ABSTRACT: Patterns of drug resistance, drug resistance conferring mutations and genomic DNA methylation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa
Project description:Patterns of drug resistance, antibiotic resistance mutations and genomic DNA methylation in Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces in South Africa
| PRJEB91582 | ENA
Project description:Metagenomics investigation of wheat rhizosphere in the North West and Gauteng Provinces, South Africa,
Project description:The emergence and fast global spread of COVID-19 has presented one of the greatest public health challenges in modern times with no proven cure or vaccine. Africa is still early in this epidemic, therefore the extent of disease severity is not yet clear. We used a mathematical model to fit to the observed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa to estimate the basic reproductive number and critical vaccination coverage to control the disease for different hypothetical vaccine efficacy scenarios. We also estimated the percentage reduction in effective contacts due to the social distancing measures implemented. Early model estimates show that COVID-19 outbreak in South Africa had a basic reproductive number of 2.95 (95% credible interval [CrI] 2.83–3.33). A vaccine with 70% efficacy had the capacity to contain COVID-19 outbreak but at very higher vaccination coverage 94.44% (95% Crl 92.44–99.92%) with a vaccine of 100% efficacy requiring 66.10% (95% Crl 64.72–69.95%) coverage. Social distancing measures put in place have so far reduced the number of social contacts by 80.31% (95% Crl 79.76–80.85%). These findings suggest that a highly efficacious vaccine would have been required to contain COVID-19 in South Africa. Therefore, the current social distancing measures to reduce contacts will remain key in controlling the infection in the absence of vaccines and other therapeutics.
Project description:The Afrikaner population of South Africa are the descendants of European colonists who started to colonize the Cape of Good Hope in the 1600s. In the early days of the colony, mixed unions between European males and non-European females gave rise to admixed children who later became incorporated into either the Afrikaner or the “Coloured" populations of South Africa. Differences in ancestry, social class, culture, sex ratio and geographic structure led to distinct characteristic admixture patterns in the Afrikaner and Coloured populations. The Afrikaner population has a predominant European composition, whereas the Coloured population has more diverse ancestries. Genealogical records previously estimated the contribution of non-Europeans into the Afrikaners to be between 5.5%-7.2%. NB two individuals withdrew consent so this data contains only 75 individuals as compared to the 77 cited in the article.
Project description:Identification of human ORFs conferring resistance to various drug treatments when overexpressed into HEK293-M2, assessed by microarrays
Project description:The experiment was designed to infer the fitness cost of rifampicin-resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis through expression analysis. The approach relied on: 1. Tracking the expression changes occurring as a result of the rifampicin-resistance conferring mutation Ser450Leu in RpoB and subsequent gain of compensatory mutation Leu516Pro in RpoC. The hypothesis was that any cost-incurring expressional changes would be reversed in the presence of compensatory mutations. The strains in this set were described before here: PMID 22179134. 2. Comparing the impact of the same rifampicin-resistance mutation (RpoB Ser450Leu) in five different genetic backgrounds. Here the comparison was solely between RpoB Ser450Leu and their cognate drug susceptible wild type ancestor. One of the strain pairs is the same as in point 1. above.
