Iteratively Acting Glycosyltransferases Involved in the Hexasaccharide Biosynthesis of Landomycin A

SummaryDetailed studies on the biosynthesis of the hexasaccharide side chain of landomycin A, produced by S. cyanogenus S136, revealed the function of each glycosyltransferase gene of the biosynthetic gene cluster. Analyses of generated mutants as well as feeding experiments allowed us to determine that LanGT2 and LanGT3 catalyze the attachment of one sugar, whereas LanGT1 and LanGT4 attach two sugars during landomycin A biosynthesis. The generation of a lanZ2 deletion mutant provided evidence that LanZ2 is controlling the elongation of the saccharide side chain

Testing budget photosystems to reach an optimal solution for the herbarium digitization purposes

The current paper stresses the application of different budget photosystems for digitization of herbarium specimens. Twelve photosystems were compared by color accuracy reproduction of the images. It was found that the photosystem built on the basis of photocamera Canon EOS 800D and fixed lens Tokina AT-X M35 PRO DX AF 35 mm f/2.8 Macro and currently used for the digitization of the LWS herbarium collection demonstrated the best results among other tested photosystems. It also produced the images with the same or even better color accuracy as in images downloaded from P, PI, B, and W virtual herbaria. Nevertheless, its color accuracy measured as ΔE2000, in general, does not meet recent criteria ascertained for the herbarium digitization purposes and new FADGI’s requirements. This photosystem has been found to have improving potential and, hence, should be optimized. On the other hand, it was also shown that smartphone Samsung Galaxy S10 could produce images with the same or even better color accuracy compared to some images deposited at P, PI, W, and B virtual herbaria. Therefore, in conditions of extreme situations and hostilities, such smartphones with additional external illumination can serve for urgent digitization of natural history collections. Finally, we doubt the application of commonly used color targets for the digitization of herbariaum preserved specimens since the original living color of such specimens is usually lost during conservation and preservation. Instead, it would be more beneficial to apply advanced targets to evaluate the spatial accuracy of images since they can incorrectly represent the important morphological characters of preserved specimens

Epidemiology of the vestibular schwannomas in Ukraine and our experience of surgical and radiosurgical treatment

Aim: Figuring out the occurrence of vestibular schwannomas (VS) and their management tendencies in Ukraine.Materials and methods: Data about VS detection and treatment were collected among all Ukrainian neurosurgical and radiological facilities which are enrolled in providing care for these patients. Together with those who were treated overseas the total number in 2016-2018 was 903 people. There were 665 cases (73.6  %) treated surgically, 124 cases (13.8  %) irradiated and 114 (12.6  %) observed via serial imaging.Results: The prevalence of VS in Ukraine is about 7.27 per 1 million people which corresponds to data around the world (CBTRUS trial suggested VS incidence 10-20 people per 1 million during 2004-2009).Most of verified VSs were treated surgically (73.6  %), lesser part was irradiated (13.8  %) and 12.7 % were followed-up by wait-and-scan strategy. Our data regarding surgical management was higher than worldwide. At the same time, the volume of detected tumors was much larger in comparison to published data. Seventy-three per cent of all cases were Koos T4 tumors as a possible result of poor diagnosis and lack of alertness making surgical interventions more common and difficult.Total and subtotal resection rate was 79  % as the result of combined microsurgical and endoscopic techniques under intraoperative electrophysiological neuromonitoring guidance. The facial nerve was preserved in 94.2  % of cases, cochlear — in 8.5  % of cases. The average mortality rate during 2016-2018 in Ukraine was 3.1  % with 1.3  % in Subtentorial Neurooncology Department of the Romodanov Neurosurgery Institute.Conclusions: For further improvements and development of optimal management strategies for patients with VS, it is necessary to improve earlier diagnosis and reasonable to provide neurosurgical care in high-volume centers based on the profound expertise with further advances in technologies for functionally favorable outcomes

BioDATA - Biodiversity Data for Internationalisation in Higher Education

BioDATA is an international project on developing skills in biodiversity data management and data publishing. Between 2018 and 2021, undergraduate and postgraduate students from Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, have an opportunity to take part in the intensive courses to become certified professionals in biodiversity data management. They will gain practical skills and obtain appropriate knowledge on: international data standards (Darwin Core); data cleaning software, data publishing software such as the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT), and preparation of data papers. Working with databases, creating datasets, managing data for statistical analyses and publishing research papers are essential for the everyday tasks of a modern biologist. At the same time, these skills are rarely taught in higher education. Most of the contemporary professionals in biodiversity have to gain these skills independently, through colleagues, or through supervision. In addition, all the participants familiarize themselves with one of the important international research data infrastructures such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The project is coordinated by the University of Oslo (Norway) and supported by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The project is funded by the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (DIKU)

The Splendors and Miseries of Open Access Scientific Publishing in Ukraine

The letter represents the author’s opinion on the reasons and background of the actively developing practice of unconscientious open access scientific publishing, as well as briefly discussing the current condition of academic publishing and indexation in Ukraine

An annotated nomenclatural checklist of endemic vascular plants distributed in the Ukrainian Carpathians

The current paper presents a nomenclatural checklist for vascular plants validated being (sub)endemic to and present in the flora of the Ukrainian Carpathians. This checklist is a part of the work targeted on an inventory of endemic plants distributed in the Ukrainian Carpathians. It is mainly based on the analysis of primary sources (i.e. original protologues and monographic works), but also uses the data provided in the recent online taxonomic aggregators, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Catalogue of Life (CoL), Plants of the World Online (POWO), Euro+Med PlantBase, World Flora Online (WFO) and others. Over 7,000 specimens deposited in the leading Ukrainian herbaria were also revised and used as a supporting data source during the work on the checklist.The checklist provides a revised nomenclature, including corrections on publication dates, rediscovered taxonomic protologues, corrected authorships and revised taxonomic status for (sub)endemic (sub)species of vascular plants occurring in the Ukrainian Carpathians. It contains 1,101 names, from which 78 species and subspecies have been accepted as valid and 1023 species and infraspecific taxa are provided as synonyms. It is completed with critical notes on the nomenclature of problematic taxa and brief annotations regarding their distribution in the Ukrainian Carpathians, indicating the endemicity range and sozological status for all analysed (sub)species.The current checklist is linked with the GBIF taxonomic backbone, provides notes on detected issues and primarily focuses on its update and correction of the nomenclatural issues and taxonomic inconsistencies, but also aims at discussing issues in other popular taxonomic databases.Sabulina pauciflora is proposed as a new combination to comply with a recent revision of the genus Sabulina

An annotated nomenclatural checklist of endemic vascular plants distributed in the Ukrainian Carpathians

The nomenclatural checklist for vascular plants validated and processed as those that are (sub)endemic and present in the flora of the Ukrainian Carpathians is represented. This checklist is a part of work targeted on an inventory of endemics distributed in the Ukrainian Carpathians. It is mainly based on the analysis of primary sources (i.e., original protologues and monographic works), but also used the data provided in the recent online taxonomic aggregators such as GBIF, CoL, POWO, Euro+Med PlantBase, World Flora, and other. Over 7,000 specimens deposited in the leading Ukrainian herbaria during the work were also revised and used as a data source.The checklist provides revised nomenclature, including corrections on publication dates, rediscovered taxonomic protologues, corrected authorships, and revised taxonomic status for (sub)endemic (sub)species of vascular plants occurring in the Ukrainian Carpathians. It contains 1061 names, from which 78 species and subspecies have been accepted as valid and 983 species and infraspecific taxa provided as synonyms. It is completed with critical notes on the nomenclature of problematic taxa and brief annotations regarding their distribution in the Ukrainian Carpathians, indicating the endemicity range and sozological categories for all analyzed (sub)species.The current checklist is linked with GBIF taxonomic backbone, provides notes on detected issues, and primarily focuses on its update and correction but also points to detected issues in other popular taxonomic databases.The new combination, Sabulina pauciflora, comb. nov. instead of Minuartia pauciflora is proposed to compile with a recent vision on the taxonomy of the genus Sabulina

Developing the GIS-based maps of the geomorphological and phytogeographical division of the Ukrainian Carpathians for routine use in biogeography

The paper introduces GIS-based maps of the geomorphological and phytogeographical division of the Ukrainian Carpathians (a part of Eastern Carpathian Mts.), which were developed for routine use in biogeography and based on the consolidation of the existing publications. The map of geomorphological division includes 57 OGUs (operational geographic units), and the map phytogeographical division – 18 OGUs of the lowest rank. Geomorphological units are supported with available synonyms, which should help in work with different topic-related Ukrainian publications. Both maps follow strict hierarchical classification and are briefly discussed