Geographical and climatic risk factors of cutaneous leishmaniasis in the hyper-endemic focus of Bam County in southeast Iran.

Introduction: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a prevalent debilitating disease in many countries, particularly in Iran, the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. Bam County is the most important highly endemic focus of anthropometric CL in Iran and has been under consideration by WHO. This study investigated the environmental and geographic factors affecting the occurrence and distribution of CL in this focus. Methods: Demographic data and the home addresses of CL patients diagnosed from 2015 to 2020 were retrieved from the Leishmaniasis Center of Bam in southeast Iran. The effects of mean annual rainfall (MAR), mean annual humidity (MAH), mean annual temperature (MAT), maximum annual temperature (MaxMAT), minimum annual temperature (MinMAT), mean annual humidity (MAH), mean annual evaporation (MAE), mean annual frosty days (MAFD), mean annual snowy hours (MASH), elevation, and land cover on the distribution of CL were analyzed using geographical information systems (GIS) and univariate and multivariate regression models. Results: Of 847 patients studied, 50.9% (n = 431) were female and 49.1% (n = 416) were male. The age classes 0-10 (n = 246) and 11-20 (n = 145) showed the highest frequency of patients, respectively. Leishmaniasis patients were reported from 66 villages/cities (11.8%) out of 561 residential areas in Bam County. Univariate analysis showed that urban settings (OR = 21.66), agriculture (OR = 5.73), orchards (OR = 5), salty land (OR = 1.05), and temperatures (OR = 2.37, 2.79 and 3.47) had positive effects on CL occurrence (p < 0.05), while altitude, precipitation, humidity, evaporation, and the number of frozen days had negative effects. Multivariate analysis identified urban settings (OR = 13.6), orchards (OR = 6.29), agriculture (OR = 5.82), and minimum temperature (OR = 2.38) as the most significant determinants of CL occurrence in this region. Conclusion: Environmental and ecological factors play an important role in the distribution of CL in Bam County. The high-risk zones for CL are cities/large villages, agricultural and orchard areas in lower altitudes and with warmer climates and lower rainfall and humidity. This model can guide researchers and health managers to properly conduct CL control programs and allocate budgets.

Bioinformatic Analysis of Circadian Expression of Oncogenes and Tumor Suppressor Genes.

BACKGROUND: Circadian rhythms are physiological and behavioral cycles with a period of approximately 24 hours that control various functions including gene expression. Circadian disruption is associated with a variety of diseases, especially cancer. Although some of the oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) are known as clock-controlled genes (CCGs), the analysis and annotation of circadian expression of most human oncogenes and TSGs are still lacking. This study aims to investigate the circadian expression of a list of human oncogenes and TSGs. METHODS: A bioinformatic analysis was conducted on a gene library comprising 120 genes to investigate the circadian expression of human oncogenes and TSGs. To achieve this purpose, the genotranscriptomic data were retrieved from COSMIC and analyzed by R statistical software. Furthermore, the acquired data were analyzed at the transcriptomic and proteomic levels using several publicly available databases. Also, the significance of all analyses was confirmed statistically. RESULTS: Altogether, our results indicated that 7 human oncogenes/TSGs may be expressed and function in a circadian manner. These oncogenes/TSGs showed a circadian expression pattern at CircaDB database and associated with at least one of the circadian genes/CCGs based on both genotranscriptomic and correlation analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Although 4 of 7 finally outputted genes have been previously reported to be clock controlled, heretofore there is no report about the circadian expression of 3 other genes. Considering the importance of oncogenes/TSGs in the initiation and progression of cancer, further studies are suggested for the identification of exact circadian expression patterns of these 3 human oncogenes/TSGs.