment length analysis was used as the method for genotyping. Blood samples were used for DNA isolation. In the normal subjects, the genotypes were distributed as CT (43.26%) > CC (30.34%), >TT (26.4%). The allele frequency of the C allele was 0.52, and that of the T allele was 0.48. The patients showed a similar pattern, but the TT genotype was about two times more frequent in the controls than in patients. Odds ratios for developing CAD for individuals with CT, TT, and CT + TT genotypes were 0.89 (0.50-1.59), 0.56 (0.27-1.08), and 0.76 (0.44-1.29), respectively (at 95% confidence interval), when compared to CC homozygous people (age- and sex-adjusted, p = 0.114, all genotypes compared). This suggested a trend for the T allele as protective against CAD. This first report on the frequency distribution of the -108C/T polymorphism in people of Asian Indian ethnicity suggests that the normal distribution is similar to that observed for the Chinese, Japanese, and Latino people, but the disease association is unique. The TT genotype and the T allele which are widely found associated with the risk of CAD showed a protective trend in this study.