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Byline: Hemamalini. Malligarjunan, Haripriya. Dayalan, Pushpa. Gnanaraj, Tamilselvi. Elango, Swapna. Subramanian Background: Psoriasis greatly impacts the quality of life (QOL) of patients including several dermatological conditions that are listed in [...]

Byline: Haripriya. Dayalan, Swapna. Subramanian, Tamilselvi. Elango Introduction: Medical education is perceived as stressful. As excessive stress hampers students' performance, stress management is required for medical students. This study was [...]

Background: Yoga is a science practiced in India over thousands of years. It produces constituent physiological changes and has sound scientific basis. Aim: Since exam stress modifies lipid profile and hematological parameters, we conducted an investigation on the effect of sudarshan kriya (SK and P) program on these parameters. Materials and Methods: Blood samples of 43 engineering students were collected at four intervals namely baseline (BL), exam stress (ES), three and six weeks practice of SK and P during exam stress. Lipid profile and hematological parameters were measured at all four intervals. Results: ES elevated total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TGL) and very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) levels. Hematological parameters affected by ES included neutrophil, lymphocytes, platelet count, packed cell volume (PCV) and mean cell volume (MCV). Three and six weeks practice of SK and P reduced the elevated lipid profile, hematological parameters and improved lymphocyte levels. Conclusion: Our study indicates that SK and P practice has the potential to overcome ES by improving lipid profile and hematological parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease of considerable genetic predisposition. Genome-wide association studies have identified tens of common variants for SLE. However, the majority of them reside in non-coding sequences. The contributions of coding variants have not yet been systematically evaluated., Methods: We performed a large-scale exome-wide study in 5004 SLE cases and 8179 healthy controls in a Han Chinese population using a custom exome array, and then genotyped 32 variants with suggestive evidence in an independent cohort of 13 246 samples. We further explored the regulatory effect of one novel non-coding single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in ex vivo experiments., Results: We discovered four novel SLE gene regions ( LCT , TPCN2 , AHNAK2 and TNFRSF13B ) encompassing three novel missense variants (XP&#95;016859577.1:p.Asn1639Ser, XP&#95;016859577.1:p.Val219Phe and XP&#95;005267356.1:p.Thr4664Ala) and two non-coding variants (rs10750836 and rs4792801) with genome-wide significance (p meta <5.00×10 -8 ). These variants are enriched in several chromatin states of primary B cells. The novel intergenic variant rs10750836 exhibited an expression quantitative trait locus effect on the TPCN2 gene in immune cells. Clones containing this novel SNP exhibited gene promoter activity for TPCN2 (P=1.38×10 -3 ) whose expression level was reduced significantly in patients with SLE (P<2.53×10 -2 ) and was suggested to be further modulated by rs10750836 in CD19+ B cells (P=7.57×10 -5 ) in ex vivo experiments., Conclusions: This study identified three novel coding variants and four new susceptibility gene regions for SLE. The results provide insights into the biological mechanism of SLE., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.)