Rabies Outbreak in the Urban Area of Delhi: An Investigation Report and One Health Perspective for Outbreak Management.

Rabies is a global problem and is endemic in India. Rabies cases occur throughout the year, and the majority of cases are associated with dog bites. We report a rabies outbreak investigation in an urban area of Delhi conducted by our multidisciplinary team, and its role in proactively controlling a rabies outbreak by concerted efforts and timely advice to various stakeholders using a "One Health Approach." A veterinary care NGO from Delhi picked up a suspected rabid stray dog and submitted a brain sample for diagnosis of rabies, as they had received information from a resident of the locality about an unprovoked animal bite incident involving a girl (category III bite) and close contact of two more stray dogs living in the vicinity of the suspected rabid dog. The laboratory diagnosis of rabies in the suspected dog brain sample was confirmed by using Fluorescence Antibody Test (FAT). A multi-expert investigation team with expertise in medicine, microbiology, veterinary sciences, laboratory diagnosis, and public health was constituted to investigate the outbreak. The timely, adequate, and appropriate anti-rabies management initiated for the animal bite victims in this incident could prevent rabies. Proactive involvement of multiple stakeholders and knowledge attributes and practice of local residents could prevent human rabies. As there were no further reports of dog bites from the area, the chain of rabies transmission in that area could be controlled. The presented work is a classical case scenario where concerted efforts of all stakeholders achieved effective control and prevention of rabies by adopting the "One Health approach".

Screening and detection of biomarkers in chickpea plants exposed to chromium and cadmium.

A broad screening protocol, covering the most general phytochemical groups of compounds, was developed on the basis of high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC). A total of six TLC systems, comprising three derivatization reagents, two stationary phases and two mobile phases, were included. The screening method was applied for the identification of biomarkers in the chickpea plant exposed to cadmium and chromium. The biomarkers were selected on the basis of significant changes (0.26-4.6 fold) in concentration levels of phytochemicals. Totally, five different amino acids, three organic acids, one sulphur containing compound and one sugar were identified as biomarkers in chickpea exposed heavy metal.

Structural and functional characterization of HMG-COA reductase from Artemisia annua.

Plants synthesize a great variety of isoprenoid products that are required not only for normal growth and development but also for their adaptive responses to environmental challenges. However, despite the remarkable diversity in the structure and function of plant isoprenoids, they all originate from a single metabolic precursor, mevalonic acid. The synthesis of mevalonic acid is catalysed by the enzyme, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMG- CoA reductase). The analysis of the amino acid sequence of HMG-CoA reductase from Artemisia annua L. plant showed that it belongs to class I HMG-CoA reductase family. The three dimensional structure of HMG-CoA reductase of Artemisia annua has been generated from amino acid sequence using homology modelling with backbone structure of human HMG-CoA reductase as template. The model was generated using the SWISS MODEL SERVER. The generated 3-D structure of HMG-CoA reductase was evaluated at various web interfaced servers to checks the stereo interfaced quality of the structure in terms of bonds, bond angles, dihedral angles and non-bonded atom-atom distances, structural as well as functional domains etc. The generated model was visualized using the RASMOL. Structural analysis of HMG-CoA reductase from Artemisia annua L. plant hypothesize that the N and C-terminals are positioned in cytosol by the two membrane spanning helices and the C-terminals domain shows similarity to the human HMG-CoA reductase enzyme indicating that they both had potential catalytic similarities.