Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) facilitates ambulatory function after paralysis by electrically activating the muscles of the lower extremities. The Odstock Dropped Foot Stimulator (ODFS, Odstock, UK) called ODFS Pace, was used for heel-switch triggered FES-assisted walking. The ODFS is recommended as an intervention for neurologically impaired gait in the Royal College of Physicians (UK) Clinical Guidelines on Stroke. Based on the guidelines by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE, UK), we started first clinical study in India on ODFS Pace as an orthotic intervention for daily use. In this preliminary study, we also investigated improvement in volitional walking following 6 sessions (3 times per week, for 2 weeks) of 30 minutes of FES-assisted treadmill walking on 7 chronic (>6 months after stroke) stroke survivors. We found that short-duration, moderately intensive FES-assisted gait therapy improved volitional gait in 3 out of 7 stroke survivors suffering from foot drop. Even in absence of improvement in volitional walking, there were no adverse effects and the subjects found heel-switch triggered FES-assisted walking mostly “easy” (6 out of 7). Therefore FES is promising as an orthotic intervention for daily use; however, tailoring the intensity and/or frequency based on patient's ability may make it viable as a therapeutic intervention.

Drosophila melanogster is a model organism rich in genetic tools to manipulate and identify neural circuits involved in specific behaviors. Here we present a novel technique for two-photon calcium imaging in the central brain of head-fixed Drosophila walking on an air-supported ball. The ball’s motion is tracked at high resolution and can be treated as a proxy for the fly’s own movements. We used the genetically encoded calcium sensor, GCaMP3.0, to record from important elements of the motion-processing pathway, the horizontal-system (HS) lobula plate tangential cells (LPTCs) in the fly optic lobe. We presented motion stimuli to the tethered fly and found that calcium transients in HS-neurons correlated with robust optomotor behavior during walking. Our technique allows an entirely new set of questions to be addressed by monitoring behavior and physiology in identified neurons in a powerful genetic model organism with an extensive repertoire of walking behaviors.

Indians, representing about one-sixth of the world population, consist of several thousands of endogamous groups with strong potential for excess of recessive diseases. However, no database is available on Indian population with comprehensive information on the diseases common in the country. To address this issue, we present Indian Genetic Disease Database (IGDD) release 1.0 (http://www.igdd.iicb.res.in)—an integrated and curated repository of growing number of mutation data on common genetic diseases afflicting the Indian populations. Currently the database covers 52 diseases with information on 5760 individuals carrying the mutant alleles of causal genes. Information on locus heterogeneity, type of mutation, clinical and biochemical data, geographical location and common mutations are furnished based on published literature. The database is currently designed to work best with Internet Explorer 8 (optimal resolution 1440 × 900) and it can be searched based on disease of interest, causal gene, type of mutation and geographical location of the patients or carriers. Provisions have been made for deposition of new data and logistics for regular updation of the database. The IGDD web portal, planned to be made freely available, contains user-friendly interfaces and is expected to be highly useful to the geneticists, clinicians, biologists and patient support groups of various genetic diseases.

Background

The marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus marinus, having multiple ecotypes of distinct genotypic/phenotypic traits and being the first documented example of genome shrinkage in free-living organisms, offers an ideal system for studying niche-driven molecular micro-diversity in closely related microbes. The present study, through an extensive comparative analysis of various genomic/proteomic features of 6 high light (HL) and 6 low light (LL) adapted strains, makes an attempt to identify molecular determinants associated with their vertical niche partitioning.

Results

Pronounced strand-specific asymmetry in synonymous codon usage is observed exclusively in LL strains. Distinct dinucleotide abundance profiles are exhibited by 2 LL strains with larger genomes and G+C-content ≈ 50% (group LLa), 4 LL strains having reduced genomes and G+C-content ≈ 35-37% (group LLb), and 6 HL strains. Taking into account the emergence of LLa, LLb and HL strains (based on 16S rRNA phylogeny), a gradual increase in average aromaticity, pI values and beta- & coil-forming propensities and a decrease in mean hydrophobicity, instability indices and helix-forming propensities of core proteins are observed. Greater variations in orthologous gene repertoire are found between LLa and LLb strains, while higher number of positively selected genes exist between LL and HL strains.

Conclusion

Strains of different Prochlorococcus groups are characterized by distinct compositional, physicochemical and structural traits that are not mere remnants of a continuous genetic drift, but are potential outcomes of a grand scheme of niche-oriented stepwise diversification, that might have driven them chronologically towards greater stability/fidelity and invoked upon them a special ability to inhabit diverse oceanic environments.