Genomic regions associated with heat stress tolerance in tropical maize (Zea mays L.).

With progressive climate change and the associated increase in mean temperature, heat stress tolerance has emerged as one of the key traits in the product profile of the maize breeding pipeline for lowland tropics. The present study aims to identify the genomic regions associated with heat stress tolerance in tropical maize. An association mapping panel, called the heat tolerant association mapping (HTAM) panel, was constituted by involving a total of 543 tropical maize inbred lines from diverse genetic backgrounds, test-crossed and phenotyped across nine locations in South Asia under natural heat stress. The panel was genotyped using a genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) platform. Considering the large variations in vapor pressure deficit (VPD) at high temperature (Tmax) across different phenotyping locations, genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted separately for each location. The individual location GWAS identified a total of 269 novel significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for grain yield under heat stress at a p value of < 10-5. A total of 175 SNPs were found in 140 unique gene models implicated in various biological pathway responses to different abiotic stresses. Haplotype trend regression (HTR) analysis of the significant SNPs identified 26 haplotype blocks and 96 single SNP variants significant across one to five locations. The genomic regions identified based on GWAS and HTR analysis considering genomic region x environment interactions are useful for breeding efforts aimed at developing heat stress resilient maize cultivars for current and future climatic conditions through marker-assisted introgression into elite genetic backgrounds and/or genome-wide selection.

A comparison of glomerular filtration rate by creatinine based equations and DTPA-renogram in healthy adult kidney donors.

INTRODUCTION: Accurate determination of donor kidney function has important long-term implications for both donor health and recipient outcome. Many centers use 24 hour urinary creatinine clearance or creatinine-based GFR estimations to assess kidney function but their performance when compared with GFR measurements by isotope clearance remains inconclusive. We assessed the performance of creatinine based equations against DTPA GFR for evaluating Nepalese kidney donors. METHODS: All kidney donors who had undergone both DTPA GFR estimation and 24 hour urine CrCl were included. The performance of the urine-CrCl, CG-CrCl, modified MDRD GFR against DTPA GFR was evaluated by analyzing global bias, precision (R2),Pearson correlation and accuracy percentage within 30% and 15%. The sensitivity and specificity of each predictive equation in selecting donor with GFR of ≥80 mL/min/1.73 m2 was also calculated. RESULTS: Of 51 donors analysed, only 18 (35.29%) were male. The mean measured GFR was 102.752±16.71 mL/min/1.73 m2. Of all prediction equations, urine-CrCL has most precision (R2=0.207) with the highest pearson correlation (0.455) and highest accuracy percentage within 30% and 15%. However, predictive performance was poor for all the equations. The urine CrCl had highest sensitivity of 100% for detecting donor with measured GFR>80 mL/min/1.73 m2 with positive predictive value of 92.1%. CONCLUSIONS: The performance of all equations was disappointing and even the best performing equation urine-CrCl was suboptimal for donor selection. So considering the potential risk of living kidney donation, other more accurate methods of GFR estimation should be used.

Clinical profile and outcome of patients presenting with mushroom poisoning in a tertiary care center of eastern Nepal.

INTRODUCTION: Accidental mushroom poisoning is constantly seen and regularly reported from all over world. Exact magnitude of problem and its clinical profile in Nepal is not well known. This study was done to evaluate clinical profile and treatment outcome of patients presenting with mushroom poisoning in the department of internal medicine, BPKIHS, Dharan. METHODS: It is a prospective observational study conducted in department of internal medicine, BPKIHS, Dharan from 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2009. Informed consent was taken. All the patients were subjected to necessary laboratory investigation. They were followed up at 1 week and 1 month after discharge. RESULTS: All together 60 patients were analyzed. Majority of subjects 56 (93.3%) were from rural areas. Vomiting and diarrhea were the two most common presentations seen in 56 (93.3%) subjects. The latent period for the symptoms were >6 hours in 4 (6.7%) and <6 hours in 56 (93.3%) subjects. Fulminant hepatic failure was seen in 6 (10%) subjects and among them 4 (66.7%) expired. After admission 3 (5%) subjects developed GI bleeding. Average duration of hospital stay was 4.6 days. In follow up recovery was complete in all subjects who survived the acute phase of poisoning. CONCLUSIONS: Especially in patients coming during rainy season mushroom poisoning should be considered in the differential diagnosis of acute gastroenteritis. Mortality is high in subjects with FHF whereas recovery is complete in subjects who survived the acute phase.