Recent developments in transgenics for abiotic stress in legumes of the semi-arid tropics

The semi-arid tropics (SAT) are characterized by unpredictable weather, limited and erratic rainfall and nutrient poor soils and suffer from a host of agricultural constraints. Several biotic and abiotic stresses affect crop productivity. Mandated crops of ICRISAT that include groundnut, pigeonpea, chickpea, sorghum, and pearl millet are the main staple foods for nearly one billion people in the SAT. Judicious application of biotechnological tools holds great potential in alleviating some of the major constraints to productivity of these crops. Gains in crop productivity through research advances in genetic enhancement will help to achieve sustainable food security, poverty alleviation, and environmental protection in the SAT. ICRISAT has a commitment to transfer the benefits of plant biotechnology to the developing world, as genes relevant to their crops and environment become available. Genetic transformation provides a complimentary means for the genetic betterment of the genome of these crops. Therefore, the research in transgenic crops offers a new means to achieve ICRISAT's mission, i.e., applying science to improve agriculture in areas of the world where sub-optimal rainfall and biotic stresses are the major constraints for crop productivity. In this pursuit, efficient protocols for the genetic transformation of the important legumes of the SAT including groundnut, pigeonpea and chickpea have recently been developed at ICRISAT. More recently, in collaboration with our partners, we have initiated work on the development of transgenic plants for major abiotic stresses that include drought, salinity and low temperatures. Several gene transfer approaches have been shown to improve the stress tolerance of crop plants. The transferred genes include those encoding for enzymes required for the biosynthesis of various osmoprotectants, or those encoding enzymes for modifying membrane lipids, LEA proteins, detoxification enzyme, and stress-inducible transcription factors have been demonstrated to have great potential. This paper reviews the current status of transformation technology for the genetic improvement of legumes of the SAT and it's possible application for developing transgenic plants with enhanced tolerance/resistance to abiotic stresses

Efficiency of gamma irradiation and ethyl methane sulphonate in inducing variations in Jasminum auriculatum Vahl.

Vegetatively propagated crops like Jasminum auriculatum have a constraint in genetic variation due to a narrow genetic base that restricts the insights in any crop breeding programme. Mutation breeding is a potential tool that directs a way to create desirable variation effectively in vegetatively propagated crops. The optimum dose of mutagen is the one which produces the maximum frequency of mutation in turn the variation, with minimum killing. The aim of the present paper unveils the Lethal Dose (LD50) and the growth reduction dose (GR50) for both Gamma irradiation (GI) and Ethyl methane sulphonate (EMS) for the ecotype ‘Muthu Mullai’ of Jasminum auriculatum. These parameters of GR and EMS treated cuttings were analysed by considering the GR50 values of the mortality rate (57%, 48%), survival percentage (12.479Gy, 13.268mM), shoot length (18.59Gy, 18.28mM), root length (20.39Gy, 18.17mM), number of leaves (22.29Gy, 17.47mM), number of sprouts (22.97Gy, 16.17mM), vigour index (10.43Gy, 11.05mM), leaf length (21.61Gy, 19.90mM) and leaf width (19.2Gy, 16.17mM). The LD50 value was 12.479 Gy for GI and 13.268 mM for EMS treatment. The GR50 for different growth parameters ranged from 14.93 to 22.9 Gy for GI and 1.05 to 19.9 mM for EMS treatment. The mutagenic efficiency and effectiveness were 214.96 and 89.36 for GI and 48.66 and 33.77 for EMS treatment, respectively. These doses can be used for generating considerable variation, which can be put to use in future crop improvement programmes for Jasmine

COMBINATION OF MOMORDICA CHARANTIA AND PHYLLANTHUS AMARUS FOR HEPATOPROTECTIVE ACTIVITY IN ETHANOL AND ANTI-TUBERCULAR DRUGS INDUCED HEPATOTOXICITY IN RATS

Objective: To evaluate the synergistic protective effect of Momordica charantia and Phyllanthus amarus combination (MC+PA) of doses 200 and 400 mg/kg on the liver in different experimental models of hepatotoxicity. Methods: The hepatoprotective activity was evaluated in ethanol and anti-tubercular drugs (isoniazid-INH, rifampicin-RIF) induced hepatotoxicity models. Hepatotoxicity in both models was induced to all groups except the normal control. Intoxicated rats were treated with silymarin and various doses of MC+PA for 8 d in ethanol-induced and 21 d in INH+RIF induced hepatotoxicity models. At the completion of study, the biochemical markers and the anti-oxidant status (SOD and MDA) were measured and also the histopathological evaluation of the liver tissue was carried out. Results: Combination therapy remarkably reduced the elevated profile of the biochemical markers and thereby improved the anti-oxidant status, thus exhibiting the synergistic hepatoprotective effect when compared with the positive control group (p<0.001). Histopathological evaluation demonstrated that MC+PA decreased the liver damage significantly in comparison with the positive group. Conclusion: The current work suggests that the combined extract showed synergistic effects on ethanol and anti-tubercular drugs induced hepatotoxicity models by significantly decreasing the liver damage

ATTITUDE TOWARDS GENERIC FORMULATIONS USAGE: NARROWING THE GAP BETWEEN PHARMACIST AND PHYSICIANS

Objective: The thought of providing the best quality of medicines at cheaper costs made the governments to think of generic drug substitutions in order to minimize the economic burden. This study was designed to investigate the attitude of physicians and pharmacists towards generic medicines and thus to reduce the gap between them.Methods: This is a simple, prospective, cross-sectional, comparative study conducted for a period of 3 mo. 100 Subjects (50 pharmacists and 50 physicians) were included in this study. Subjects who ever graduated with the pharmacy degree and working as pharmacists, as well as clinical practitioners, were included in this study. Data collected using a validated questionnaire.Results: 60% of physicians and 80% of pharmacists were confident enough in dispensing generic products. 56% of physicians agree that pharmacists play a vital role in providing assistance on the use of generic medicines. 70% of physicians and 90% of pharmacists agreed that the generic medicines are of less expensive.Conclusion: Our Study concludes that pharmacist's shows a higher positive response towards the usage of generic products than physicians. Generic drugs typically cost 30% to 60% less than their brand products. In addition, patients taking generic drugs seem to be more willing to continue therapy

Management of lateral end clavicle fractures-using lateral clavicle locking plate: a prospective study

Background: Lateral end clavicle fractures are one of the common upper limb fractures. They constitute 21–28% of all clavicle fractures. Of these 10–52% is displaced fractures. The management of fractures of lateral end clavicle remains debated and challenging. The objectivbe of this study is to evaluate the functional outcome following surgical treatment of unstable/displaced (Neer type II lateral clavicle fractures, and acromio-clavicular joint dislocations Rockwood grade III to V) lateral end clavicle fractures using lateral clavicle locking plate.Methods: It is a prospective study conducted in the orthopaedics department of GSL Medical College and General Hospital for a period of 3 years (April 2016 to March 2019) among a total of 60 patients.Results: About 23 (38.3%) belonged to 41–50 years age group, followed by 16 (26.7%) to 31–40 years age group and 13 (21.7%) to >51 years age group and 8 (13.3%) to 18–30 years age group. The time from trauma to surgery ranged from 0-15 days with a mean of 5 days and the mean operating time was 41 minutes ranging between 23-70 minutes. Mean duration to union was 13.33±2.126 weeks and the mean Constant Murley score was 88.56. Functional outcome at 6 months follow up was excellent in 8 (13.3%), good in 37 (61.7%), fair in 13 (21.7%) and poor in 2 (3.3%) patients.Conclusions: Although there is no consensus as to a “gold standard” fixation method for unstable distal clavicle fractures, satisfactory outcomes could be obtained using the lateral clavicle locking plate resulting in sufficient stabilization and good functional outcome

MOCF: A Multi-Objective Clustering Framework using an Improved Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

Traditional clustering algorithms, such as K-Means, perform clustering with a single goal in mind. However, in many real-world applications, multiple objective functions must be considered at the same time. Furthermore, traditional clustering algorithms have drawbacks such as centroid selection, local optimal, and convergence. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)-based clustering approaches were developed to address these shortcomings. Animals and their social Behaviour, particularly bird flocking and fish schooling, inspire PSO. This paper proposes the Multi-Objective Clustering Framework (MOCF), an improved PSO-based framework. As an algorithm, a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) based Multi-Objective Clustering (PSO-MOC) is proposed. It significantly improves clustering efficiency. The proposed framework's performance is evaluated using a variety of real-world datasets. To test the performance of the proposed algorithm, a prototype application was built using the Python data science platform. The empirical results showed that multi-objective clustering outperformed its single-objective counterparts

A Method for Isolation and Purification of Peanut Genomic DNA Suitable for Analytical Applications

Numerous methods are available for isolation of plant genomic DNA, but in practice these procedures are empirical due to variability in plant tissue composition. Consistent isolation of quality DNA from peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is particularly problematic due to the presence of phenolic compounds and polysaccharides. Inconsistencies in extraction results can be attributed to the age and growth stage of the plant material analyzed. Mature leaves have higher quantities of polyphenols, tannins, and polysaccharides that can contaminate DNA during isolation. We show that four published protocols could not be used to isolate peanut DNA of sufficient quality for PCR amplification or Southern hybridization. We have devised a new protocol that uses DEAE-cellulose purification to isolate peanut DNA useful for downstream applications

Agrobacterium-mediated production of transgenic pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.Millsp.) expressing the synthetic bt cry1Ab gene

Conventional breeding methods have not been very successful in producing pest-resistant genotypes of pigeonpea, due to the limited genetic variation in cultivated germplasm. We have developed an efficient method to produce transgenic plants of pigeonpea by incorporating the cry1Ab gene of Bacillus thuringiensis through Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated genetic transformation. The novel tissue culture protocol is based on the direct regeneration of adventitious shoot buds in the axillary bud region of in vitro germinating seedlings by suppressing the axillary and primary shoot buds on a medium containing a high concentration of N6-benzyladenine (22.0 µM). The tissue with potential to produce adventitious shoot buds can be explanted and used for co-cultivation with A. tumefaciens carrying the synthetic cry1Ab on a binary vector and driven by a CaMV 35S promoter. Following this protocol, over 75 independently transformed transgenic events of pigeonpea were produced and advanced to T2 generation. Amongst the recovered primary putative transformation events, 60% showed positive gene integration based on initial polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening. PCR analysis of the progenies from independent transformants followed gene inheritance in a Mendelian ratio and 65% of the transformants showed the presence of single-copy inserts of the introduced genes. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that the transcripts of the introduced genes were normally transcribed and resulted in the expression of Cry1Ab protein in the tested T2 generation plants. Interestingly, the content of Cry1Ab protein as a percent of total soluble protein varied in different tissues of the whole plant, showing the highest expression in flowers (0.1%) and least in the leaves (0.025%) as estimated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The transgenic plants produced in this study offer immense potential for the improvement of this important legume of the semi-arid tropics for resistance to insect pests

IMPLEMENTATION OF AN EFFICIENT AND OPTIMIZED VEDIC MULTIPLIER DESIGN USING REVERSIBLE LOGIC GATES

Multiplier design is always a challenging task; however many   designs are proposed, the user needs demands much more optimized ones. Vedic mathematics provides   some   algorithms that evaluate fast results, both in mental calculations or hardware design. Power dissipation is continuously reduced by the use of Reversible logic. The reversible Urdhva Tiryakbhayam Vedic multiplier is one such multiplier which is effective both in terms of speed and power. In this paper the modified design increase the performance by maintain the design functionality without any degradation. The Total Reversible Logic Implementation Cost (TRLIC) evaluate the proposed design. This multiplier has application over  designing Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) Filters and other applications of DSP like imaging, software defined radios, wireless communications.

An efficient protocol for shoot regeneration and genetic transformation of pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] using leaf explants

A protocol for efficient plant regeneration from leaf explants of pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] was developed for the production of transgenic plants. Leaf explants from 4- to 5-day-old in vitro raised seedlings were most efficient in producing multiple adventitious shoots in 90% of the explants on shoot induction medium [Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium +5.0 µM benzyladenine +5.0 µM kinetin]. Shoot buds originated from the petiolar cut end of the explants and elongated rapidly on medium containing 0.58 µM gibberellic acid. Over 80% of the elongated shoots rooted well on MS medium containing 11.42 µM indole-3-acetic acid and were transplanted with 100% success. The procedure reported here is very simple, efficient and reproducible, and is applicable across diverse genotypes of pigeonpea. The usefulness of this system for further studies on the genetic transformation of pigeonpea has been demonstrated in biolistics-mediated gene transfer by using nptII and uidA as marker genes, where 50% of the selected plants showed gene integration and expression