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INTRODUCTION: Onabotulinumtoxin A (BTX-A) is an effective therapy for overactive bladder (OAB), however, adverse events may prevent patients from initiating therapy. The study objective was to report real-world rates of incomplete emptying and urinary tract infection (UTI) in men and women undergoing BTX-A for OAB. METHODS: Eleven clinical sites performed a retrospective study of adults undergoing first-time BTX-A injection (100 units) for idiopathic OAB in 2016. Exclusions included: postvoid residual (PVR) > 150 ml, prior BTX-A, pelvic radiation, or need for preprocedure catheterization. Primary outcomes at 6 months were incomplete emptying (clean intermittent catheterization [CIC] or PVR ≥ 300 ml without the need for CIC); and UTI (symptoms with either positive culture or urinalysis or empiric treatment). We compared rates of incomplete emptying and UTI within and between sexes, using univariate and multivariable models. RESULTS: 278 patients (48 men and 230 women) met inclusion criteria. Mean age was 65.5 years (range: 24–95). 35% of men and 17% of women had incomplete emptying. Men had 2.4 (95% CI: 1.04–5.49) higher odds of incomplete emptying than women. 17% of men and 23.5% of women had ≥1 UTI, the majority of which occurred within the first month following injection. The strongest predictor of UTI was a history of prior UTI (OR: 4.2 [95% CI: 1.7–10.3]). CONCLUSIONS: In this multicenter retrospective study, rates of incomplete emptying and UTI were higher than many previously published studies. Men were at particular risk for incomplete emptying. Prior UTI was the primary risk factor for postprocedure UTI.

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) is a key enzyme that phosphorylates phosphatidylinositol at 3’-hydroxyl position of the inositol head group initiating the generation of several phosphorylated phosphatidylinositols, collectively referred to as phosphoinositides. The function of PI3K in plant senescence and ethylene signal transduction process was studied by expression of Solanum lycopersicum PI3K in transgenic Nicotiana tabacum, and delineating its effect on flower senescence. Detached flowers of transgenic tobacco plants with overexpressed Sl-PI3K (OX) displayed accelerated senescence and reduced longevity, when compared to the flowers of wild type plants. Flowers from PI3K-overexpressing plants showed enhanced ethylene production and upregulated expression of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid oxidase 1 (ACO1). Real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis showed that PI3K was expressed at a higher level in OX flowers than in the control. Seedlings of OX-lines also demonstrated a triple response phenotype with characteristic exaggerated apical hook, shorter hypocotyls and increased sensitivity to 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate than the control wild type seedlings. In floral tissue from OX-lines, Solanum lycopersicum phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase green fluorescent protein (PI3K-GFP) chimera protein was localized primarily in stomata, potentially in cytoplasm and membrane adjacent to stomatal pores in the guard cells. Immunoblot analysis of PI3K expression in OX lines demonstrated increased protein level compared to the control. Results of the present study suggest that PI3K plays a crucial role in senescence by enhancing ethylene biosynthesis and signaling. Published version

Use of suitable plants to extract and concentrate excess phosphorus (P) from contaminated soil serves as an attractive method of phyto-remediation. Plant species vary considerably in their potential to assimilate different organic and inorganic P substrates. Duo grass (a hybrid of Lolium × Festuca) seedlings were grown in liquid nutrient media supplemented with various concentrations of potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4) and phytate to study their P-accumulation potential. Plants that received extra P showed significantly greater plant biomass and accumulated more shoot P compared to the plants that were supplied with normal P. Duo was also grown in poultry manure amended soil and liquid media to evaluate their ability to grow and accumulate biomass in poultry manure impacted soils. Thus this grass species may be utilized as a P hyper-accumulator for phyto-extraction of excess P into their biomass from soils. Duo grass can utilize both organic (phytate), as well as, inorganic P from the growth medium as evidenced in the results.Keywords: Duo grass, phosphorus, phosphorus substrates, phytate, phosphorus accumulation, phytoremediationAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(21), pp. 3191-3195

Tapping panel dryness (TPD) syndrome is one of the latex yield affecting factors in the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis Mull. Arg.). Therefore, identification of a DNA marker will be highly useful for screening progenies in breeding programs. The major goal of this study was to detect genetic variations and/or identification of gene fragments among 37 Hevea clones by the random amplified polymorphic DNA “fingerprinting” technique. Different levels of DNA polymorphism were detected with various primers and a distinct polymorphic band (2.0 kb) was obtained with OPA-17 primer. It was cloned into a plasmid vector for further sequence characterization and the nucleotide sequence shows homology with a novel putative plant thymidine kinase (TK) gene, designated as HbTK (Hevea brasiliensis thymidine kinase; GenBank accession number AY130829). The protein HbTK has 67%, 65%, 64%, and 63% similarity to TK genes of Medicago, Oryza, Arabidopsis, and Lyco-persicon, respectively, and it was highly conserved in all species analyzed. The predicted amino acid sequence contained conserved domains of TK proteins in the C-terminal half. Southern blot analysis indicated that HbTK is one of the members of a small gene family. Northern blot results revealed that the expression of the HbTK gene was up-regulated in mature bark tissues of the healthy tree while it was down-regulated in the TPD-affected one. These results suggest that this gene may play important roles in maintaining active nucleotide metabolism during cell division at the tapped site of bark tissues in the healthy tree under stress (tapping) conditions for normal latex biosynthesis.