Asimilasi Nitrogen Ampaian Sel Kacang Tanah Yang Sensitif dan Toleran Kepada Aluminum dan Pengaturannya di Bawah Tegasan Aluminum

Ampaian sel kacang tanah (Arachis hypogeae L.) telah diperolehi daripada kalus dengan pe ngam paian di dalam medium L6 yang mengandungi 0.5 mg/l kinetin dan 2.0 mg/l 2,4-D. Aktiviti enzim-enzim utama dalam tapakjalan metabolisme nitrogen, nitrat reduktase (EC 1.6.6.1: NR); glutamat dehidrogenase (EC 1.4.1.2: NADH-GDH); glutamat sinthase (EC 1.4.1.16:NADH-GOGAT) dan glutamin sinthetase (EC 6.3.1.2: GS) pada ampaian sel ini telah dikaji. Enzim utama asimilasi nitrat, NR didapati berfungsi dengan aktiviti yang tinggi di awal fasa pertumbuhan sebelum menu run pada hari ke 6 hingga ke akhir fasa pertumbuhan. Kedua-dua tapak jalan asimilasi amonium, GDH dan GS/GOGAT juga berfungsi pada ampaian sel kacang tanah.Aktiviti NAOH-GOH adalah tinggi pada awal fasa pertumbuhan sel manakala aktiviti enzim GS dan GOGAT meningkat di akhir fasa pertumbuhan

Career-Related Characteristics Towards Career Certainty of Vocational College Students

Career path certainty in this era of innovation, digitalization, and globalization is increasing and continues to be the decisive factor in career selection by many people in the fast-growing, unpredictable, and highly competitive job market. This situation has forced students to make career choices as the first step to ensure that the available human resources are in line with the demand in the labor market. This study aims to determine the role of career-related characteristics in the relationship to career certainty among Vocational College students in Selangor. The career-related characteristics included in this study are career planning, career exploration, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and career goals. This research is a quantitative and correlational study conducted on first-year Vocational College students in Selangor. Using simple random sampling, 230 students were selected as research respondents. The results showed that career planning, career exploration, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and career goals showed an insignificant but moderate positive relationship with career certainty. This study provides a basis for planning career-related learning and development programs at the pre-university level. The study recommends that teachers actively initiate student career exploration activities during learning

A rapid and effective method for dormancy breakage and germination of King of Bitters (Andrographis paniculata Nees.) seeds

Andrographis paniculata is a medicinal plant of the Acanthaceae family. The plant is important for its diterpenoids obtained from the mature plants grown normally through the seeds. However, the seed germination is slow and not efficient. Here, we report an effective method for breaking the seed dormancy to improve the germination per¬centage. Among the different physical and chemical scarification methods the fastest and the highest germination percentage were obtained from the seeds scarified with sandpaper. After three days of the scarification, 72.7% of the seeds germinated and this percentage was further increased to 90.4% after 15 days with a mean germina¬tion time (MGTa15) of 4 days. Although, the other physical and chemical treatments showed moderate effects on germination (GPa15 ranged from 7% to 64%), but they failed to reduce the MGTa15. Treating the sandpaper-scarified seeds with the seeds and the seeds coat protein extracts delayed the germination but did not affect the overall germination percentage, indicating the presence of unknown germinating factor(s) which may contribute to the dormancy of the seed. Together, the germination factor(s) and the hard seed coat caused the seed dormancy of A. paniculata which could be overcome by sandpaper scarification

Impact of protein diversification on morphometric behavior of Andrographis paniculata Nees

Proteins are important biochemical parameters in genetic diversity and controlling morphological characteristics in plants. In this study, the proteomic and morphometric data of an important medicinal herb “Aci Paşa” (Andrographis paniculata) were combined together to illustrate their impacts on genetic variation of the plant’s population and to realize the connection between protein patterns and phenotypic behavior of the species. We used three protein extraction buffers including Tris, potassium phosphate, and sodium citrate. The Tris buffer was significantly different (p ≤ 0.01) than other two in terms of the quality and quantity of protein bands by producing 15 types of proteins ranged from 13 to 105 kDa of which two of them were polymorphic. Consequently, a total of 12 accessions of A. paniculata were subjected to morpho-proteomic analyses. The unweighted pair group method with arithmetic average cluster analysis of the accessions based on the protein data and morphological characteristics generated three and four clusters, respectively, at a Euclidean distance of 2.53 for the morphological traits. Moreover, seed proteins analysis revealed that the two polymorphic protein bands sized 20.5 (protein “b”) and 30 kDa (protein “a”) effectively diversified the morphological characteristics and phylogenetic relationships among the 12 accessions of A. paniculata. Interestingly, the protein “b” acted as an activator agent for the number of branches, leaves and total dry weight, while the protein “a” performed a suppressive role for the same traits. Additionally, the two high-weighted faint bands “c” (75 kDa) and “d” (100 kDa) with a very low expression in accession 11228 proved their suppressive role along with the “a” band, while these bands were strongly expressed in the rest of the accessions. These findings suggest that these four proteins should be sequenced and perfectly established for further proteomic analyses. Ultimately, the mentioned proteins can be developed for any prospective breeding program or gene identification

Honoring the teaching profession: the untold story of oppression and dissatisfaction of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) instructors

Currently, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is one of the most discussed educational fields. In fact, TVET has been included in the nation’s budget especially for the development of facility and policy making. Notably, TVET has recently underlined the significance of teachers’ preparation program with regards to the issue of teaching job dissatisfaction. Purposefully, a mixed-method design was employed by adopting a convergent parallel design where both qualitative and quantitative data were combined in a single instrument. Results from the narrative interpretation were derived from the open-ended qualitative questions. In particular, Qualtrics, an online-survey form was utilized to collect the research data. For this study, the target population comprised of Malaysian training instructors at TVET educational institutions. Next, a thematic analysis was employed using the Atlas.ti software to determine the TVET instructors’ dissatisfaction factors. Accordingly, six themes were highlighted: burdened with administrative tasks, forced to manipulate students’ achievement documentations, improper planning of TVET programme implementation, student factor, inconducive working environment, and unstable TVET system. Although it was hard to grasp the essence of the existing scenario, it is strongly believed that the findings will spark much interest from the educational stakeholders, especially at the TVET division level to modify the current policy and plan a comprehensive teachers’ preparation program. Primarily, the findings of this study are objectively constructive to motivate TVET instructors towards creating a positive image of teaching, besides discarding any negative conceptions or misaligned goals, especially in the TVET field

Estimation of salt tolerance in Andrographis paniculata accessions using multiple regression model

The complexity and polygenic nature of the salt tolerance trait in plants needs to develop a multiple indicator in the screening process. The mentioned issue led us to carry out an experiment to identify tolerant genotypes through multiple parameters in Andrographis paniculata. For this purpose, the 40-days seedlings were grown in different salinity levels (control, 4, 8, 12 and 16 dS m−1) on Hoagland’s medium. The results indicated that salinity had a significant effect on the morphological, physiological and biochemical traits. All measured morphological traits, and chlorophyll, K+ and Ca2+ content were significantly decreased with increasing salinity levels, while proline and Na+ content increased. The present exploration revealed that, salt tolerance index (STI), using the multiple regression model, demonstrated a more stable trend than the single variable assay (total dry weight). Furthermore, STI based on multiple regression analysis gives an accurate definition of salt-tolerant individuals. Under salt stress, tolerant accessions had high STI and produced higher proline, K+ and Ca2+, and lower Na+ content than sensitive accessions. Cluster analysis based on related traits to STI, indicated high similarity in each group. These outcomes can be utilized to evaluate the salt tolerance threshold in the species and may have a great advantage over conventional methods. Probably, our upshots can be applied in the next breeding programs to develop salt-tolerant varieties

Scopariadulcis (SDF7) endowed with glucose uptake properties on L6 myotubes compared insulin.

Aim of the study Insulin stimulates glucoseuptake and promotes the translocation of glucose transporter 4 (Glut 4) to the plasma membrane on L6myotubes. The aim of this study is to investigate affect of Scopariadulcis Linn water extracts on glucoseuptake activity and the Glut 4 translocation components (i.e., IRS-1, PI 3-kinase, PKB/Akt2, PKC and TC 10) in L6myotubescompared to insulin. Materials and methods Extract from TLC fraction-7 (SDF7) was used in this study. The L6myotubes were treated by various concentrations of SDF7 (1 to 50 μg/ml) and insulin (1 to 100 nM). The glucoseuptake activities of L6myotubes were evaluated using 2-Deoxy-D-glucoseuptake assay in with or without fatty acid-induced medium. The Glut 4 translocation components in SDF7-treated L6myotubes were detected using immunoblotting and quantified by densitometry compared to insulin. Plasma membrane lawn assay and glycogen colorimetry assay were carried out in SDF7- and insulin-treated L6myotubes in this study. Results Here, our data clearly shows that SDF7 possesses glucoseuptakeproperties on L6myotubes that are dose-dependent, time-dependent and plasma membrane Glut 4 expression-dependent. SDF7 successfully stimulates glucoseuptake activity as potent as insulin at a maximum concentration of 50 μg/ml at 480 min on L6myotubes. Furthermore, SDF7 stimulates increased Glut 4 expression and translocation to plasma membranes at equivalent times. Even in the insulin resistance stage (free fatty acids-induced), SDF7-treated L6myotubes were found to be more capable at glucose transport than insulin treatment. Conclusions Thus, we suggested that Scopariadulcis has the potential to be categorized as a hypoglycemic medicinal plant based on its good glucose transport properties

Functional Expression of an Orchid Fragrance Gene in Lactococcus lactis

Vanda Mimi Palmer (VMP), an orchid hybrid of Vanda tesselata and Vanda Tan Chay Yan is a highly scented tropical orchid which blooms all year round. Previous studies revealed that VMP produces a variety of isoprenoid volatiles during daylight. Isoprenoids are well known to contribute significantly to the scent of most fragrant plants. They are a large group of secondary metabolites which may possess valuable characteristics such as flavor, fragrance and toxicity and are produced via two pathways, the mevalonate (MVA) pathway or/and the 2-C-methyl-D-erythritol-4-phosphate (MEP) pathway. In this study, a sesquiterpene synthase gene denoted VMPSTS, previously isolated from a floral cDNA library of VMP was cloned and expressed in Lactococcus lactis to characterize the functionality of the protein. L. lactis, a food grade bacterium which utilizes the mevalonate pathway for isoprenoid production was found to be a suitable host for the characterization of plant terpene synthases. Through recombinant expression of VMPSTS, it was revealed that VMPSTS produced multiple sesquiterpenes and germacrene D dominates its profile

Sequence Analysis and Potentials of the Native RbcS Promoter in the Development of an Alternative Eukaryotic Expression System Using Green Microalga Ankistrodesmus convolutus

The availability of highly active homologous promoters is critical in the development of a transformation system and improvement of the transformation efficiency. To facilitate transformation of green microalga Ankistrodesmus convolutus which is considered as a potential candidate for many biotechnological applications, a highly-expressed native promoter sequence of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase small subunit (AcRbcS) has been used to drive the expression of β-glucuronidase (gusA) gene in this microalga. Besides the determination of the transcription start site by 5′-RACE, sequence analysis revealed that AcRbcS promoter contained consensus TATA-box and several putative cis-acting elements, including some representative light-regulatory elements (e.g., G-box, Sp1 motif and SORLIP2), which confer light responsiveness in plants, and several potential conserved motifs (e.g., CAGAC-motif, YCCYTGG-motifs and CACCACA-motif), which may be involved in light responsiveness of RbcS gene in green microalgae. Using AcRbcS promoter::gusA translational fusion, it was demonstrated that this promoter could function as a light-regulated promoter in transgenic A. convolutus, which suggested that the isolated AcRbcS promoter was a full and active promoter sequence that contained all cis-elements required for developmental and light-mediated control of gene expression, and this promoter can be used to drive the expression of heterologous genes in A. convolutus. This achievement therefore advances the development of A. convolutus as an alternative expression system for the production of recombinant proteins. This is the first report on development of gene manipulation system for unicellular green alga A. convolutus

Job satisfaction and motivation to teach: predicting intrinsic and extrinsic factors towards retaining career-switchers in the teaching profession

The teaching career is undoubtedly one of the most challenging professions with regards to other related service-type occupations. Evidently, throughout the history of the teaching career, numerous cases related to mental and health problem, high dropout rate nationwide, and behavioral delinquency among teachers have been reported in this particular field. In general, career-switchers are individuals who transitioned from their previous occupation into the teaching service. Indeed, this specific group of individuals is interested into the teaching service due to the gap eventuated from the high attrition rate of teachers. Inevitably, the role of career-switchers, especially for former industrial-based practitioners, is significant in Career and Technical Education. In light of this matter, this research focused on determining teaching job satisfaction factors of career-switchers and predicting which job satisfaction factors are prominent to career-switchers’ retention plan. In this study, a descriptive and correlational analysis was utilized to ascertain the objective of the study: (a) to determine the teaching job satisfaction factors of career-switchers of career and technical education teachers and (b) to identify the job satisfaction factors that influence career-switchers’ retention plan. The sample of the study was derived from 2670 CareerTech registered teachers in the Midwestern state using purposive sampling technique. Then, the data was gathered using an online survey named Qualtrics, which filtered the number of career-switcher to 272. Additionally, a chi-square analysis was employed and the result indicated that the factors of marital status, the teaching position of career-switchers, and highest degree earned were found significance with retention plan. Also, the regression analysis revealed six job satisfaction factors which influenced career-switchers to remain in the teaching profession. Subsequently, these six factors were summarized into four major themes: salary, teaching supports, teaching preparation, and motivation. Based on the findings, it was implied that career-switchers take into consideration of both extrinsic and intrinsic variables when deciding whether to stay or leave the teaching profession. On the same note, future research related to comparative analysis of career-switchers within different demographic contexts is highly suggested