Dealing with infodemic during COVID-19 pandemic: Role of effective health communication in facilitating outbreak response & actions - An ICMR experience.

Objectives: To highlight and assess the impact of intervention tools used by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) against COVID19 associated infodemic in the world's largest democratic country, India. Study design: It is a retrospective cross sectional study. The impact of ICMR's multi-pronged strategy to address the infodemic during pandemic has been assessed through analysis of print media reportage and social media engagements. Methods: The impact of the interventions was assessed using cloud media mappers like MediaCloud and Meltwater using keywords. The data was analysed in terms of reportage, theme of reportage. A sub-section of media reportage (Feb 2020-June 2020) was analysed in details from 4 major dailies to understand the coverage and tonality of media reports. The data on COVID 19 related tweets, posts and uploads were taken from social media platforms of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) particularly twitter, instagram, facebook and youtube and estimate of pre and post pandemic changes in followers or users were collected for analysis. The data was curated and analysed using MS excel. Results: There was a surge of 3800% reportage in media during pandemic as compared to same time frame in pre-pandemic times. A surge of followers on twitter from 26,823 on Feb 2020 (before pandemic) to 3,36,098 at March 2022 (after pandemic) was observed. A drastic increase in monthly followers was observed after start of Pandemic (after Feb 2020) in comparison to before pandemic (Before Feb 2020). Similar trends were observed on other social media platforms of ICMR. Conclusions: The Communications Unit at ICMR geared up with more robust plans and designed several interventions to mitigate the infodemic which helped in evidence based decision making towards outbreak response and action. This highlights the importance of evidence based, crisp, timely and effective communication during the epidemics/pandemics to buid trust and confidence in the community.

Naturally Acquired Human Antibodies Against Reticulocyte-Binding Domains of Plasmodium vivax Proteins, PvRBP2c and PvRBP1a, Exhibit Binding-Inhibitory Activity.

Background: Crucial gaps in our understanding of Plasmodium vivax reticulocyte invasion and protective immunity have hampered development of vivax vaccines. P. vivax exclusively invades reticulocytes that is mediated by the P. vivax reticulocyte-binding proteins (PvRBPs) specifically PvRBP2c and PvRBP1a. Vivax infections in Duffy-null individuals have suggested the evolution of alternate invasion pathways that may be mediated by the PvRBPs. Thus, PvRBPs appear as potential targets for efficacious P. vivax neutralization. However, there are limited data validating their vaccine efficacy. In the absence of vivax invasion assays, binding-inhibitory activity of antibodies has been reported to be associated with protection and a measure of vaccine potential. Methods: -based analysis was performed of the PvRBP reticulocyte-binding properties and binding-inhibitory activity of specific anti-PvRBP2c/PvRBP1a human antibodies. Results: PvRBP2c and PvRBP1a displayed a distinct reticulocyte-binding specificity, and their specific reticulocyte-binding domains were mapped within their N-terminal regions. Importantly, naturally acquired antibodies against the reticulocyte-binding domains efficaciously blocked reticulocyte binding of native PvRBPs, suggesting that the human immune system produced functional binding-inhibitory antibodies through exposure to vivax malaria. Conclusions: Reticulocyte-binding domains of PvRBP2c/PvRBP1a are targets of naturally acquired binding-inhibitory antibodies, substantiating their promise as candidate antigens against which vaccine-inducible immunity could potentially be boosted through natural infections.

Evidence for the Nucleo-Apical Shuttling of a Beta-Catenin Like Plasmodium falciparum Armadillo Repeat Containing Protein.

Eukaryotic Armadillo (ARM) repeat proteins are multifaceted with prominent roles in cell-cell adhesion, cytoskeletal regulation and intracellular signaling among many others. One such ARM repeat containing protein, ARM Repeats Only (ARO), has recently been demonstrated in both Toxoplasma (TgARO) and Plasmodium (PfARO) parasites to be targeted to the rhoptries during the late asexual stages. TgARO has been implicated to play an important role in rhoptry positioning i.e. directing the rhoptry towards the apical end of the parasite. Here, we report for the first time that PfARO exhibits a DNA binding property and a dynamic sub-cellular localization between the nucleus (early schizont) and rhoptry (late schizont) during the different stages of the asexual blood-stage life cycle. PfARO possesses a putative nuclear export signal (NES) and the nucleo-apical shuttling was sensitive to Leptomycin B (LMB) suggesting that the nuclear export was mediated by CRM1. Importantly, PfARO specifically bound an A-T rich DNA sequence of the P. falciparum Gyrase A (PfgyrA) gene, suggesting that the DNA binding specificity of PfARO is likely due to the AT-richness of the probe. This is a novel functional characteristic that has not been reported previously for any P. falciparum ARM containing protein and suggests a putative role for PfARO in gene regulation. This study describes for the first time a conserved P. falciparum ARM repeat protein with a high degree of functional versatility.

Targeting polyamine biosynthetic pathway through RNAi causes the abrogation of MCF 7 breast cancer cell line.

The diamine putrescine and polyamines, spermidine (triamine) and spermine (tetraamine) are small organic polycations that play an indispensable role in key cellular processes such as the regulation of growth, differentiation, and macromolecular functions. Elevated levels of polyamines (PAs) have been shown to be one of the major factors involved in carcinogenesis. In this study, specific silencing of the expression of three genes of PA biosynthesis pathway, ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase (SAMDC), and spermidine synthase (SPDSYN) was achieved using RNA interference in MCF 7 breast cancer cell line. For optimizing the effective small interfering nucleic acid (siNA), three variants of ODC siNA [siRNA, locked nucleic acid (LNA)-modified siRNA, and siHybrid (RNA and DNA hybrid)] were used and a dose- and time-dependent study was conducted. The PA biosynthetic genes were targeted individually and in combination. RNAi-mediated reduction in the expression of PA biosynthesis genes resulted in distorted cell morphology, reduced cancer cell viability, and migration characteristic. The most promising results were observed with the combined treatment of siSPDSYN and siODC with 83 % cell growth inhibition. On analyzing the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression profile of the cell cycle and apoptosis-related genes, it was observed that RNAi against PA biosynthetic genes downregulated the expression of CDK8, CCNE2, CCNH, CCNT1, CCNT2, CCNF, PCNA, CCND1, and CDK2, and upregulated the expression of E2F4, BAX, FAS, TP53, CDKN1A, BAK1, CDKN1B, ATM, GRANB, and ATR genes when compared with control-transfected cells. These results suggest that the targeting polyamine biosynthesis through RNAi approach could be a promising strategy for breast cancer therapy and might be extended for therapy of other cancers.