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A new species of Larimichthys from Terengganu, east coast of Peninsular Malaysia (Perciformes: Sciaenidae)

Seah YG, Hanafi N, Mazlan AG, Chao NL

Zootaxa, 2015;3956(2):271-80.
PMID: 26248918 DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3956.2.7

A new species of Larimichthys from Terengganu, east coast of Peninsular Malaysia is described from specimens collected from the fish landing port at Pulau Kambing, Kuala Terengganu. Larimichthys terengganui can be readily distinguished from other species of the genus by having an equally short pair of ventral limbs at the end of the gas bladder appendages, which do not extend lateral-ventrally to the lower half of the body wall, and fewer dorsal soft rays (29-32 vs. 31-36) and vertebrae (24 vs. 25-28). Larimichthys terengganui can be distinguished from L. polyactis and L. crocea by having a gill raker at the angle of first gill arch shorter than the gill filament. Furthermore, the second anal spine in L. terengganui is equal or slightly shorter than eye diameter (vs. shorter in L. polyactis); L. terengganui has 8-9 anal soft rays (vs. only 7 in L. pamoides). Snout length of L. terengganui is greater than eye diameter, whereas in L. crocea the snout is shorter than eye diameter. A key to species of Larimichthys is provided. All obtained specimens of the species were recorded from Terengganu waters, east coast of Peninsular Malaysia.
Validity and reliability of the Patient Assessment on Chronic Illness Care (PACIC) questionnaire among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Malaysia: English version

Azam AF, Lai P, Abdullah A, Haidi Hanafi NS

Malays Fam Physician, 2020;15(2):10-18.
PMID: 32843940

Introduction: The Patient Assessment on Chronic Illness Care (PACIC) was developed to assess patients' perspectives on the alignment of primary care to the chronic care model. The Malay PACIC has been validated; however, Malaysia is a multicultural society, and English is spoken by many Malaysians and expatriates. We sought to validate the English version of the PACIC among patients with diabetes mellitus in Malaysia, as Malaysians may interpret a questionnaire that was originally developed for Americans in a different way.
Method: This study was conducted between November and December 2016 at two primary care clinics that offered integrated diabetes care at the time. These sites were selected to assess the discriminative validity of the PACIC. Site 1 is a Malaysian Ministry of Health-run primary care clinic while site 2 is a university-run hospital-based primary care clinic. Only site 1 annually monitors patient performance and encourages them to achieve their HbA1c targets using a standard checklist. Patients with diabetes mellitus who understood English were recruited. Participants were asked to fill out the PACIC at baseline and two weeks later.
Results: A total of 200 out of the 212 invited agreed to participate (response rate=94.3%). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the 5-factor structure of the PACIC. The overall PACIC score and the score in two of the five domains were significantly higher at site 1 than at site 2. The overall Cronbach's alpha was 0.924. At test-retest, intra-class correlation coefficient values ranged from 0.641 to 0.882.
Conclusion: The English version of the PACIC was found to be a valid and reliable instrument to assess the quality of care among patients with diabetes mellitus in Malaysia.
Fulltext Evaluation of disease resistance and tolerance to elevated temperature stress of the selected tissue-cultured Kappaphycus alvarezii Doty 1985 under optimized laboratory conditions

Azizi A, Mohd Hanafi N, Basiran MN, Teo CH

3 Biotech, 2018 Aug;8(8):321.
PMID: 30034985 DOI: 10.1007/s13205-018-1354-4

Information on the abiotic stress tolerance and ice-ice disease resistance properties of tissue-cultured Kappaphycus alvarezii is scarce and can pose a big hurdle to a wider use of tissue-cultured seaweed in the industry. Here, we reported on a study of seaweed-associated bacteria diversity in farmed and tissue-cultured K. alvarezii, and ice-ice disease resistance and elevated growth temperature tolerance of tissue-cultured K. alvarezii in laboratory conditions. A total of 40 endophytic seaweed-associated bacteria strains were isolated from 4 types of K. alvarezii samples based on their colony morphologies, Gram staining properties and 16S rRNA gene sequences. Bacteria strains isolated were found to belong to Alteromonas sp., Aestuariibacter sp., Idiomarina sp., Jejuia sp., Halomonas sp., Primorskyibacter sp., Pseudoalteromonas sp., Ruegeria sp., Terasakiella sp., Thalassospira sp. and Vibrio sp. Vibrio alginolyticus strain ABI-TU15 isolated in this study showed agar-degrading property when analyzed using agar depression assay. Disease resistance assay was performed by infecting healthy K. alvarezii with 105 cells/mL Vibrio sp. ABI-TU15. Severe ice-ice disease symptoms were detected in farmed seaweeds compared to the tissue-cultured K. alvarezii. Besides disease resistance, tissue-cultured K. alvarezii showed better tolerance to the elevated growth temperatures of 30 and 35 °C. In conclusion, our overall data suggests that tissue-cultured K. alvarezii exhibited better growth performance than farmed seaweeds when exposed to elevated growth temperature and ice-ice disease-causing agent.
Fulltext Transcriptome data of the carrageenophyte Eucheuma denticulatum

Othman R, Abd Rasib AA, Ilias MA, Murthy S, Ismail N, Mohd Hanafi N

Data Brief, 2019 Jun;24:103824.
PMID: 30984808 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2019.103824

Eucheuma denticulatum or commonly known as "Spinosum", is an economically important red alga that naturally grows on coral reefs with moderately strong currents in tropical and sub-tropical areas. This species is the primary source of iota-carrageenan which has high demands in the food, pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries, and as such it has been widely cultivated. The increasing global demand for carrageenan has led to extensive commercial cultivation of carrageenophytes mainly in the tropics. The carrageenophyte seaweeds including E. denticulatum are indigenous to Sabah, Malaysia. To enrich the information on the genes involved in carrageenan biosynthesis, RNA sequencing has been performed and transcriptomic dataset has been generated using Illumina HiSeq™ 2000 sequencer. The raw data and transcriptomic data have been deposited in NCBI database with the accession number PRJNA477734. These data will provide valuable resources for functional genomics annotation and investigation of mechanisms underlying the regulations of genes in this algal species.
Fulltext Ursodeoxycholic acid upregulates ERK and Akt in the protection of cardiomyocytes against CoCl2

Hanafi NI, Mohamed AS, Md Noor J, Abdu N, Hasani H, Siran R, et al.

Genet. Mol. Res., 2016 Jun 17;15(2).
PMID: 27323195 DOI: 10.4238/gmr.15028150

Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) is used to treat liver diseases and demonstrates cardioprotective effects. Accumulation of the plasma membrane sphingolipid sphingomyelin in the heart can lead to atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. Sphingomyelinases (SMases) break down sphingomyelin, producing ceramide, and inhibition of SMases activity can promote cell survival. We hypothesized that UDCA regulates activation of ERK and Akt survival signaling pathways and SMases in protecting cardiac cells against hypoxia. Neonatal cardiomyocytes were isolated from 0- to 2-day-old Sprague Dawley rats, and given 100 μM CoCl2, 150 μM H2O2, or placed in a hypoxia chamber for 24 h. The ameliorative effects of 100-μM UDCA treatment for 12 h were then assessed using MTS, QuantiGene Plex (for Smpd1 and Smpd2), and SMase assays, beating rate assessment, and western blotting (for ERK and Akt). Data were analyzed by the paired Student t-tests and one-way analyses of variance. Cell viability decreased significantly after H2O2 (85%), CoCl2 (50%), and hypoxia chamber (52%) treatments compared to the untreated control (100%). UDCA significantly counteracted the effects of chamber- and CoCl2- induced hypoxia on viability and beating rate. However, no significant differences were observed in acid SMase gene and protein expression between the untreated, CoCl2, and UDCA-CoCl2 groups. In contrast, neutral SMase gene and protein expression did significantly differ between the latter two groups. ERK and Akt phosphorylation was higher in hypoxic cardiomyocytes treated with UDCA than those given CoCl2 alone. In conclusion, UDCA regulates the activation of survival signaling proteins and SMases in neonatal rat cardiomyocytes during hypoxia.
Fulltext The effects of dietary edible bird nest supplementation on learning and memory functions of multigenerational mice

Mahaq O, P Rameli MA, Jaoi Edward M, Mohd Hanafi N, Abdul Aziz S, Abu Hassim H, et al.

Brain Behav, 2020 11;10(11):e01817.
PMID: 32886435 DOI: 10.1002/brb3.1817

INTRODUCTION: Edible bird nest (EBN) is a natural food product produced from edible nest swiftlet's saliva which consists of glycoproteins as one of its main components; these glycoproteins contain an abundant of sialic acid. The dietary EBN supplementation has been reported to enhance brain functions in mammals and that the bioactivities and nutritional value of EBN are important during periods of rapid brain growth particularly for preterm infant. However, the effects of EBN in maternal on multigeneration learning and memory function still remain unclear. Thus, the present study aimed to determine the effects of maternal EBN supplementation on learning and memory function of their first (F1)- and second (F2)-generation mice.
METHODS: CJ57BL/6 breeder F0 mice were fed with EBN (10 mg/kg) from different sources. After 6 weeks of diet supplementations, the F0 animals were bred to produce F1 and F2 animals. At 6 weeks of age, the F1 and F2 animals were tested for spatial recognition memory using a Y-maze test. The sialic acid content from EBN and brain gene expression were analyzed using HPLC and PCR, respectively.
RESULTS: All EBN samples contained glycoprotein with high level of sialic acid. Dietary EBN supplementation also showed an upregulation of GNE, ST8SiaIV, SLC17A5, and BDNF mRNA associated with an improvement in Y-maze cognitive performance in both generations of animal. Qualitatively, the densities of synaptic vesicles in the presynaptic terminal were higher in the F1 and F2 animals which might derive from maternal EBN supplementation.
CONCLUSION: This study provided a solid foundation toward the growing research on nutritional intervention from dietary EBN supplementation on cognitive and neurological development in the generation of mammals.
Fulltext Bacterial communities associated with silage of different forage crops in Malaysian climate analysed using 16S amplicon metagenomics

Hisham MB, Hashim AM, Mohd Hanafi N, Abdul Rahman N, Abdul Mutalib NE, Tan CK, et al.

Sci Rep, 2022 May 02;12(1):7107.
PMID: 35501317 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-08819-4

Silage produced in tropical countries is prone to spoilage because of high humidity and temperature. Therefore, determining indigenous bacteria as potential inoculants is important to improve silage quality. This study aimed to determine bacterial community and functional changes associated with ensiling using amplicon metagenomics and to predict potential bacterial additives associated with silage quality in the Malaysian climate. Silages of two forage crops (sweet corn and Napier) were prepared, and their fermentation properties and functional bacterial communities were analysed. After ensiling, both silages were predominated by lactic acid bacteria (LAB), and they exhibited good silage quality with significant increment in lactic acid, reductions in pH and water-soluble carbohydrates, low level of acetic acid and the absence of propionic and butyric acid. LAB consortia consisting of homolactic and heterolactic species were proposed to be the potential bacterial additives for sweet corn and Napier silage fermentation. Tax4fun functional prediction revealed metabolic pathways related to fermentation activities (bacterial division, carbohydrate transport and catabolism, and secondary metabolite production) were enriched in ensiled crops (p
Fulltext Global Prevalence of Nosocomial Multidrug-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Mohd Asri NA, Ahmad S, Mohamud R, Mohd Hanafi N, Mohd Zaidi NF, Irekeola AA, et al.

Antibiotics (Basel), 2021 Dec 08;10(12).
PMID: 34943720 DOI: 10.3390/antibiotics10121508

The emergence of nosocomial multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae is an escalating public health threat worldwide. The prevalence of nosocomial infections due to K. pneumoniae was recorded up to 10%. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, which were conducted according to the guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, 1092 articles were screened from four databases of which 47 studies fulfilled the selected criteria. By performing a random-effect model, the pooled prevalence of nosocomial multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae was estimated at 32.8% (95% CI, 23.6-43.6), with high heterogeneity (I2 98.29%, p-value < 0.001). The estimated prevalence of this pathogen and a few related studies were discussed, raising awareness of the spread of multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae in the healthcare setting. The emergence of nosocomial multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae is expected to increase globally in the future, and the best treatments for treating and preventing this pathogen should be acknowledged by healthcare staff.