Akwasi Anyanful

University of Cape Coast | UCC · Department of Medical Biochemistry

Abstract Background Organic anion transporters and efflux transporters are involved in the metabolism of drugs such as tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF). Given the important role of organic anions and efflux transporters in drug disposition, genetic variations lead to interindividual differences in drug response. Variations in the SLC and ABC tra...

Background: Apolipoprotein E is involved in lipid transport and clearance of lipoprotein through low-density lipoprotein receptors (LDLR). ApoE variation has been linked to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. There are 3 isoforms of ApoE which originate from two non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms denoted as ε2, ε3 and ε4. The ε2 isoform...

The global burden of malaria continues to be a significant public health concern. Despite advances made in therapeutics for malaria, there continues to be high morbidity and mortality associated with this infectious disease. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the most affected by the disease, but unfortunately the region is burdened with indigent h...

The current pandemic has markedly shifted the focus of the global research and development ecosystem toward infectious agents such as SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent for COVID-19. A case in point is the chronic liver disease associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection that continues to be a leading cause of severe liver disease and death glob...

Background: Does exposure to methods employed during local palm kernel oil processing affect lung function and increase pulmonary disorders in the women processors? Fifty test participants from palm kernel processing sites constantly exposed to processing hazards and fifty unexposed women from the general population in Cape Coast, Ghana were used f...

Background: Being discharged from the hospital is sometimes associated with complications which may be dangerous to the patient. Adverse events are unintended injuries or complications which may result in death, disability and prolonged hospital stay after discharge or related to the hospital visit. 6th to 19th of January 2018 and the incidence, ty...

Background Congenital heart defects (CHD) are the singular most common congenital anomalies and account for a significant fraction of childhood mortality and morbidity. CHD occurs in ~ 1% of livebirths globally and often requires surgical interventions to improve quality of life and survival of patients. The prevalence and clinical presentations of...

Background: Being discharged from the hospital is sometimes associated with complications which may be dangerous to the patient. Adverse events are unintended injuries or complications which may result in death, disability and prolonged hospital stay after discharge or related to the hospital visit. This paper aims at giving an insight into the rel...

Background: Adverse events involve unintended injuries or complications resulting in death, disability, harm or prolonged hospital stay that arise from health care management. This paper aims at giving insight into the incidence, types and severity of adverse events after hospital discharge in the context of the management/care patients received fr...

Background What cheaper alternative breast screening procedures are available to younger women in addition to clinical breast examination (CBE) in Sub-Saharan countries? In 2009, we first described BreastLight for screening and reported high sensitivity at detecting breast cancer. Due to limitations of BreastLight, we have since 2014 been using the...

Background . Nearly 70% of women diagnosed with breast cancer in Ghana are in advanced stages of the disease due especially to low awareness, resulting in limited treatment success and high death rate. With limited epidemiological studies on breast cancer in Ghana, the aim of this study is to assess and understand the pattern of breast cancer distr...

2548 of the 3000 participants who partook in the screening exercise had been pregnant before. The questionnaire captured the age at first pregnancy and the results were then categorized under the following groupings: <19 years (284), 20–24 years (958), 25–29 years (849), 30–34 years (427), and >35 years (30). The ages were rounded up to the next hi...

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC), enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) and enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC) are intestinal pathogens that cause food and water-borne disease in humans. Using biochemical methods and NMR-based comparative metabolomics in conjunction with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, we developed a bioassay to identify secr...

Structures of natural and commercially available synthetic indole derivatives used for structure-activity profile. (TIF)

Identification of indole as an E. coli toxin. (a) Survival curves of C. elegans N2 and various mutants upon exposure to 3.5 mM indole in agar plates. Similar results were obtained upon exposure of C. elegans in broth. No adjustment for strain differences was made to these data. (b) E. coli strains kill C. elegans. C. elegans N2 animals were exposed...

(a) Western analysis of Tir expression in EPEC treated with low concentrations of indole, ICA or IAA. Note that indole and ICA induce Tir expression at low concentrations, but all three compounds (indole, ICA and IAA) suppress Ler and Tir at high concentrations. The band recognized by the DnaK pAb served as a loading control. (b) Growth curves of E...

(a) Overlay of UV-HPLC chromatograms (absorption at 260 nm) of the EPEC and EPECΔtnaA extracts as well as of synthetic standards of ICOOH, ICA, IAA, and indole, obtained using a reverse phase HPLC column. Effects of indole derivatives on C. elegans and on infection of mammalian cells. (b) Neither ICA, nor IAA, nor ICOOH alone at the indicated conce...

Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli(EPEC) requires the tnaA-encoded enzyme tryptophanase and its substrate tryptophan to synthesize diffusible exotoxins that kill the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Here, we demonstrate that the RNA-binding protein CsrA and the tryptophan permease TnaB coregulate tryptophanase activity, through mutually exclusive pa...

In Caenorhabditis elegans two M-line proteins, UNC-98 and UNC-96, are involved in myofibril assembly and/or maintenance, especially myosin thick filaments. We found that CSN-5, a component of the COP9 signalosome complex, binds to UNC-98 and -96 using the yeast two-hybrid method. These interactions were confirmed by biochemical methods. The CSN-5 p...

Caenorhabditis elegans exhibits avoidance behavior when presented with diverse bacterial pathogens. We hypothesized that exposure to pathogens might not only cause worms to move away but also simultaneously activate pathways that promote resistance to the pathogen. We show that brief exposure to virulent or avirulent strains of the bacterial pathog...

Gene regulation during development is an important biological activity that leads to synthesis of biomolecules at specific locations and specific times. The single tropomyosin gene of Caenorhabditis elegans, tmy-1/lev-11, produces four isoforms of protein: two from the external promoter and two from the internal promoter. We investigated the intern...

Pathogenic Escherichia coli, including enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC), enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC) and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) are major causes of food and water-borne disease. We have developed a genetically tractable model of pathogenic E. coli virulence based on our observation that these bacteria par...

Tissue-specific alternative pre-mRNA splicing is essential for increasing diversity of functionally different gene products. In Caenorhabditis elegans, UNC-60A and UNC-60B, nonmuscle and muscle isoforms of actin depolymerizing factor (ADF)/cofilin, are expressed by alternative splicing of unc-60 and regulate distinct actin-dependent developmental p...

The tropomyosin gene tmy-1/lev-11 of Caenorhabditis elegans spans 14.5 kb and encodes three isoforms by alternative splicing. To identify, characterize and compare the genome and tissue expression of a fourth isoform, the technique of rapid amplification of cDNA ends and microinjection with lacZ and gfp fusion plasmids were employed. We elucidated...

Gene regulation during development is an important biological activity that leads to synthesis of biomolecules at specific locations and specific times. The single tropomyosin gene of Caenorhabditis elegans, tmy-1/lev-11 produces four isoforms of protein: two from the external promoter and two from the internal promoter. We investigated the interna...