Has the first implementation phase of the Community Nutrition Project in urban Senegal had an impact?

Objective: We evaluated the impact of the Community Nutrition Project (CNP) of Senegal, West Africa on the population. In poor urban districts, the CNP provided underweight 6- to 35-mo-old children with growth monitoring/promotion and food supplementation, and education for mothers for a period of 6 mo.

Methods: A before/after intervention and intervention zone (IZ)/control zone (CZ) design was used to assess whether CNP had an impact 18 mo after it began in Diourbel.

Heavy use of psychiatric inpatient care from the perspective of the patients affected.

Background: Patients who spend an above-average amount of time in inpatient care are termed heavy users. Up to this point, very little has been known about what drives these patients to their heavy use of inpatient treatment.

Aim: For this reason, the present study investigates the causes for frequent inpatient admissions of heavy users from the perspective of the patients affected.

Determinants of nutrition improvement in a large-scale urban project: a follow-up study of children participating in the Senegal Community Nutrition Project.

Objective: To study individual determinants of differential benefit from the Senegal Community Nutrition Project (CNP) by monitoring improvement in children's weight-for-age index (WA) or underweight status (WA < -2 Z-scores) during participation.

Design: A follow-up study using the CNP child monitoring data. Linear general models compared variations in WA according to 14 factors describing the beneficiaries and CNP services.

Knowledge of dietary and behaviour-related determinants of non-communicable disease in urban Senegalese women.

Objective: To assess knowledge of dietary and behaviour-related determinants of non-communicable disease (NCD) of urban Senegalese women.

Design: A cross-sectional, population study using an interviewer-administered knowledge questionnaire, developed and validated for this study. The questionnaire consisted of 24 items with six scores measuring knowledge of: (1) diet- and behaviour-related causes of NCD; (2) diet quality-NCD relationship; (3) fruit and vegetable link with NCD; (4) health consequences of obesity; (5) causes of cardiovascular disease (CVD); and (6) causes of certain cancers.

Neuronal polarity is regulated by glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3beta) independently of Akt/PKB serine phosphorylation.

An essential step during the development of hippocampal neurons is the polarised outgrowth of a single axon. Recently, it has been suggested that inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase-3beta (GSK-3beta) via Akt/PKB-dependent phosphorylation of Ser9, specifically at the tip of the presumptive axon, is required for selective axonal outgrowth. We now report that, by using neurons from double knock-in mice in which Ser9 and Ser21 of the two GSK-3beta isoforms have been replaced by Ala, polarity develops independently of phosphorylation at these sites.

Process evaluation of the Senegal-Community Nutrition Project: an adequacy assessment of a large scale urban project.

Objective: Although essential for understanding the reasons for success or failure of large scale nutritional interventions, process evaluation results are rarely reported. Our objective was to assess whether the process output objectives of the Community Nutrition Project (CNP) in Senegal, West Africa, were adequately met.

Methods: An adequacy assessment study based on monitoring data for individuals collected during the CNP was used to assess 'fidelity', 'extent' and 'reach' of participants recruitment and of the services provided.

Excess Mcm2-7 license dormant origins of replication that can be used under conditions of replicative stress.

In late mitosis and early G1, replication origins are licensed for subsequent use by loading complexes of the minichromosome maintenance proteins 2-7 (Mcm2-7). The number of Mcm2-7 complexes loaded onto DNA greatly exceeds the number of replication origins used during S phase, but the function of the excess Mcm2-7 is unknown. Using Xenopus laevis egg extracts, we show that these excess Mcm2-7 complexes license additional dormant origins that do not fire during unperturbed S phases because of suppression by a caffeine-sensitive checkpoint pathway.

Meiosis: checking chromosomes pair up properly.

Faithful recombination and chromosome segregation in meiosis require regulated steps of homolog recognition and association which are monitored by meiotic checkpoints. A recent study in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has identified a checkpoint mechanism that monitors chromosome pairing during meiosis.

Hippocampal long-term potentiation is supported by presynaptic and postsynaptic tyrosine receptor kinase B-mediated phospholipase Cgamma signaling.

Neurotrophins have been shown to play a critical role in activity-dependent synaptic plasticity such as long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus. Although the role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its tyrosine kinase receptor [tyrosine receptor kinase B (TrkB)] is well documented, it still remains unresolved whether presynaptic or postsynaptic activation of TrkB is involved in the induction of LTP. To address this question, we locally and specifically interfered with a downstream target of the TrkB receptor, phospholipase Cgamma (PLCgamma).

Translational regulation of p53 as a potential tumor therapy target.

The tumor suppressor p53 is a central player in apoptosis induction in response to oncogenic stimuli and DNA damage. As activation of p53 has been suggested as a prime strategy for future tumor therapy, inhibition of negative regulators of p53 activity would be a similarly desirable strategy. The small worm Caenorhabditis elegans is a model organism in which many conserved biological pathways, including the core apoptotic machinery, were elucidated.

A study of 82 extended HLA haplotypes in HFE-C282Y homozygous hemochromatosis subjects: relationship to the genetic control of CD8+ T-lymphocyte numbers and severity of iron overload.

Background: It has been recently demonstrated that CD8+ T-lymphocyte numbers are genetically transmitted in association with the MHC class I region. The present study was designed with the objective of narrowing the region associated with the setting of CD8+ T-lymphocyte numbers in a population of C282Y homozygous hemochromatosis subjects, in whom a high prevalence of abnormally low CD8+ T-lymphocyte counts has been described.

Methods: The study includes 43 C282Y homozygous subjects fully characterized both phenotypically and genotypically.

trt-1 is the Caenorhabditis elegans catalytic subunit of telomerase.

Mutants of trt-1, the Caenorhabditis elegans telomerase reverse transcriptase, reproduce normally for several generations but eventually become sterile as a consequence of telomere erosion and end-to-end chromosome fusions. Telomere erosion and uncapping do not cause an increase in apoptosis in the germlines of trt-1 mutants. Instead, late-generation trt-1 mutants display chromosome segregation defects that are likely to be the direct cause of sterility.

Nucleofection of primary neurons.

Efficient gene transfer is an important tool for the study of neuronal function and biology. This has proved difficult and inefficient with traditional transfection strategies, which can also be fairly toxic, whereas viral-mediated gene transfer, although highly efficient, is often time-consuming. The recently developed Amaxa Nucleofector technology, based on electroporation with preset parameters in a cell-type-specific solution, enables direct delivery of DNA, small interfering (si)RNA oligonucleotides and siRNA vectors into the cell nucleus.

Body composition predicted from skinfolds in African women: a cross-validation study using air-displacement plethysmography and a black-specific equation.

Skinfold thickness (SF) measurements are commonly used for the indirect assessment of body composition. It is necessary to know how large the bias is when using Caucasian SF-based prediction equations Africans, as no specific equations exist. Our first aim was to test the validity of the equation of Durnin & Womersley for predicting body density from SF in Africans.

Validity of impedance-based equations for the prediction of total body water as measured by deuterium dilution in African women.

Background: Little information is available on the validity of simple and indirect body-composition methods in non-Western populations. Equations for predicting body composition are population-specific, and body composition differs between blacks and whites.

Objective: We tested the hypothesis that the validity of equations for predicting total body water (TBW) from bioelectrical impedance analysis measurements is likely to depend on the racial background of the group from which the equations were derived.

Translational repression of C. elegans p53 by GLD-1 regulates DNA damage-induced apoptosis.

p53 is a tumor suppressor gene whose regulation is crucial to maintaining genome stability and for the apoptotic elimination of abnormal, potentially cancer-predisposing cells. C. elegans contains a primordial p53 gene, cep-1, that acts as a transcription factor necessary for DNA damage-induced apoptosis.

What evidence is there for the existence of individual genes with antagonistic pleiotropic effects?

Classical evolutionary theory predicts the existence of genes with antagonistic effects on longevity and various components of early-life fitness. Quantitative genetic studies have provided convincing evidence that such genes exist. However, antagonistic pleiotropic effects have rarely been attributed to individual loci.

C. elegans ced-13 can promote apoptosis and is induced in response to DNA damage.

The p53 tumor suppressor promotes apoptosis in response to DNA damage. Here we describe the Caenorhabditis elegans gene ced-13, which encodes a conserved BH3-only protein. We show that ced-13 mRNA accumulates following DNA damage, and that this accumulation is dependent on an intact C.

Perceptions of healthy and desirable body size in urban Senegalese women.

Objective: To examine the cultural ideals for body size held by urban Senegalese women; to determine the body size that women associate with health; and to estimate the change in prevalence of female obesity in an urban neighbourhood of Dakar.

Design: Cross-sectional, population-based study in the subject's home, using a structured interviewer-administered questionnaire, conducted in the same Dakar neighbourhood as that of a previous survey conducted in 1996.

Subjects: A total of 301 randomly selected women, aged 20-50 y, living in a specific Dakar neighbourhood, Senegal.

Determination of bisphosphonates by ion chromatography-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.

An ion chromatography-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (IC-ICP-MS) was introduced in the analysis of bisphosphonates. Two compounds (alendronic acid and etidronic acid) were separated on a Dionex AS-7 anion-exchange column with dilute nitric acid employed as the mobile phase. The analytes were detected at m/z 31, as they contain phosphorus.

Methods for analyzing checkpoint responses in Caenorhabditis elegans.

In response to genotoxic insults, cells activate DNA damage checkpoint pathways that stimulate DNA repair, lead to a transient cell cycle arrest, and/or elicit programmed cell death (apoptosis) of affected cells. The Caenorhabditis elegans germ line was recently established as a model system to study these processes in a genetically tractable, multicellular organism. The utility of this system was revealed by the finding that upon treatment with genotoxic agents, premeiotic C.

Multiple genetic pathways involving the Caenorhabditis elegans Bloom's syndrome genes him-6, rad-51, and top-3 are needed to maintain genome stability in the germ line.

Bloom's syndrome (BS) is an autosomal-recessive human disorder caused by mutations in the BS RecQ helicase and is associated with loss of genomic integrity and an increased incidence of cancer. We analyzed the mitotic and the meiotic roles of Caenorhabditis elegans him-6, which we show to encode the ortholog of the human BS gene. Mutations in him-6 result in an enhanced irradiation sensitivity, a partially defective S-phase checkpoint, and in reduced levels of DNA-damage induced apoptosis.

Use of hand-to-hand impedancemetry to predict body composition of African women as measured by air displacement plethysmography.

Objectives: To test the validity of a simple, rapid, field-adapted, portable hand-held impedancemeter (HHI) for the estimation of lean body mass (LBM) and percentage body fat (%BF) in African women, and to develop specific predictive equations.

Design: Cross-sectional observational study.

Settings: Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, West Africa.

BRCA1/BARD1 orthologs required for DNA repair in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Inherited germline mutations in the tumor suppressor gene BRCA1 predispose individuals to early onset breast and ovarian cancer. BRCA1 together with its structurally related partner BARD1 is required for homologous recombination and DNA double-strand break repair, but how they perform these functions remains elusive. As part of a comprehensive search for DNA repair genes in C.

Change in body water distribution index in infants who become stunted between 4 and 18 months of age.

Objective: To evaluate body composition changes using bioelectrical impedance analysis and skinfold thickness measurements in infants from tropical areas who become stunted between 4-18 months of age.

Design And Measurements: Follow-up study. Extracellular water to total body water ratio index (length(2)/resistance at low to high frequency), peripheral fat (tricipital and subscapular skinfold thickness), and length-for-age index were studied at 4 and 18 months of age.