Biochar for the Control of Plant Pathogens

Biochar, the solid product of pyrolysis of biomass at thermal degradation temperatures, is useful in agriculture as manure for enhancing plant growth through the supply of nutrients. It is used in protected cultivation practices of vegetables and flower crops in the pot culture and grow bags especially to improve soil physicochemical properties, and in hydroponics to remove pollutants like heavy metals in the water. The usage of biochar as a potential soil amendment for plant growth promotion, improving soil fertility and plant disease suppression are being explored in recent years. Biochar made from many of the agro waste materials was found to suppress the plant pathogens in the soil and also effective in controlling the pathogens affecting aerial parts of the plants. Although direct antifungal or antibacterial effects and metabolites of biochar are poorly understood, induced systemic resistance in plants through signal transduction and expression of defence chemicals and metabolites have been studied. In addition, microbiome analyses through metagenome sequencing revealed an increase in the population of beneficial microbes (antagonistic to plant pathogens) in the rhizosphere soils applied with biochar

A rare association of serous cystadenoma of the pancreas with mediastinal lipoma: a case report

Cystic lesions of pancreas include a myriad of different conditions ranging from the common pseudocyst to unusual cystic neoplasm. With the development of better imaging modalities, cystic neoplasms are diagnosed with greater frequency and accuracy leading on to better understanding of the natural course of these lesions. Serous cystadenoma is one of the rare neoplasms of the pancreas that is unique for its benign nature. Most of the time surgery is indicated for the symptom of pain when the lesion enlarges. Surgery may also be indicated due to the fact that, it may not always be possible to dogmatically differentiate it from the potentially malignant counterpart radiologically. One of the interesting aspects about serous cystadenoma is its association with other systemic disorders like von Hippel Lindau syndrome. Herein we report a rare association of serous cystadenoma with mediastinal lipoma, which has not been reported in the literature

Evaluation of a metagenomic detection technique for human enteric bacteria in retail chicken

enteric bacteria in artificially contaminated chicken sample. Tests were performed in inoculated chicken samples using Salmonella enterica and Aeromonas hydrophila, with dilutions of 106,105,104 CFU/ml. We have developed a direct metagenomic (chicken DNA, inoculated bacterial DNA and endogenous microbial DNA if any) PCR technique for detection of bacteria from this food metagenome. Amplification of respective bacterial 16S rRNA region was performed. PCR conditions were optimized and amplification of Salmonella enterica specific DNA was achieved in all samples inoculated with different concentration of bacterial suspension. Aeromonas hydrophila infected tissues failed to reveal a specific amplification even after several modifications in gradient PCR.  Interestingly, the control (uninoculated) chicken tissues also exhibited a less intense amplification of similar size DNA to target, indicating the possible endogenous contamination of the chicken meat obtained from the retail shop for our analysis

Rice endophytes and their potential applications

Endophytic microbial communities in crop plants are beginning to be explored. These microbes are either carried through seeds or establish colonization in the plants from soil based on chemotaxis of root exudates. Variability and diversity of endophytic bacteria and fungi have been observed in rice plants in different plant parts and growth stages. Genotypic variations are observed between Indica and Japonica. Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Streptomyces, Azospirillum, Azotobacter are some of the dominating genera of bacteria in internal tissues of rice plants. These endophytes provide benefits such as tolerance to abiotic stresses, defense against pest and diseases, nutrient solubilization and mobility. In addition, many metabolites are characterized from the endophytes that are useful in other branches of biotechnology including bioremediation. Complete characterization of microbiome of rice plants under various soil agro-climatic zones and understanding their population dynamics, co-occurrence and networking will help in identifying useful strains for developing new biofertilizers, plant growth promoting microbes and biopesticides

Taxonomy and Distribution of Recent Benthic Foraminifera from the Inner Shelf of Gulf of Mannar, off Tuticorin, South East Coast of India

Foraminifera have been successful inhabitants of every aquatic environment from deep oceans to brackish water lagoons, estuaries and even rarely in fresh water streams, lakes, etc. In order to know their distribution in different offshore habitates, the present study has been undertaken 9 stations starting from Thirayshapuram to Vanthivu in two transects with necessary precautions from Gulf of Mannar, Tuticorin. Twenty five bottom sediments and water samples were collected. Benthic foraminiferal taxa belonging to four sub orders (Textularina, Milolina, Lagenina and Rotalina), 5 super families, 10 families, 11 sub families, 14 genera and 29 species have been identified. Among the 29 species, five species Ammonia beccarii, A. dentate, Spiroloculina communis, Quinquloculina seminulam and Pararotalina nipponica are considered to be abundant species of the present study. Higher diversity and population of foraminifera is noticed in the samples collected in the stations 2 to 8, because of their favorable niche. In the stations 1 and 9 the lower diversity and population may be due to the winnowing action of the waves. The substrate of present study area is seen to consist of Silty clay, Sand, Silty sand and Sand. The most accommodative substrate for higher population is Silty sand. The main ecological parameters, which govern the distribution of foraminifera of the present study area, are organic matter content and nature of the substrate. The other water parameters like temperature, salinity, pH and dissolved oxygen do not show any appreciable spatial variation among different stations and hence they do not have any ecological significance in the distribution of foraminifera. Keywords: Benthic foraminifera, Gulf of Mannar, South East coast of India

A rare case of patellar fracture with quadriceps tendon rupture

Quadriceps tendon rupture is the rarest injury with an incidence of 1.37/1,00,000/year. A patellar fracture is the most common injury associated with extensor mechanism lag, but it is rarely found to have quadriceps rupture rather than patellar tendon rupture. Normally when patella fracture occurs the force is disseminated at the bone level rather than at the muscular level. In this case, the force has disseminated at both muscle and bone leading to fracture of patella and quadriceps tendon rupture. Here we report a case of patellar fracture along with quadriceps tendon rupture

Spontaneous ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome with primary hypothyroidism: Imaging a rare entity

AbstractOvarian hyperstimulation syndrome is a disorder associated with ovulation induction and is rarely seen in pregnant women. Very few cases of spontaneous ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome have been reported in a woman who is neither pregnant nor undergoing ovulation therapy. This case report describes how spontaneous ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is associated with primary hypothyroidism in a 25-year-old, nonpregnant woman who is not on ovulation induction therapy. Imaging and laboratory findings confirmed the diagnosis of this rare entity, which aided the clinicians in providing prompt management and in preventing further complications

Comparative analysis and partial functional annotation of phytosterol desaturase gene in plants of different botanical families

In silico analysis and comparison of the sterol desaturase gene from different plants species like Arabidopsis, rice, tomato and castor covering wide range of botanical familieswas done. The results indicate that Arabidopsis and tomato gene share 50% homology andrice-castor share 68% homology. The homology of sequences between Arabidopsis withother plants is negligible confirming the uniqueness of the gene in every botanical family ofplants. Based on the translated amino acid sequences, the conserved domains in the proteinwere predicted by functional annotation including all enzymes in the database. Although thegenes varied, the functional domains of Arabidopsis-tomato and rice-castor were similar. Themajor domain with specific conserved score was obtained for P450 super family proteins inthe case of Arabidopsis and tomato. Rice and castor showed a conserved domain of steroldesaturase. An interior sequence of Arabidopsis and tomato showed a conserved domain forbrassinosteroid oxidase protein. Based on the annotations, tomato is predicted to producebrassinosteroid as major sterol as like Arabidopsis, which belongs to Brassicaceae family.Rice and castor are predicted to use the desaturase gene for the production of stigmasterol.The results warrant further in vitro and in planta research to understand the functional diversity of the sterol desaturase gene in these plant species

Gamma oscillatory activity in vitro: a model system to assess pathophysiological mechanisms of comorbidity between autism and epilepsy.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and temporal lobe epilepsy exhibit remarkable comorbidity, but for reasons not clearly understood. To reveal a common pathophysiological mechanism, we here describe and characterize an in vitro epileptiform activity in the rat hippocampus that exhibits common features with in vivo activity in rodent ASD models. We discovered the development of this activity in the CA1 region of horizontal slices after prolonged interictal-like epileptiform activity in the CA3 region that was provoked by incubation in high potassium artificial cerebrospinal fluid. The CA1 epileptiform bursts were insensitive to blockers of glutamatergic transmission, and were carried by synaptic as well as extrasynaptic, tonically activated gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA(A)) receptors. The bursts bear resemblance to in vivo gamma-oscillatory activity found in rat ASD models with respect to their gamma frequency spectrum, their origin (in the CA1), and their sensitivity to blockers of cation-chloride pumps (NKCC1 and KCC2), as well as to oxytocin. Considering this bursting activity as an in vitro model for studying comorbidity between epilepsy and ASD may help to disentangle the intricate interactions that underlie the comorbidity between both diseases and suggests that extrasynaptic tonic GABAergic transmission could represent a potential target for ASD

A Novel Hybrid Based Method in Covid 19 Health System for Data Extraction with Blockchain Technology

Millions of people have been afflicted by the COVID-19 epidemic, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of fatalities throughout the world. Extracting correct data on patients and facilities with and without COVID-19 with high confidence for medical specialists or the government is extremely difficult. As a result, utilizing blockchain technology, a reliable data extraction methodology for the COVID-19 database is constructed. In this accurate data extraction model development and validation study in blockchain technology for COVID analysis, here a novel Hybrid Deep Belief Lionized Optimization (HDBLO) approach is proposed. The weights of the deep model are optimized by the fitness of lion optimization. The implementation of this work is executed using MATLAB software. The simulation outcomes shows the effective performance of proposed model in blockchain technology in COVID paradigm in terms of Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), accuracy, F-measure, Processing time, precision and error. Consequently, the proposed approach is compared with the conventional strategies for significant validation