Increasing risks for emerging infectious diseases within a rapidly changing High Asia.

The cold and arid mountains and plateaus of High Asia, inhabited by a relatively sparse human population, a high density of livestock, and wildlife such as the iconic snow leopard Panthera uncia, are usually considered low risk for disease outbreaks. However, based on current knowledge about drivers of disease emergence, we show that High Asia is rapidly developing conditions that favor increased emergence of infectious diseases and zoonoses. This is because of the existing prevalence of potentially serious pathogens in the system; intensifying environmental degradation; rapid changes in local ecological, socio-ecological, and socio-economic factors; and global risk intensifiers such as climate change and globalization. To better understand and manage the risks posed by diseases to humans, livestock, and wildlife, there is an urgent need for establishing a disease surveillance system and improving human and animal health care. Public health must be integrated with conservation programs, more ecologically sustainable development efforts and long-term disease surveillance.

GlycoGAIT: A web database to browse glycogenes and lectins under gastric inflammatory diseases.

The perplexing nature of dynamic glycosylation modification plays imperative role in determining the regulatory role of key glycoconjugates involved in immune system. Systematic analysis of change in expression pattern of glycogenes and lectins can bring in a comprehensive understanding of genetic basis of the glycobiological changes occurring in pathological condition. Advancement in the field of glycobiology has capacitated the process of linking gene expression changes of glycogenes with its biological function. This instigated us to systematically analyze changes in expression patterns focusing on glycome genomics under diverse gastrointestinal immune dysfunction background. To necessitate this, as a pilot project, we carefully integrated several publically available databases to construct a glycosylation process associated gene set as well as public expression microarray data associated with gastrointestinal infections into an online database called Glycosylation and Gut Associated Immune Tolerance (GlycoGAIT). Currently the database comprises of 548 well characterized genes belonging to glycogenes and lectins along with gene expression data obtained from human biopsy samples under both H. pylori infection and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) condition. The user-friendly interface enables the users to quickly compare and interpret changes in expression patterns of glycome genomics under different gut associated inflammatory conditions. The database is available online at: https://apps.connexios.com/glycogait/.