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The objectives of this study: Prevalence and in-silico analysis of lipid and cardiac enzymes in ACS patients. A total of 213 (137 male and 76 female) blood samples were taken from cardiac patients. After prevalence analysis was done on blood samples of patients & to check the biomarker level of all cardiac and lipid enzymes in all patients to find out the acute coronary syndrome. Statical analysis was done using the spss 21 software and In-silico analysis was also done in this study. In statical analysis, correlation showed a relationship with lipid, cardiac, walk and exercise with significant level P

Supplementary Figures: Supplementary Figure 1. Summary of duration on AZD9496 therapy, previous therapies, and circulating biomarkers status at baseline for each patient ranked by ascending dose; Supplementary Figure 2. Tumor pharmacodynamics. Supplementary Tables: Supplementary Table 1. Study Plan showing time-points of collection of biosamples for exploratory research; Supplementary Table 2. ddPCR primers and probes;Supplementary Table 3. Antibodies and conditions for IHC analysis Antibodies for IHC analysis; Supplementary Table 4. Patients with {greater than or equal to}1 CTC/7.5 mL WB within 120 days of fulvestrant wash-out period prior C1D1.

Purpose:Common resistance mechanisms to endocrine therapy (ET) in estrogen receptor (ER)–positive metastatic breast cancers include, among others, ER loss and acquired activating mutations in the ligand-binding domain of the ER gene (ESR1LBDm). ESR1 mutational mediated resistance may be overcome by selective ER degraders (SERD). During the first-in-human study of oral SERD AZD9496, early changes in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) were explored as potential noninvasive tools, alongside paired tumor biopsies, to assess pharmacodynamics and early efficacy.Experimental Design:CTC were enumerated/phenotyped for ER and Ki67 using CellSearch in serial blood draws. ctDNA was assessed for the most common ESR1LBDm by droplet digital PCR (BioRad).Results:Before starting AZD9496, 11 of 43 (25%) patients had ≥5 CTC/7.5 mL whole blood (WB), none of whom underwent reduction to +, two of whom had CTC-ER+ reduction. CTC-Ki67 status did not change appreciably. Patients with ≥5 CTC/7.5 mL WB before treatment had worse progression-free survival (PFS) than patients with P = 0.0003). Fourteen of 45 (31%) patients had ESR1LBDm+ ctDNA at baseline, five of whom had ≥2 unique mutations. Baseline ESR1LBDm status was not prognostic. Patients with persistently elevated CTC and/or ESR1LBDm+ ctDNA at C1D15 had worse PFS than patients who did not (P = 0.0007).Conclusions:Elevated CTC at baseline was a strong prognostic factor in this cohort. Early on-treatment changes were observed in CTC-ER+ and ESR1LBDm+ ctDNA, but not in overall CTC number. Integrating multiple biomarkers in prospective trials may improve outcome prediction and ET resistance mechanisms' identification over a single biomarker.

The eukaryotic gene expression is controlled by a regulatory region called promoter. Many plant promoters have been characterized for regulatory motifs. There are three types of plant promoters i.e. inducible, constitutive and tissue specific on basis of regulatory motifs. Plant sources have been searched for isolation of strong promoters that are being utilized in molecular biology research. The researchers need to address IPR issues for utilizing the strong patented promoters for the expression of their transgenes. The identification and characterization of strong dicot promoter is necessary for the expression of transgenes by native researchers to evaluate their artificial gene. The promoters isolated from viral sources have some limitations. The dicot promoter sequence of ?-tubulin (?-TbSt) was explored and isolated from potato. The ?-TbSt promoter sequence consists of light responsive, hormonal responsive and stress responsive elements. Motifs having responsive elements were identified in ?-TbSt promoter. The ?-TbSt promoter is highly constitutive promoter.

Dengue is an infectious viral disease transmitted by the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito. Signs and symptoms associated with dengue vary with the severity of the disease. The present study aims to inquire about different therapeutic strategies used for the treatment of dengue. We investigated the effectiveness of different remedies such as fluid treatment, immunological treatment, antiviral treatment, herbal treatment, plant extract, and vaccines. Our review examines some of the published articles and studies on these strategies. Google Scholar, Web of Science, and other library databases were searched for relevant articles on the nature of dengue fever, the transmission of dengue virus, a possible mechanism of action of papaya, antiviral agents, vaccines, immunological treatment, and plant extracts. Fluids were found to be effective in the maintenance of normal blood volume. C. papaya leaf extract and capsules are effective in decreasing thrombocytopenia associated with dengue fever, increasing WBCs, RBCs and stabilizing normal hematocrit levels and other effects. Anti-viral agents play a role in inhibiting the process of activity of dengue viruses by inhibiting them at different levels e.g. translation, replication, etc. Different vaccines are developed for the prevention of dengue fever, but there is one vaccine that is licensed in some particular countries where dengue is originating. Vaccines having different efficiencies and safety against all dengue virus strains are under the process of development in various institutes.

Osteoporosis and diabetes mellitus (DM) are widespread diseases and have a significant health burden. Type-1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and Type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are associated with an increased bone fracture. In T1DM, the increased risk of bone fracture is associated with low bone mass. In patients with T2DM, the risk of fracture of the bone is increased due to low quality of bone, despite increased bone mineral density (BMD). In type 2 diabetic patients, bone fragility depends on the quality of bone instead of a reduction in bone mass. Thiazolidinediones (TZD) cause differentiation of adipocytes and inhibit differentiation of osteoblast and bone marrow stromal stem cells (BMSC). In this review, we have described the effect of anti-diabetic drugs and diabetes mellitus on bone health and our finding shows that sulfonylureas and metformin have no negative effect on bone health and protect bones against fractures.

Heat shock proteins assist in folding proteins that is a basic cellular constituent responsible for various crucial functions including protein assembly, transportation, folding in normal conditions and denaturation of proteins in stress and in other cellular function. Abiotic factors like increased temperature, drought and salinity negatively affect reproduction and survival of plants. Plants (HSPs), as chaperones, have crucial part in conversing biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. Plants react towards critical changes through biochemical, growth, and physiological mechanisms included expression of stress-reactive proteins, which are regulated by interconnected signaling cascades of transcription factors including heat stress TFs.

Date biochar (DB) was obtained by pyrolyzing date residues at four different temperatures (300, 400, 500, and 600°C referred as DB3; DB4; DB5; and DB6). Three experiments were performed: 1) assessm...

Autonomous learner approach facilitates the learning environment in which students become a responsible and self-directed learner. The purpose of this experimental study was to explore the effect of the autonomous learner approach on prospective teachers' critical thinking skills. The 'quasi-experimental pre-test posttest control group research design' was used for this study. The participants of this study were prospective teachers of M.A. Early Childhood Education, studying at the Institute of Education and Research, University of the Punjab, Lahore'. A self-developed critical thinking skills scale (CTSS) was used for collecting the data. Independent samples t-test and ANCOVA were used to analyse the data. Findings show that there was an effect of the autonomous learner approach on prospective teachers' self-directed learning skills. The conclusion demonstrates that the autonomous learner approach is requisite in developing critical thinking skills among prospective teachers.

Cotton fibers are the seed trichomes that are developed around the seed and are used to make clothes and yarn for the textile industry. Expression profiling of cotton fiber genes is very important to estimate the differential gene expression level at different fiber developmental stages. Expression analysis of fiber developing genes are very important to enhance the fiber length of cotton. The expression profiling of three gene families in five stages (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 DPA) of cotton fiber tissues was carried out through real-time PCR. Expression analysis revealed that transcripts of GA-20 Oxidase, XTH, and PEPc were elevated from 5 to 20 days post-anthesis (DPA) fibers. Total RNA was extracted from various stages of cotton fiber development and was reverse transcribed to cDNA for PCR amplification. For data normalization, 18s rRNA was used as an internal control. The objective of this study was to explore the expression level of fiber developing genes at specific stages of fiber development. The results showed that most of the genes were expressed during the elongation phase in between 5 DPA to 15 DPA. Results obtained from this study may be helpful for the further identification of fiber genes and the improvement of fiber characteristics in cotton. PEPc and XTH genes that are expressed with a high rate during the fiber development may be used in breeding programmes for the improvement of fiber quality and quantity.

To evaluate the expression of genes that involved in hypothyroidism by multiple alignment of nucleotide sequences of genes study the functional unit of genes that involve in production of thyroid hormones. The thyroid gland is part of endocrine gland and regulates much vital body function (breathing, heart rate, body weight, body temperature also involve in development, growth, protein production and it also control the central and peripheral nervous system, muscle strength and menstrual cycle). Hypothyroidism is a condition in which thyroid gland does not produce enough thyroid hormone. To find the genetics information than by using bioinformatics tools several genes that were involved in hypothyroidism were identified but six genes TSHR, TPO, THRB, TG, IYD, DUOX2 and their motifs were studied in detail to understand the basic domains involved in this disease.

Promoters are of great importance for controlling gene expression. There are various regulatory regions within promoters which are crucial for expression specificity. Depending upon mode of expression, promoters can be divided into constitutive, tissue/developmental stage specific or inducible promoters. For expression of certain gene, there is interplay of cis acting element located on promoter and transcription factors. Cotton fibre promoters are of great importance in biotechnology as these may be used to express fibre genes in cotton fibres specifically. Although most of cotton fibre gene promoters show expression in fibres but some of them also exhibit expression in various other organs like trichomes, pedicles and vascular tissues. Due to difficulties in somatic embryogenesis in cotton, these promoters are mostly studied in heterologous systems like Arabidopsis and tobacco. In this article, expression pattern of some cotton fibre genes promoters have been reviewed.

BackgroundWild Gossypium species and races are rich source of genetic polymorphism due to environmental dispersal and continuous natural selection. These genetic resources hold mass of outclass genes that can be used in cotton improvement breeding programs to exploit possible traits such as fibre quality, abiotic stress tolerance, and disease and insect resistance. Therefore, use of new molecular techniques such as genomics, transcriptomics and bioinformatics is very important to utilize the genetic potential of wild species in cotton improvement programs.MethodsInterspecific lines and Gossypium species used in the study were grown at Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI), Multan. After retrieving DNA sequence of the genes from NCBI, the primers for gene expression and full-length gene sequence were designed. Expression profiling of Expansin A4, BURP Domain protein RD22-like and E6-like fibre genes was performed through Real Time PCR. BLAST and DNA sequence alignment was conducted for sequence comparison of interspecific lines and Gossypium species. Different in silico analysis were used for characterization of fibre genes and identification of cis acting promoter elements in promoter region.ResultsVariable expression of genes related to fibre development was observed at different stages. BLAST and DNA sequence alignment exhibited resemblance of interspecific lines with G. hirsutum. In silico analysis on the sequence data also confirmed the role of Expansin A4, BURP Domain protein RD22-like and E6-like fibre genes in fibre development. Similarly, several stress tolerant and light responsive cis acting elements were identified through promotor analysis, which may contribute for fibre development in the breeding programs.ConclusionExpansin A4, BURP Domain RD22-like and E6-like have positive role in fibre development with variable expression at fiber length and strength associated stages.

Lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) have role in transfer of phospholipids along biological membranes. A cotton LTP7 promoter was isolated using high throughput genomic sequences (HTGS) data base. Analysis of promoter nucleotide sequence revealed a number of crucial regulatory elements including core promoter elements. A 1.8 kb fragment of LTP7 promoter was isolated from genomic DNA of cotton and finally cloned in plant expression vector to characterize its functionality. Transient GUS assay revealed that promoter showed expression in cotton fibres during the time of elongation and different stages of secondary cell wall synthesis. Deletion analysis at 5' end showed that 1 kb promoter showed strong expression during stage of secondary cell wall synthesis. Whereas, 1.5 kb deletion fragment exhibited less strong expression in cotton fibres. Results of this present study, showed that 1 kb deletion fragment and 1.8 kb LTP7 promoter exhibits fibre specific expression and may be used to express fiber genes in cotton.

The pathogenic bacteria are getting resistant to antibiotics is significantly growing in the developing countries of the world including Pakistan. The present study was designed to find the basic study on resistance among the patients coming to the Nishtar Hospital, Multan. The study was carried out in the Department of Pathology, Nishtar Hospital, Multan. Total 387 clinical samples of urine, pus, high vaginal swab (HVS) and wound were surveyed for the existence of Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens. For these bacterial isolates, antimicrobial susceptibility tests were performed. E. coli was the most prevalent isolates followed by Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas. E. coli was predominated in urine, pus, HVS and wound specimens. Occurance of Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, Candida and Pseudomonas were 7.9 %, 3.9 %, 14.7 % and 1.4 % respectively among the clinical specimens. E. coli shows highest resistance to Linezolid (98.3%) followed by Ceftrizone (90.8%), Sulfamethoxazole + Trimethoprim (85%), Moxifloxacin (82.5%). High frequency of resistance specifies that there is an unremitting requirement of surveillance of resistance behaviour of antimicrobial agents in our study is to investigate the trend of this problem.

Abiotic and biotic stresses are the causes of drastic changes in plants growth and development.These stresses effect crop production and quality, thus result is in economic lose and food insecurity. Many factors play vital role in regulating growth of plants along with developmental pathways during biotic and abiotic stresses. Transcription factors are proteins that control physiological, developmental and stress responses in plants. Ethylene response factors belong to the biggest family of transcription factors, known to participate in various stress tolerance like drought, heat, salt and cold. They are significant regulators of plant gene expression. The objective of this review is to present how ethylene response factor family proteins became the focus of stress tolerance as well as the development and growth of plants.

WRKY transcription factors belong to one of the biggest superfamilies of proteins in higher plants. WRKY proteins participate in plant growth for instance, gamete formation, seed germination and are also responsive to different types of environmental cues including abiotic and biotic stresses. The DNA-binding site of WRKY factors is well established which interact with W?box (TGACC(A/T)) located in the promoter of their target genes and promote the activation or repression of the expression of those genes to control their response against stresses but it remains difficult to establish the functions of every family members to control particular transcriptional programs during development or in response to environmental signals. This review summarizes the recent progress made in unraveling the various WRKY protein-controlled functions under different environmental stresses.

Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) pathway is the most commonly studied signaling mechanisms, consisting of different groups of protein kinases that participate in regularly connecting interpretation of external stimuli that can change in gene expression or cellular organization within eukaryotic systems. The MAP kinase pathways functions in plants cell signaling (intra- and extra). MAPK cascades follow a response system. MAP kinases are the component of kinase constituents that deliver signals from sensors to responders in eukaryotes including plants. Several pathways are activated under different environmental stresses. Stimulating agents may be biological (biotic) like microbial infections or environmental (abiotic) like temperatures threshold, high salt concentration, drought, heavy metal, Ultra-violet radiation, ozone gases and reactive oxygen species (ROS). The involvement of MAPK signaling pathway in different stresses has been widely studied. In this review we also try to highlight MAPK cascades, its regulation, functions and recent findings in various cellular processes against stress conditions.

Purpose The online purchasing behaviour of consumers has recently become a topic of increased interest and attention for marketers, policymakers, and researchers. However, due to its complex nature, this phenomenon is still in its infancy in many developing countries and needs to be paid more attention. Using the technology acceptance model (TAM), the purpose of this paper is to examine the role of utilitarian and hedonic shopping motivations, as well as the trust and privacy concerns of consumers in their online purchasing intentions, in a developing South Asian country: Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 859 respondents through a self-administrated questionnaire using the non-probability convenience sampling technique and were analysed using the structural equation modelling. Findings The results of this study demonstrate that, more than hedonic values, trust, and privacy concerns, utilitarian values positively influence consumers’ attitudes to online purchasing. Consequently, consumers’ attitudes positively influence their online purchasing intentions. The findings indicate that Pakistani consumers buy online for goal-oriented reasons. Not surprisingly, they feel unsafe buying online due to concerns over trust and data privacy. Practical implications The findings of this study have various practical and managerial implications for electronic businesses in developing countries. This study serves as a guide for the development of effective online marketing and selling strategies. Originality/value This paper contributes to the existing literature on business to consumer e-commerce by identifying and empirically validating motivational factors and factors of concern using the TAM model. The extended TAM model, which integrates shopping motivations, trust, and privacy factors, can provide a solid theoretical foundation for consumers’ online purchasing behaviour in a developing country.

Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation of synovial joints. RA is a clinically heterogeneous disease and treatment response varies between individuals. The pathogenesis of RA is not completely understood yet, but it has been shown that the largest factor influencing disease susceptibility is genetics. Genome-wide association studies have successfully characterized genetic variants that are associated with RA, with the vast majority of them mapping to non-coding regulatory elements. Understanding the mechanisms by which this phenomenon leads to disease is essential to translate results from genetic association studies to the clinic. Objectives There is evidence showing that autoimmune diseases are the consequence of erroneous wiring of the regulatory circuitry between enhancers and their target genes. The aim of this study is to characterize non-coding regions containing RA-associated variants, in order to determine the genes and pathways by which these regions act to increase the risk of disease. Methods We isolated CD4+ T-cells from blood obtained from RA patients. We stratified patients in two subgroups, high disease activity (DAS28>5.1, n=18) and low disease activity (DAS28 Results We observed numerous chromatin interactions between RA variants and potential causal genes. Preliminary results show that a number of disease-associated SNPs interact with compelling candidate genes situated several megabases away. Whilst some of these chromatin interactions are common to both patients groups, subsets of them are specific to each disease subgroup, which are correlated with differential gene expression. Conclusion These results suggests that there might be different biological pathways contributing to disease in RA patients with inactive disease compared to patients with high disease activity. Disclosure of Interests None declared

Hybrid promoters are created by shuffling of DNA fragments while keeping intact regulatory regions crucial of promoter activity. Two fragments of alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh) promoter from Zea mays were selected to generate hybrid promoter. Sequence analysis of both alcohol dehydrogenase promoter fragments through bioinformatics tools identified several crucial cis regulatory elements and transcription factors binding sites. Both fragments were separately cloned in the TA vector (pTZ57R/T) and fused to get the complete hybrid promoter ( Adh -H). Alcohol dehydrogenase hybrid promoter was further cloned in expression vector pGR1 through adaptor ligation. Transient β-glucuronidase (GUS) assay revealed that hybrid promoter exhibited high expression under anaerobic conditions in wheat tissues. From the study it is concluded that hybrid promoter (Adh-H) may be used to derive gene expression in monocots during anaerobic conditions. The present work also provides an important insight in the designing of hybrid monocot promoters to improve multiple traits in crops without facing intellectual property rights (IPRs) issues. Key words : Hybrid promoter, histochemical β-glucuronidase ( GUS ) assay staining, cis regulatory elements, alcohol dehydrogenase, Zea mays .

Compressive sensing (CS) is a novel digital signal processing technique that has found great interest in\ud many applications including communication theory and wireless communications. In wireless communications, CS\ud is particularly suitable for its application in the area of spectrum sensing for cognitive radios, where the complete\ud spectrum under observation, with many spectral holes, can be modeled as a sparse wide-band signal in the frequency\ud domain. Considering the initial works performed to exploit the benefits of Bayesian CS in spectrum sensing, the fading\ud characteristic of wireless communications has not been considered yet to a great extent, although it is an inherent feature\ud for all sorts of wireless communications and it must be considered for the design of any practically viable wireless system.\ud In this paper, we extend the Bayesian CS framework for the recovery of a sparse signal, whose nonzero coefficients follow\ud a Rayleigh distribution. It is then demonstrated via simulations that mean square error significantly improves when\ud appropriate prior distribution is used for the faded signal coefficients and thus, in turns, the spectrum reconstruction\ud improves. Different parameters of the system model, e.g., sparsity level and number of measurements, are then varied\ud to show the consistency of the results for different cases.

Purpose:Common resistance mechanisms to endocrine therapy (ET) in estrogen receptor (ER)–positive metastatic breast cancers include, among others, ER loss and acquired activating mutations in the ligand-binding domain of the ER gene (ESR1LBDm). ESR1 mutational mediated resistance may be overcome by selective ER degraders (SERD). During the first-in-human study of oral SERD AZD9496, early changes in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) were explored as potential noninvasive tools, alongside paired tumor biopsies, to assess pharmacodynamics and early efficacy.Experimental Design:CTC were enumerated/phenotyped for ER and Ki67 using CellSearch in serial blood draws. ctDNA was assessed for the most common ESR1LBDm by droplet digital PCR (BioRad).Results:Before starting AZD9496, 11 of 43 (25%) patients had ≥5 CTC/7.5 mL whole blood (WB), none of whom underwent reduction to Conclusions:Elevated CTC at baseline was a strong prognostic factor in this cohort. Early on-treatment changes were observed in CTC-ER+ and ESR1LBDm+ ctDNA, but not in overall CTC number. Integrating multiple biomarkers in prospective trials may improve outcome prediction and ET resistance mechanisms' identification over a single biomarker.

A business culture supported by positive practices and strong ethical values will produce productive employee work response. Positive work environment encourages ethical decision making and employees feel comfortable in an environment where they have freedom to make ethical decisions. It becomes difficult for employees to make ethical decisions in an unethical work environment. This research studied the relationship between group creativity, corporate ethical values, job commitment and performance. Using a self-reporting questionnaire, information was collected from employees of three largest telecommunication companies of Pakistan. The data is collected from sales and marketing employees of telecom industry by using convenience sampling technique. The research model was tested using AMOS Version 16. Results show the normative elements of work context (ethical value, group creativity) positively influence employee’s level of commitment and ethical decision making, thus resulting in better organizational performance. This study is among the few empirical studies that investigate consequences of positive work context (ethical value, group creativity) on ethical decision making and commitment level of employees.

The Calotropis procera seed fibers provide an excellent model system to study the genes involved in fiber elongation, fineness and strength. Expansins constitute one of the important gene families involved in plant cell expansion and other cell wall modification processes. Four homologs of Expansin A gene i.e. CpEXPA 1, CpEXPA 2, CpEXPA 3 and CpEXPA 4 were isolated from the cDNA library obtained from fast growing Calotropis procera fibers. These homologs represented typical Expansin A family. Each of them had two conserved domains including GH45 like domain and the putative polysaccharide binding domain. The deduced amino acid sequences of the homologs indicated three conserved motifs: i) eight cysteine residues at N-terminus, ii) four tryptophan residues at C-terminus and iii) a Histidine-Phenylalanine-Aspartate motif in the center of the sequence. The presence of N-terminal signal peptide consisting of hydrophobic amino acids and a transmembrane region in all these expansin isoforms suggests their cotranslational insertion into the endoplasmic reticulum and then transportation to the cell wall by secretory pathway. The relative quantification of the four expansins in root, stem, fiber and leave tissues indicated that the transcripts of CpEXPA1 , CpEXPA2, CpEXPA3 and CpEXPA4 are variably transcribed in these tissues. The lowest transcription of all the four Expansin A isoforms was observed in elongating roots indicating that root tissue might be having specific expansins other than those confined to air grown organs.