Out of a total of 100 blood samples collected from domestic dogs presented to veterinary hospitals in Jos, the capital city of Plateau State of Nigeria, 11 were positive in nested PCR for E. canis. Sequencing results for these amplicons showed that all of the 16S rDNA sequences (1623 bp) or the TRP19 coding sequences (414 bp) were identical to each other and had very high similarities (99.3-100%) with those from other E. canis strains accessible in GenBank. The TRP36 gene sequences derived from the 11 Nigerian isolates were identical to each other except for the number of the 27-bp repeat unit in a
tandem repeat region, which was found to be 8, 12 or 18. Without considering the number of tandem repeats, these sequences had 100% identity to that of the reported Cameroon 71 isolate, but distinctly differed from those obtained LY3023414 mw from other geographically distant E. canis strains previously published. A phylogenetic tree of E. canis based on the TRP36 amino acid sequences showed that the Nigerian isolates and the Cameroon 71 isolate fell into a separate clade, indicating that they may share a Selleckchem NU7026 common ancestor. Overall, this study not only provides the first molecular evidence of E. canis infections in dogs from Nigeria but also highlights the value of the TRP36 gene as a tool to classify E. canis isolates and to elucidate their phylogeographic
relationships. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“This cross-sectional analysis of a population-based
cohort investigates the postural changes in blood pressure Nocodazole (BP) and heart rate and assesses the prevalence of orthostatic hypotension (OH) and its associations with the medicines used by an elderly population. The study population (n = 1000) was a random sample of persons aged 75 years or older in the City of Kuopio, Finland. In 2004, altogether, 781 persons participated in the study. After the exclusion of persons living in institutional care (n = 82) and those without orthostatic test (n = 46), the final study population comprised 653 home-dwelling elderly persons. OH was defined as a >= 20 mm Hg drop of systolic BP or a >= 10 mm Hg drop of diastolic BP or both 1 or 3 min after standing up from supine position. Systolic BP dropped for more than half of the home-dwelling elderly when they stood up from a supine to a standing position. The total prevalence of OH was 34% (n = 220). No significant gender or age differences were seen. The prevalence of OH was related to the total number of medicines in regular use (P<0.05). OH and postural changes in BP are more common among the home-dwelling elderly than reported in previous studies. The prevalence of OH is related to the number of medicines in regular use. There is an obvious need to measure orthostatic BP of elderly persons, as low BP and OH are important risk factors especially among the frail elderly persons.