scholarly journals Structural biology in the time of COVID-19: perspectives on methods and milestones

IUCrJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda L. Lynch ◽  
Edward H. Snell ◽  
Sarah E. J. Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Structural Biology ◽  
Protein Structures ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
World Health ◽  
X Ray Crystallography ◽  
The Status ◽  
One Year ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Structural Methods

The global COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has wreaked unprecedented havoc on global society, in terms of a huge loss of life and burden of morbidity, economic upheaval and social disruption. Yet the sheer magnitude and uniqueness of this event has also spawned a massive mobilization of effort in the scientific community to investigate the virus, to develop therapeutics and vaccines, and to understand the public health impacts. Structural biology has been at the center of these efforts, and so it is advantageous to take an opportunity to reflect on the status of structural science vis-à-vis its role in the fight against COVID-19, to register the unprecedented response and to contemplate the role of structural biology in addressing future outbreak threats. As the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaration that COVID-19 is a pandemic has just passed, over 1000 structures of SARS-CoV-2 biomolecules have been deposited in the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (PDB). It is rare to obtain a snapshot of such intense effort in the structural biology arena and is of special interest as the 50th anniversary of the PDB is celebrated in 2021. It is additionally timely as it overlaps with a period that has been termed the `resolution revolution' in cryoelectron microscopy (CryoEM). CryoEM has recently become capable of producing biomolecular structures at similar resolutions to those traditionally associated with macromolecular X-ray crystallography. Examining SARS-CoV-2 protein structures that have been deposited in the PDB since the virus was first identified allows a unique window into the power of structural biology and a snapshot of the advantages of the different techniques available, as well as insight into the complementarity of the structural methods.

scholarly journals Identifying, studying and making good use of macromolecular crystals

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (8) ◽  
pp. 993-1008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo Calero ◽  
Aina E. Cohen ◽  
Joseph R. Luft ◽  
Janet Newman ◽  
Edward H. Snell
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Visible Light ◽  
Structural Biology ◽  
Protein Structures ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Structural Knowledge ◽  
X Ray ◽  
X Ray Crystallography ◽  
Molecular Scale

Structural biology has contributed tremendous knowledge to the understanding of life on the molecular scale. The Protein Data Bank, a depository of this structural knowledge, currently contains over 100 000 protein structures, with the majority stemming from X-ray crystallography. As the name might suggest, crystallography requires crystals. As detectors become more sensitive and X-ray sources more intense, the notion of a crystal is gradually changing from one large enough to embellish expensive jewellery to objects that have external dimensions of the order of the wavelength of visible light. Identifying these crystals is a prerequisite to their study. This paper discusses developments in identifying these crystals during crystallization screening and distinguishing them from other potential outcomes. The practical aspects of ensuring that once a crystal is identified it can then be positioned in the X-ray beam for data collection are also addressed.

scholarly journals The Relationship between External and Internal Risk Factors with Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Children Aged 0-59 Months in Slums in Indonesia, 2013

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Made Agus Nurjana ◽  
Gunawan Gunawan ◽  
Dwi Hapsari Tjandrarini ◽  
Olwin Nainggolan
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Pulmonary Tuberculosis ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
World Health ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
One Year ◽  
Health Organization

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (Tb) remains a health problem throughout the world. World Health Organization (WHO) has set it as a “Global Emergency” disease. The difficulty of confirming the diagnosis of it in children, different from it in adults, causes the treatment of it in children often neglected. This problem is exacerbated by the supporting environmental conditions, namely living in slums, which makes the risk of transmission even higher. OBJECTIVE: To identify internal and external factors related to Tb in children aged 0-59 months living in slums in Indonesia. MATERIAL & METHOD: The data source used was the 2013 Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) using a sample of children less than five years old who lived in slums in 34 provinces in Indonesia. RESULTS: Logistic regression analysis found three risk factors, namely BCG immunization status (age-based), at-risk home environment, and gender (residential area-based). Vaccinated children under one year of age have the best probability of not suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. Those who live in a house inhabited by less than five people, or in that occupied by more than four with no one of which smokes or does not suffer from pulmonary tuberculosis has a probability of not being exposed to it. Likewise, women who live in rural areas have almost two times less probability of suffering from it, compared to men in urban areas. CONCLUSION: Factors contributing to the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis in infants in slums are the status of BCG immunization, air cleanliness in the neighborhood, which can be seen from the differences of risks in rural and urban, and the number of inhabitants per house and their behavior.

scholarly journals Overcoming bottlenecks in the membrane protein structural biology pipeline

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 838-844 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hardy ◽  
Roslyn M. Bill ◽  
Anass Jawhari ◽  
Alice J. Rothnie
Keyword(s):  
Membrane Proteins ◽  
Membrane Protein ◽  
Protein Stability ◽  
Structural Biology ◽  
Protein Structures ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Neopentyl Glycol ◽  
X Ray Crystallography ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Near Future

Membrane proteins account for a third of the eukaryotic proteome, but are greatly under-represented in the Protein Data Bank. Unfortunately, recent technological advances in X-ray crystallography and EM cannot account for the poor solubility and stability of membrane protein samples. A limitation of conventional detergent-based methods is that detergent molecules destabilize membrane proteins, leading to their aggregation. The use of orthologues, mutants and fusion tags has helped improve protein stability, but at the expense of not working with the sequence of interest. Novel detergents such as glucose neopentyl glycol (GNG), maltose neopentyl glycol (MNG) and calixarene-based detergents can improve protein stability without compromising their solubilizing properties. Styrene maleic acid lipid particles (SMALPs) focus on retaining the native lipid bilayer of a membrane protein during purification and biophysical analysis. Overcoming bottlenecks in the membrane protein structural biology pipeline, primarily by maintaining protein stability, will facilitate the elucidation of many more membrane protein structures in the near future.

Preventing Premature Weaning: Management Options for Common Lactation Conditions, Including OMT

2020 ◽  
pp. 20-25
Author(s):  
Denise Sackett ◽  
Tala Dajani ◽  
David Shoup ◽  
Uzoma Ikonne
Keyword(s):  
Postpartum Depression ◽  
Family Physician ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
World Health ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Pharmacological Management ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Lactational Mastitis ◽  
One Year ◽  
Health Organization

The benefits of breastfeeding are well established. The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that mothers breastfeed infants for at least one year, but most children are not breastfed that long because of many factors. Breastfeeding mothers face many challenges to continued breastfeeding, including medical conditions that arise during this period, such as postpartum depression and lactational mastitis. Because of a perceived lack of consistent guidance on medication safety, it can be difficult for the family physician to treat these conditions while encouraging mothers to continue breastfeeding. The purpose of the current review is to summarize and clarify treatment options for the osteopathic family physician treating lactating mothers. We specifically focus on the pharmacological management of contraception, postpartum depression, and lactational mastitis.

ARIMA model for forecasting COVID-19 Death cases in India (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeya Sutha M
Keyword(s):  
Arima Model ◽  
Public Health Emergency ◽  
World Health ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Government ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Spread Of Infection ◽  
Death Cases

UNSTRUCTURED COVID-19, the disease caused by a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a highly contagious disease. On January 30, 2020 the World Health Organization declared the outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. As of July 25, 2020; 15,947,292 laboratory-confirmed and 642,814 deaths have been reported globally. India has reported 1,338,928 confirmed cases and 31,412 deaths till date. This paper presents different aspects of COVID-19, visualization of the spread of infection and presents the ARIMA model for forecasting the status of COVID-19 death cases in the next 50 days in order to take necessary precaution by the Government to save the people.

The study of Iranian children and adolescents’ physical activity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adel Alizadeh ◽  
Reza Negarandeh ◽  
Fahimehe Bagheri Amiri ◽  
Zahra Yazdani
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
World Health ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
The Status ◽  
Newcastle Ottawa Scale ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Iranian Children

Abstract Objectives This systematic and meta-analysis review was conducted to determine the status of Iranian children and adolescents’ physical activity. Content All the related articles which were published in the major databases, including Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, Magiran, SID from the beginning of 2010 to the end of 2019, were reviewed by researchers. The Newcastle-Ottawa scale was also used to evaluate the quality of articles. Moreover, I 2 index and chi-square were used to assess the heterogeneity between the results. Summary 490 articles were found as a result of the search in the selected international and local databases, where finally, 10 articles were included into the meta-analysis after the elimination of the duplicated articles and applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results indicated that 29.5% of the girls were considered active according to WHO criteria (16.1–42.8: 95% CI) and also 20.5% of the boys (7.3–33.7: 95% CI). Outlook Overall, this study’s findings showed that a large percentage of Iranian children and adolescents do not achieve the level of physical activity recommended by the World Health Organization. This can lead to undesirable consequences for this group of population that is considered as the human capital of any country; consequently, it seems necessary to take basic measures at the micro and macro levels in order to reduce such problems in the society.

scholarly journals COVID-19 PANDEMIC UPDATES AND PERSPECTIVES. NEED FOR AN INTEGRATED AND EQUITABLE APPROACH.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigoris Gerotziafas ◽  
Mariella Catalano ◽  
Ioannis Theodorou ◽  
Patrick van Dreden ◽  
Vincent Marechal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
World Health ◽  
Learning Technology ◽  
Pharmacological Interventions ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Patients At Risk ◽  
Physical Barriers ◽  
Risk Of Disease ◽  
One Year ◽  
Health Organization

One year after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) and despite the implementation of mandatory physical barriers and social distancing, humanity remains challenged by a long-lasting and devastating public health crisis. Non-pharmacological interventions (NPI) are efficient mitigation strategies. The success of these intense NPI is dependent on the approval and commitment of the population. The launch of a mass vaccination program in many countries in late December 2020 with mRNA vaccines, adenovirus-based vaccines, and inactivated virus vaccines has generated hope for the end of the pandemic. Current issues: The continuous appearance of new pathogenic viral strains and the ability of vaccines to prevent infection and transmission raise important concerns as we try to achieve community immunity against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants. The need of a second and even third generation of vaccines and the possibility of potentially harmful side-effects of the vaccines (i.e. venous thromboembolism ) have already been acknowledged. Perspectives: There is a critical and urgent need for a balanced and integrated strategy for the management of the COVID-19 outbreaks organized on three axes: (1) Prevention of the SARS-CoV-2 infection, (2) Detection and early diagnosis of patients at risk of disease worsening, and (3) Anticipation of medical care (PDA). Conclusion: The “PDA strategy” integrated into state policy for the support and expansion of health systems and introduction of digital organization (i.e. telemedicine, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology) is of major importance for the preservation of citizens’ health and life world-wide.

T26248G-transversion mutation in exon7 of the putative methyltransferase Nsun7 gene causes a change in protein folding associated with reduced sperm motility in asthenospermic men

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nahid Khosronezhad ◽  
Abasalt Hosseinzadeh Colagar ◽  
Syed Golam Ali Jorsarayi
Keyword(s):  
Protein Folding ◽  
Sperm Motility ◽  
Protein Function ◽  
Direct Sequencing ◽  
Protein Structures ◽  
Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism ◽  
Extraction Methods ◽  
World Health ◽  
Transversion Mutation ◽  
Health Organization

The NOP2/Sun domain family, member 7 (Nsun7) gene, which encodes putative methyltransferase Nsun7, has a role in sperm motility in mice. In humans, this gene is located on chromosome 4 with 12 exons. The aim of the present study was to investigate mutations of exon 7 in the normospermic and asthenospermic men. Semen samples were collected from the Fatemezahra IVF centre (Babol, Iran) and analysed on the basis of World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines using general phenol–chloroform DNA extraction methods. Exon 7 was amplified using Sun7-F and Sun7-R primers. Bands on samples from asthenospermic men that exhibited different patterns of movement on single-strand conformation polymorphism gels compared with normal samples were identified and subjected to sequencing for further identification of possible mutations. Direct sequencing of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products, along with their analysis, confirmed C26232T-transition and T26248G-transversion mutations in asthenospermic men. Comparison of normal and mutant protein structures of Nsun7 indicated that the amino acid serine was converted to alanine, the structure of the helix, coil and strand was changed, and the protein folding and ligand binding sites were changed in samples from asthenospermic men with a transversion mutation in exon 7, indicating impairment of protein function. Because Nsun7 gene products have a role in sperm motility, if an impairment occurs in exon 7 of this gene, it may lead to infertility. The transversion mutation in exon 7 of the Nsun7 gene can be used as an infertility marker in asthenospermic men.

scholarly journals Establishment of the South Korean national antimicrobial resistance surveillance system, Kor-GLASS, in 2016

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (42) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyukmin Lee ◽  
Eun-Jeong Yoon ◽  
Dokyun Kim ◽  
Seok Hoon Jeong ◽  
Jong Hee Shin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Surveillance System ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
World Health ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
The South ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance ◽  
The Status ◽  
Health Organization

Surveillance plays a pivotal role in overcoming antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacterial pathogens, and a variety of surveillance systems have been set up and employed in many countries. In 2015, the World Health Organization launched the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) as a part of the global action plan to enhance national and global surveillance and research. The aims of GLASS are to foster development of national surveillance systems and to enable collection, analysis and sharing of standardised, comparable and validated data on AMR between different countries. The South Korean AMR surveillance system, Kor-GLASS, is compatible with the GLASS platform and was established in 2016 and based on the principles of representativeness, specialisation, harmonisation and localisation. In this report, we summarise principles and processes in order to share our experiences with other countries planning to establish a national AMR surveillance system. The pilot operation of Kor-GLASS allowed us to understand the national burden of specific infectious diseases and the status of bacterial AMR. Issues pertaining to high costs and labour-intensive operation were raised during the pilot, and improvements are being made.

scholarly journals Pandemic 2011: coming soon to a location near you.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Sacco
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
World Health ◽  
First Case ◽  
The World ◽  
Spanish Flu ◽  
Seasonal Flu ◽  
The Media ◽  
One Year ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Lower Death Rate

"H1 N1 is a virus that has been sensationalized by the media since the first case was discovered in Mexico during the spring of 2009. People around the world feared that the virus would mutate into something as severe as the 1918 Spanish flu, one of the deadliest plagues in history. However experts had discovered by June of 2009 that the Spanish flu was not comparable to H1 N1. Yet for six months newspaper reporters continued to compare the ew epidemic to the Spanish flu, thus keeping alive the threat of an unstoppable pandemic. One year has passed since the first case of H1 N1 was confirmed. After all of the attention that H1 N1 received, it proved to be not much different than a typical seasonal flu, resulting in a lower death rate (Schabas and Rau, 2010). Recently, a number of investigations have begun to determine if the World Health Organization (WHO) overemphasized the level of risk, resulting in a large quantity of sensationalized media coverage, and citizens in a state of panic.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document