Isolation, screening and characterization of riboflavin producing lactic acid bacteria from Katpadi, Vellore district

Riboflavin is a basic component of the cellular metabolism since it is the precursor of the coenzymes flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD). Riboflavin producing lactic acid bacteria are of potential importance to the fermented food industry since the chemical processes is being replaced by the fermentative biotechnological methods. The present study was carried out to identify and characterize the best riboflavin producing lactic acid bacteria from the yoghurt samples of the Vellore district. The strains isolated belong to the genus Lactobacillus, streptococcus, Pediococcus, and Leuconostoc. Lactobacillus was the predominant strain. The best riboflavin producing strain was characterized to be Lactobacillus fermentum by both biochemical as well as molecular methods from the Institute of microbial technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh, India and deposited with the accession number MTCC 8711. The strain could be a better starter replacing the conventional lactic acid bacteria where in the fermented foods could be naturally fortified with the riboflavin

Designing a cost effective air-Lift reactor Designing a cost effective air-Lift reac- tor for the bioremeDiation of composite tannery effLuents

abstract tannin degrading microbes Bacillus laterosporus mtcc 6017, Klebsiella pnuemoniae mtcc 7162 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from tannery effluents were tested for their ability to degrade vegetable tannins in tannery effluents, along with other polluting parameters in the effluents like coD and total Dissolved solids (tDs). an inexpensive Air-Lift Reactor (ALR) was designed to carry out effluent treatment (32 l) at a pilot scale. The efficiency of the ALR on the reduction of COD, tannin and TDS by the consortium of microorganisms was assessed at different air flow rates (0.1 l/s to 1.5 l/s) and three diluted loading rates (1: 5 to 1: 15). The optimum AFR rate was found to be between 0.5 and 1.0 l/s, to get significant result in 48 h. Reduction in the loading rates by means of dilution (1: 5) enhanced the performance of the isolates under ALR, reduction increased to 87%, 89% and 54% for COD, tannin and TDS respectively at the end of 48 hours

Influence of some plant phenolics on the activity of δ-endotoxin of Bacillus thuringiensis var. galleriae on Heliothis armigera

Bioassays with Bacillus thuringiensis var. galleriae Berliner δ-endotoxin and plant phenolics on Heliothis armigera Hubner enhanced the activity of B.t. var. galleriae endotoxin. The presence of plant phenolics with B.t var. galleria endotoxin not only reduced feeding potential and weight gain by the larvae, but also enhanced the LC50 value of the toxin. Our study demonstrates the effect of phytochemicals from resistant crop plants on the biocidal activity of B. thuringiensis strains in laboratory conditions

Heat flux as an on-line indicator of metabolic activity in pilot scale bioreactor during the production of Bacillus thuringiensis var. galleriae-based biopesticides

The effective biotechnol. process development depends on the system for monitoring the activity of the culture during cultivation. The feasibility of monitoring the metabolic flux during the cultivation of Bacillus thuringiensis var. galleriae (Btg) in pilot scale bioreactor was studied. All possible sources of heat generation and transfer in the system were accounted to det. the metabolic heat flux caused by the culture alone. Successful demonstration of the heat measurements has revealed the scale-up characteristics of microbial process based on the heat generation data. In addn., influence of complex media sources on heat flux, sporulation and insecticidal crystal protein (ICP) synthesis was understood. Nature of the microbial process has necessitated fed-batch cultivation with glucose soln. feeding in proportions to the metabolic heat prodn. rate and subsequent optimization of the feeding glucose soln. concn. had resulted in an enhanced ICP concn. As a significant outcome, heat flux into the cooling water for the maintenance of bioreactor temp. was found to be in definite correlation with the metabolic heat prodn. rate. This allowed an opportunity for understanding the metabolic status of the culture with continuous online monitoring of the temp. profile of the cooling water in industrial scale fermn. with cost effectiveness. Continuous assessment of cultures through heat flux could be exploited by enhancing the desired metabolic process(s) in industrial scale fermn. [on SciFinder (R)

Parasitic Helminth Genomics

The initiation of genome projects on helminths of medical importance promises to yield new drug targets and vaccine candidates in unprecedented numbers. In order to exploit this emerging data it is essential that the user community is aware of the scope and quality of data available, and that the genome projects provide analyses of the raw data to highlight potential genes of interest. Core bioinformatics support for the parasite genome projects has promoted these approaches. In the Brugia genome project, a combination of expressed sequence tag sequencing from multiple cDNA libraries representing the complete filarial nematode lifecycle, and comparative analysis of the sequence dataset, particularly using the complete genome sequence of the model nematode C. elegans, has proved very effective in gene discovery