Medical internship training in Saudi Arabia: interns' views and perceptions.

Background: Internship training offers an important opportunity for personal development and career planning. However, there are many factors affecting the efficiency of training, and the views of interns are rarely considered. The main objective of this study was to explore the views of interns enrolled in Jazan University internship program during the year 2015.

The Self-Stigma of Depression Scale: Translation and Validation of the Arabic Version.

Background: Self-stigma may feature strongly and be detrimental for people with depression, but the understanding of its nature and prevalence is limited by the lack of psychometrically validated measures. This study is aimed to validate the Arabic version self-stigma of depression scale (SSDS) among adolescents.

Materials And Methods: A cross-sectional study involved 100 adolescents randomly selected.

Factors Associated with Long-Term Control of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

This study assessed factors associated with glycemic control among Saudi patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We conducted an analytical cross-sectional study, which included a random sample of 288 patients with T2DM proportional to the diabetes population of each primary health care center in Jazan city, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. More than two-thirds (74%) of patients had poor glycemic control.

Engineering Plant Immunity: Using CRISPR/Cas9 to Generate Virus Resistance.

Plant viruses infect many economically important crops, including wheat, cotton, maize, cassava, and other vegetables. These viruses pose a serious threat to agriculture worldwide, as decreases in cropland area may cause production to fall short of that required to feed the increasing world population. Under these circumstances, conventional strategies can fail to control rapidly evolving and emerging plant viruses.

Genome editing: the road of CRISPR/Cas9 from bench to clinic.

Molecular scissors engineered for site-specific modification of the genome hold great promise for effective functional analyses of genes, genomes and epigenomes and could improve our understanding of the molecular underpinnings of disease states and facilitate novel therapeutic applications. Several platforms for molecular scissors that enable targeted genome engineering have been developed, including zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and, most recently, clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated-9 (Cas9). The CRISPR/Cas9 system's simplicity, facile engineering and amenability to multiplexing make it the system of choice for many applications.

Pre-mRNA splicing repression triggers abiotic stress signaling in plants.

Alternative splicing (AS) of precursor RNAs enhances transcriptome plasticity and proteome diversity in response to diverse growth and stress cues. Recent work has shown that AS is pervasive across plant species, with more than 60% of intron-containing genes producing different isoforms. Mammalian cell-based assays have discovered various inhibitors of AS.

Robust x-ray image segmentation by spectral clustering and active shape model.

Extraction of bone contours from x-ray radiographs plays an important role in joint space width assessment, preoperative planning, and kinematics analysis. We present a robust segmentation method to accurately extract the distal femur and proximal tibia in knee radiographs of varying image quality. A spectral clustering method based on the eigensolution of an affinity matrix is utilized for x-ray image denoising.

Effect of resveratrol and rosuvastatin on experimental diabetic nephropathy in rats.

The development of diabetic nephropathy (DN) relays mainly on control of blood glucose and restrains hyperglycemic-induced oxidative stress. Hence, the effect administration of resveratrol (RSV) (5mg/kg) alone or in combination with rosuvastatin (RSU) (10mg/kg) on development and progression of diabetic nephropathy (DN) was evaluated. Oral treatment of diabetic rats with RSV alone or co-administered with RSU improved renal dysfunction indicated by a significant decrease in serum creatinine, urinary protein and urinary TGF-β1 when compared with diabetic control rats.

Arabic Translation and Psychometric Evaluation of the Depression Literacy Questionnaire among Adolescents.

Background. Depression is a serious mental health disease. Globally, it is estimated that almost 350 million people suffer from depression.

High efficiency of targeted mutagenesis in arabidopsis via meiotic promoter-driven expression of Cas9 endonuclease.

The use of a meiosis I-specific promoter increased the efficiency of targeted mutagenesis and will facilitate the manipulation of homologous recombination. The CRISPR/Cas9 system has been harnessed for targeted engineering of eukaryotic genomes, including plants; however, CRISPR/Cas9 efficiency varies considerably in different plant tissues and species. In Arabidopsis, the generation of homozygous or bi-allelic mutants in the first (T1) generation is inefficient.

CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Immunity to Geminiviruses: Differential Interference and Evasion.

The CRISPR/Cas9 system has recently been used to confer molecular immunity against several eukaryotic viruses, including plant DNA geminiviruses. Here, we provide a detailed analysis of the efficiencies of targeting different coding and non-coding sequences in the genomes of multiple geminiviruses. Moreover, we analyze the ability of geminiviruses to evade the CRISPR/Cas9 machinery.

Cartilage loss patterns within femorotibial contact regions during deep knee bend.

Osteoarthritis (OA) can alter knee kinematics and stresses. The relationship between cartilage loss in OA and kinematics is unclear, with existing work focusing on static wear and morphology. In this work, femorotibial cartilage maps were coupled with kinematics to investigate the relationship between kinematics and cartilage loss, allowing for more precise treatment and intervention.

Targeted genome regulation via synthetic programmable transcriptional regulators.

Regulation of gene transcription controls cellular functions and coordinates responses to developmental, physiological and environmental cues. Precise and efficient molecular tools are needed to characterize the functions of single and multiple genes in linear and interacting pathways in a native context. Modular DNA-binding domains from zinc fingers (ZFs) and transcriptional activator-like proteins (TALE) are amenable to bioengineering to bind DNA target sequences of interest.

Does Kinematic Alignment and Flexion of a Femoral Component Designed for Mechanical Alignment Reduce the Proximal and Lateral Reach of the Trochlea?

Background: Kinematically aligned total knee arthroplasty uses a femoral component designed for mechanical alignment (MA) and sets the component in more internal, valgus, and flexion rotation than MA. It is unknown how much kinematic alignment (KA) and flexion of the femoral component reduce the proximal and lateral reach of the trochlea; two reductions that could increase the risk of abnormal patella tracking.

Methods: We simulated MA and KA of the femoral component in 0° of flexion on 20 3-dimensional bone models of normal femurs.

Assessment of Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin (NGAL) and Retinol-Binding Protein 4 (RBP4) in Type 2 Diabetic Patients with Nephropathy.

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is one of the most serious microvascular complications of diabetes. The study aims to evaluate the diagnostic value of serum neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) and retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) as biomarkers for early detection of nephropathy in type 2 diabetic patients. The current study was performed on 150 type 2 diabetic patients.

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated target validation of the splicing inhibitor Pladienolide B.

CRISPR/Cas9 system confers molecular immunity in archeal and bacterial species against invading foreign nucleic acids. CRISPR/Cas9 system is used for genome engineering applications across diverse eukaryotic species. In this study, we demonstrate the utility of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering system for drug target validation in human cells.

Engineering Plants for Geminivirus Resistance with CRISPR/Cas9 System.

The CRISPR/Cas9 system is an efficient genome-editing platform for diverse eukaryotic species, including plants. Recent work harnessed CRISPR/Cas9 technology to engineer resistance to geminiviruses. Here, we discuss opportunities, emerging developments, and potential pitfalls for using this technology to engineer resistance against single and multiple geminivirus infections in plants.

Cancellation of operations in Saudi Arabian hospitals: Frequency, reasons and suggestions for improvements.

Objective: To identify the frequency and reasons of operations cancellation in 25 Makkah region hospitals in Saudi Arabia.

Methods: Retrospective evaluation of the rate of surgery cancellation in 25 hospitals of Makkah region was performed in this study. The data of scheduled surgeries from 15 different surgical specialties was collected from January to December 2013.

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated viral interference in plants.

Background: The CRISPR/Cas9 system provides bacteria and archaea with molecular immunity against invading phages and conjugative plasmids. Recently, CRISPR/Cas9 has been used for targeted genome editing in diverse eukaryotic species.

Results: In this study, we investigate whether the CRISPR/Cas9 system could be used in plants to confer molecular immunity against DNA viruses.

Khat Chewing Habits in the Population of the Jazan Region, Saudi Arabia: Prevalence and Associated Factors.

The use of khat (Catha edulis) is a major public health and social problem that is believed to be growing globally. The khat chewing habit is prevalent in all areas of the Jazan region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). However, few studies have been conducted at the community level to investigate the khat chewing habits in this area.

Efficient fdCas9 Synthetic Endonuclease with Improved Specificity for Precise Genome Engineering.

The Cas9 endonuclease is used for genome editing applications in diverse eukaryotic species. A high frequency of off-target activity has been reported in many cell types, limiting its applications to genome engineering, especially in genomic medicine. Here, we generated a synthetic chimeric protein between the catalytic domain of the FokI endonuclease and the catalytically inactive Cas9 protein (fdCas9).

Fully automatic initialization of two-dimensional-three-dimensional medical image registration using hybrid classifier.

X-ray video fluoroscopy along with two-dimensional-three-dimensional (2D-3D) registration techniques is widely used to study joints in vivo kinematic behaviors. These techniques, however, are generally very sensitive to the initial alignment of the 3-D model. We present an automatic initialization method for 2D-3D registration of medical images.

[Ameliorative effect of curcumin on aflatoxin B1-induced changes in liver gene expression of Oreochromis niloticus].

To evaluate the ameliorative effect of curcumin on dietary aflatoxin-induced changes in the expression of genes in Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus liver, the fish were fed with a diet contaminated by 200 ppb of atlatoxin B1 (AFB1) with and without curcumin (5 mg/kg diet) for 16 weeks in addition to a negative and positive controls fed with the basal diet and basal diet supplemented with curcumin, respectively. Further, two recovery groups with and without curcumin were tested after 2 more weeks. Relative mRNA expression of genes involved in antioxidant function (superoxide dismutase, SOD), biotransformation (cytochrome P4501A, CYPA) and immune response (interleukin-1β, IL-1β and transforming growth factor β, TGF-β) were assessed using RT-PCR.