A Prospective Cross-Sectional Study of Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients' Quality of Life and Drug Prescription Patterns at Riyadh Region Hospitals, Saudi Arabia.

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a leading cause of cardiovascular-related morbidity and mortality worldwide. The present study investigated the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and drug prescribing patterns in ACS patients at Riyadh hospitals in Saudi Arabia. This study was a 12-month prospective cross-sectional study that included 356 patients with ACS. The current study showed that younger male (67.42%) and urban (75.84%) patients suffered more from ACS. Moreover, most patients with NSTEMI (51.69%) experienced Grade 1 dyspnea (33.43%) and NYHA Stage 2 (29.80%); however, STEMI patients were at greater mortality risk. The HRQOL questionnaire showed that ACS patients were significantly impaired in all QOL domains (emotional [23.0%, p = 0.001], physical [24.4%, p = 0.003], and social [27.2%, p = 0.002]). Furthermore, the most commonly prescribed medications were statins (93%), antiplatelets (84%), anticoagulants (79%), coronary vasodilators (65%), and beta-blockers (63%). Additionally, 64% of patients received PCIs or CABGs, with the majority of cases receiving PCIs (49%), whereas 9% received dual anticoagulant therapy. Thus, there is an urgent need to educate healthcare teams about the relevance of QOL in ACS control and prevention and the new ACS management recommendations. ACS is also growing among younger people, requiring greater attention and prevention.

Analysis of chromosomes and nucleotides in rice to predict gene expression through codon usage pattern.

Amino acids are essential measurements for the potential growth stage because of connecting to protein structures and functions. The objective of this paper was to analyze chromosomes feature at plastid region of rice represented by nucleotide, synonymous codon, and amino acid usage to predict gene expression through codon usage pattern. The results showed that the values of the codon adaption index ranged from 0.733 in chromosome 9 to 0.631 in chromosome 8 with full length of these two chromosomes were 3738 and 1635 respectively. The higher value of guanine and cytosine content was 60% in chromosomes 9 while the lower values was 37% in chromosomes 11. Eight chromosomes (ch1, ch2, ch3, ch5, ch7, ch8, ch10, and ch12) were greater value of modified relative codon bias than threshold (threshold: 0.66) especially in cysteine for ch1, ch2, ch5, ch10, and ch12. While other remaining chromosomes were less than the threshold. Relative synonymous codon usage found that the over-represented of amino acids were asparagine, aspartate, cysteine, glutamate, and phenylalanine across all 12 chromosomes. These results would establish a platform for more and further projects concerning rice breeding and genetics and codon optimization in the amino acids for developing varieties. These results also will help breeders to select desirable genes through the genome for improve target traits.

Identification of Genes Involved in Biogenesis of Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMVs) in Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhi.

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are nano-sized proteoliposomes discharged from the cell envelope of Gram-negative bacteria. OMVs normally contain toxins, enzymes and other factors, and are used as vehicles in a process that has been considered a generalized, evolutionarily conserved delivery system among bacteria. Furthermore, OMVs can be used in biotechnological applications that require delivery of biomolecules, such as vaccines, remarking the importance of their study. Although it is known that Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi), the etiological agent of typhoid fever in humans, delivers toxins (e.g., HlyE) via OMVs, there are no reports identifying genetic determinants of the OMV biogenesis in this serovar. In the present work, and with the aim to identify genes participating in OMV biogenesis in S. Typhi, we screened 15,000 random insertion mutants for increased HlyE secretion. We found 9 S. Typhi genes (generically called zzz genes) determining an increased HlyE secretion that were also involved in OMV biogenesis. The genes corresponded to ompA, nlpI, and tolR (envelope stability), rfaE and waaC (LPS synthesis), yipP (envC), mrcB (synthesis and remodeling of peptidoglycan), degS (stress sensor serine endopeptidase) and hns (global transcriptional regulator). We found that S. Typhi Δzzz mutants were prone to secrete periplasmic, functional proteins with a relatively good envelope integrity. In addition, we showed that zzz genes participate in OMV biogenesis, modulating different properties such as OMV size distribution, OMV yield and OMV protein cargo.