RESULTS: Three days of incubation in darkness increased saturated fatty acid (SFA) content from 34.0 to 41.4% but decreased monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) content from 36.7 to 29.8%. Palmitic acid (C16:0) content was increased from 23.2 to 28.9%, whereas oleic acid (C18:1) content was reduced from 35.4 to 28.8%. Total oil content was slightly decreased from 20.4 to 18.7% after 3 days of darkness, without a significant reduction in biomass compared to 3 days of incubation in light. Biomass and oil content was highest in cultures incubated for 6 days in light, however the stimulatory and inhibitory effects of darkness (or light) on SFA and MUFA content was no longer present at 6 days of incubation.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study suggests that fatty acid composition in C. vulgaris could be modulated to favor either C16:0 or C18:1 by a brief period of either darkness or light incubation, prior to harvesting.
METHODS: Patient data was obtained retrospectively through the Ministry of Health, Malaysia, from 2011 to 2016. Patients with incomplete data were excluded. A total of 2044 clinical P. vivax malaria cases treated with primaquine were included. Data collected were patient, disease, and treatment characteristics. Two-thirds of the cases (n = 1362) were used to develop a clinical risk score, while the remaining third (n = 682) was used for validation.
RESULTS: Using multivariate analysis, age (p = 0.03), gametocyte sexual count (p = 0.04), indigenous transmission (p = 0.04), type of treatment (p = 0.12), and incomplete primaquine treatment (p = 0.14) were found to be predictors of recurrence after controlling for other confounding factors; these predictors were then used in developing the final model. The beta-coefficient values were used to develop a clinical scoring tool to predict possible recurrence. The total scores ranged between 0 and 8. A higher score indicated a higher risk for recurrence (odds ratio [OR]: 1.971; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.562-2.487; p ≤ 0.001). The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of the developed (n = 1362) and validated model (n = 682) was of good accuracy (ROC: 0.728, 95% CI: 0.670-0.785, p value