The “Crisis and Concerns: A cross-sectional study on Junior Doctors during COVID-19 pandemic”.

Introduction: Doctors committed to the care of patients are trying to fulfill their duty in a difficult situation, but the consequential impacts of COVID-19 outbreak on Junior Doctors mental health are far too complex. Objective: The objective of this study was to gain insight into Junior Doctors’levels of concerns during a global pandemic of COVID-19. Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional study, utilizing a 23-item validated questionnaire was conducted on two hundred and fifty doctors of various disciplines and nationalities working on training and non-training posts. Results: The response rate was (77 %) and the levels of concern score among Junior doctors during COVID-19 pandemic in the NHS was found to be (41.35±4.9). With regard to gender differences, 32.5% of males and 27.5% females had a moderate concern score of 40 to 47. In regard to safety at work (85%) agreed that they are not safe, (100%) agreed that they are at risk to contract a COVID-19 infection at work and (100%) felt that they will transmit COVID-19 to their families but (95%) agreed that were obliged to take care of patients. In addition, (97.5%) doctors were not confident with the current infection control measures and (77.5%) felt frustrated with poor infection control training offered to them. Conclusion: Therefore, measures to strengthen personal protection and adequate support to Junior Doctors should be addressed urgently by the Healthcare system. KEYWORDS: COVID-19, Doctors, PPE, Concerns, Psychological impact.  

Molecular Characterization of Blb Resistant Rice Germplasm

Bacterial Leaf Blight (BLB) of rice is one of the major bottlenecks that impede rice production across the globe. Development of resistant rice varieties and pathogen starvation, by blocking its nutrient source, are the promising strategies to effectively combat with this disease. In one of the current studies, BLB resistant Super Basmati introgressed lines (SBILs), were both genotypically and phenotypically characterized. Genotypic characterization indicated that, in terms of different gene combinations, Xa4 and Xa21 were found in 7 SBILs, xa5 and Xa21 in 5 SBILs and all three resistance genes were introgressed in 2 SBILs only. Recovery of recurrent parent genome, by 119 polymorphic SSR markers, ranged from 90.04% to 99.7 % while it ranged from 64.76 % to 94.83 % when analyzed using 1725 polymorphic SNP markers. Pathotyping results revealed that three Xoo strains i.e. PXO99, PXO341, PXO349, and PXO349 were the most virulent against all 25 SBILs. Both genotypic and phenotypic evaluation have shown that majority of SBILs have recovered three Basmati grain quality traits i.e. aroma, grain shape and amylose in them. In susceptible rice host, Xoo transcription activator like effector (TALe) binds with effector binding element (EBE) in the promoter of OsSWEET genes. Any alteration in the target promoter sequence greatly reduces binding affinity of TALe. Therefore, in one of the present studies, 3K SNP seek database was mined, in silico, to identify rice lines that contain SNP/InDels at EBE in the promoter of OsSWEET13 and OsSWEET14. We identified two aus rice lines (Ejali and Khama1183) with 2 base pairs deletions and a single nucleotide substitution at EBE in the promoter of OsSWEET13 and OsSWEET14 respectively. Detected natural variations in Ejali and Khama1183 prevented the induction of both OsSWEET13 and OsSWEET14. An RNA sequencing based study was also conducted to unveil the alternate nutrient sources, primary/secondary metabolic pathways targeted by highly adaptable, mutated Xoo strain in the presence a major resistance gene. We identified a total of 301 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in IRBB4 infected with WTPXO61 and ΔPXO61. In depth analysis of identified DEGs, using MapMan, revealed that genes specifically associated with the synthesis of Trehalose were strongly induced at early and late stages of infection. Hence, to cope up with the ever evolving pathogen, we need to further diversify and combine different resistance strategies in susceptible rice germplasm to gain broad scale, region specific, durable resistance against BLB.