Investigation of genetic susceptibility to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (VDR and IL10 genes) in a population with a high level of substructure in the Brazilian Amazon region.

OBJECTIVES: Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious and contagious disease that has been very influential in human history and presents high rates of mortality. The objective of this study was to investigate the association of VDR, IL10, and SLC11A1 gene polymorphisms with susceptibility to the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. METHODS: A total of 135 patients with confirmed TB and 141 healthy individuals were included in the analysis. Blood samples were collected for DNA extraction. Genotyping of the polymorphisms in the VDR and IL10 genes was performed by real-time PCR, and genotyping of the polymorphisms in the SLC11A1 gene by conventional PCR, followed by visualization in polyacrylamide gel. The genomic ancestry was obtained using an autosomal panel with 48 insertion/deletion ancestry-informative markers. RESULTS: Polymorphisms TaqI (TT, p=0.004), FokI (CC and CC+CT, p=0.012 and p=0.003, respectively), and BsmI (GG, p=0.008) in the VDR gene, as well as A-592C (GC+AG, p=0.001) in the IL10 gene, were significantly associated with susceptibility to TB In addition, high production of VDR combined with low production of IL10 showed protection for the TB group (p=0.035). CONCLUSIONS: The VDR polymorphisms may confer an increased risk and the IL10 haplotype may be a protection factor for the presence of M. tuberculosis infection in the Brazilian population.

Chromatic effects of metamers of D65 on art paintings.

The visual impression of an artistic painting is influenced both by the colour and by the specific spectral structure of the rendering light source. The relationship between illuminant spectral structure and visual appearance assumes particular relevance with the advent of light sources with almost arbitrary spectral distribution, like modern LED based lighting. The aim of this work was to study, computationally, chromatic effects on paintings of illuminants with the same colour as D65 but different spectral profile. Hyperspectral data from twenty oil paintings were used in the analysis. A large collection of metamers of D65 was generated and the radiance reflected from each pixel of the paintings was estimated for each of the metamers. The number of discernible colours produced for each painting and illuminant was computed, and correlated with the spectral structure of the metamers. It was found that the number of colours generated varied considerably across the collection of metamers and that the metamers producing more colours were spectrally more structured, that is, less uniform. This result suggests that it may be beneficial to explore appropriate spectral tuning in practical illumination.