Research Notes : United States : Evaluation of soybean germplasm for stress tolerance biological efficiency : To evaluate soybean germplasm and cultivars for stress tolerance toward : Pests

Soybean maturity groups V, VI, VII, and VIII have been screened systematically and accessions possessing potential source of natural resistance to Mexican Bean Beetle (MBB) have been identified along with several highly suscep-tible accessions for future studies. About 75% of the germplasm of maturity groups III and IV has been screened initially in 1985. A detailed copy of the screened germplasm can be obtained from scientists at Virginia State Univesit

Research Notes : United States : Evaluation of soybean germplasm for stress tolerance and biological efficiency : To evaluate soybean germplasm and cultivars for stress tolerance toward - Pest and Diseases

A total of 1,273 soybean germplasm lines and 39 commercial varie-ties were screened for natural resistance to Mexican bean beetle (MBB) under field conditions. There were 421, 314, 266, 136, and 136 germplasm and varieties from maturity groups VI, VII, VIII, IX, and X, respectively. An average of 1,000 laboratory-reared adult MBB per day were released uniformly over all the field throughout the growing season from May until September to create an adequate MBB infestation

Research Notes : United States : Evaluation of soybean germplasm for stress tolerance and biological efficiency towards : Pests

One of the major objectives of the proposal is systematic screening of all available soybean germplasm of Maturity Groups III to VIII for a natural resistance to a major insect pest, the Mexican bean beetle (MBB). These six Maturity Groups (III-VIII) cover abouL 5,000 plant introductions (Pis), 350 commercial varieties, and 80 breeding lines. Selected accessions of the most resistant (35% or less leaf defoliation) and highly susceptible (over 75% leaf defoliation) in general screening under field conditions were re-evaluated in triplicate in 1985 and in quadruplicate in 1986 (Table 2). About 20 special selections were evaluated for MBB under controlled environmental conditions

LEMONGRASS PLANT LEAF AND CULM AS POTENTIAL SOURCES OF REINFORCEMENT FOR BIO-COMPOSITES

A possible source of natural reinforcement for bio-composites can be represented by lemongrass plant (Cymbopogon flexuosus), a clumped and perennial grass which belongs to the Poaceae family. This plant is extensively used for several applications such as pharmacology, food preservation and cosmetics but, to the best of our knowledge, few papers were published on its use as source for reinforcement of composites and no one article was focused on the comparison between lemongrass leaves and culms as potential source of natural reinforcement. To this aim, a preliminary investigation on leaf and culm fibers was carried out to compare their physical and chemical features as well as their tensile properties. Furthermore, bio-composites based on a biodegradable starch-derived matrix (MaterBi®) and lemongrass leaf and culm particles were manufactured via extrusion and compression molding. For both fillers, two compositions (i.e., 10% and 20 wt.%) were investigated in terms of morphological and mechanical properties

Kinetics and mechanism of oxidation of erythro-series pentoses and hexoses by N-chloro-p-toluenesulfonamide

The kinetics and mechanism of oxidation of D-glucose, D-mannose, D-fructose, D-arabinose, and D-ribose with chloramine-T in alkaline medium were studied. The rate law, rate = k Chloramine-T] Sugar] HO-](2), was observed. The rate of the reaction was influenced by a change in ionic strength of the medium, and the dielectric effect was found to be negative. The latter enabled the computation of d(AB), the size of the activated complex. The reaction rate was almost doubled in deuterium oxide. Activation energies were calculated from the Arrhenius plots. HPLC and GLC-MS analyses of the products indicated that the sugars were oxidized to a mixture of aldonic acids, consisting of arabinonic, ribonic, erythronic, and glyceric acids. Based on these data, a plausible mechanism involving the aldo-enolic anions of pentoses and keto-enolic anions of hexoses is suggested. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

A Nano-Mgo and Ionic Liquid-Catalyzed ‘Green’ Synthesis Protocol for the Development of Adamantyl-Imidazolo-Thiadiazoles as Anti-Tuberculosis Agents Targeting Sterol 14α-Demethylase (CYP51)

In this work, we describe the ‘green’ synthesis of novel 6-(adamantan-1-yl)-2-substitutedimidazo[2,1-b][1,3,4]thiadiazoles (AITs) by ring formation reactions using 1-(adamantan-1-yl)-2-bromoethanone and 5-alkyl/aryl-2-amino1,3,4-thiadiazoles on a nano material base inionic liquid media. Given the established activity of imidazothiadiazoles against M. tuberculosis,we next examined the anti-TB activity of AITs against the H37Rv strain using Alamarblue assay. Among the tested compounds 6-(adamantan-1-yl)-2-(4-methoxyphenyl)imidazo[2,1-b][1,3,4]thiadiazole (3f) showed potent inhibitory activity towards M. tuberculosis with an MIC value of 8.5 μM. The inhibitory effect of this molecule against M. tuberculosis was comparable to the standard drugs such as Pyrazinamide, Streptomycin, and Ciprofloxacin drugs. Mechanistically, an in silico analysis predicted sterol 14α-demethylase (CYP51)as the likely target and experimental activity of 3f in this system corroborated the in silico target prediction. In summary, we herein report the synthesis and biological evaluation of novel AITs against M. tuberculosis that likely target CYP51 to induce their antimycobacterial activity

Synthesis of 1,2-benzisoxazole tethered 1,2,3-triazoles that exhibit anticancer activity in acute myeloid leukemia cell lines by inhibiting histone deacetylases, and inducing p21 and tubulin acetylation

1,2,3-Triazole-based heterocycles have previously been shown to possess significant anticancer activity in various tumor models. In the present study, we attached a 1,2,3-triazole moiety to the third position of a 1,2-benzisoxazole heterocycle via copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) with various alkynes and established for the title compounds significant antiproliferative effect against human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells. Among the tested compounds, 3-(4-(4-phenoxyphenyl)-1H-1,2,3-triazol-1-yl)benzodisoxazole (PTB) was found to be the most potent antiproliferative agent with an IC50 of 2 μM against MV4-11 cells using MTT assay. Notably, PTB induced cytotoxicity in MOLM13, MOLM14 and MV4-11 cells with selectivity over normal bone marrow cells (C57BL/6). Furthermore, PTB was found to induce cytotoxicity by increasing apoptosis of AML cells (MOLM13, MOLM14 and MV4-11) as well as sub-G1 cell population and apoptotic cells at submicromolar concentrations, as shown by flow cytometry and Annexin-V staining, respectively. On the protein level we suggested histone deacetylases (HDACs) as the potential protein target of those compounds in silico, and the predicted target was next experimentally validated by measuring the variations in the levels of p21, cyclin D and acetylation of histone H3 and tubulin. Molecular docking analysis of the title compounds with the second deacetylase domain of HDAC6 displayed high degree of shape complementarity to the binding site of the enzyme, forming multiple molecular interactions in the hydrophobic region as well as a hydrogen bond to the phenol side-chain of Tyr-782. Thus, 1,2,3-triazole derivatives appear to represent a class of novel, biologically active ligands against histone deacetylases which deserve to be further evaluated in their applications in the cancer field. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

A nano-MgO and ionic liquid-catalyzed 'green' synthesis protocol for the development of adamantyl-imidazolo-thiadiazoles as anti-tuberculosis agents targeting sterol 14α-demethylase (CYP51)

In this work, we describe the 'green' synthesis of novel 6-(adamantan-1-yl)-2-substitutedimidazo2,1-b1,3,4thiadiazoles (AITs) by ring formation reactions using 1-(adamantan-1-yl)-2-bromoethanone and 5-alkyl/aryl-2-amino1,3,4-thiadiazoles on a nano material base in ionic liquid media. Given the established activity of imidazothiadiazoles against M. tuberculosis, we next examined the anti-TB activity of AITs against the H37Rv strain using Alamar blue assay. Among the tested compounds 6-(adamantan-1-yl)-2-(4-methoxyphenyl)imidazo2,1-b1,3,4thiadiazole (3f) showed potent inhibitory activity towards M. tuberculosis with an MIC value of 8.5 μM. The inhibitory effect of this molecule against M. tuberculosis was comparable to the standard drugs such as Pyrazinamide, Streptomycin, and Ciprofloxacin drugs. Mechanistically, an in silico analysis predicted sterol 14α-demethylase (CYP51) as the likely target and experimental activity of 3f in this system corroborated the in silico target prediction. In summary, we herein report the synthesis and biological evaluation of novel AITs against M. tuberculosis that likely target CYP51 to induce their antimycobacterial activity. © 2015 Anusha et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Pyrrolidine-based cationic γ-peptide: a DNA-binding molecule works as a potent anti-gene agent

Pyrrolidine-based cationic peptides showing high stability to enzyme degradation and strong binding affinity towards DNA are widely investigated as tools to interfere in gene expression. Several studies have been focused on γ-peptide analogs with modifications on the peptide backbone in the attempt to overcome solubility, uptake, and aggregation issues. Pyrrolidine-based γ-peptide derivatives having two different modes of backbone conformation show interesting properties in terms of secondary structure and affinity of binding towards nucleic acids. In this paper, we illustrate our results obtained on two cationic 8-mer γ-peptides Gp1 and Gp2, and how they differ in side-chain spacing along the backbone was tested for DNA binding and DNA transfection activity. Both γ-peptides are stable toward protease digestion. Gp1 binds to DNA more tightly than GP2. This binding ability of Gp1 is attributed to its characteristic of single-chain PPII-like conformation. The Gp1 shows a reduction in its electrophoretic mobility when treated with plasmid DNA. The DNA transfection ability of γ-peptide Gp1 was compared with commercially available transfection reagent Effectene. In each case, Gp1 significantly enhanced the transfection efficiency (40%) of plasmid in Schneider cells compared to the commercial reagent (18%). The other γ-peptide GP2 is not active