MyMedR

Fulltext A novel screening tool (Karanth's test) for vitamin B12 deficiency: a pilot study

Karanth VK, Karanth L, Karanth TK, Karanth SK, Bekur R

BMC Res Notes, 2015;8:778.

PMID: 26652288 DOI: 10.1186/s13104-015-1744-1

No practical tests are currently available for screening vitamin B12 deficiency because the available techniques are invasive, expensive, and require a particular level of infrastructure and service that is not available in all places such as rural areas. Thus, we have examined the efficacy of a novel method (Karanth's test) for identifying people with vitamin B12 deficiency as part of a pilot study.

Fulltext Efficient extraction of small and large RNAs in bacteria for excellent total RNA sequencing and comprehensive transcriptome analysis

Heera R, Sivachandran P, Chinni SV, Mason J, Croft L, Ravichandran M, et al.

BMC Res Notes, 2015;8(1):754.

PMID: 26645211 DOI: 10.1186/s13104-015-1726-3

Next-generation transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) has become the standard practice for studying gene splicing, mutations and changes in gene expression to obtain valuable, accurate biological conclusions. However, obtaining good sequencing coverage and depth to study these is impeded by the difficulties of obtaining high quality total RNA with minimal genomic DNA contamination. With this in mind, we evaluated the performance of Phenol-free total RNA purification kit (Amresco) in comparison with TRI Reagent (MRC) and RNeasy Mini (Qiagen) for the extraction of total RNA of Pseudomonas aeruginosa which was grown in glucose-supplemented (control) and polyethylene-supplemented (growth-limiting condition) minimal medium. All three extraction methods were coupled with an in-house DNase I treatment before the yield, integrity and size distribution of the purified RNA were assessed. RNA samples extracted with the best extraction kit were then sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform.

Fulltext Computational identification and binding analysis of orphan human cytochrome P450 4X1 enzyme with substrates

Kumar S

BMC Res Notes, 2015;8:9.

PMID: 25595103 DOI: 10.1186/s13104-015-0976-4

Cytochrome P450s (CYPs) are important heme-containing proteins, well known for their monooxygenase reaction. The human cytochrome P450 4X1 (CYP4X1) is categorized as "orphan" CYP because of its unknown function. In recent studies it is found that this enzyme is expressed in neurovascular functions of the brain. Also, various studies have found the expression and activity of orphan human cytochrome P450 4X1 in cancer. It is found to be a potential drug target for cancer therapy. However, three-dimensional structure, the active site topology and substrate specificity of CYP4X1 remain unclear.

Fulltext Helicobacter pylori recombinant UreG protein: cloning, expression, and assessment of its seroreactivity

Khalilpour A, Osman S, Yunus MH, Santhanam A, Vellasamy N, Noordin R

BMC Res Notes, 2014;7:809.

PMID: 25406411 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-809

Helicobacter pylori is a human pathogen and during the process of infection, antigens from the bacterium elicit strong host humoral immune responses. In our previous report, native H. pylori UreG protein showed good reactivity with sera from H. pylori patients. This study was aimed at producing the recombinant form of the protein (rUreG) and determining its seroreactivities.

Fulltext Molecular characterization of serous ovarian carcinoma using a multigene next generation sequencing cancer panel approach

Ab Mutalib NS, Syafruddin SE, Md Zain RR, Mohd Dali AZ, Mohd Yunos RI, Saidin S, et al.

BMC Res Notes, 2014;7:805.

PMID: 25404506 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-805

High grade serous ovarian cancer is one of the poorly characterized malignancies. This study aimed to elucidate the mutational events in Malaysian patients with high grade serous ovarian cancer by performing targeted sequencing on 50 cancer hotspot genes.

Fulltext Harvesting the maximum length of sciatic nerve from adult mice: a step-by-step approach

Bala U, Tan KL, Ling KH, Cheah PS

BMC Res Notes, 2014;7:714.

PMID: 25304607 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-714

Over the past several decades, many studies concerning peripheral nerve damage or regeneration have been performed. Mice have been widely used for many of these studies, with the sciatic nerve being the most targeted and preferred nerve. Therefore, techniques for harvesting mouse sciatic nerves of a maximum length that is sufficient for different analyses will be highly valuable. Here we describe a simple step-by-step guide for harvesting the maximum length of mouse sciatic nerve and compare the length of the harvested nerves gathered with the proposed method with nerves obtained using a conventional mid-thigh incision approach.

Fulltext Mental health state and quality of life questionnaire in low vision assessment: a case report

Omar R, Rahman MH, Knight VF, Mustaphal M, Mohammed Z

BMC Res Notes, 2014;7:667.

PMID: 25245590 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-667

BACKGROUND: Vision impairment associated with diabetic retinopathy, is well known and low vision rehabilitation is always recommended. In this report, the importance of objective measure of mental health and quality of life screening in diabetic retinopathy low-vision assessment is discussed.
CASE PRESENTATION: We describe the case of a 43-year-old Asian female who has mild vision impairment due to tractional retinal detachment secondary to diabetic retinopathy and how mental health screening and quality of life screening during low vision rehabilitation can improve in the management of this patient.
CONCLUSION: Although vision impairment was mild, the psychological impact was enormous and affected her quality of life substantially. This case report illustrates that recognition of the mental health and quality of life impact on visual impairment is critical to the rehabilitation management of low vision patients with diabetic retinopathy.

Fulltext First report on the molecular epidemiology of Malaysian Staphylococcus epidermidis isolated from a university teaching hospital

Sani NA, Sapri HF, Neoh HM, Hussin S

BMC Res Notes, 2014;7:597.

PMID: 25186825 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-597

Staphylococcus epidermidis is a pathogen associated with nosocomial infections whose medical importance has increased due to progressively invasive medical procedures. In this study, we characterized the molecular epidemiology of S. epidermidis strains circulating in our university hospital situated in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Fulltext Development of chloroplast simple sequence repeats (cpSSRs) for the intraspecific study of Gracilaria tenuistipitata (Gracilariales, Rhodophyta) from different populations

Song SL, Lim PE, Phang SM, Lee WW, Hong DD, Prathep A

BMC Res Notes, 2014;7:77.

PMID: 24490797 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-77

Gracilaria tenuistipitata is an agarophyte with substantial economic potential because of its high growth rate and tolerance to a wide range of environment factors. This red seaweed is intensively cultured in China for the production of agar and fodder for abalone. Microsatellite markers were developed from the chloroplast genome of G. tenuistipitata var. liui to differentiate G. tenuistipitata obtained from six different localities: four from Peninsular Malaysia, one from Thailand and one from Vietnam. Eighty G. tenuistipitata specimens were analyzed using eight simple sequence repeat (SSR) primer-pairs that we developed for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification.

Fulltext Inhibition of attachment of oral bacteria to immortalized human gingival fibroblasts (HGF-1) by tea extracts and tea components

Wang Y, Chung FF, Lee SM, Dykes GA

BMC Res Notes, 2013;6:143.

PMID: 23578062 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-6-143

Tea has been suggested to promote oral health by inhibiting bacterial attachment to the oral cavity. Most studies have focused on prevention of bacterial attachment to hard surfaces such as enamel.

Fulltext Racial variations in booking haemoglobin of primigravidae in Malaysia: a prospective study

Tan ACC, Leong EWK, Chua AC, Moy FM

BMC Res Notes, 2013;6:173.

PMID: 23634656 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-6-173

BACKGROUND: Variations in racial haemoglobin had been previously described in multiple studies locally and abroad. This study was conducted to quantify the differences in haemoglobin of booking primigravidae amongst the three major races in Malaysia at the antenatal clinic of University Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur.
FINDINGS: One year prospective study of booking full blood count sample of primigravidae taken in one centre was conducted. Multiple comparative analyses of the booking haemoglobin were performed using the One-way ANOVA comparative mean test in each trimester. 622 primigravidae without any known history of haematological disorders were recruited into the study. The mean haemoglobin for the Indian race was the lowest compared to the two other races in the second and the third trimesters, and it was found to be statistically significant lower (p- value 0.001) than the Malay race in the second trimester. It was also found that the Indian race had a significantly higher incidence of moderate to severe anaemia (p- value: 0.029). The prevalence of anaemia in our study population is also significantly higher in the Indian population (p- value: 0.01 ).
CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this study have established that there is racial preponderance to anaemia in pregnancy. The Indian race is at a higher risk of having anaemia in pregnancy particularly in the second trimester.
Study site: Antenatal clinic, University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Fulltext An efficient clustering algorithm for partitioning Y-short tandem repeats data

Seman A, Bakar ZA, Isa MN

BMC Res Notes, 2012;5:557.

PMID: 23039132 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-5-557

Y-Short Tandem Repeats (Y-STR) data consist of many similar and almost similar objects. This characteristic of Y-STR data causes two problems with partitioning: non-unique centroids and local minima problems. As a result, the existing partitioning algorithms produce poor clustering results.

Fulltext Differential expression of the angiogenesis growth factors in psoriasis vulgaris

Liew SC, Das-Gupta E, Chakravarthi S, Wong SF, Lee N, Safdar N, et al.

BMC Res Notes, 2012;5:201.

PMID: 22537619 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-5-201

Angiogenesis has been reported to be one of the contributory factors to the pathogenesis of psoriasis vulgaris. This study aims to compare the expression of different angiogenesis growth factors namely (1) the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) subfamily: A, B, C, D and placenta growth factor (PlGF); (2) nerve growth factor (NGF) and (3) von Willebrand factor (vWFr) in the skins of patients with psoriasis vulgaris and non-psoriatic volunteers.

Study site: Dermatology Department of Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur and Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital, Seremban, Malaysia

Fulltext Dengue epidemic in Malaysia: Not a predominantly urban disease anymore

Muhammad Azami NA, Salleh SA, Neoh HM, Syed Zakaria SZ, Jamal R

BMC Res Notes, 2011;4:216.

PMID: 21714858 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-4-216

BACKGROUND:
Dengue infection has been an important and serious public health concern in Malaysia ever since its first reported case here in 1902. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, no nationwide investigation has been carried out to determine the actual magnitude of dengue endemicity in the Malaysian population. In this study, we describe a cross sectional seroepidemiology study of dengue IgG seroprevalence in the Malaysian adult population.

FINDINGS:
From 1000 subjects (35-74 years old), 91.6% subjects were found to be dengue seropositive. Age is found to be a significant risk factor associated with dengue seroposivity, where the seroprevalence increased with every 10 year increase in age. Nevertheless, gender and ethnicity did not have an effect. Interestingly, there were similar seroprevalence rates between urban and rural samples, showing that dengue is presently not confined to urban areas in Malaysia.

CONCLUSIONS:
High dengue IgG seropositivity found in the population is an indication that dengue might be endemic in Malaysia for a long time into the future. Public awareness, proper vector control and vigilant surveillance are critical to keep the infection rates low and to prevent outbreaks.

Fulltext Epstein-Barr virus Latent Membrane Protein LMP1 reduces p53 protein levels independent of the PI3K-Akt pathway

Husaini R, Ahmad M, Soo-Beng Khoo A

BMC Res Notes, 2011;4:551.

PMID: 22185663 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-4-551

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is an epithelial malignancy, which commonly occurs in Southern China, Taiwan, North Africa and Southeast Asia. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is strongly associated with Epstein-Barr virus infection. The p53 tumour suppressor protein is rarely mutated in NPC suggesting that the inactivation of p53 pathway in NPC could be due to the presence of EBV proteins. The aim of this work was to determine the effects of EBV proteins namely LMP1 and LMP2A on the expression levels of p53 protein.

Fulltext Trials of large group teaching in Malaysian private universities: a cross sectional study of teaching medicine and other disciplines

Thomas S, Subramaniam S, Abraham M, Too L, Beh L

BMC Res Notes, 2011;4:337.

PMID: 21902839 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-4-337

This is a pilot cross sectional study using both quantitative and qualitative approach towards tutors teaching large classes in private universities in the Klang Valley (comprising Kuala Lumpur, its suburbs, adjoining towns in the State of Selangor) and the State of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The general aim of this study is to determine the difficulties faced by tutors when teaching large group of students and to outline appropriate recommendations in overcoming them.

Fulltext Antioxidant effects of Etlingera elatior flower extract against lead acetate - induced perturbations in free radical scavenging enzymes and lipid peroxidation in rats

Jackie T, Haleagrahara N, Chakravarthi S

BMC Res Notes, 2011;4:67.

PMID: 21414212 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-4-67

Etlingera elatior or 'pink torch ginger' (Zingiberaceae) are widely cultivated in tropical countries and used as spices and food flavoring. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the antioxidant effects of Etlingera elatior against lead - induced changes in serum free radical scavenging enzymes and lipid hydroperoxides in rats.

Fulltext Text messaging: an innovative method of data collection in medical research

Kew S

BMC Res Notes, 2010 Dec 20;3:342.

PMID: 21172018 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-3-342

BACKGROUND: The ubiquitous use of mobile phones in sending and receiving text messages has become a norm for young people. Undeniably, text messaging has become a new and important communication medium not only in the social realm but in education as well. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of using text messaging as a means to collect data for a medical research project.A cross sectional study was carried out during a double blind, randomized controlled trial to assess the efficacy and safety of a probiotic in the management of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). The study aim was to assess the response rate of weekly symptom reports via Short Message Service (SMS). The subjects were undergraduates in a private medical university in Malaysia. They were identified through a previous university wide study as suffering from IBS based on Rome III criteria. The subjects were randomly assigned to either the treatment arm receiving a daily probiotic, or the placebo arm. They were required to score their symptoms using eight-item-questionnaires at baseline, and thereafter weekly, for a total of 8 weeks. All subjects were given the choice to communicate their symptom scores by text messaging via mobile phones or by email. SMS text messages were sent to remind trial subjects to attend face-to-face visits and to complete a paper based 34-item-questionnaires on IBS quality of life assessment at baseline and at end of 8 weeks.

FINDINGS: The response rate of weekly symptom scores via Short Message Service (SMS) from a total of 38 subjects was 100%. Through the study, 342 reports were submitted: 33.3% of these were received on the due date without reminder, 60.0% one day after the deadline, after a single reminder, 6.1% 2-3 days after the deadline, after 2-3 reminders and 0.6% 5 days after the deadline, after SMS, phone reminder and face-to-face encounter. All SMS symptom reports, whether on time or late, were complete. With the help of SMS reminder, all trial subjects completed the paper based IBS quality of life assessment at baseline and at end of study.

CONCLUSIONS: This study found using text messaging via mobile phone an excellent instrument for collecting weekly symptom reports in response to trial medication, reminding trial subjects to attend face to face visits and completing more complex paper based evaluation. The 100% response rate of weekly symptom reports was facilitated by using simple number codes for SMS submission.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not appropriate.

Fulltext The place and barriers of evidence based practice: knowledge and perceptions of medical, nursing and allied health practitioners in malaysia

Lai NM, Teng CL, Lee ML

BMC Res Notes, 2010;3:279.

PMID: 21050429 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-3-279

Despite a recent increase in activities to promote evidence-based practice (EBP), it was unclear how Malaysian hospital practitioners received this new approach in medicine. This study examines their confidence and perceptions on EBP.

Fulltext Agreement between questionnaire and medical records on some health and socioeconomic problems among poisoning cases

Fathelrahman AI

BMC Res Notes, 2009;2:183.

PMID: 19751526 DOI: 10.1186/1756-0500-2-183

The main objective of the present study was to evaluate the agreement between questionnaire and medical records on some health and socioeconomic problems among poisoning cases.

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