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Background Dengue, the mosquito borne disease has become a growing public health threat in Bangladesh due to its gradual increasing morbidity and mortality since 2000. In 2019, the country witnessed the worst ever dengue outbreak. The present study was conducted to characterize the socio-economic factors and knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) status towards dengue among the people of Bangladesh. Method A cross-sectional study was conducted with 1,010 randomly selected respondents from nine different administrative regions of Bangladesh between July and November 2019. A structured questionnaire was used covering socio-demographic characteristics of the participants including their knowledge, awareness, treatment and practices regarding dengue fever. Factors associated with the knowledge and awareness of dengue were investigated separately, using multivariable logistic regression. Results Although majority (93.8%) of the respondents had heard about dengue, however, they had still misconceptions about Aedes breeding habitat. Around half of the study population (45.7%) had mistaken belief that Aedes can breed in dirty water and 43.1% knew that Aedes mosquito usually bites around sunrise and sunset. Fever indication was found in 36.6% of people which is the most common symptom of dengue. Among the socio-demographic variables, the level of education of the respondents was identified as an independent predictor for both knowledge (p<0.05) and awareness (p<0.05) of dengue. The preventive practice level was moderately less than the knowledge level though there was a significant association (p<0.05) existed between knowledge and preventive practices. Our study noted that TV/Radio is an effective predominant source of information about dengue fever. Conclusion As dengue is emerging in Bangladesh, there is an urgent need to increase health promotion activities through campaigns for eliminating the misconception and considerable knowledge gaps about dengue.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are the group of ∼22 nucleotides long noncoding small endogenous and evolutionary conserved post-transcriptional regulatory RNAs, which show an enormous role in various biological and metabolic processes in both animals and plants. To date not a single miRNA has been identified in coffee (Coffea arabica), which is an economically important plant of Rubiaceae family. In this study a well-developed, powerful and comparative computational approach, EST-based homology search is applied to find potential miRNA of coffee. We blasted publicly available EST sequences obtained from NCBI GenBank against previously known plant miRNAs. For the first time, one potential miRNA from a large miRNA family with appropriate fold back structures was identified through a series of filtration criteria. A total of six potential target genes in Arabidopsis were identified based on their sequence complementarities. The target genes mainly encode transport inhibitor like protein, transcription factor, DNA-binding protein, and GRR1-like protein, and these genes play an important role in various biological processes like response to chitin, cold, salt stress, water deprivation etc. Overall, findings from this study will accelerate the way for further researches of miRNAs and their functions in coffee.

Objectives: In this present study, antioxidant, anti-hemolytic, cytotoxic and anti-bacterial activities derived from methanol extracts of Bruguiera gymnorrhiza and Heritiera littoralis were investigated in order to determine their medicinal activities.Materials and methods: Folin-Ciocalteu reagent method and aluminum chloride methods were used to determine the mangroves' total phenolics and total flavonoid content, respectively. Antioxidant capacity was assessed via the following methods: 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydroxyl (DPPH), 43 mM H 2 O 2 , Fe 2+ quenching assay, and anti-hemolytic activity. Brine shrimp (Artemia salina L.) lethality assay was also carried out to determine the cytotoxic potential of the mangroves along with antibacterial activity test using five Gram-negative and another two Gram-positive bacterial strains.Results: The mangroves yielded 58.917 ± 0.601 and 36.625 ± 0.551 mg Gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/g sample and 76.417 ± 0.19 and 113.637 ± 0.17 mg quercetin equivalent (QE)/g sample in B. gymnorrhiza and H. littoralis, respectively. Methanol extracts of both mangroves exhibited high radical scavenging activity against DPPH, H 2 O 2 and Fe 2+ radicals. The reductive capacity of the extracts increased with increasing concentrations of samples, and the extracts inhibited H 2 O 2 induced hemolysis in human red blood cells (RBCs). Antioxidant properties were found to be moderately weaker than that of the reference standard, L-ascorbic acid (AA), and Gallic acid (GA). Further, brine shrimp (Artemia salina L.) lethality assay revealed significant cytotoxicity (241.4 and 272.6 μg/mL, respectively). Methanol extracts could also inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacterial strains. Conclusion: This study showed that the crude methanol extract of selected mangrove plants possesses free radical scavenging, anti-hemolytic, cytotoxic and anti-bacterial activity. The experimented plant has the potential to be used as a traditional medicine and replace synthetic drugs. Further studies are necessary to isolate active compounds responsible for the overall antioxidant activity of the crude extracts.

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