OPUS: Open Ulethbridge Scholarship

Open ULeth Scholarship (OPUS) is the University of Lethbridge's open access research repository. It contains a collection of materials related to research and teaching produced by the academic community.

Self-archiving your research in OPUS is one way to meet Open Access policies of granting agencies. It is important to retain your final, post-peer-reviewed drafts for submission to OPUS, as this is often the only version publishers will allow to be archived. Click here for information on the U of L Open Access Policy.

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Recent Submissions

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A survey of Helicotylenchus, Paratylenchus, Pratylenchus, and Tylenchorhynchus nematodes in potato fields in Alberta, 2018 and 2019
(Taylor & Francis, 2021) Robertson, C. J.; Yevtushenko, Dmytro P.; Snowdon, E.; Harding, M. W.
The prevalence of Helicotylenchus, Paratylenchus, Pratylenchus and Tylenchorhynchus genera of nematodes is not well understood across the prairie provinces of Canada. These nematodes can cause economic damage by feeding on the host crop directly or serve as vectors of plant diseases. While conducting a larger project, nematode populations were quantified in the soil of three commercial potato fields planted with cultivar ‘Russet Burbank’; one in 2018 and two in 2019. The nematodes were extracted from soil samples, identified morphologically, and then quantified as numbers per kg of fresh soil. All four genera were detected in all fields, but the population sizes varied between fields and across time within fields.
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Survey of potato early dying disease complex in Alberta's commercial potato fields, 2021-2022
(Taylor & Francis, 2023) Rahman, A. U.; Munawar, M.; Konschuh, Michele; Tenuta, M.; Harding, M. W.; Yevtushenko, Dmytro P.
Potato fields were evaluated for inci dence and severity of early dying disease complex in the growing seasons of 2021 and 2022. Disease sure varied among the fields in both years. Fields taining higher inoculum levels of Verticillium dahliae in the fall soil samples as determined by qPCR of soil samples typically showed more potato early dying (PED) symptom development in the subsequent ing season. The incidence of PED was higher in 2022 than in 2021. Results demonstrated the potential of qPCR evaluation of representative soil samples as an aid for risk prediction activities in potato production systems dealing with PED.
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COVID-19 hand hygiene practices and its barriers among health care workers in a low-resource setting: a cross-sectional study in Nigeria
(Springer, 2024) Ekediegwu, Ezinne C.; Onyeso, Ogochukwu K.; Nwanne, Chiamaka; Nwosu, Ifeoma B.; Alumona, Chiedozie J.; Onyeso, Kelechi M.; Ekechukwu, Echezona N.; Ihegihu, Ebere Y.; Amaechi, Ifeoma A.; Aruma, Okwukweka E.; Odole, Adesola C.
Background: Poor hand hygiene (HH) among health care workers (HCWs) in low-resource healthcare settings has continued to increase the spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. The present study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, adherence, and barriers to HH practices among HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Methods: The study was an online cross-sectional survey using a tailored questionnaire distributed through chain referral sampling among southern Nigerian HCWs during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (February to August 2020). The primary outcomes were knowledge, attitude, adherence to HH guidelines, and the barriers limiting compliance with the guidelines. Data were analysed using percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation, one-way ANOVA, and multiple linear regression. The study timeline was from 15 April to 31 July 2020. Results: Four hundred and fifty-four HCWs (236 males and 218 females) participated in the study. The participants had a moderate knowledge of standard HH protocol (mean ± SD) 62.45 ± 10.82%, positive attitude 84.34 ± 11.32%, and high adherence to the standard guidelines 81.21 ± 9.49%. There was no significant difference in knowledge, attitude, and adherence across the healthcare professions. Increasing age (β = 0.186, p < 0.003) and knowledge (β = 0.229, p < 0.001), and decreasing negligence (β = − 0.178, p = 0.004), and forgetfulness (β = − 0.159, p = 0.012) were the significant predictors of effective HH practices. Conclusion: Nigerian HCWs had moderate knowledge, a positive attitude, and adhered to the standard HH practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the major barriers were institutional-based factors such as the inadequate supply of HH items, competing job demands, emergencies, increased workload, and personal characteristics such as age, poor knowledge, negligence, and forgetfulness. We recommend that hospital management provide their staff with adequate HH materials and continued infectious disease training.
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Role of epigenetic factors in response to stress and establishment of somatic memory of stress exposure in plants
(MDPI, 2023) Kovalchuk, Igor
All species are well adapted to their environment. Stress causes a magnitude of biochemical and molecular responses in plants, leading to physiological or pathological changes. The response to various stresses is genetically predetermined, but is also controlled on the epigenetic level. Most plants are adapted to their environments through generations of exposure to all elements. Many plant species have the capacity to acclimate or adapt to certain stresses using the mechanism of priming. In most cases, priming is a somatic response allowing plants to deal with the same or similar stress more efficiently, with fewer resources diverted from growth and development. Priming likely relies on multiple mechanisms, but the differential expression of non-coding RNAs, changes in DNA methylation, histone modifications, and nucleosome repositioning play a crucial role. Specifically, we emphasize the role of BRM/CHR17, BRU1, FGT1, HFSA2, and H2A.Z proteins as positive regulators, and CAF-1, MOM1, DDM1, and SGS3 as potential negative regulators of somatic stress memory. In this review, we will discuss the role of epigenetic factors in response to stress, priming, and the somatic memory of stress exposures.
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Genomic and epigenomic changes in the progeny of cold-stressed Arabidopsis thaliana plants
(MDPI, 2024) Rahman, Ashif; Yadav, Narendra Singh; Byeon, Boseon; Ilnytskyy, Yaroslav; Kovalchuk, Igor
Plants are continuously exposed to various environmental stresses. Because they can not escape stress, they have to develop mechanisms of remembering stress exposures somatically and passing it to the progeny. We studied the Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype Columbia plants exposed to cold stress for 25 continuous generations. Our study revealed that multigenerational exposure to cold stress resulted in the changes in the genome and epigenome (DNA methylation) across generations. Main changes in the progeny were due to the high frequency of genetic mutations rather than epigenetic changes; the difference was primarily in single nucleotide substitutions and deletions. The progeny of cold-stressed plants exhibited the higher rate of missense non-synonymous mutations as compared to the progeny of control plants. At the same time, epigenetic changes were more common in the CHG (C = cytosine, H = cytosine, adenine or thymine, G = guanine) and CHH contexts and favored hypomethylation. There was an increase in the frequency of C to T (thymine) transitions at the CHH positions in the progeny of cold stressed plants; because this type of mutations is often due to the deamination of the methylated cytosines, it can be hypothesized that environment-induced changes in methylation contribute to mutagenesis and may be to microevolution processes and that RNA-dependent DNA methylation plays a crucial role. Our work supports the existence of heritable stress response in plants and demonstrates that genetic changes prevail.