Effect of integrated nutrient management on growth and productivity of Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal in Kymore Plateau and Satpura hills of Madhya Pradesh, India

The field experiment was carried out at the Dusty Acres Farm, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya (JNKVV), Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh to study the effect of integrated nutrient management for growth and yield of Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal (Variety: Jawahar Ashwagandha-134). Tallest plants (49.35 cm) were observed at harvest stage, whereas higher number of branches per plant (5.78) of W. somnifera was observed at 90 DAS with T11, respectively. The mean number of leaves per plant (125.40) and LAI (10.345) of W. somnifera was higher at 90 DAS with T11. Mean CGR was maximum (2.536 g m-2 week-1) and mean RGR was highest (0.098 gg-1 day-1) of W. somnifera at 90 DAS and thereafter decline at 120 DAS and harvest stage with T11. Whereas, mean dry matter (1392.60 kg/ha) production of W. somnifera was higher at harvesting stage of crop with T11. Significantly higher mean root length (16.30 cm), root girth (2.26 cm) and mean dry root yield (612.8 kg/ha) of W. somnifera was recorded under T11 than the rest of treatments. Mean number of berries per plant (30.78) and mean number of seeds per berry (194.17) of W. somnifera were significantly higher under T11. Higher mean seed yield (62.6 kg/ha) and harvest index (43.61%) of W. somnifera was observed under T11 as compared to other treatments. Therefore, 100% recommended dose of NPK through fertilizers along with vermicompost (2.5 t/ha), FYM (5.0 t/ha) and ZnSO4 20kg/ha (T11) followed by 50% recommended dose of NPK through fertilizers along with vermicompost (2.5 t/ha), FYM (5.0 t/ha) and ZnSO4 20kg/ha (T14) and 100% recommended dose of NPK through fertilizers along with vermicompost (2.5 t/ha) and ZnSO4 20kg/ha (T10) were found to be better integrated nutrient management for the cultivation of W. somnifera

The outcome of platelet-rich plasma injection therapy in chronic plantar fasciitis

Background: Plantar Fasciitis is a frequently encountered problem in the everyday practice of orthopaedics. Treatment of Plantar Fasciitis is challenging to treating surgeon. Various conservative non-invasive treatment modalities are available like rest, casting, night splinting, NSAIDs. If conservative management fails then corticosteroid injection over the medial tuberosity of calcaneum is an effective treatment. But in recent years Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has proved to be a safe alternative approach with less complication. This study aims to find out the effectiveness of PRP injections in Plantar Fasciitis. Material and Method: In this study, 60 patients with Plantar Fasciitis were included. Regular follow up was done at an interval of 4 weeks, 8 weeks and 6 months after PRP injection. Pain intensity was measured before and after injection on every follow up using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Patients who have undergone at least 4 weeks of conservative treatment were included in the study. Results: After analysis of data, the average VAS score before injection was 7.01±1.35. Whereas at the end of the last visit (i.e. 6 months) average VAS score reduced to 2.2±1.25. This difference was statistically significant (ANNOVA test p <0.0001). Conclusion: we concluded that injection of PRP is a safe, convenient and effective approach to treat chronic Plantar Fasciitis

Assessment of total phenolic and flavonoid contents and potential biological efficacy of few Pinus species growing in Northern Himalayas

Environmental interventions and ecological adaptations harbor millions of valued substances and metabolites in plants which can be employed and commercialized for human benefits. Present study encompasses the untapped potential of pine needles of Indo-Himalayan region for the production of different metabolites and their pharmacological significance in terms of antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. Total phenolic and flavonoid content from the needles of ten pine species was quantified using three different solvent systems. Results revealed that out of 10 different selected Pinus species, Pinus taeda L. showed the highest concentration of total phenolics, Soluble-F phenolics and flavonoids content (approx. 147.02 mg/g, 141.08 mg/g and 21.91 mg/g, respectively) as compared to other species. On the other hand, Pinus greggii Engelm. ex Parl. showed the highest Bound-W phenolic content (approx. 3.62 mg/g). Among all the selected plant species, the needles of Pinus echinata Mill. exhibited the highest and Pinus thunbergii Parl. had the lowest ratio of total flavonoids to total phenolics. Most of these compounds were found to have effective antioxidant activities as well as antimicrobial activity, as estimated by oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) and disk diffusion test, respectively

Genome-Wide Analysis of Domain-Swap Predicted Products in the Genome of Anti-Stress Medicinal Plant:

Computational approaches to high-throughput data are gaining importance because of explosion of sequences in the post-genomic era. This explosion of sequence data creates a huge gap among the domains of sequence structure and function, since the experimental techniques to determine the structure and function are very expensive, time taking, and laborious in nature. Therefore, there is an urgent need to emphasize on the development of computational approaches in the field of biological systems. Engagement of proteins in quaternary arrangements, such as domain swapping, might be relevant for higher compatibility of such genes at stress conditions. In this study, the capacity to engage in domain swapping was predicted from mere sequence information in the whole genome of holy Basil ( Ocimum tenuiflorum ), which is well known to be an anti-stress agent. Approximately, one-fourth of the proteins of O tenuiflorum are predicted to undergo three-dimensional (3D)-domain swapping. Furthermore, function annotation was carried out on all the predicted domain-swap sequences from the O tenuiflorum and Arabidopsis thaliana for their distribution in different Pfam protein families and gene ontology (GO) terms. These domain-swapped protein sequences are associated with many Pfam protein families with a wide range of GO annotation terms. A comparative analysis of domain-swap-predicted sequences in O tenuiflorum with gene products in A thaliana reveals that around 26% (2522 sequences) are close homologues across the 2 genomes. Functional annotation of predicted domain-swapped sequences infers that predicted domain-swap sequences are involved in diverse molecular functions, such as in gene regulation of abiotic stress conditions and adaptation to different environmental niches. Finally, the positively predicted sequences of A thaliana and O tenuiflorum were also examined for their presence in stress regulome, as recorded in our STIFDB database, to check the involvement of these proteins in different abiotic stresses

Data from: Genome sequencing of herb Tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) unravels key genes behind its strong medicinal properties

Background: Krishna Tulsi, a member of Lamiaceae family, is a herb well known for its spiritual, religious and medicinal importance in India. The common name of this plant is ‘Tulsi’ (or ‘Tulasi’ or ‘Thulasi’) and is considered sacred by Hindus. We present the draft genome of Ocimum tenuiflurum L (subtype Krishna Tulsi) in this report. The paired-end and mate-pair sequence libraries were generated for the whole genome sequenced with the Illumina Hiseq 1000, resulting in an assembled genome of 374 Mb, with a genome coverage of 61 % (612 Mb estimated genome size). We have also studied transcriptomes (RNA-Seq) of two subtypes of O. tenuiflorum, Krishna and Rama Tulsi and report the relative expression of genes in both the varieties. Results: The pathways leading to the production of medicinally-important specialized metabolites have been studied in detail, in relation to similar pathways in Arabidopsis thaliana and other plants. Expression levels of anthocyanin biosynthesis-related genes in leaf samples of Krishna Tulsi were observed to be relatively high, explaining the purple colouration of Krishna Tulsi leaves. The expression of six important genes identified from genome data were validated by performing q-RT-PCR in different tissues of five different species, which shows the high extent of urosolic acid-producing genes in young leaves of the Rama subtype. In addition, the presence of eugenol and ursolic acid, implied as potential drugs in the cure of many diseases including cancer was confirmed using mass spectrometry. Conclusions: The availability of the whole genome of O.tenuiflorum and our sequence analysis suggests that small amino acid changes at the functional sites of genes involved in metabolite synthesis pathways confer special medicinal properties to this herb

Supplementary Figure 6

Supplementary Figure

Genome-Wide Prediction and Analysis of 3D-Domain Swapped Proteins in the Human Genome from Sequence Information

<div><p>3D-domain swapping is one of the mechanisms of protein oligomerization and the proteins exhibiting this phenomenon have many biological functions. These proteins, which undergo domain swapping, have acquired much attention owing to their involvement in human diseases, such as conformational diseases, amyloidosis, serpinopathies, proteionopathies etc. Early realisation of proteins in the whole human genome that retain tendency to domain swap will enable many aspects of disease control management. Predictive models were developed by using machine learning approaches with an average accuracy of 78% (85.6% of sensitivity, 87.5% of specificity and an MCC value of 0.72) to predict putative domain swapping in protein sequences. These models were applied to many complete genomes with special emphasis on the human genome. Nearly 44% of the protein sequences in the human genome were predicted positive for domain swapping. Enrichment analysis was performed on the positively predicted sequences from human genome for their domain distribution, disease association and functional importance based on Gene Ontology (GO). Enrichment analysis was also performed to infer a better understanding of the functional importance of these sequences. Finally, we developed hinge region prediction, in the given putative domain swapped sequence, by using important physicochemical properties of amino acids.</p></div

Distribution of genes in different biological pathways in positively predicted sequences of human proteome.

<p>Normalization (Z score) was calculated based on domain swapped entries in whole human genome (8945/20247).</p

Workflow to generate negative dataset from monomeric structures of protein database (PDB).

<p>BRP approach was used to find the sequences form Pfam families which do not have known examples of domain swapping (please see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0159627#sec012" target="_blank">Methods</a> for details). DIAL was used for prediction of domain swapping in the given sequences.</p