Isolation and purification of marine cyanobacteria in laboratory conditions

Twenty four species of cyanobacteria were isolated from a variety of marine habitats collected from Karachi coast and open ocean waters. The species of cyanobacteria were isolated from mix culture using serial dilution techniques at room temperature under constant illumination. The isolated species consist of six unicellular and eighteen filamentous non-heterocystous cyanobacterial species. Heterocystous forms were not obtained during these studies. Isolates were maintained in Marine Biology Culture Collection (MBCC)

Effect of Substituting Soybean Meal with Moringa oleifera Meal on the Growth and Body Composition of Labeo rohita Fingerlings

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A preliminary study of soil analysis of Sonmiani, Gadani and Kund Malir coasts of District Lasbela, Balochistan, Pakistan

The purpose of the soil analysis is to study the beach characteristics of different coasts of Balochistan. Three sites Sonmiani, Gadani and Kund Malir were selected. The Gaddani coast is known as sandy cum rocky shore, Sonmiani as sandy cum muddy shore while Kund Malir is sandy. Three different stations were selected on each site for sampling. At each station, five different samples were collected. At all three sites, the amount of medium and fine sand showed greater amount and very fine sand depicted lesser. The results showed that soil samples collected from three coasts mostly have highest fraction of find sand and lowest portions of very fine sand. At Sonmiani the soil composition is fine sand and very fine sand as compared to Gadani where the soil is of fine sand and medium sand and at Kund Malir the soil is of fine sand along with medium sand but very fine sand also present

Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants through pandemic waves using RT-PCR testing in low-resource settings

COVID-19 resulted in extensive morbidity and mortality worldwide. SARS-CoV-2 evolved rapidly, with increasing transmission due to Variants of Concern (VOC). Identifying VOC became important but genome submissions from low-middle income countries (LMIC) remained low leading to gaps in genomic epidemiology. We demonstrate the use of a specific mutation RT-PCR based approach to identify VOC in SARS-CoV-2 positive samples through the pandemic in Pakistan. We selected 2150 SARS-CoV-2 PCR positive respiratory specimens tested between April 2021 and February 2022, at the Aga Khan University Hospital Clinical Laboratories, Karachi, Pakistan. Commercially available RT-PCR assays were used as required for mutations in Spike protein (N501Y, A570D, E484K, K417N, L452R, P681R and deletion69_70) to identify Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron variants respectively. Three pandemic waves associated with Alpha, Delta and Omicron occurred during the study period. Of the samples screened, VOC were identified in 81.7% of cases comprising mainly; Delta (37.2%), Alpha (29.8%) and Omicron (17.1%) variants. During 2021, Alpha variants were predominant in April and May; Beta and Gamma variants emerged in May and peaked in June; the Delta variant peaked in July and remained predominant until November. Omicron (BA.1) emerged in December 2021 and remained predominant until February 2022. The CT values of Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta were all significantly higher than that of Omicron variants (p\u3c0.0001). We observed VOC through the pandemic waves using spike mutation specific RT-PCR assays. We show the spike mutation specific RT-PCR assay is a rapid, low-cost and adaptable for the identification of VOC as an adjunct approach to NGS to effectively inform the public health response. Further, by associating the VOC with CT values of its diagnostic PCR we gain information regarding the viral load of samples and therefore the level of transmission and disease severity in the population