Anticoagulant property of sulphated polysaccharides extracted from marine brown algae collected from Mandapam Island, India

The marine brown algae: Sargassum tenerrimum, Sargassum wightii, Turbinaria conoides, Turbinaria ornata and Padina tetrastromatica were collected from Mandapam Island, India. The crude sulphated polysaccharides (SPS) were extracted using hot water and examined for anticoagulation activity. The sugar, sulphate and protein in crude SPS were analyzed. The presence of sulphated polysaccharide was confirmed by agarose gel electrophoresis and further characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The FTIR analysis of crude SPS showed characteristic band of polysaccharides at 900, 1740 cm-1 and ester sulphate at 1250 to 1260 cm-1. Moreover, the absorbance band at 820 cm-1 for S. tenerrimum, S. wightii, T. conoides and T. ornata denotes sulphation at equatorial position, but in the case of P. tetrastromatica, sulphation at axial position is denoted by absorbance band at 850 cm-1. The heparin like activity of crude SPS was determined by metachromatic assay. The anticoagulant activity of crude SPS was evaluated by activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) and prothrombin time (PT) assays. The metachromatic, APTT and heparinoid activities of crude SPS from S. tenerrimum, S. wightii, T. conoides, T. ornata and P. tetrastromatica were in the range of 0.045 to 0.0347, 134 to 89 s and 25.47 to 14.5 USP units/mg, respectively. The prolongation of prothrombin time by crude SPS was not found.Keywords: Brown algae, sulphated polysaccharides, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), agarose gel, metachromatic activity, activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), heparinAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(16), pp. 1937-194

Varietal preference of pulse beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus (F.) in greengram

Not AvailableEighty five greengram accessions were evaluated against the pulse beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus (F.) to find the sources of resistance under laboratory condition. Accessions which exhibited lesser growth index (GI) during the preliminary ‘free choice’ test were further subjected to ‘force choice’ test for confirmation of resistance. Though, no accession was found immune to infestation, yet showed significant differences in terms of oviposition, developmental period, adult emergence and seed weight loss. Three accessions viz, KM-12-10, KM-11-32 and KM-11-10 revealed lesser adult emergence (21.34, 30.64 and 34.92%, respectively), prolonged developmental period (32.21, 31.82 and 34.59 days, respectively) and lesser index of suitability (0.041, 0.047 and 0.049, respectively) as compared to the highly susceptible M1319B, which exhibited 84.05% survival, developmental period of 23.75 days, and index of suitability 0.081. Correlation between GI and other growth parameters on the accessions indicated that the GI had negative relationship with developmental period (-0.0987) and significant positive relationship with adult emergence (0.985) and weight loss (0.959). Hence, these accessions might be effectively used as promising donors for developing resistant varieties, and for reducing post harvest losses.Not Availabl

Imidacloprid efficacy against brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens under elevated carbon dioxide and temperature

Not AvailableInfluence of elevated CO2 and temperature (elevated condition (EC)) vis-à-vis ambient CO2 and tempera-ture (ambient condition (AC)) on plant (rice) growth, insect Nilaparvata lugens (brown planthopper (BPH)) population and insecticide (Imidacloprid) efficacy was evaluated under open top chamber conditions. EC had a positive effect on rice crop through increase in tillers numbers (18.4%), reproductive tillers (20.5%) but in-flicted negative effect on 1000-grain weight (11.7%) and grain yield (11.9%). Likewise, higher canopy cover of the plant was noticed under EC (16.1 cm) when compared to AC (12.9 cm). With respect to BPH population during 2013 and 2014, EC exhibited posi-tive effect by enhancing its mean population to 66.1 and 49.4 hoppers hill–1 respectively, compared to cor-responding 36.8 and 29.5 hoppers hill–1 under AC. With respect to Imidacloprid efficacy against BPH, LC50 was significantly lower under EC (0.044%) in comparison to AC (0.065). Similarly, in 2013 under AC, 500, 600, 700 l ha–1 spray volume caused >50% BPH mortality than 400 l ha–1 at 5 day after spray. However, during the same exposure period under EC, only 700 and 600 l ha–1 produced more than 50% mortality compared to 500 and 400 l ha–1. Positive in-fluence of EC on BPH population resulted in signifi-cantly higher yield loss (41.1%) compared to ambient (26.5%) in untreated check. Though LC50 under EC was less, higher canopy size and more BPH population resulted in increase in spray volume to cause similar mortality as of AC. The present results indicated that spray volumes of 400 and 500 l ha–1 was found insuffi-cient to manage BPH population under EC; hence the current management strategies for BPH needs to be redefined under changing climatic conditions.Department of Science and Technology, GO

Brown planthopper-A ravaging pest of rice ecosystem

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Agrobacterium mediated transformation in rice

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Synthesis, molecular docking and anti-mycobacterial evaluation of new imidazo1,2-a]pyridine-2-carboxamide derivatives

New anti-tubercular agents, imidazo1,2-a]pyridine-2-carboxamide derivatives (5a-q) have been designed and synthesized. The structural considerations of the designed molecules were further supported by the docking study with a long-chain enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase (InhA). The chemical structures of the new compounds were characterized by IR, H-1 NMR, C-13 NMR, HRMS and elemental analysis. In addition, single crystal X-ray diffraction has also been recorded for compound 5f. Compounds were evaluated in vitro against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv, and cytotoxicity against HEK-293T cell line. Amongst the tested compounds 5j, 5l and 5q were emerged as good anti-tubercular agents with low cytotoxicity. The structure-anti TB activity relationship of these derivatives was explained by molecular docking. (C) 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved