Browsing by Author "Marais, S"

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    Open Access
    Physiological and molecular insights into drought tolerance.
    (Academic Journals, 2002) Mundree, S; Baker, B; Mowla, S; Peters, S; Marais, S; Vander Willigen, C; Govender, K; Maredza, A; Muyanga, S; Farrant, J; Thomson, J
    Water is a major limiting factor in world agriculture. In general, most crop plants are highly sensitive to even a mild dehydration stress. There are however, a few genera of plants unique to Southern Africa, called "resurrection plants" which can tolerate extreme water loss or desiccation. We have used Xerophyta viscosa, a representative of the monocotyledonous resurrection plants to isolate genes that are associated with osmotic stress tolerance. Several genes that are differentially expressed, and that confer functional sufficiency to osmotically-stressed Escherichia coli are being studied at the molecular and biochemical levels. In this review, we use this as a basis to discuss the physiological and molecular insights into drought tolerance.
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    The diagnosis and medical management of tuberculous meningitis in adults
    (2014) Marais, S; Wilkinson, R J
    Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is a medical emergency for which tuberculosis (TB) treatment should be initiated as soon as possible after diagnosis. Owing to the low diagnostic yields of confirmatory tests, TBM is often diagnosed based on suggestive clinical and cerebrospinal fluid findings, evidence for TB outside the central nervous system (CNS), typical brain imaging features and exclusion of other causes of meningitis. TB drug regimens used in TBM may be suboptimal as they are informed by studies of TB outside the CNS, rather than being based on randomised controlled trials in TBM. TBM has a high mortality and the management of HIV-co-infected patients is further complicated by neurological TB-immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), which frequently occurs after starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) during TBM treatment and contributes to the poor outcome in HIV-associated TBM. HIV-infected TBM patients due to start ART should be counselled about the risk of developing neurological TB-IRIS, typical symptoms that could be expected and need to return to hospital should any of these develop. Currently, the only evidence-based treatment for TB-IRIS is with corticosteroids, which should be considered in all cases of neurological TB-IRIS.
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    The neural correlates of intimate partner violence in women
    (2011) Flegar, S; Fouche, J P; Jordaan, E; Marais, S; Spottiswoode, B; Stein, Dan J; Vythilingum, B
    Objective: To examine hippocampal volume and white matter tracts in women with and without intimate partner violence (IPV). Method: Nineteen women with IPV exposure in the last year, and 21 women without IPV exposure in the last year underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) including diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) sequences. Additional data on alcohol use and presence of psychiatric disorder was collected. Differences in fractional anisotropy (FA) between the two groups were examined, using a statistical model that included demographic measures, alcohol use and psychiatric disorder. Results: IPV subjects did not demonstrate significantly different hippocampal volumes compared to subjects without recent IPV. FA was, however, significantly reduced in the body of the corpus callosum of IPV subjects. Adjusting for age, alcohol use, smoking and psychiatric diagnosis did not change the significance of the result. Conclusion: Data on hippocampal volume in IPV are inconsistent, perhaps reflecting the fact that multiple factors influence this measure. Reduced FA in the body of the corpus callosum in IPV suggests altered integrity of this white matter tract; additional work is needed to address the underlying mechanisms and clinical correlates of this finding.