Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M M Gupta.
Sesamin, a major lignan of Piper mullesua of Manipur origin, exhibited significant antifeedant activity and moderate growth inhibition towards 4th instar larvae of Spilarctia obliqua. No larval toxicity of sesamin could be established in topical bioassay experiments. Its effective dose for 50% feeding deterrence (ED(50)) and growth inhibition (GI(50)) were found to be 3856 and 6212 ppm, respectively.
The pleiotropic properties of a abo abo (Abo-) gamma-ray induced mutant of Catharanthus roseus cv. Nirmal, selected among the M2 generation seeds for ability to germinate at 45 degrees C, are described. The mutant produced seeds possessing tricotyledonous embryos, unlike the typically dicotyledonous embryos present in the wild type Abo+ seeds. In comparison to Abo+ adults, the mutant plants had short stature and lanceolate leaves. The vascular bundles in the leaves and stem were poorly developed. Leaf surfaces were highly trichomatous, epidermal, cortex and mesophyll cells were small sized and a large majority of stomata were closed. Besides high temperature, the mutant was salinity and water-stress tolerant. The abscisic acid (ABA) content in the leaves was about 500-fold higher. The genetic lesion abo responsible for the above pleiotropy was recessive and inherited in Mendelian fashion. The seedlings and adult plants of the mutant accumulated higher proline than Abo+ plants. The phenotypes of abo abo mutants permitted the conclusions that (i) the mutant synthesizes ABA constitutively, (ii) both ABA-dependent and ABA independent pathways for proline and betaine accumulation are functional in the mutant, and (iii) cell division, elongation and differentiation processes in embryo and adult plant stages are affected in the mutant
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We report on an illuminated, low-cost (Rs 1500 (US$ 36)) magnifying device (Magnivisualizer) for detecting precancerous lesions of the uterine cervix. A total of 403 women attending a maternal and child health care clinic who had abnormal vaginal discharge and related symptoms were referred for detailed pelvic examination and visual inspection by means of the device after the application of 5% (v/v) acetic acid. Pap smears were obtained at the same time. The results were compared with those obtained using colposcopy and/or histology. The Magnivisualizer improved the detection rate of early cancerous lesions from 60%, for unaided visual inspection, to 95%. It also permitted detection of 58% of cases of low-grade dysplasia and 83% of cases of high-grade dysplasia; none of these cases were detectable by unaided visual inspection. For low-grade dysplasia the sensitivity of detection by means of the Magnivisualizer was 57.5%, in contrast with 75.3% for cytological examination. However, the two methodologies had similar sensitivities for higher grades of lesions. The specificity of screening with the Magnivisualizer was 94.3%, while that of cytology was 99%. The cost per screening was approximately US$ 0.55 for the Magnivisualizer and US$ 1.10 for cytology.
DNA-PK is a nuclear, serine/threonine protein kinase required for repairing DNA double-strand breaks and for V(D)J recombination. To determine the distribution of DNA-PK in human tissues, we assayed paraffin-embedded sections of normal and cancerous tissues for DNA-PKcs and Ku80 by immunohistochemistry. We also assayed for Brca2, a human tumor suppressor gene that is implicated in the repair of DNA strand-breaks. Brca2 was strongly expressed in epithelial cells of the breast, endometrium, and thymus, in tingible body macrophages of follicular germinal centers of lymphoid tissue, and in reticuloendothelial cells in the spleen. DNA-PKcs and Ku80 expression was usually parallel, but both were expressed in a highly cell- and tissue-specific manner. The highest levels were observed in spermatogenic cells (but not in spermatozoa), and in neurons and glial cells of the central and autonomic nervous system. Neither protein was consistently expressed in liver nor in resting mammary epithelium, but lactating breast epithelium was strongly positive for DNA-PKcs and Ku80. In contrast to established human cell cultures, expression between cells in the same tissue was highly selective in the epidermis, exocrine pancreas, renal glomeruli, the red pulp of the spleen, and within cellular compartments of tonsils, lymph nodes, and thymus. Most cancerous tissues were consistently positive for DNA-PKcs and Ku80, except invasive carcinoma of the breast. DNA-PKcs, Ku80, and Ku70 mRNAs were expressed in all normal tissues with relatively little variation in levels. Our results suggest that the apparent absence of DNA-PKcs and Ku80 from some cells or tissues is a consequence of post-transcriptional mechanisms that regulate protein levels.
Two hundred and fifty-seven consecutive women attending a major maternal and child health (MCH) center were studied clinically, colposcopically, cytologically, and microbiologically for different gynecologic infections. Out of 257 cases, 207 (80.5%) had inflammatory cervical smears, of which 183 (88.4%) were infected with one or more genital tract infections. Bacterial vaginosis (risk, 22.6-fold), chlamydia (risk, 21.6-fold), and human papillomavirus (HPV) (risk, 13.5-fold) were independently associated with inflammatory smears. In addition, significantly higher proportions of women with inflammatory smears had cervical ectopies (28.5% vs. 10.2%) and bleeding ectopies (30.9% vs. 4.1%) as compared to noninflammatory smears. Women infected with bacterial/parasitic genital infections were given specific treatment. These women were followed up at regular intervals to assess the efficacy of antimicrobial therapy. During follow-up examination, only 26 women (12.6%) showed negative smears. Sixteen women developed squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL) during follow-up, and 163 women had persistent inflammatory smears. Multivariate analysis revealed that persistent inflammatory smears were associated with herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection, as revealed through detection of IgA antibodies to HSV (risk, 11.5-fold). Progression of SIL was associated with HPV infection (risk, 17.6 fold). Thus, inflammatory smears are associated with different types of infection, most of which do not respond to antimicrobial therapy.
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Mutagenic metabolites produced due to chronic infection of cervical epithelium are suspected to be a plausible risk factor in cervical carcinogenesis. One hundred twenty-four symptomatic women attending a maternal and child health (MCH) clinic were studied clinically, cytologically, microbiologically, and biochemically for genital tract infections and for the presence of mutagens in the endocervical secretions using Ames' test. Human papillomavirus (HPV) was the leading infection (53.3%), followed by chlamydial infection (25.8%) and seropositivity for herpes simplex virus (25.1%). Mutagenic products in the endocervical secretions was detected in 23 women (18.5%). The univariate and multivariate (adjusted for other genital infections, age, and parity) analysis showed that the mutagenic mucus was associated with only chlamydial infection of endocervical region (OR = 3.7; 95% CI = 1.7,7.3). This shows that chlamydia is associated with mutagenicity of endocervical mucus.
A cross sectional study involving 257 women from the Maternal and Child Health Centre (MCH) in Delhi was initiated for screening clinically, cytologically, colposcopically, and microbiologically for several gynaecologic infections. Eighty percent of the women had one or more gynaecologic infections and 31.1% had three or more infections. Cytology revealed changes suggestive of condyloma in 3 (1.2%) women only, while colposcopic examination suggested HPV changes in 117 (45.5%) women. A very high proportion of colposcopically detected lesions (78.6%) had evidence of HPV related changes in histology. The specificity of these lesions were further confirmed by Pan HPV DNA in-situ hybridisation, when 84% of the colposcopy is a valuable tool for detecting subclinical HPV lesions in a setting with high prevalence of gynaecologic infections.
OBJECTIVE: To study the clinical presentation of different gynecologic infections among Indian women. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study of 257 women that included clinical, cytologic, colposcopic, and microbiologic screening for various gynecologic infections. RESULTS: Human papillomavirus (HPV) was the leading infection, affecting 127 (49.4%) women; however, overt warts were only seen in seven (2.7%) patients. Women infected with HPV had a 60.3-fold higher risk of developing a bleeding ectopia compared to those with other infections; women with an unhealthy cervix and cervical ectopias also had an increased risk of HPV infection (7.6- and 2.8-fold, respectively). Bacterial vaginosis, detected in 33.5% of the women studied, had an increased risk of bleeding ectopia (9.3-fold), cervical ectopia (3.1-fold), cervicitis (2.9-fold), vaginitis (6.9-fold), and cervical hypertrophy (2.1-fold). Chlamydial infection, detected in 23.3% of the patient population, was associated with an eightfold increase in the risk of an unhealthy cervix and a fourfold increase in risk of a hypertrophied cervix. Immunoglobulin-A antibodies to the herpes simplex virus were detected in 53 (20.6%) women. More than half (55.2%) of the women had two or more infections, and the mean delay of seeking medical treatment was 7-13 months. CONCLUSION: The specific finding of bleeding cervices was associated with HPV and bacterial vaginosis, hypertrophied cervices with chlamydia and bacterial vaginosis, and unhealthy cervices with chlamydia and HPV infections.
Two hundred and fifty-seven women attending a Maternal and Child Health Centre (MCH) were examined for different colposcopic and histological patterns associated with cervical inflammation as detected by cytology and for their association with different gynaecological infections. The cytodiagnosis revealed inflammation in 207 women (80.5%) and non-inflammation in 49 (19.5%); one smear was inadequate for evaluation. Fifty-six per cent of the women with inflammation and 20% with non-inflammation had an atypical transformation zone (ATZ), the risk of ATZ being 4.9-fold higher in those with inflammation. Biopsies from 128 women with abnormal colposcopy revealed morphological changes suggestive of human papillomavirus (HPV) in 89 (69.5%) and dysplasia of varying grades in 8 (6.3%). Seventy per cent of histologically diagnosed HPV lesions stained immunohistochemically, whereas 84% reacted with a biotinylated Pan-HPV probe by DNA in situ hybridization (DISH). In addition to HPV, chlamydia (OR 15.6, 95% CI 2.2, 311.6), T. vaginalis (OR 18.4), bacterial vaginosis (OR 24.7, 95% CI 3.5, 492) and herpes simplex virus (OR 4.9, 95% CI 1.4, 20.9) were significantly associated with inflammatory smears. Of 11 dysplasias detected by colposcopy and confirmed by biopsy, 8 (72.7%) had inflammatory cytology in the initial Pap smears. Thus a large proportion of women with inflammatory smears had multiple gynaecological infections and may be at increased risk of developing preneoplastic or neoplastic changes. Furthermore, they risk transmitting the infections to their partners.
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Two coupled nonlinear first-order systems whose dynamic behavior reflects the neural states exhibited by a spatially localized population of excitatory and inhibitory nerve cells are described. The dynamics of each constituent neural subpopulation represents a fundamental neural information processing element (PE) of a complex neural system. Phase plane analysis is used in this paper to show how such antagonistic positive acting (excitatory) and negative acting (inhibitory) PEs can generate diverse steady-state and temporal phenomena when the nonlinear system parameters of the PEs are altered. By modifying a selected set of parameters, it is possible to program the positive and negative PEs to exhibit various dynamic attributes such as multiple stable states, transient response behavior and limit-cycle oscillations. These dynamic attributes may be used to perform a variety of useful computational tasks in signal processing and vision systems such as short-term memory (STM), temporal filtering (TF) and pulse frequency modulation (PFM). Computer simulations are presented throughout this paper in order to illustrate these dynamic attributes.
To fully understand immune competence in subjects with precancerous and cancerous lesions of the uterine cervix, various markers of T and B cells in peripheral blood were evaluated. The cellular measures were the absolute numbers of CD2, CD3, CD22, CD25, CD4, CD8 and CD4/CD8 T cell ratio and serologic measures were the levels of cellular products ie interleukin-2 (IL-2) and soluble interleukin-2 receptors (SIL2-R). Eighty-five subjects were analysed, and diagnosed histologically as CIN (n = 33) and invasive cancer (n = 22). Thirty women with normal Pap test results served as controls. Results on cellular markers showed a significant decrease in peripheral blood lymphocyte counts in patients with higher grades of cervical lesions as compared to controls (CIN III P < 0.05 and invasive cancer P < 0.001). Similar trends were observed for CD22 cell counts (P < 0.001). A consistent decrease was observed for CD2 positive T lymphocytes in patients with higher grade cervical lesions only. In addition, a decrease in CD4-T cells with a relative increase in CD8 and CD25 cell count was observed in these groups of patients, leading to a considerable reduction in CD4/CD8 T-cell ratio. Results obtained on soluble cellular products revealed that serum levels of IL-2 and SIL2-R in patient groups were significantly higher than controls (P < 0.001). Preliminary findings indicated a host-vested cellular impairment, evidenced by immune deficit and immune-stimulation, in women with pre-cancer and cancerous lesions of the cervix.