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Y chromosome short tandem repeats (Y-STRs) typing is becoming increasingly popular in forensic casework mainly because it allows the recovery of male-specific genetic information from severely unbalanced male-female DNA mixtures. The relatively low discrimination power of conventional Y-STR multiplexes, due to linkage disequilibrium among polymorphic loci, has been partially overcome by the introduction of rapidly mutating Y microsatellites (RM Y-STRs) with mutation rates exceeding 1 × 10-2/generation. In previous works, we reported an unexpectedly high level of haplotype sharing among African males using the Yfiler Plus PCR Amplification kit, the most powerful commercially available system, including 19 conventional Y-STRs and 6 RM Y-STRs. In particular, analyzing 1370 males from northern, eastern and central Africa, 240 subjects were found to share 100 Y-STR haplotypes. We attributed the relatively low discrimination capacity to several factors including patrilocality, endogamy, sampling bias and degree of urbanization. In the present study, using a blind search analysis based on 16 autosomal STRs, we first investigated the kinship between pairs of African males previously found to share the Yfiler Plus haplotype; then, we evaluated the improvement in identification capacity allowed by a PCR multiplex assay (RM-YPlex) based on 13 "first generation" RM Y-STR, seven of which are not included in the Yfiler Plus multiplex. Among 228 pairs of males sharing a Yfiler Plus haplotype, we detected 134 related (cousins or closer) and 94 unrelated (or distantly related) pairs of subjects. By using the RM-YPlex, we observed a full genotype concordance for the six loci shared with the Yfiler Plus, while the additional seven RM Y-STRs allowed the discrimination among 58.2 % related pairs and 84.0 % unrelated pairs. The discrimination capacity increased from 0.898 to 0.958, while the proportion of males sharing a haplotype decreased from 17.5 % to 8.0 %. These findings further highlight the capability of RM Y-STRs to distinguish males even in close kinship scenarios and in sub-structured populations as African ones, but at the same time call for the discovery and testing of additional RM Y-STRs to fully differentiate male relatives. • Discrimination power of RM Y-STRs in endogamous African populations was investigated. • Low discrimination power previously observed is only partially due to close kinship. • Discrimination capacity increased from 0.898 (Yfiler Plus) to 0.958 using RM Y-STRs. • Additional RM Y-STRs are required to fully differentiate male relatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neisseria meningitidis is a major cause of bacterial meningitis worldwide, especially in the African meningitis belt, and has a high associated mortality. The meningococcal serogroups A, W, and X have been responsible for epidemics and almost all cases of meningococcal meningitis in the meningitis belt over the past 12 y. Currently no vaccine is available against meningococcal X (MenX). Because the development of a new vaccine through to licensure takes many years, this leaves Africa vulnerable to new epidemics of MenX meningitis at a time when the epidemiology of meningococcal meningitis on the continent is changing rapidly, following the recent introduction of a glycoconjugate vaccine against serogroup A. Here, we report the development of candidate glycoconjugate vaccines against MenX and preclinical data from their use in animal studies. Following optimization of growth conditions of our seed MenX strain for polysaccharide (PS) production, a scalable purification process was developed yielding high amounts of pure MenX PS. Different glycoconjugates were synthesized by coupling MenX oligosaccharides of varying chain length to CRM197 as carrier protein. Analytical methods were developed for in-process control and determination of purity and consistency of the vaccines. All conjugates induced high anti-MenX PS lgG titers in mice. Antibodies were strongly bactericidal against African MenX isolates. These findings support the further development of glycoconjugate vaccines against MenX and their assessment in clinical trials to produce a vaccine against the one cause of epidemic meningococcal meningitis that currently cannot be prevented by available vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the justice systems under the social and political realms countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. Topics included are a comparative analysis of judicial practices, the historical and anthropological dichotomy of legal frameworks in formerly colonized countries and the Western world, and the political dimensions that divide proponents of modern and indigenous approaches to the legal process.

Background Evaluations of large-scale health and nutrition programmes in developing countries are needed for determining the effectiveness of interventions. This article critically analyses a non-governmental organization (NGO)-led large-scale, multi-country, 10-year micronutrient and health (MICAH) programme with an ‘adequacy evaluation’, that is, a documentation of time trends in the expected direction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]