Genome-wide identification and characterization of glutathione S-transferase gene family in quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.).

The present investigation was envisaged for large scale in-silico genome wide identification and characterization of glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) in Chenopodium quinoa. In this study, a total of 120 GST genes (CqGSTs) were identified and divided into 11 classes of which tau and phi were highest in numbers. The average protein length of protein was found to be 279.06 with their corresponding average molecular weight of 31,819.4 kDa. The subcellular localization analysis results showed that proteins were centrally localized in the cytoplasm followed by chloroplast, mitochondria and plastids. Structural analysis revealed the presence of 2 -14 exons in CqGST genes. Most of the proteins possessed two exon one intron organization. MEME analysis identified 15 significantly conserved motifs with a width of 6-50 amino acids. Motifs 1, 3, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 13 were found specifically in tau class family; motifs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 were found in phi class gene family, while motifs 3, 4, 13 and 14 were found in metaxin class. Multiple sequence alignment revealed highly conserved N-terminus with active site serine (Ser; S) or cysteine (Cys; C) residue for the activation of GSH binding and GST catalytic activity. The gene loci were found to be unevenly distributed across 18 different chromosomes with a maximum of 17 genes located on chromosome number 7. Dominance of alpha helix was followed by coil, extended strand and beta turns. Gene duplication analysis revealed that segmental duplication and purifying type selection were highest in number and found to be main source of expansion of GST gene family. Cis acting regulatory elements analysis showed the presence of 21 different elements involved in stress, hormone and light response and cellular development. The evolutionary relationship of CqGST proteins carried out using maximum likelihood method revealed that all the tau and phi class GSTs were closely associated with those of G. max, O. sativa and A. thaliana. Molecular docking of GST molecules with the fungicide metalaxyl showed that the CqGSTF1 had the lowest binding energy. The comprehensive study of CqGST gene family in quinoa provides groundwork for further functional analysis of CqGST genes in the species at molecular level and has potential applications in plant breeding.

Parenting Challenges and Reasons for Not Availing Rehabilitation Services Among Families of Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Qualitative Study.

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong condition requiring continued rehabilitation services. However, children with ASD who seek rehabilitation services tend to drop out once they enter puberty, because of varying reasons, some of which are unknown. This study intended to explore the reasons for not availing of rehabilitation services in families of adolescents with ASD and the parental challenges in taking care of adolescents with ASD. Method: The study followed a descriptive qualitative research design by conducting in-depth interviews with 12 primary caregivers of adolescents with ASD (10 to 19 years; mean age 16.3 years) who were not availing of any direct rehabilitation services. All interviews were conducted by telephone, and data obtained were subjected to thematic analysis. Results: The results showed two major themes, viz. reasons for discontinuing the rehabilitation services and parental challenges among primary caregivers of adolescents with ASD, and their corresponding subthemes. The reasons for discontinuation of rehabilitation included financial difficulties, difficulties in handling the child, and a lack of improvement in the child. A few of the parental challenges were disruptive behaviors and associated medical conditions of the child and difficulty in managing changes during adolescence. Conclusion: The study revealed several reasons as well as potential barriers to avail rehabilitation services in Indian families of adolescents with ASD. The data further unveil related parenting challenges specific to the Indian context. Further, implications for service providers and policymakers are discussed.

Broad Autism Phenotype Traits in Parents of Children with Language Impairments: A Comparative Study.

INTRODUCTION: The broad autism phenotype (BAP) comprises milder language and cognitive deficits seen in the nonautistic relatives of individuals with autism. BAP represents the range of individuals with a higher number of these characteristics than average but a lower number than would point to a diagnosis of autism. The Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ) is one of the efficient and reliable tools to explore and measure BAP traits, namely, aloofness, pragmatic language, and rigid personality, which represent a few of the diagnostic features of autism. Against the background of positive familial history and common causes across the developmental disorders, this study aimed to compare BAP traits in the parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), specific language impairment (SLI), and social communication disorder (SCD) by means of the BAPQ. METHODS: A total of 120 parents (60 mothers and 60 fathers) of children with ASD, SCD, and SLI participated in the study. All mothers filled in the self-report version and fathers filled in the informant version of BAPQ simultaneously in the communication intervention setting. RESULTS: Obtained data was analyzed with the t test and ANOVA to compare self-ratings, informant ratings, and BAPQ scores across groups. The results of the study revealed no statistically significant difference for the overall BAPQ scores (except on the Pragmatic Language subscale). Furthermore, mothers in all 3 groups presented with BAP traits, with pragmatic language deficits being common. These observations point towards an overlap of BAP traits in the mothers of children with language disorders. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate the value of a detailed assessment of BAP in parents of children with developmental disorders.

Antibacterial and antiviral high-performance nanosystems to mitigate new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.

The increased severity of the COVID-19 infection due to new SARS-CoV-2 variants has resonated pandemic impact which made health experts to re-evaluate the effectiveness of pandemic management strategies. This becomes critical owing to the infection in large population and shortcomings in the existing global healthcare system worldwide. The designing of high-performance nanosystems (NS) with tunable performances seems to be the most efficient method to tackle infectious SARS-CoV-2 variants including recently emerged omicron mutation. In this direction, experts projects the versatile functionalized NS and their capabilities to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 propagation pathways by sensitization, antipathogenicity, photocatalysis, photothermal effects, immune response, developing efficient diagnostics assays or associated, selective biomarkers detection, and targeted drug delivery systems. To achieve these tasks, this opinion article project the importance of the fabrication of nano-enabled protective gear, masks, gloves, sheets, filtration units, nano-emulsified disinfectants, antiviral/bacterial paints, and therangostics to facilitate quarantine strategies via protection, detection, and treatment needed to manage COVID-19 pandemic in personalized manners. These functional protective high-performance antibacterial and antiviral NS can efficiently tackle the SARS-CoV-2 variants transmission through respiratory fluids and pollutants within water droplets, aerosols, air, and particulates along with their severe infection via neutralizing or eradicating the virus.

Functional Outcomes After Surgical Resection of Tongue Cancer; A Comparative Study Between Primary Closure, Secondary Intention Healing and Flap Reconstruction.

The purpose of the study was to assess and compare the quality of speech and swallowing between three reconstruction options (primary closure-group A, secondary intention healing-group B and flap reconstruction-group C), in small to moderate sized onco-surgical defects of oral tongue. 47 patients fulfilled the eligibility criteria during the study period, of which, 15 belonged to group A, 16 belonged to group B, 16 were in group C. Speech and swallowing assessment was done using Speech Intelligibility Assessment score and MD Anderson Dysphagia Inventory, respectively. The above tests were administered pre-operatively, 1 month and 6 months post-operativey in all the study participants. The average scores of speech intelligibility at 1 month were 66.13% (±19.96), 70.04% (±12.28) and 37.31% (±11.29) for groups A, B and C respectively. Similarly, average long term scores for speech intelligibility in these three groups were 72.7% (±17.72), 83.3% (±12.78) and 52.8% (±11.74) respectively. With regards to swallowing the composite scores at 1 month were 73.67 (±13.69), 68.31 (±16.06) and 41.81 (±5.44), and at 6 months were 83.2 (±10.24), 79.31 (±12.29) and 57.88 (±7.37), respectively for groups A, B and C. All the differences were statistically significant (p < 0.05). Healing by secondary intention offered the best functional outcome in terms of speech intelligibility, and primary closure offered best swallowing outcomes in operated cases of oral tongue. This trial has been registered with the Clinical Trials Registry-India in December 2018 (CTRI Reg. No: CTRI/2018/12/016803).

Literacy Profile of Children with Language Impairment: Evidence from an Alphasyllabary.

BACKGROUND: Most of the evidence explaining the language-literacy link is derived from children learning to read and write alphabetic orthography. AIM: This study investigated the literacy deficits in children learning to read Kannada, a Dravidian language that employs an alphasyllabary. METHODS: A group of 15 children with language impairment (CwLI) was compared with two groups of control (age- and language-matched) participants on a range of literacy measures. RESULTS: The results showed that, compared to the age-matched group, the CwLI group performed significantly poorer on reading (words and nonwords) and written spelling tasks. However, the performance on akshara (the written symbol in the alphasyllabary) recognition task was comparable between groups. Similarly, comparison of the CwLI group with the language-matched control group revealed poorer performance in the former group on most literacy measures but not the akshara recognition task. Akshara recognition emerged as the most significant predictor of literacy performance in children learning to read and write the Kannada alphasyllabary. Detailed analyses of the written spelling errors unveiled several unique error types in the language-impaired group. CONCLUSION: The findings of our study revealed both orthography-independent and orthography-dependent deficits in the literacy skills of CwLI mastering the Kannada alphasyllabary.

Cross-Disciplinary Appraisal of Knowledge and Beliefs Regarding the Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders in India: A Cross-Sectional Survey.

BACKGROUND: Many healthcare professionals, including pediatricians, psychiatrists, Clinical Psychologists (CPs), Occupational Therapists (OTs), and Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs), are involved in the identification and intervention of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in children. Distinctive training backgrounds and professional exposure can result in contrasting ideas regarding the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of ASD. Only a few studies have addressed the cross-disciplinary perspective of knowledge, belief, and awareness about diagnostic criteria required for diagnosing ASD. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 154 allied healthcare professionals (98 SLPs, 33 CPs, and 23 OTs) participated in the study. The survey tool used for this study was adapted from a previously available survey on the assessment of knowledge and belief about ASD and self-efficacy. RESULTS: The overall knowledge and belief of allied healthcare professionals regarding ASD differed significantly across the groups. However, the knowledge of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) diagnostic criteria for ASD did not differ significantly between the groups. CONCLUSION: Our findings have salient clinical implications and advocates for the continued education of healthcare professionals in India regarding recent diagnostic criteria for ASD.

Comprehensive understanding of magnetic hyperthermia for improving antitumor therapeutic efficacy.

Magnetic hyperthermia (MH) has been introduced clinically as an alternative approach for the focal treatment of tumors. MH utilizes the heat generated by the magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) when subjected to an alternating magnetic field (AMF). It has become an important topic in the nanomedical field due to their multitudes of advantages towards effective antitumor therapy such as high biosafety, deep tissue penetration, and targeted selective tumor killing. However, in order for MH to progress and to realize its paramount potential as an alternative choice for cancer treatment, tremendous challenges have to be overcome. Thus, the efficiency of MH therapy needs enhancement. In its recent 60-year of history, the field of MH has focused primarily on heating using MNPs for therapeutic applications. Increasing the thermal conversion efficiency of MNPs is the fundamental strategy for improving therapeutic efficacy. Recently, emerging experimental evidence indicates that MNPs-MH produces nano-scale heat effects without macroscopic temperature rise. A deep understanding of the effect of this localized induction heat for the destruction of subcellular/cellular structures further supports the efficacy of MH in improving therapeutic therapy. In this review, the currently available strategies for improving the antitumor therapeutic efficacy of MNPs-MH will be discussed. Firstly, the recent advancements in engineering MNP size, composition, shape, and surface to significantly improve their energy dissipation rates will be explored. Secondly, the latest studies depicting the effect of local induction heat for selectively disrupting cells/intracellular structures will be examined. Thirdly, strategies to enhance the therapeutics by combining MH therapy with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, photothermal/photodynamic therapy (PDT), and gene therapy will be reviewed. Lastly, the prospect and significant challenges in MH-based antitumor therapy will be discussed. This review is to provide a comprehensive understanding of MH for improving antitumor therapeutic efficacy, which would be of utmost benefit towards guiding the users and for the future development of MNPs-MH towards successful application in medicine.

Erratum: Tiwari, S., et al. Biosensors for Epilepsy Management: State-of-Art and Future Aspects. Sensors 2019, 19, 1525.

The authors wish to make the following correction to the above-mentioned published paper [...].

Adaptation and Validation of Parental Behavioral Scale for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders to Kannada.

BACKGROUND: Assessment of parenting behaviors in parents of children with autism is crucial in the assessment and treatment processes. Efficient tools and instruments with known psychometric properties are needed to assess parenting behaviors in parents of children with autism. Given the lack of such tools in the Indian context, there is a need to develop and/or adapt tools/scale to assess the parenting behaviors in regional languages. AIM OF THE STUDY: To adapt, translate and validate the Parental behavioral scale for Autism spectrum disorder (PBS-A) to Kannada. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The original version of PBS-A was given to three healthcare professionals to examine the sociocultural suitability of items. The linguistic adaptation was performed through a forward-backward translation scheme. It was then administered on 50 parents of children with autism. Further, the psychometric properties of PBS-A Kannada version were examined, viz. acceptability, test-retest reliability and internal consistency. RESULTS: Kannada version of PBS-A showed an excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.993) and an overall high level of internal consistency (α = 0.93). The acceptability was found to be good among the Speech-language pathologists (SLP) ratings (k = 0.485). CONCLUSIONS: Kannada version of PBS-A is a valid and reliable scale that can be useful for assessing the parenting behavior.

Biosensors for Epilepsy Management: State-of-Art and Future Aspects.

Epilepsy is a serious neurological disorder which affects every aspect of patients' life, including added socio-economic burden. Unfortunately, only a few suppressive medicines are available, and a complete cure for the disease has not been found yet. Excluding the effectiveness of available therapies, the timely detection and monitoring of epilepsy are of utmost priority for early remediation and prevention. Inability to detect underlying epileptic signatures at early stage causes serious damage to the central nervous system (CNS) and irreversible detrimental variations in the organ system. Therefore, development of a multi-task solving novel smart biosensing systems is urgently required. The present review highlights advancements in state-of-art biosensing technology investigated for epilepsy diseases diagnostics and progression monitoring or both together. State of art epilepsy biosensors are composed of nano-enabled smart sensing platform integrated with micro/electronics and display. These diagnostics systems provide bio-information needed to understand disease progression and therapy optimization timely. The associated challenges related to the development of an efficient epilepsy biosensor and vision considering future prospects are also discussed in this report. This review will serve as a guide platform to scholars for understanding and planning of future research aiming to develop a smart bio-sensing system to detect and monitor epilepsy for point-of-care (PoC) applications.

A Survey of Knowledge and Beliefs regarding Autism in Speech-Language Pathologists in India.

BACKGROUND: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are significant team members in the identification, assessment, and rehabilitation of children with autism. With a recent upsurge in the number of children with autism, there arises a need to examine SLPs knowledge and skills in identification and intervention of children with autism. AIM: The present study is, thus, a novel attempt aimed to investigate knowledge and belief of SLPs in the assessment and intervention of autism in the Indian context. METHOD: A total of 219 SLPs participated in a web-based online survey. The study adopted a cross-sectional observational research design. RESULTS: The results of the study showed around 43% of the total SLPs obtained a good score on the knowledge section and 27% received a positive rating for the belief section. Additionally, factors like "educational qualification," "duration of clinical experience," and "caseload of children with autism" influenced knowledge and beliefs of SLPs about autism. CONCLUSION: The study results indicate that SLPs practicing in India show average and below average scores on a questionnaire assessing knowledge and beliefs regarding autism. The study findings have implications towards developing improved training and course structure related to assessment and intervention of children with autism for SLPs practicing in India.

Structure-based analysis of curcumin and conventionaldrugs targeting tumor-inducing protein PHF20.

Recently, the PHF20 has been reported as tumor inducer protein by suppressing the activity of tumor suppressor protein p53. Conventional drugs (albendazole, doxazosin, and propranolol) are used for treatment of cancer causing side effect. The secondary metabolite curcumin is employed in various diseases treatment including cancer. The present study is to explore curcumin in comparison to selected conventional drugs by using molecular docking. The online database "Molinspiration online server" detected the physicochemical pharmacokinetics and drug likeness score of curcumin and conventional drugs. Results from Molinspiration online server showed that curcumin did not violate the "Lipinski five rule" for drug. The lead compound for molecular docking exhibited the potential interaction to the active site of PHF20. The resulted binding energy of albendazole and doxazosin were -21.97 and -26.64 respectively. The binding energy (-18.12 kcal/mol) of curcumin was higher than propranolol (17.62 kcal/mol). Thus, curumin has greater potential to interact for further consideration as an anti-cancerous regimen.

Special educators' knowledge and training on autism in Karnataka: A cross-sectional study.

CONTEXT: In the wake of increasing prevalence of autism globally, with a substantial change in understanding of the disorder, it is essential to update knowledge of the healthcare professionals involved in the intervention of children with autism. Special educators are important team members in the rehabilitation of children with autism. There are only a few studies addressing knowledge and training of special educators in the rehabilitation of children with autism, particularly in the Indian context. AIM: The present study investigated knowledge and training on autism among special educators in a southern state of India, Karnataka. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: A descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted for this study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were collected from 47 special educators, who answered questions related to general knowledge, knowledge of educational programming, knowledge about classroom behaviors, and professional development needs regarding autism. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Statistical analysis of the data was performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 16). RESULTS: Results of the study indicated that special educators had an overall reduced level of understanding about autism and poor knowledge on educational programming and classroom behaviors in children with autism. Further, their knowledge regarding autism varied with educational qualification and years of work experience. CONCLUSIONS: Findings of the study, thus, emphasize the need for increasing awareness by providing knowledge and training to special educators working with children with autism in India.

Communication Impairments in Children with Inborn Errors of Metabolism: A Preliminary Study.

PURPOSE: Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IEMs) are a group of complex genetic conditions, predominantly affecting the pediatric population. While the understanding and identification of various IEMs has significantly improved over recent times, not much is known about the communication disorders in this population. The present study focused on identification and profiling of communication impairments in children diagnosed with IEMs. METHODS: Data was obtained retrospectively from medical records of children visiting a tertiary care hospital over a period of ten years (2005 - 2014). Selected data was reviewed to obtain demographic details, clinical signs/manifestations, laboratory findings, risk factors, developmental disorders and reported communication impairments. RESULTS: The findings of the study showed a variety of clinical signs and laboratory findings in children with inborn errors of metabolism. A few of the risk factors observed in the group were consanguinity, sibling death and family history of other disorders. Many children with IEM displayed communication disorders, most common as the delay in speech and language development. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study showed that various communication disorders were seen in almost half of the children with a diagnosis of IEM. Findings are discussed with implications for future research in this direction.

Specific language impairment in a morphologically complex agglutinative Indian language-Kannada.

Specific Language Impairment (SLI) remains an underinvestigated disorder in morphologically complex agglutinative languages such as Kannada. Currently, only a few case reports are available on SLI in Dravidian languages. The morphological complexity inherent to Dravidian languages such as Kannada provides a potential avenue to verify one of the two prevailing accounts of SLI: the morphological richness theory and CGC (Computational Grammatical Complexity) hypothesis. While the previous theory predicts the relatively spared performance of children with SLI (CwSLI) on syntactic morphology in morphologically complex languages, the latter predicts a diametrically opposite performance. Data from a group of 15 Kannada-speaking CwSLI supported the morphological richness theory, and further revealed five distinct profiles of SLI. The results of this study reflected that CwSLI learning the agglutinative language (Kannada) as compared with language-matched children without SLI, displayed some shared deficits (e.g., in phonological processing on a non-word repetition task) with CwSLI learning English. However, CwSLI learning the morphosyntactically rich language Kannada differed remarkably from English-learning CwSLI by not showing deficits in syntactic morphology relative to language-matched peers (e.g., PNG, verb, tense, case, and pronoun).

Variability in aphasia following subcortical hemorrhagic lesion.

BACKGROUND: Vascular lesion of the subcortical structures leads to aphasia. Cortical hypoperfusion has been proposed to be the etiological mechanism in aphasia following subcortical vascular lesion. Subcortical aphasia shows considerable variability in its clinical profile. Such variability has been attributed to the variable sites of cortical hypoperfusion following ischemic lesion of the subcortical structures. PURPOSE: This study investigated the variability in clinical aphasic profile following subcortical hemorrhagic lesion. METHODS: We retrospectively investigated the clinical aphasic profiles of twelve patients who reported to our hospital during a period of one year with subcortical hemorrhagic lesions. All patients underwent routine neurological examination, neuroimaging (CT/MRI) investigations and linguistic assessment. RESULTS: Eight patients exhibited lesion to the basal ganglia and four showed thalamic lesion. All of them showed considerable variability in their aphasic profile. CONCLUSION: Subcortical hemorrhagic lesion leads to variability in aphasia. Variability in aphasia may be considered as an important consequence in subcortical vascular lesion. Observations from this study were suggestive of better preservation of, and when affected, faster recovery of comprehension skills.