EXTRACELLULAR ALKALINE PROTEASE PRODUCING HALO-ALKALITOLERANT BACTERIA ISOLATED FROM MARINE COASTS OF ODISHA

Objective: The objective of the present study was on the isolation of alkali-tolerant bacteria from sediment samples of different coasts of Odisha, having potentiality to produce alkaline protease.Methods: About 25 sediment samples were collected and analyzed for pH and moisture contents. Then isolation of alkali-tolerants was done using Horikoshi media at 10.3 pH. Isolates were analyzed for producing alkaline protease by plate assay method both at pH 6 and 10. Effects of temperature on protease production were also determined. Besides a new method of quantification of enzymes were adapted. Along this the isolates were partially characterized and identification was done using PIBWin software.Results: About 80 isolates were initially isolated, and 11 isolates were considered based on maximal zones of clearances at alkaline pH. Maximum solubilisation index (SI) was found to be 30 mm by 3 isolates viz. AP2, AP8 and AP13 while maximum hydrolytic run percentage (HR%) was found to be 65.39% by AP3. About 45.46% isolates had capability for protease production at 37 °C and 18.18% at 57 °C while 81.82% isolates showed production at 17 °C. AP8 was the good producers of alkaline protease having SI 39 mm at pH 10 while incubating at 47 °C. Isolates were characterized partially by cultural, morphological, biochemical and physiological tests, which were belonged to the genera of Bacillus, Virgibacillus and Micrococcus. The isolated bacteria showed growth at pH ranges from 4-12 and can tolerate 12% NaCl concentrations for their growth.Conclusion: Due to the above unique features and capability to produce alkaline proteases by the marine isolates, can be used significantly in various industries.Keywords: Alkali-tolerant, Alkaline protease, Halo-tolerant, Hydrolytic run, Odisha-coas

Acute on chronic liver failure- etiology, clinical profile, prognostic scores: experience from tertiary care centre of eastern India

Background: Acute on chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a recently recognised entity in chronic liver disease patients. Data regarding ACLF in terms of clinical presentation, etiology of underlying cirrhosis, precipitating factors, prognostic factors are lacking from eastern India. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the above factors along with the assessment of short-term mortality (4 weeks) in patients of ACLF.Methods: In this prospective observational study, 120 patients diagnosed as ACLF were included. A comparison of complications, biochemical profiles and prognostic scores was made between the survivor and non-survivor groups.Results: Of the 120 ACLF patients included, the mean age was 44.9±8.6 years and the male to female ratio was 2.5:1. Common clinical presentations were jaundice (100%), ascites (88.3%), hepatic encephalopathy (60%). The most common etiology for underlying CLD was alcohol (51.7%) followed by chronic hepatitis B (20%) and chronic hepatitis C (15%) infection. Alcohol hepatitis (40%) followed by hepatotropic viral infections (20%) and drug-induced liver injury (15%) were common identifiable precipitating agents. After a follow-up period of 4 weeks, 56 (46.6%) out of 120 patients died. The presence of sepsis, hyponatremia, renal failure, and coagulopathy was significantly associated with high mortality. Mortality was higher among patients having high Chronic liver failure consortium- acute on chronic liver failure (CLIF-ACLF) grade and closely related to the number of organ failures.Conclusions: ACLF is a rapidly progressive syndrome in chronic liver disease patients, having high short-term mortality

Development of Broad Spectrum and Durable Bacterial Blight Resistant Variety through Pyramiding of Four Resistance Genes in Rice

Not AvailableBacterial blight (BB) disease caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae is a major biotic constraint on obtaining higher grain yields in rice. Marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABB) was performed by the pyramiding of Xa4, xa5, xa13 and Xa21 resistance genes in the popular variety, Ranidhan. A foreground selection in BC1F1, BC2F1, and BC3F1 progenies detected all the target genes in 12, 7 and 16 progenies by using the closely linked markers from a population size of 426, 410, and 530, respectively. The BB-positive progenies carrying the target genes with a maximal similarity to the recipient parent was backcrossed in each backcross generation. A total of 1784 BC3F2 seeds were obtained from the best BC3F1 progeny. The screening of the BC3F2 progenies for the four target genes resulted in eight plants carrying all the four target genes. A bioassay of the pyramided lines conferred very high levels of resistance to the predominant isolates of bacterial blight disease. In addition, these pyramided lines were similar to Ranidhan in 16 morpho-quality traits, namely, plant height, filled grains/panicle, panicles/plant, grain length, grain breadth, grain weight, milling, head rice recovery, kernel length after cooking, water uptake, the volume expansion ratio, gel consistency,alkali-spreading value, and the amylose content.Not Availabl

Whole Genome Characterization of a Few EMS-Induced Mutants of Upland Rice Variety Nagina 22 Reveals a Staggeringly High Frequency of SNPs Which Show High Phenotypic Plasticity Towards the Wild-Type

The Indian initiative, in creating mutant resources for the functional genomics in rice, has been instrumental in the development of 87,000 ethylmethanesulfonate (EMS)-induced mutants, of which 7,000 are in advanced generations. The mutants have been created in the background of Nagina 22, a popular drought- and heat-tolerant upland cultivar. As it is a pregreen revolution cultivar, as many as 573 dwarf mutants identified from this resource could be useful as an alternate source of dwarfing. A total of 541 mutants, including the macromutants and the trait-specific ones, obtained after appropriate screening, are being maintained in the mutant garden. Here, we report on the detailed characterizations of the 541 mutants based on the distinctness, uniformity, and stability (DUS) descriptors at two different locations. About 90% of the mutants were found to be similar to the wild type (WT) with high similarity index (>0.6) at both the locations. All 541 mutants were characterized for chlorophyll and epicuticular wax contents, while a subset of 84 mutants were characterized for their ionomes, namely, phosphorous, silicon, and chloride contents. Genotyping of these mutants with 54 genomewide simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers revealed 93% of the mutants to be either completely identical to WT or nearly identical with just one polymorphic locus. Whole genome resequencing (WGS) of four mutants, which have minimal differences in the SSR fingerprint pattern and DUS characters from the WT, revealed a staggeringly high number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on an average (16,453 per mutant) in the genic sequences. Of these, nearly 50% of the SNPs led to non-synonymous codons, while 30% resulted in synonymous codons. The number of insertions and deletions (InDels) varied from 898 to 2,595, with more than 80% of them being 1–2 bp long. Such a high number of SNPs could pose a serious challenge in identifying gene(s) governing the mutant phenotype by next generation sequencing-based mapping approaches such as Mutmap. From the WGS data of the WT and the mutants, we developed a genic resource of the WT with a novel analysis pipeline. The entire information about this resource along with the panicle architecture of the 493 mutants is made available in a mutant database EMSgardeN22 (http://14.139.229.201/EMSgardeN22)

Dynamics of Hot QCD Matter -- Current Status and Developments

The discovery and characterization of hot and dense QCD matter, known as Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), remains the most international collaborative effort and synergy between theorists and experimentalists in modern nuclear physics to date. The experimentalists around the world not only collect an unprecedented amount of data in heavy-ion collisions, at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York, USA, and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland but also analyze these data to unravel the mystery of this new phase of matter that filled a few microseconds old universe, just after the Big Bang. In the meantime, advancements in theoretical works and computing capability extend our wisdom about the hot-dense QCD matter and its dynamics through mathematical equations. The exchange of ideas between experimentalists and theoreticians is crucial for the progress of our knowledge. The motivation of this first conference named "HOT QCD Matter 2022" is to bring the community together to have a discourse on this topic. In this article, there are 36 sections discussing various topics in the field of relativistic heavy-ion collisions and related phenomena that cover a snapshot of the current experimental observations and theoretical progress. This article begins with the theoretical overview of relativistic spin-hydrodynamics in the presence of the external magnetic field, followed by the Lattice QCD results on heavy quarks in QGP, and finally, it ends with an overview of experiment results.Comment: Compilation of the contributions (148 pages) as presented in the `Hot QCD Matter 2022 conference', held from May 12 to 14, 2022, jointly organized by IIT Goa & Goa University, Goa, Indi

Production of He-4 and (4) in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV at the LHC

Results on the production of He-4 and (4) nuclei in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S = 2.76 TeV in the rapidity range vertical bar y vertical bar <1, using the ALICE detector, are presented in this paper. The rapidity densities corresponding to 0-10% central events are found to be dN/dy4(He) = (0.8 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.3 (syst)) x 10(-6) and dN/dy4 = (1.1 +/- 0.4 (stat) +/- 0.2 (syst)) x 10(-6), respectively. This is in agreement with the statistical thermal model expectation assuming the same chemical freeze-out temperature (T-chem = 156 MeV) as for light hadrons. The measured ratio of (4)/He-4 is 1.4 +/- 0.8 (stat) +/- 0.5 (syst). (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

MUSiC : a model-unspecific search for new physics in proton-proton collisions at root s=13TeV

Results of the Model Unspecific Search in CMS (MUSiC), using proton-proton collision data recorded at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb(-1), are presented. The MUSiC analysis searches for anomalies that could be signatures of physics beyond the standard model. The analysis is based on the comparison of observed data with the standard model prediction, as determined from simulation, in several hundred final states and multiple kinematic distributions. Events containing at least one electron or muon are classified based on their final state topology, and an automated search algorithm surveys the observed data for deviations from the prediction. The sensitivity of the search is validated using multiple methods. No significant deviations from the predictions have been observed. For a wide range of final state topologies, agreement is found between the data and the standard model simulation. This analysis complements dedicated search analyses by significantly expanding the range of final states covered using a model independent approach with the largest data set to date to probe phase space regions beyond the reach of previous general searches.Peer reviewe

Measurement of prompt open-charm production cross sections in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

The production cross sections for prompt open-charm mesons in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV are reported. The measurement is performed using a data sample collected by the CMS experiment corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 29 nb(-1). The differential production cross sections of the D*(+/-), D-+/-, and D-0 ((D) over bar (0)) mesons are presented in ranges of transverse momentum and pseudorapidity 4 < p(T) < 100 GeV and vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2.1, respectively. The results are compared to several theoretical calculations and to previous measurements.Peer reviewe

Measurement of b jet shapes in proton-proton collisions at root s=5.02 TeV

We present the first study of charged-hadron production associated with jets originating from b quarks in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV. The data sample used in this study was collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 27.4 pb(-1). To characterize the jet substructure, the differential jet shapes, defined as the normalized transverse momentum distribution of charged hadrons as a function of angular distance from the jet axis, are measured for b jets. In addition to the jet shapes, the per-jet yields of charged particles associated with b jets are also quantified, again as a function of the angular distance with respect to the jet axis. Extracted jet shape and particle yield distributions for b jets are compared with results for inclusive jets, as well as with the predictions from the pythia and herwig++ event generators.Peer reviewe

Measurement of the azimuthal anisotropy of Y(1S) and Y(2S) mesons in PbPb collisions at root s(NN)=5.02 TeV

The second-order Fourier coefficients (v(2)) characterizing the azimuthal distributions of Y(1S) and Y(2S) mesons produced in PbPb collisions at root s(NN) = 5.02 TeV are studied. The Y mesons are reconstructed in their dimuon decay channel, as measured by the CMS detector. The collected data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.7 nb(-1). The scalar product method is used to extract the v2 coefficients of the azimuthal distributions. Results are reported for the rapidity range vertical bar y vertical bar < 2.4, in the transverse momentum interval 0 < pT < 50 GeV/c, and in three centrality ranges of 10-30%, 30-50% and 50-90%. In contrast to the J/psi mesons, the measured v(2) values for the Y mesons are found to be consistent with zero. (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe