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Huntington's disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder which is caused due to repetitive CAG or glutamine expression along the coding region of the Huntington gene. This disease results in certain movement abnormalities, affective disturbances, dementia and cognitive impairments. To this date, there is no proper cure for this rare and fatal neurological condition but there have been certain advancements in the field of genetic animal model research studies to elucidate the understanding of the pathogenesis of this condition. Currently, HD follows a certain therapeutic approach which just relieves the symptoms but doesn't cure the underlying cause of the disease. Stem cell therapy can be a breakthrough in developing a potential cure for this condition. In this review, we have discussed the pathogenesis and the efficacy and clinical practicality of the therapeutic application of stem cell transplantation in Huntington's disease. The application of this groundbreaking therapy on genetically altered animal models has been listed and analyzed in brief.

The ongoing pandemic COVID-19 is caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has wreaked havoc globally by affecting millions of lives. Although different countries found the implementation of emergency measures useful to combat the viral pandemic (first wave), many countries are now experiencing the resurgence of COVID-19 even after following strict containment guidelines (second wave). Country-specific lessons learned from the first wave of infection appeared to be useful in the successful battle of possible second wave outbreak. In this article, we examined the situation in Bangladesh during the first wave COVID-19 outbreak and discussed the demographic, political, economic, social and environmental influences on the mitigation strategies employed by the country to combat the pandemic. We also tried to explore the preparedness and precautionary measures taken by responsible authorities, choice of strategies implemented and effectiveness of response from government and relevant agencies. Finally, we discussed the possible strategies that might help Bangladesh survive a second wave outbreak based on the experiences from the first wave of the ongoing pandemic.

The therapy using natural or genetically engineered viruses, known as oncolytic viruses, to fight cancer, is called Oncolytic Virotherapy. Studying about oncolytic viruses are challenging for several technical reasons. In this article, a review of the history of this sector, brief mechanism of oncolytic viruses and the challenges ahead has been performed, focusing on the role of immunity in OV therapy.

Currently available screening instruments for evaluation of individuals with intellectual disabilities do not capture all the complications associated with Down Syndrome (DS). Here, we examined age and gender-specific variability revolving around major challenges related to ophthalmologic and auditory health, social integration, daily life, and behavioral problems in 468 (age: 2–84 years) individuals with DS living in all eight divisions of Bangladesh. More than half of the children presented with significant difficulty in walking or other targeted movements compared with 37.9% of adolescents (p = 0.03). Nearly 70% of children exhibited communication difficulties, particularly revolving around the understanding of speech, comprehending or learning tasks or new materials, and in expressing thoughts in words or behaviors (p = 0.003–0.006). Uncontrolled urination was frequent and predominantly found among children (p = 0.04). No significant differences were present in females vs. males except for concern about physical appearance (females: 58.5% vs. males: 47.5%; p = 0.02). The severity of DS was associated with intellectual performance, communication difficulties, and self-sufficiency (i.e., uncontrolled micturition or bowel movements) but not with psychotic, ophthalmologic, auditory, or motor skills-related problems. Increased awareness of DS phenotypic profiles among professionals and caregivers can foster earlier detection and counselling and help formulate appropriate interventions to reduce long-term sequelae and enhance cognitive and behavioral developmental outcomes., Down Syndrome; Behavioral problems; Bangladesh; Challenges; Severity; Learning disability.

In this work, a simple gold-glazed dual-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is inspected by using surface plasmon resonance for biochemical sensing. Based on high sensing performance and chemical substantiality, gold (Au) is selected as plasmonic material to coat the external surface of the design. The target analyte and gold layer are placed on the outer surface of the PCF to offer fabrication simplicity. A central elliptical air hole is embellished to increase structural asymmetry between both cores hence the sensor came out with improved sensing performances. The numerical analysis of the proposed design is investigated employing the finite element method (FEM). The maximum optimized value of wavelength sensitivity is recorded at about 8000 nm/RIU with a resolution of 12.5×10−6 and amplitude sensitivity is achieved 1443 RIU−1 for the refractive index of 1.39. Furthermore, a detailed study is also performed to investigate the effects of varying sensor's geometrical parameters such as the thickness of gold and analyte layer, pitch distance, diameters of cladding air holes, geometrical shapes of air hole at core. According to these results along with simple structural design, the proposed model can be practical enough for biochemical and bio-molecular substance detection.

The selection of appropriate plasmonic material is extremely crucial for getting good sensing performance from photonic crystal fiber-based surface plasmon resonance (PCF-SPR) sensors. The numerical investigation of PCF-SPR sensors is still limited to conventional plasmonic materials in most existing studies. Recent researches show that some alloys can also be potential candidates as plasmonic materials for their remarkable plasmonic characteristics. This article presents a numerical analysis of a simple designed external sensing scheme based PCF-SPR sensor employing different noble plasmonic materials and their alloys. The sensor's design is kept very simple to ease the fabrication complexity, and the sensing ingredient is placed outside of the main structure. To investigate the sensing performance of the sensor, we have chosen gold, silver, and copper as noble plasmonic materials and gold-silver (30 %–70 %), gold-silver (70 %−30 %), and copper-zinc (90 %−10 %) as alloys. From the obtained results, it is observed that the reported sensor shows maximum amplitude sensitivity (AS) of 9759.00 RIU−1 and figure of merit (FOM) of 923.07 RIU−1 when the silver coating is used. Moreover, the reported sensor shows maximum spectral sensitivity (SS) of 26,000 nm/RIU and resolution of 3.84 × 10-6 with copper-zinc (90 %−10 %) alloy. Because of its highly sensitive performance, this sensor can be an impressive appliance for the identification of organic substances, biological fluids, and samples.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) became a pandemic, resulting in an exponentially increased mortality globally and scientists all over the world are struggling to find suitable solutions to combat it. Multiple repurposed drugs have already been in several clinical trials or recently completed. However, none of them shows any promising effect in combating COVID-19. Therefore, developing an effective drug is an unmet global need. RdRp (RNA dependent RNA polymerase) plays a pivotal role in viral replication. Therefore, it is considered as a prime target of drugs that may treat COVID-19. In this study, we have screened a library of compounds, containing approved RdRp inhibitor drugs that were or in use to treat other viruses (favipiravir, sofosbuvir, ribavirin, lopinavir, tenofovir, ritonavir, galidesivir and remdesivir) and their structural analogues, in order to identify potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 RdRp. Extensive screening, molecular docking and molecular dynamics show that five structural analogues have notable inhibitory effects against RdRp of SARS-CoV-2. Importantly, comparative protein-antagonists interaction revealed that these compounds fit well in the pocket of RdRp. ADMET analysis of these compounds suggests their potency as drug candidates. Our identified compounds may serve as potential therapeutics for COVID-19., COVID-19, RNA dependent RNA polymerase, Binding free energy, Molecular docking, Virtual screening, Molecular dynamics simulation.

An exploration of a gold-coated dual-core with hexagonally arranged circular air holes SPR-PCF sensor is presented in this paper. Chemically inactive and stable material gold is provided as plasmonic material in this design. Placement of the gold layer outside of the PCF structure simplifies the detection process of this sensor and also assures fabrication feasibility. The performance of this sensor is investigated in terms of wavelength sensitivity, amplitude sensitivity, resolution, sensor length and linearity response by using the Finite Element Method (FEM) based COMSOL Multiphysics software. Maximum wavelength sensitivity is found to be 10,700 nm/RIU for analyte sensing range between 1.39 to 1.40 by using wavelength interrogation method as well as maximum amplitude sensitivity reaches about 1770 RIU-1 for analyte RI 1.39 by using amplitude interrogation method. Besides, the sensor's resolution is found to be 9.34×10-6. The outcome of alternating structural parameters such as gold layer thickness, pitch, air hole diameter, different shapes of air hole in the core is also discussed as well. The reported sensor might be a fruitful aspirant in the field of biological sample detection, organic chemical sensing and biomolecule recognition. Keywords: Photonic crystal fiber, Plasmonic, Analyte, SPP, Resolution, RI

Bartonella bacilliformis, a causative agent of Bartonellosis or Carrion's disease, has become resistant to antibacterial agents. To suggest effective novel drug targets, a comprehensive in silico subtractive genomic approach was employed in the genome of B. bacilliformis subsp. ver097. Different bioinformatics tools and online servers were utilized to determine human homologous proteins of the pathogen, as well as proteins associated with common metabolic pathways of pathogen and host. Only seven proteins were associated in pathogen specific pathways, which were further screened to determine drug or vaccine targeted membrane proteins. ‘ABC transporter permease’ and ‘Flagellar biosynthesis protein FlhA’ were found to be novel drug targets which showed the highest level of antigenicity. Moreover, ‘Flagellar biosynthesis protein FlhA’ exhibited broad spectrum conservancy with other Bartonella bacilliformis strains. Consequently, it might be used for development of novel drugs and therapeutic components for the successful treatment of infections caused by Bartonella bacilliformis.

Currently, dengue fever and human cervical cancer are two of the most dangerous diseases around the world. Dengue fever is caused by four serotypes of dengue virus (DENV)- 1, 2, 3 and 4 and most of the human cervical cancer cases are found to be caused by human papillomavirus type-16 (HPV-16). In this study, potential epitope-based subunit vaccines were designed using numerous tools of reverse vaccinology, targeting the DENV-1 envelope protein E and HPV-16 major capsid protein L1. Reverse vaccinology is a genome-based approach of vaccine designing, identifying potential antigenic epitopes of a pathogen. After obtaining the target protein sequences, their antigenicity and physicochemical properties were determined. Thereafter, the possible T cell and B cell epitopes were predicted and after analyzing their antigenicity, allergenicity, toxicity, and conservancy, as well as docking results (docked with MHC class-I and class-II alleles), the best epitopes were selected for vaccine construction. Thereafter, two best vaccine constructs (one for each of the virus) were selected for further analysis based on analyzing the docking results (docked with various MHC alleles and TLR molecules) of the initially constructed six vaccines. The molecular dynamics simulation of the two selected docked complexes with the two best vaccines showed quite satisfactory results. Finally, after codon adaptation, the vaccine constructs were inserted into the pET-19b plasmid vector for E. coli strain K12 using an in silico cloning approach. However, more in vitro and in vivo studies might be required on the suggested vaccines for their proper validation.

Brucella abortus is the causative agent of brucellosis, a neglected endemic zoonotic disease. It causes devastating economic losses in low income and developing countries. Clinical symptoms of infected cows include abortion, poor weight, reduced fertility gain and reduction in milk production. Transmission of the zoonotic disease from cattle to human can occur through direct contact with infected cows, their tissues (e.g. placenta or aborted tissues), or their products (e.g. dairy) whereas human-to-human transmission can occur transplacentally or via breastfeeding. Malaise, fatigue, fever, arthritis are some clinical symptom of the disease in humans. Recent studies have revealed that Brucella abortus show resistance to several antibiotics. There are worldwide concerns about rising levels of antibiotic resistance resulting in the treatment failure as well as the reduced usefulness of older broad-spectrum antibiotics. Hence, a rather novel method has been in use to combat resistant pathogens since the last decade. To overcome this challenge, subtractive genomic analysis has been successfully carried out with the whole proteome of Brucella abortus strain 2308 using various bioinformatic tools and servers. Proteins nonhomologous to cattle and human were selected for metabolic analysis. Only three membrane proteins (ABC transporter permease, acriflavine resistance protein B, penicillin-binding protein 2) were found to be potential novel vaccine candidates with cattle as the host whereas one membrane protein (ABC transporter permease) was selected as novel drug target with human as the host. Development of novel vaccines and therapeutics through targeting inhibition of the functions of any of these essential proteins can lead to disruption of pathogen-specific metabolic pathways and thereby to the destruction and the eradication of this pathogen from respective hosts. The results of this study could facilitate the discovery and release of new and effective drugs and help in designing and producing potent vaccines against Brucella abortus strain 2308.

Background Patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) have heterogeneous outcomes. Predictor models able to distinguish, at diagnosis, patients at high versus low risk of progression are still needed. Methods The primary objective of this study was to use gene-expression profiling data to build a signature predictive of outcome in patients treated in the rituximab era. In a retrospectively assembled training cohort of 134 pretreatment FL patients from the prospective randomized PRIMA trial, we developed an expression-based predictor of progression-free survival (PFS) that was further evaluated in FFPE samples obtained from three independent international cohorts, using NanoString technology. The validation cohorts comprised a distinct set of patients from the PRIMA trial (n=178), a cohort from the University of Iowa/Mayo Clinic Lymphoma SPORE (n=201) and the Hospital Clinic University of Barcelona (n=109). All tissue samples consisted of pretreatment diagnostic biopsies and were confirmed as FL grade 1-3a. The patients were all treated with regimens containing rituximab and chemotherapy, possibly followed by either rituximab maintenance or ibritumomab-tiuxetan consolidation. Findings The expression levels of 395 genes were associated with a risk of progression. Twenty-three genes reflecting both B-cell biology and tumor microenvironment were retained to build a predictive model, which identified a population at an increased risk of progression (p