Nuclear recoil effect on the magnetic-dipole decay rates of atomic levels

The effect of finite nuclear mass on the magnetic-dipole transition probabilities between fine-structure levels of the same term is investigated. Based on a rigorous QED approach a nonrelativistic formula for the recoil correction to first order in m_e/M is derived. Numerical results for transitions of experimental interest are presented.Comment: 9 page

Relativistic calculations of isotope shifts in highly charged ions

The isotope shifts of forbidden transitions in Be- and B-like argon ions are calculated. It is shown that only using the relativistic recoil operator can provide a proper evaluation of the mass isotope shift, which strongly dominates over the field isotope shift for the ions under consideration. Comparing the isotope shifts calculated with the current experimental uncertainties indicates very good perspectives for a first test of the relativistic theory of the recoil effect in middle-Z ions

Screening for the presence of biosynthetic genes for antimicrobial lipopeptides in natural isolates of Bacillus sp.

A collection of 205 natural isolates of Bacillus was tested for the presence of genes for biosynthesis of antimicrobial lipopeptides, iturin, surfactin, fengycin and bacillomycin D. For the detection of iturin producers by PCR screening, we used forward ITUP1-F and reverse ITUP2-R primers which are capable of detecting a 2-kb region that includes the intergenic sequence between the ituA and ituB genes. A 675-bp fragment from the gene sfp from B. subtilis encoding 4’-phosphopantetheinyl transferase involved in the biosynthesis of surfactin was targeted for amplification by using primers P17 and P18. Other two pairs of primers were BACC1F and BACC1R for bacillomycin D and FEND1F and FEND1R for potential fengycin producers, respectively. The results of the screening showed that the majority of tested strains had more than one biosynthetic operon, since 81% possessed the genes for bacillomycin D production, 54% for surfactin, 38% for iturin and 25% for fengycin production. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 173026