Phylogenetic analysis and forensic evaluation among Rakhine, Marma, Hajong, and Manipuri tribes from four culturally defined regions of Bangladesh using 17 Y-chromosomal STRs.

We have analyzed haplotypes for 17 Y chromosomal STR loci in Bangladeshi mainstream Bengali population and four largest ethnic groups inhabiting the North-Eastern and Southern region of Bangladesh using AmpFlSTR® Yfiler® PCR amplification systems. A total of 667 haplotypes from Bangladeshi Bangali, 157 from Rakhine, 144 from Marma, 112 from Hajong, and 136 from Manipuri individuals were observed with corresponding discrimination capacity (DC) of 0.973 for Bengali, 0.723 for Rakhine, 0.743 for Marma, 0.794 for Hajong, and 0.720 for Manipuri groups, respectively. In order to investigate genetic relationship and the pattern of paternal contributions of the studied population, a comparison of the studied data with the published data from Y-STR haplotype reference database (YHRD) was conducted based on analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA). Construction of neighbour-joining tree revealed that the Rakhine population lies closer to a clade consisting, Korean and Japanese population. The Hajong population showed close affinity with Riang (Tripura, India) tribe followed by Marma population. On the other hand, Manipuri group is closely related to Thai population followed by Tamil and mainstream Bengali population.

Population genetics of 17 Y-chromosomal STRs loci in Garo and Santal tribal populations in Bangladesh.

Allele frequencies and haplotype diversity of 17 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci included in Y-filer™ PCR amplification kit were studied in 120 Garo and 139 Santal male individuals residing in two distinct regions of Bangladesh. A total of 99 different haplotypes from Garo and 129 different haplotypes from Santal individuals were observed with a corresponding discrimination capacity (DC) of 0.825 and 0.928, respectively. A comparison of the studied data with the published data from Y-STR haplotype reference database (YHRD) based on AMOVA revealed that the Garo population is closely related to Tripuri population from Tripura, India and Santal population moderately close to Munda population from Jharkhand, India. The mainstream Bengali population resides at a significant genetic distance from these two studied populations.

Genetic polymorphism studies on 22 autosomal STR loci of the PowerPlex Fusion System in Bangladeshi population.

Genetic polymorphism of 22 autosomal STR loci included in PowerPlex® Fusion System (D3S1358, D1S1656, D2S441, D10S1248, D13S317, Penta E, D16S539, D18S51, D2S1338, CSF1PO, Penta D, TH01, vWA, D21S11, D7S820, D5S818, TPOX, D8S1179, D12S391, D19S433, FGA and D22S1045) was studied in 188 unrelated Bangladeshi Bengali individuals. Allele frequencies and forensic efficiency parameters such as, the power of discrimination (PD), observed and expected heterozygosity (Ho & He), polymorphism information content (PIC), probability of match (PM), power of exclusion (PE) and typical paternity index was calculated for the loci. The combined PM and PE for all 22 STR loci were calculated to be 5.29×10-27 and 0.99999999945 respectively. The dataset indicated the usefulness of these loci in personal identification, parentage testing and complex kinship analysis in Bangladeshi population. A neighbor-joining tree was constructed based on pair-wise Nei's genetic distance by comparing allele frequency data for the 22 loci with six other populations. The analysis showed that Bangladeshi population lies closer to a clade consisting Japan, the Philippines and East Timot populations.

Allele Frequencies of 10 Autosomal STR Loci from Chakma and Tripura Tribal Populations in Bangladesh.

Allele frequencies of ten autosomal STR loci, D3S1358, vWA, D16S539, D2S1338, D8S1179, D21S11, D18S51, D19S433, TH01, and FGA were investigated in Chakma and Tripura tribal populations of Bangladesh. In both the populations, all loci were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium except for FGA locus in Chakma and D21S11 in Tripura. All the loci were highly polymorphic in Chakma population with an observed heterozygosity (Ho) of >0.7 and moderately polymorphic in Tripura population (Ho > 0.6). However, both the population showed least polymorphism at TH01 locus (Ho < 0.6). A comparison between Chakma and Tripura population data revealed statistically significant differences in allele frequency distribution for most of the loci. A similar comparison with the mainstream Bengali population using previously published data from this lab also showed significant difference in allele frequency with these two tribal populations.

Forensic evaluation of STR data for the PowerPlex 16 System loci in a Bangladeshi population.

Allele frequencies of 15 autosomal STR loci included in PowerPlex 16 System were determined from a sample of 148 unrelated Bangladeshi individuals. Forensic efficiency parameters such as, the power of discrimination (PD), observed and expected heterozygosity (H), polymorphism information content (PIC), probability of match (PM), power of exclusion (PE), and typical paternity index were calculated for the loci. These parameters indicated the usefulness of the loci in paternity testing and personal identification in the Bangladeshi population.

A study on efficacy of lamivudine therapy in decompensated cirrhosis of liver due to chronic hepatitis B virus infection.

The prognosis of decompensated cirrhosis of liver resulting from chronic Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection is poor and liver transplantation is the only established mode of treatment. The benefits of treatment with interferon are outweighed by serious side effects and risks of fatal exacerbation of disease activity. Lamivudine rapidly reduces hepatitis B viral DNA in serum to undetectable levels. The purpose of this study was to evaluate effectiveness and safety of Lamivudine treatment in patients with advanced and end stage liver disease caused by Hepatitis B. This was a prospective observational study in which a total of 45 patients, 39 (87.0%) male and 6 (13.0%) female who had viral activity and child pugh score e" 8 were given Lamivudine 100 mg orally once daily. Among them 30 patients completed at least 6 months of therapy, majority (27 patients) showed improvement in liver function with decrease in serum ALT from mean (+/- SD) 118.8 +/- 106.5 to 50.2 +/- 57.1 U/L (p < 0.001), decrease in serum bilirubin from 73.9 +/- 80.5 to 44.7 +/- 62.9 micromol/l (p = 0.129), increase in serum albumin from 26.2 +/- 4.2 to 33.2 +/- 3.4 g/l (p < 0.05), decrease in prothrombin time from 8.3 +/- 4.0 to 3.9 +/- 2.9 seconds prolonged (p < 0.05) and reduction in child pugh score from 11.0 +/- 1.7 to 7.0 +/- 1.3 (p < 0.001). Seroconversion was found in 5 (11.1%) patients on Intention to treat analysis. Among the seroconverted group, 1 (2.2%) patient also lost HBsAg. Six (13.0%) patient had procore mutant virus, 2 (4.4%) of them showed virological response. Therefore, total 7 (15.5%) patients showed virological response by intention to treat analysis. We conclude that inhibition of viral replication with Lamivudine results in a significant improvement of liver function in patients with decompensated cirrhosis of liver due to HBV infection.