Mental Health Disorders and Challenges faced by developing countries

Mental disorders are common and contribute to the highest burden of disease across the globe. Depression and anxiety has become the most frequent disorder in these times. However, it is notconsidered a disease mostly and there are no proper policies and treatment all over the world but thedeveloping countries are affected the most. Mental health care services are lacking and inaccessible tomost of the patients worldwide. Apart from this fact, the stigma associated with this ailment is a majorhindrance in the way of treatment. Lack of human resource and their proper training is also lacking. Thereis a dire need to enhance research capacity to actually estimate the burden and magnitude of the problem, preparing a policy and above all, its implementation to bring a change in the treatment of mental healthproblems. Low and middle income countries are suffering the most due to these disorders and ironicallyit is not considered a disease thereMostly, the uneducated people attribute such mental health issues to supernatural phenomenonsuch as ghosts or magic etc. Additionally, for the treatment of these so-called “supernatural phenomenon”and to get rid of ghosts, they tend to go to “peers” or “baba” who are illiterate people, pretending to havecure for these patients. But infact, such malpractices and misconceptions among masses lead to adisastrous situation. It causes worsening of the condition of patient by not getting the proper medical andpsychiatric treatment, secondly, they are caught up by wrong people who extort huge amount of money. These are the challenges that developing countries are facing for the treatment of mental health issues. Evidence-based interventions and practice by trained personals in community and primary health carefacilities can improve the understanding and treatment of these ailments. Exercise, healthy life style, healthy dietary+ patterns and physical activities may also work wonders in these conditions.

Dynamics of Osrglp1 Gene During Fungal Exposure in Transgenic Potato

Germin like proteins (GLPs) are large group of related and ubiquitous plant proteins. These proteins are considered to be involved in most of the processes important for the development of plant and defense mechanism. Although multiple copies of this gene family have been reported in a number of species (wheat, barley, rice, soybean, mosses and liverwort), even then the up-regulated expression of GLP transgenes has demonstrated additional defense capabilities. Due to reported role of GLPs in conferring fungal resistance, there is a need to explore their antifungal activity. For this purpose potato was selected as experimental material. It is a vegetable crop and produces, on average, additional food energy and protein than cereals. Potato with immense nutritive value, large yield, and significant cash return to farmers, has become a major crop for both farmers and consumers in Pakistan. Potato is susceptible to many kinds of diseases, especially to fungal pathogens, therefore genetic engineering of potato for disease resistance is an important strategy study and apply disease resistance. GM technology can be an effective tool for crop improvement. The transgenic approach was pursued to introduce rice (Oryza sativa) germin like protein gene OsRGLP1 using two recombinant vectors pC:OsRGLP1 and pG:OsGLP1 via Agrobacterium mediated transformation. Confirmation of presence of gene was carried out by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). One-step reverse transcriptase PCR was used for transcriptional analysis and expression was quantified in real time in all PCR positive putative transgenic lines. Functional status of transgene was studied in selected high expression lines from two vectors. It was observed that OsRGLP1 possesses super oxide dismutase activity and it is heat resistant and is sensitive to H2O2. These characteristics make it a Fe like SOD. A high H2O2 level was detected in transgenic lines. Fungal assay with Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. tuberosi showed xvi enhanced foliar resistance in transgenic lines in comparison to untransformed control plants. OsRGLP1 may be used as source for nonspecific fungal resistance in plants and the antioxidant activity of heat resistant SOD may be explored for abiotic stress tolerance.