Five human diseases are due to an excessive number of CAG repeats in the coding regions of five different genes. We have analyzed the repeat regions in four of these genes from nonhuman primates, which are not known to suffer from the diseases. These primates have CAG repeats at the same sites as in human alleles, and there is similar polymorphism of repeat number, but this number is smaller than in the human genes. In some of the genes, the segment of poly(CAG) has expanded in nonhuman primates, but the process has advanced further in the human lineage than in other primate lineages, thereby predisposing to diseases of CAG reiteration. Adjacent to stretches of homogeneous present-day codon repeats, previously existing codons of the same kind have undergone nucleotide substitutions with high frequency. Where these lead to amino acid substitutions, the effect will be to reduce the length of the original homopolymeric stretch in the protein.
Traditional healers are plentiful and culturally accepted health care providers throughout Africa and much of the developing world. Until recently, few traditional healers have been involved in primary eye care activities. Findings from existing collaborative programmes suggest that healers can be a positive force for community-based prevention of blindness. The intent of this publication is twofold. Section 1 gives brief background information on traditional healers and explains why they should be involved in prevention of blindness activities. Section 2 gives specific recommendations for working with healers and may serve as a training manual. This publication is a result of review of existing programme activities in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Nepal, and the September 10-12, 1997 International Symposium on Collaboration with Traditional Healers for the Prevention of Blindness (Blantyre, Malawi), organized by the British Columbia Centre for Epidemiologic and International Ophthalmology and the Lilongwe Central Hospital WHO Collaborating Centre for the Prevention of Blindness. The statement of consensus and recommendations arising from this symposium are given in Appendix A and a list of the participants is provided in Appendix B.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.