Description of a new species cephaline gregarine Stenophora bristili (Apicomplexa, Sporozoea) from Millipede (Chondromorpha severini) in Aurangabad district (M.S), India

The study of the endoparasitic cephaline gregarine in the gut content of millipede (Chondromorpha severini) was found to be infested with a new species (Stenophora bristili) of genus Stenophora (Labee, 1899). It differs from all the earlier reported species. The shape of the body of cephalont small elongated, slightly curved and rounded posterior end. Potomerite consists of fine bundle of bristles. The Sporont is elongated curved, slightly tapering and rounded posterior end, having brush like broader in between protomerite and deutomerite, Nucleus isspherical with ecentric karyosome. The different developmental stages including cephalont, sporont, gametocyst and sporocyst have been observed

Report of new species of ciliate from the genus Metaradiophrya (Heidenrich, 1935) in Pheretima elongata from Aurangabad district (M.S.) India.

New species of ciliates belong to genus Metaradiophrya was recorded from intestine of Pheretima elongata, collected from Aurangabad district (M.S.). In the present study, morphological characteristics of this ciliate and its similarities and differences were discussed compared with other species of this genus

Uraria picta: A comprehensive review on evidences of utilization and strategies of conservation

Uraria picta (Jacq.) DC. (Prishnaparni) is one of the most important medicinal plants used in different traditional systems of medicines including the Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese medicine. The major use of this plant was found in the most popular Ayurvedic formulation “Dashmula” and in several many other important Ayurvedic formulations. IUCN placed this woody herb in the least concern category as per version 3.1. It has extensive therapeutic uses and pharmacological activities. Though this plant is a source of many phytochemicals, the uses are uncertain because the raw plant parts or crude extracts are being used in all formulations. Therefore, extensive investigations are necessary to focus on the identification of these phytochemicals. It is an urgent need to give special attention to collecting various aspects and more efforts are required in all areas for utilization and conservation of this valuable medicinal herb. Herein, a compilation of all information with various aspects has been presented, including the authors published work on Uraria picta. This review pursues attention towards biological activity, phytochemical profile, utilization, propagation and conservation of Uraria picta

EXPERIMENTAL FLOOD EARLY WARNING SYSTEM IN PARTS OF BEAS BASIN USING INTEGRATION OF WEATHER FORECASTING, HYDROLOGICAL AND HYDRODYNAMIC MODELS

The flood early warning for any country is very important due to possible saving of human life, minimizing economic losses and devising mitigation strategies. The present work highlights the experimental flood early warning study in parts of Beas Basin, India for the monsoon season of 2015. The entire flood early warning was done in three parts. In first part, rainfall forecast for every three days in double nested Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) domain (9 km for outer domain and 3 km for inner domain) was done for North Western Himalaya NWH using National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecasting System (GFS) 0.25 degree data as initialization state. Rainfall forecast was validated using Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) data, the simulation accuracy of WRF in rainfall prediction above 100 mm is about 60%. Rainfall induced flood event of August 05–08, 2015 in Sone River (tributary of Beas River) Basin, near Dharampur, Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh caused very high damages. This event was picked three days in advance by WRF model based rainfall forecast. In second part, mean rainfall at sub-basin scale for hydrological model (HEC-HMS) was estimated from forecasted rainfall at every three hours in netcdf format using python script and flood hydrographs were generated. In third part, flood inundation map was generated using Hydrodynamic (HD) model (MIKE 11) with flood hydrographs as boundary condition to see the probable areas of inundation

Organogenesis and embryogenesis in several hypericum perforatum genotypes

St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) is a valuable plant used as a herbal remedy or in phytopharmaceutical drugs to treat a variety of physical ailments. Much research has been performed to study the biochemical production of secondary metabolites of in vitro cultured plants or organs. However, all of these studies have looked at the regeneration of plants from explants in only one genotype. In addition, no study has revealed the mechanism of plant regeneration in H. perforatum, i.e. organogenesis or somatic embryogenesis. We found that different genotypes Helos, Topas, Elixir, and Numi responded similarly to regeneration medium. The regeneration responses (i.e. callus, root, or shoot production) of identical explants from different genotypes were similar. However, the source of explant material (leaves, hypocotyls, and roots) from the same genotype had significant effects on the response to media and plant regeneration frequency. Using scanning electron microscopy and light microscopy, the progress of organogenesis and embryogenesis under similar culture conditions was recorded. Root segments were the most responsive explants, producing the maximum number of shoots per explant of all the genotypes.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - POCTI/AGR/40 283/2001, SFRH/BPD/17102/2004

Capsicum annuum proteinase inhibitor ingestion negatively impacts the growth of sorghum pest Chilo partellus and promotes differential protease expression

Background Chilo partellus is an important insect pest infesting sorghum and maize. The larvae internalize in the stem, rendering difficulties in pest management. We investigated the effects of Capsicum annuum proteinase inhibitors (CanPIs) on C. partellus larvae by in-vitro and in-vivo experiments. Methods Recombinant CanPI-7 (with four-Inhibitory Repeat Domains, IRDs), -22 (two-IRDs) and insect proteinase activities were estimated by proteinase assays, dot blot assays and in gel activity assays. Feeding bioassays of lab reared C. partellus with CanPI-7 and -22 were performed. C. partellus proteinase gene expression was done by RT-PCR. In-silico structure prediction of proteinases and CanPI IRDs was carried out, their validation and molecular docking was done for estimating the interaction strength. Results Larval proteinases of C. partellus showed higher activity at alkaline pH and expressed few proteinase isoforms. Both CanPIs showed strong inhibition of C. partellus larval proteinases. Feeding bioassays of C. partellus with CanPIs revealed a dose dependent retardation of larval growth, reduction of pupal mass and fecundity, while larval and pupal periods increased significantly. Ingestion of CanPIs resulted in differential up-regulation of C. partellus proteinase isoforms, which were sensitive to CanPI-7 but were insensitive to CanPI-22. In-silico interaction studies indicated the strong interaction of IRD-9 (of CanPI-22) with Chilo proteinases tested. Conclusions Of the two PIs tested, CanPI-7 prevents induction of inhibitor insensitive proteinases in C. partellus so it can be explored for developing C. partellus tolerance in sorghum. General significance Ingestion of CanPIs, effectively retards C. partellus growth; while differentially regulating the proteinases

Phosphodiesterase 4 inhibition reduces lung fibrosis following targeted type II alveolar epithelial cell injury

Fibrosis of the lung constitutes a major clinical challenge and novel therapies are required to alleviate the associated morbidity and mortality. Investigating the antifibrotic efficacy of drugs that are already in clinical practice offers an efficient strategy to identify new therapies. The phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) inhibitors, approved for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, harbor therapeutic potential for pulmonary fibrosis by augmenting the activity of endogenous antifibrotic mediators that signal through cyclic AMP. In this study, we tested the efficacy of several PDE4 inhibitors including a novel compound (Compound 1) in a murine model of lung fibrosis that results from a targeted type II alveolar epithelial cell injury. We also compared the antifibrotic activity of PDE4 inhibition to the two therapies that are FDA‐approved for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (pirfenidone and nintedanib). We found that both preventative (day 0–21) and therapeutic (day 11–21) dosing regimens of the PDE4 inhibitors significantly ameliorated the weight loss and lung collagen accumulation that are the sequelae of targeted epithelial cell damage. In a therapeutic protocol, the reduction in lung fibrosis with PDE4 inhibitor administration was equivalent to pirfenidone and nintedanib. Treatment with this class of drugs also resulted in a decrease in plasma surfactant protein D concentration, a reduction in the plasma levels of several chemokines implicated in lung fibrosis, and an in vitro inhibition of fibroblast profibrotic gene expression. These results motivate further investigation of PDE4 inhibition as a treatment for patients with fibrotic lung disease.We demonstrate that prophylactic and therapeutic inhibition of phosphodiesterase 4 with several different antagonists reduces lung fibrosis induced by a targeted injury to the type II alveolar epithelium. In conjunction with the reduction in lung collagen content, phosphodiesterase inhibition also reduced serum surfactant protein C levels and the expression of profibrotic genes by lung fibroblasts.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144679/1/phy213753.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144679/2/phy213753_am.pd

Solubility of Sodium Acetate in Ternary Mixtures of Methanol, 1-Propanol, Acetonitrile, and Water at 298.2 K

Article on the solubility of sodium acetate in ternary mixtures of methanol, 1-propanol, acetonitrile, and water at 298.2 K