Bhat (Black Soybean): A traditional legume with high nutritional and nutraceutical properties from NW Himalayan region of India

307-319Bhat (black soybean) under the genus Glycine, is cultivated for food, fodder and medicinal uses by rural communities in Asia particularly, in China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and India. In the Himalayan region of India, this legume is not only an integral part of a climate resilient farming system but also finds place in ethnodietary recipes and fondly consumed as a pulse. Black soybean ensures both food and nutritional security in hills where nutritional deficiencies are in abundance among rural, tribal and backward population engaged in subsistence farming in marginal rainfed terrains. Cultivation of black soybean is less capital intensive. Its ability to survive under harsh conditions particularly, in the event of failure of rain, makes it a better choice than other competitive crops grown during rainy season. Despite its enormous potentials, the legume has not gained the popularity in India and presently, area under this valuable legume is confined to North Himalayan hill region and scattered pockets of central India. Its high nutritive value, remedial and health promoting effects due to presence of various bioactive compounds make this legume an excellent functional food. Present review summarises the potential role of black soybean for human nutrition and health benefits

Congenital malaria with atypical presentation: A case report from low transmission area in India

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Cerebral malaria: insights from host-parasite protein-protein interactions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cerebral malaria is a form of human malaria wherein <it>Plasmodium falciparum</it>-infected red blood cells adhere to the blood capillaries in the brain, potentially leading to coma and death. Interactions between parasite and host proteins are important in understanding the pathogenesis of this deadly form of malaria. It is, therefore, necessary to study available protein-protein interactions to identify lesser known interactions that could throw light on key events of cerebral malaria.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Sequestration, haemostasis dysfunction, systemic inflammation and neuronal damage are key processes of cerebral malaria. Key events were identified from literature as being crucial to these processes. An integrated interactome was created using available experimental and predicted datasets as well as from literature. Interactions from this interactome were filtered based on Gene Ontology and tissue-specific annotations, and further analysed for relevance to the key events.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PfEMP1 presentation, platelet activation and astrocyte dysfunction were identified as the key events influencing the disease. 48896 host-parasite along with other host-parasite, host-host and parasite-parasite protein-protein interactions obtained from a disease-specific corpus were combined to form an integrated interactome. Filtering of the interactome resulted in five host-parasite PPI, six parasite-parasite and two host-host PPI. The analysis of these interactions revealed the potential significance of apolipoproteins and temperature/Hsp expression on efficient PfEMP1 presentation; role of MSP-1 in platelet activation; effect of parasite proteins in TGF-β regulation and the role of albumin in astrocyte dysfunction.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This work links key host-parasite, parasite-parasite and host-host protein-protein interactions to key processes of cerebral malaria and generates hypotheses for disease pathogenesis based on a filtered interaction dataset. These hypotheses provide novel and significant insights to cerebral malaria.</p

Mechanisms of Loss of Functions of Human Angiogenin Variants Implicated in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Background: Mutations in the coding region of angiogenin (ANG) gene have been found in patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Neurodegeneration results from the loss of angiogenic ability of ANG (protein coded by ANG). In this work, we performed extensive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of wild-type ANG and disease associated ANG variants to elucidate the mechanism behind the loss of ribonucleolytic activity and nuclear translocation activity, functions needed for angiogenesis. Methodology/Principal Findings: MD simulations were carried out to study the structural and dynamic differences in the catalytic site and nuclear localization signal residues between WT-ANG (Wild-type ANG) and six mutants. Variants K17I, S28N, P112L and V113I have confirmed association with ALS, while T195C and A238G single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) encoding L35P and K60E mutants respectively, have not been associated with ALS. Our results show that loss of ribonucleolytic activity in K17I is caused by conformational switching of the catalytic residue His114 by 99u. The loss of nuclear translocation activity of S28N and P112L is caused by changes in the folding of the residues 31 RRR 33 that result in the reduction in solvent accessible surface area (SASA). Consequently, we predict that V113I will exhibit loss of angiogenic properties by loss of nuclear translocation activity and L35P by loss of both ribonucleolytic activity and nuclear translocation activity. No functional loss was inferred for K60E. The MD simulation results were supported by hydrogen bond interactio

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Not AvailableGenetic variability, genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability, genetic advance, correlation coefficients among yield and yield components, direct and indirect effect of yield components on yield for fifteen characters in twenty rice genotype under rainfed upland ecosystem were carried out. The analysis of variance revealed that there were highly significant differences for all the characters among the genotypes. Higher GCV and PCV were observed in yield per plot and flag leaf width. High heritability with high genetic advance was observed in grains per panicle and fertile grains per panicle which indicated the governance by additive gene. But high heritability with low genetic advance was observed in L/B ratio, flag leaf width, kernel length, kernel width and yield per plot suggesting that these traits had greater influence of the non-additive gene action. Plant height had positive significant correlation with days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, grains per panicle, fertile grains per panicle and kernel width. Days to 50% flowering was significantly and positively correlated with days to maturity, flag leaf length, flag leaf width, grains per panicle and fertile grains per panicle. The path coefficient analysis at phenotypic level revealed that fertile grains per plant had the maximum positive direct effect on grain yield followed by plant height, kernel length and tillers per plant.ICA

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Not AvailableGoods and services tax or GST is an important fiscal instrument to ensure efficient, equitable and sustainable economic growth. India switched over to GST in 2017, bringing all economic activities, including those related to agricultural sector, under its ambit. Most agricultural services remain exempted from GST, and tax rates on several inputs and commodities have been reduced. Tax rates on machines and equipment used in dairy industry have marginally been reduced, while dairy products have been brought under tax net. Tax incidence machines and equipments used in agro-processing has increased. These changes in tax rates are likely to influence prices of inputs and their usage; adoption of technologies and prices of agricultural commodities and thereby farm profits. In this paper, we have attempted to highlight likely impacts of GST on input prices and cost of cultivation of important crops.Not Availabl