Ischemic stroke is a condition characterized by reduced blood supply to part of the brain, initiating the ischemic cascade, leading to dysfunction of the brain tissue in that area. It is one of the leading causes of death and disability and is estimated to cause around 5.7 million deaths worldwide. Methyl tetra hydro-folate reductase (MTHFR) is a rate limiting enzyme in the methyl cycle which catalyzes the only biochemical reaction which produces 5, Methyl tetra hydro folate, the co-substrate for the re-methylation of homocystiene to produce methionine. MTFHR C677T is a common mutation of MTHFR and those homozygous for the MTFHR C677T produce a thermo-labile form of the protein with drastically reduced catalytic activity resulting in elevated plasma homocystiene levels - a common risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. However, the role of MTHFR C677T in ischemic stroke remains unclear. To evaluate this association, we carried out a meta-analysis of existing published studies, which included 72 studies involving 12390 cases and 16274 controls. The forest plot was made to evaluate the overall risk of the mutation in the etiology of Ischemic Stroke. The overall Odds- ratio of the study was found to be 1.319 for random effects model, revealing a ∼32% increased risk of Ischemic stroke in the presence of MTHFR C667T mutation compared to controls. Publication bias in the study was analyzed using funnel plot which revealed that only 7 studies out of the 72 contributed to publication bias. These 7 studies were excluded and Meta-analysis was repeated for 65 studies and overall odds-ratio was 1.306, which showed that there was a 30% higher risk of Ischemic stroke in the presence of MTHFR C667T.

Therapeutic agents with a goal to eradicate cancer needs to capable of inhibiting the growth and kill, any preformed tumor and should also inhibit oncogenic transformation of normal cells to cancer cells. Bacteriocins are bacterial proteins produced to prevent the growth of competing microorganisms in a particular biological niche and have been proved to possess antineoplastic activity. The entire genome of Lactobacillus salavarius was scanned for putative bacteriocins and subsequently these bacteriocins were characterized by subjecting them as functional annotation algorithms. Azurin is a well characterized bacteriocins with proven cytostatic and apoptotic effect against human cancer cell and was taken as control. Functional characterization revealed that the three bacteriocins Lsl_003, Lsl_0510, Lsl_0554 possessed functional properties very similar to that of Azurin. Molecular screening of these bacteriocins against the common cancer targets p53, Rb1 and AR revealed that Lsl_0510 possessed highest binding affinity towards the all the three receptors making it to ideal candidate for future cancer therapeutics.AbbreviationsP53 - Protein 53, Rb1 - Retinoblastoma 1, AR - Androgen Receptor, Lsl - Lactobacillus salavarius.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a “spectrum” of disorders, characterized by varying degrees of symptoms ranging from mild to severe. Among Psychiatric disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorders have the strongest evidence for a genetic basis, yet the search for specific genes contributing to these often devastating developmental syndromes has proven extraordinarily difficult. Bipolar Disorder (BP) is a manic-depressive disorder whose symptoms are characterized by extremities in moods. It is also called as the “Mood disorder”. BP, like, ASD also has a strong genetic basis and identification of the candidate genes still remains an ongoing effort. Literature studies point to the hypothesis that ASD and BP have good chances of comorbidity and that they may share common pathways for their manifestation. But this hypothesis has not been worked on in depth. Thus, the study focuses on identifying the chances of their comorbidity by identifying their common pathways and the genes involved in the pathways and also discuss the degree of chances of their comorbidity based on the genes involved in the common pathways. Networks for the genes are also constructed to represent their commonness or uniqueness for the disorders.

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Systems Biology involves the study of the interactions of biological systems and ultimately their functions. Down's syndrome (DS) is one of the most common genetic disorders which are caused by complete, or occasionally partial, triplication of chromosome 21, characterized by cognitive and language dysfunction coupled with sensory and neuromotor deficits. Neural Tube Disorders (NTDs) are a group of congenital malformations of the central nervous system and neighboring structures related to defective neural tube closure during the first trimester of pregnancy usually occurring between days 18-29 of gestation. Several studies in the past have provided considerable evidence that abnormal folate and methyl metabolism are associated with onset of DS & NTDs. There is a possible common etiological pathway for both NTDs and Down's syndrome. But, various research studies over the years have indicated very little evidence for familial link between the two disorders. Our research aimed at the gene expression profiling of microarray datasets pertaining to the two disorders to identify genes whose expression levels are significantly altered in these conditions. The genes which were 1.5 fold unregulated and having a p-value <0.05 were filtered out and gene interaction network were constructed for both NTDs and DS. The top ranked dense clique for both the disorders were recognized and over representation analysis was carried out for each of the constituent genes. The comprehensive manual analysis of these genes yields a hypothetical understanding of the lack of familial link between DS and NTDs. There were no genes involved with folic acid present in the dense cliques. Only – CBL, EGFR genes were commonly present, which makes the allelic variants of these genes – good candidates for future studies regarding the familial link between DS and NTDs.AbbreviationsNTD - Neural Tube Disorders, DS - Down's Syndrome, MTHFR - Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, MTRR– 5 - methyltetrahydrofolate-homocysteine methyltransferase reductase.