Impairment of caprine oocyte maturation in vitro and alteration of granulosa cells functions by widely used fungicide mancozeb.

Mancozeb is classified as an endocrine disruptor; thus the present study was carried out to investigate the impact of mancozeb on mammalian ovarian functions using in vitro caprine oocyte maturation and granulosa cell culture models. Caprine cumulus oocyte complexes (COCs) and granulosa cells were cultured under standard culture conditions and treated with mancozeb concentrations of 0.3, 3, and 30 µg/ml along with a control for 24 h and assessed. Granulosa cell viability and progesterone concentration in spent culture media after treatments were also assessed. Mancozeb significantly decreased (P < 0.05) the oocytes cumulus expansion and the maturation of caprine oocytes. Marked changes in granulose cell morphology were observed with 30 µg/ml mancozeb and significantly reduced (P < 0.05) cell viability. Interestingly, the same concentrations significantly increased (P < 0.05) the progesterone secretion by the cells. Significant reduction of granulosa cells viability and reduction of cumulus expansion and suppression of metaphase plate formation in oocyte can impair the fertilization ability and developmental potential of the oocytes. High progesterone concentration due to mancozeb treatment may suppress LH surge and suppress ovulation. In conclusion, mancozeb suppresses granulosa cells viability, reduces cumulus expansion, and suppresses metaphase plate formation but induces progesterone secretion from granulosa cells that may inhibit LH surge for ovulation process.

Novel non-invasive in-house fabricated wearable system with a hybrid algorithm for fetal movement recognition.

Fetal movement count monitoring is one of the most commonly used methods of assessing fetal well-being. While few methods are available to monitor fetal movements, they consist of several adverse qualities such as unreliability as well as the inability to be conducted in a non-clinical setting. Therefore, this research was conducted to design a complete system that will enable pregnant mothers to monitor fetal movement at home. This system consists of a non-invasive, non-transmitting sensor unit that can be fabricated at a low cost. An accelerometer was utilized as the primary sensor and a micro-controller based circuit was implemented. Clinical testing was conducted utilizing this sensor unit. Two phases of clinical testing procedures were done and during the first phase readings from 120 mothers were taken while during the second phase readings from 15 mothers were taken. Validation was done by conducting an abdominal ultrasound scan which was utilized as the ground truth during the second phase of the clinical testing procedure. A clinical survey was also conducted in parallel with clinical testings in order to improve the sensor unit as well as to improve the final system. Four different signal processing algorithms were implemented on the data set and the performance of each was compared with each other. Out of the four algorithms three algorithms were able to obtain a true positive rate around 85%. However, the best algorithm was selected on the basis of minimizing the false positive rate. Consequently, the most feasible as well as the best performing algorithm was determined and it was utilized in the final system. This algorithm have a true positive rate of 86% and a false positive rate of 7% Furthermore, a mobile application was also developed to be used with the sensor unit by pregnant mothers. Finally, a complete end to end method to monitor fetal movement in a non-clinical setting was presented by the proposed system.

Exposure rate of VZV among women attending antenatal care clinic in Sri Lanka - a cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Varicella or chickenpox was not a notifiable disease until 2005 in Sri Lanka and only a few studies have been conducted on the epidemiology of VZV infection in the country. The anti-VZV IgG sero-prevalence among antenatal women is extremely limited and thus a selected group of antenatal clinic attendees were chosen to determine the exposure rate to VZV infection. METHODS: Women attending the antenatal clinic at Teaching Hospital, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka were selected for the study and 3 mL of venous blood was collected from 181 participants and the demographic data was obtained through a pre-tested questionnaire. Sera of the women were then tested for the presence of anti-VZV IgG using ELISA (HUMAN Diagnostics, Germany). Data was analysed using the SPSS statistical software for Windows, Version 12.0. RESULTS: Of the 181 antenatal women who took part in the study, 141 were positive for anti-VZV IgG giving a sero-prevalence of 77.9% for the past exposure to VZV. Of the 141 anti-VZV IgG positive women, 43.3% (n = 61) were from urban, 41.8% (n = 59) were from rural and 14.9% (n = 21) were from estate populations (an ethnic population living in small settlements in the tea estates whose ancestors were brought from India during the British colonial period to work in the tea plantations in Sri Lanka). Out of the 88 antenatal women with a positive history for varicella, 85 (96.6%) were positive for anti-VZV IgG. The highest number of anti-VZV IgG positivity was seen in the 31-35 age group, which was 85.0% of the total number of antenatal women included in that category. An increase in the anti-VZV IgG sero-prevalence with increasing age was also noted in the study sample. CONCLUSION: Exposure rate of VZV infection as confirmed by anti-VZV IgG in the present study sample of antenatal women was 77.9%. Age specific, population based future sero-prevalence studies should be conducted in Sri Lanka to understand the anti-VZV IgG status in the country.