More than 80% of the 19 million ha of maize (Zea mays L.) in tropical Asia is rainfed and prone to drought. The breeding methods for improving drought tolerance (DT), including genomic selection (GS), are geared to increase the frequency of favorable alleles. Two biparental populations (CIMMYTAsia Population 1 [CAP1] and CAP2) were generated by crossing elite Asian-adapted yellow inbreds (CML470 and VL1012767) with an African white drought-tolerant line, CML444. Marker effects of polymorphic single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were determined from testcross (TC) performance of F 2:3 families under drought and optimal conditions. Cycle 1 (C1) was formed by recombining the top 10% of the F 2:3 families based on TC data. Subsequently, (i) C2 [PerSe_PS] was derived by recombining those C1 plants that exhibited superior per se phenotypes (phenotype-only selection), and (ii) C2[TC-GS] was derived by recombining a second set of C1 plants with high genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) derived from TC phenotypes of F 2:3 families (marker-only selection). All the generations and their top crosses to testers were evaluated under drought and optimal conditions. Per se grain yields (GYs) of C2 [PerSe_PS] and that of C2[TC-GS] were 23 to 39 and 31 to 53% better, respectively, than that of the corresponding F 2 population. The C2[TC-GS] populations showed superiority of 10 to 20% over C2[PerSe-PS] of respective populations. Top crosses of C2[TC-GS] showed 4 to 43% superiority of GY over that of C2[PerSe_PS] of respective populations. Thus, GEBV-enabled selection of superior phenotypes (without the target stress) resulted in rapid genetic gains for DT.

The nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) is a superfamily of transcription factors. It plays an important role in development & progression of cancer. This study was conducted in a tertiary care centre to investigate the significance of NF-κB as a prognostic marker in breast cancer and study its relation with established prognostic markers such as tumor grade, lymph node status, hormone receptor & HER-2/neu expression. We measured NF-κB expression of breast cancer tissue as a test sample & from fibroadenoma as a control. Measurement was done by Western Blot Technique using p65 protein of NF-κB super family of transcription factors. ER,PR and HER-2/neu were measured by immunohistochemistry methods. NF-κB/p65 is significantly associated with large tumor size (≥5 cm), high grade tumors, negative ER, negative PR, positive HER-2/neu and high NPI (≥5.4) scores. NF-κB/p65 expression implies aggressive biological behaviour of breast cancer & this study validates significant association of NF-κB /p65 overexpression with large tumor size, negative estrogen & progesterone receptor status and overexpression of c-erbB2 oncoprotein.

Population prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical intraepithelial neoplasias (CIN) is an important indicator to judge the disease burden in the community, to monitor the performance of cervical cancer screening program and to assess the impact of HPV vaccination program. India being a country without any cervical cancer screening program has no published data on the population prevalence of CIN and only a few large community-based studies to report the high-risk HPV prevalence. The objective of our study was to study HPV and CIN prevalence in a previously unscreened population. We pooled together the results of three research studies originally designed to assess the performance of visual inspection after acetic acid application and Hybrid Capture 2 (HC 2). Nearly 60% of the screened women had colposcopy irrespective of their screening test results. The diagnosis and grading of cervical neoplasias were based on histology. The age standardized prevalence of HPV by HC 2 test was 6.0%. Age-adjusted prevalence of CIN1 and CIN2 was 2.3% and 0.5%, respectively. The age-adjusted prevalence of CIN3 was 0.4% and that of invasive cancer was 0.2%. The prevalence of high-risk HPV was relatively low in the population we studied, which is reflected in the low prevalence of high-grade CIN. The prevalence of CIN3 remained constant across age groups due to absence of screening.Cervical cancer is still the number one cancer among Indian women. Due to the absence of an effective cervical cancer screening program, 130,000 new cases are detected every year in the country.1 The extraordinary advances in our understanding of the pathogenesis of cervical cancer in the recent times have facilitated the development of novel human papillomavirus (HPV)-based screening strategies that have potential to overcome many of the limitations of cervical cytology. It is being hypothesized that in the near future HPV testing will be increasingly used as the primary screening test, and cervical cytology will be reserved to triage HPV-positive women for colposcopy.2 Hybrid Capture 2 (HC 2, Qiagen, Gaithersburg, MD) has been most widely evaluated among the clinical HPV detection technologies globally and in India.3 Information on the population prevalence of high-risk HPV as well as cervical intraepithelial neoplasias (CIN) is crucial to understand the burden of disease. This not only helps in planning appropriate screening strategies but also provides key inputs for resource allocation and quality assurance of the program. In the context of HPV and CIN prevalence, the predominantly unscreened population of Indian women is likely to be different from their counterparts in western or other developed Asian countries who have the benefit of regular screening. Population-based information on the burden of cervical precancers is also important to assess the impact of HPV vaccination in the future. In the present publication, we report the population prevalence of high-risk HPV and different grades of CIN estimated from 35,308 women recruited ...

Spring maize area has emerged as a niche market in South Asia. Production of maize during this post-rainy season is often challenged due to heat stress. Therefore, incorporating heat stress resilience is an important trait for incorporation in maize hybrids selected for deployment in this season. However, due to the significant genotype × environment interaction (GEI) effects under heat stress, the major challenge lies in identifying maize genotypes with improved stable performance across locations and years. In the present study, we attempted to identify the key weather variables responsible for significant GEI effects, and identify maize hybrids with stable performance under heat stress across locations/years. The study details the evaluation of a set of prereleased advanced maize hybrids across heat stress vulnerable locations in South Asia during the spring seasons of 2015, 2016 and 2017. Using factorial regression, we identified that relative humidity (RH) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) as the two most important environmental covariates contributing to the large GEI observed on grain yield under heat stress. The study also identified reproductive stage, starting from tassel emergence to early grain-filling stage, as the most critical crop stage highly susceptible to heat stress. Across-site/year evaluation resulted in identification of six high yielding heat stress resilient hybrids.

Carcinoma of oral cavity have a high risk of recurrence after initial treatment with surgery, radiotherapy, surgery with adjuvant radiotherapy, or radio-chemotherapy.The present study investigated the changes in expression, activity and regulation of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) -2 and -9 in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) which might help to ascertain the invasive potential of the tumor .Tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues of OSCC patients [N,37; either sex; 20-70 yrs] were subjected to clinico-pathology, histopathology and TNM grading. The enzyme activity and associated signalling was observed with gelatin zymography, immunohistochemistry, ELISA, western blot and semi quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR.OSCC tissues were observed with elevated MMP-9 activity, enhanced expression of fibronectin (FN), phosphorylated focal adhesion kinase (FAK Try 397), phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase (PI3K), protein kinase B (AKT) and reduced expression of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1(TIMP-1) than the control tissues.OSCC patients elicited a predominance of MMP-9 activity via up regulated FAK/PI3K/AKT pathway. A routine MMP-9 analysis may ascertain the invasiveness of the tumor and therefore may be professed as a suitable biomarker for metastatic potential of oral cancer. Key words: oral squamous cell carcinoma, MMP-9, zymography, eastern IndiaIn India, oral cancer forms a large group of malignancy representing 30-40% of all cancers [1]. By the year 2020 cancers of the mouth (64,525; 29.5%), tongue (38,052; 17.4%) and larynx (33,855,15.5%) will be the major sites of oral cancer [2].The frequency of oral malignancy varies between Indian states which might be due to regional differences in disease-specific risk factors [3]. The pattern of cancer incidence in rural West Bengal showed that the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx contributed to more than half of the cancers in men and about a quarter in women. Indigenous habits of chewing and smoking seemed to be primarily responsible for their high incidence [4].Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the deadliest forms of oral malignancy which is associated with high morbidity and mortality, resulting from local, regional and distant metastasis [5]. This creates a great concern for scientists and prioritizes the search for suitable biomarker of oral cancer.Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are the principal mediators for the degradation of extracellular matrix (ECM) components which take place during the invasion and metastasis [6,7]. MMPs are zinc dependent family of endopeptidases and the gelatinases, MMP-2 (Gelatinase A, 72 KDa) and MMP-9 (Gelatinase B 92 KDa), are the master molecules for the malignant phenotype because of their unique property to degrade type IV collagen, a major component of the basement membrane [8].The orchestra of signaling molecules associated with MMP regulation is highly complicated. In areas with basement membrane defects the invading carcinoma cells may come in contact with the abundant stromal fibronectin (FN) matrix. The 12...