Effect of gestational diabetes on neuronal cells in rat cerebellum in early postnatal life

Previous study has shown the adverse effects of gestational diabetes on hippocampal neuronal density in animal model. This study was conducted to determine the effect of gestational diabetes on rat cerebellum in early postnatal life. In this experimental study, 10 dams randomly allocated into control and diabetic groups on day 1 of gestation. Five dams in diabetic group were administered 40 mg/kg/BW (intraperitoneally) of streptozotocin and control animals received normal saline. Six offspring of each gestational diabetes mellitus and controls were randomly selected at day 7 of postnatal life. Offspring were sacrificed and coronal sections were taken from the cerebellum and stained with cresyl violet. The number of Purkinje and granular cells and thickness of layers of cerebellum were evaluated by quantitative computer-assisted morphometric method. The Purkinje cells density at apex and depth of cerebellar lobules in the experimental group (14.40±0.7, 14.86±0.6) significantly reduced in comparison with the control group (16.72±0.3, 17.85±0.7) (P<0.05). The granular cell density at apex and depth of cerebellar lobules in the experimental group (23.94±0.6, 22.81±0.5) significantly reduced in comparison with the control group (29.20±0.8, 28.1±0.8) (P<0.05). The thickness of the Purkinje and internal granular and molecular layers at apex and depth of cerebellar cortex significantly reduced in diabetics group compared to controls (P<0.05). This study revealed that gestational diabetes induces loss of number and size of the Purkinje cells and the granular cells and reduction of thickness of the Purkinje and internal granular layer of the cerebellar cortex in neonatal mice

In vitro drought effects on morphological and physiological indices of two fig (Ficus carica L.) cultivars

In vitro responses of two fig cultivars, ‘Sabz’ and ‘Siah’, were evaluated in MS media containing four levels of polyethylene glycol (PEG) (0, 2, 4, 6%) as a simulation of water stress. The results showed that in Sabz cultivar, shoot length, shoot fresh and dry weights were 43, 36 and 25%, respectively, lower than control in drought treatments caused by 4% PEG, while the leaf area and specific leaf area were not significantly (P&gt;0.05) affected. In Siah cultivar, shoot length, fresh and dry weights were 57, 58 and 40%, respectively, lower in stressed media in comparison to control. In contrast to Sabz cultivar, leaf area and specific leaf area of Siah cultivar were significantly reduced by addition of 6% PEG (56 and 21.5%, respectively). Naturally, the amount of proline in ‘Sabz’ was higher than in ‘Siah’ (81.8 µmole g-1 versus 16.7 µmole g-1). However, in both cultivars, with the addition of PEG in culture media, leaf proline content was increased, in comparison to control. With increasing PEG% in culture media, the amount of leaf soluble sugars content increased and the amount of starch decreased. The results show that ‘Siah’ is more sensitive to drought than ‘Sabz’ and that in vitro culture can be used to evaluate drought tolerance of cultivars

In vitro drought effects on morphological and physiological indices of two fig (Ficus carica L.) cultivars

In vitro responses of two fig cultivars, ‘Sabz’ and ‘Siah’, were evaluated in MS media containing four levels of polyethylene glycol (PEG) (0, 2, 4, 6%) as a simulation of water stress. The results showed that in Sabz cultivar, shoot length, shoot fresh and dry weights were 43, 36 and 25%, respectively, lower than control in drought treatments caused by 4% PEG, while the leaf area and specific leaf area were not significantly (P&gt;0.05) affected. In Siah cultivar, shoot length, fresh and dry weights were 57, 58 and 40%, respectively, lower in stressed media in comparison to control. In contrast to Sabz cultivar, leaf area and specific leaf area of Siah cultivar were significantly reduced by addition of 6% PEG (56 and 21.5%, respectively). Naturally, the amount of proline in ‘Sabz’ was higher than in ‘Siah’ (81.8 µmole g-1 versus 16.7 µmole g-1). However, in both cultivars, with the addition of PEG in culture media, leaf proline content was increased, in comparison to control. With increasing PEG% in culture media, the amount of leaf soluble sugars content increased and the amount of starch decreased. The results show that ‘Siah’ is more sensitive to drought than ‘Sabz’ and that in vitro culture can be used to evaluate drought tolerance of cultivars

Assessment of Pollution in the Central Soils of Khuzestan Province with Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs) and their Origins

Introduction In recent years, soil contamination with potentially toxic elements (PTEs) has become a major problem in most parts of the world. PTEs are naturally generated from the pedogenesis in the soil and are formed mainly by rock weathering. Nevertheless, the natural content of metals, i.e., Cr, Zn, Ni, Pb, Cd, used to be low in the soil, but due to anthropogenic activities such as industrial emissions, atmospheric transportation, sewage irrigation, and application of pesticides and fertilizers, there is an increase in the content of PTEs. PTEs in soil are one of the most important environmental pollutants due to their toxicity, durability, easy absorption by plants and long half-life. Therefore, the assessment of soil health is very important for the sustainable development of agriculture and the rehabilitation of soils contaminated with PTEs. The present study was conducted to quantify PTEs pollution for soil environmental assessment using a flexible approach based on multivariate analysis and using pollution indicators in a part of the central lands of Khuzestan province.   Materials and Methods For this purpose, in February 2021, 200 surface soil samples (0-10 cm) were taken using stratified random sampling. The collected soil samples were cleaned by removing plant materials and other pebbles, and air dried, powdered, and sieved by using a 2 mm sieve size. The interest in soil's physical and chemical properties i.e., pH was determined with a digital pH meter. Soil textural particles were measured by the hydrometer method, soil organic carbon (SOC) content was estimated by following Walkley and Black method, bulk density (BD) was measured by the Clod method, and total metal content was determined using the aqua-regia solution digestion method and analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission spectrometry (ICP-OEC). The level of Pb, Ni, Zn, Cr pollution was estimated based on environmental indicators including contamination factor (CF), enrichment factor (EF), geo-accumulation index (Igeo), pollution index of individual metals (PI), and modified pollution index of individual metals (MPI). Multivariate statistical methods including correlation analysis, cluster analysis (CA), and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to find the source of metals in the soil. All statistical methods were performed using SPSS (26 version) software.   Results and Discussion Measurement of soil pH showed that the soil of the studied area tends to alkalinity. Also, the soil texture in this area is loam. The results showed that the SOC in these soil samples is 0.71%, and the range of EC (between 0.18 and 60.5 dS/m) indicates the distribution of saline and non-saline soils in the studied area. The total average concentration of Zn, Ni, Cr, and Pb were 60.26, 50.96, 50.38, and 12.67 mg/kg, respectively. The order of average for heavy metals was Zn> Ni> Cr> Pb. The highest amount of standard deviation and concentration changes were observed in Zn and Pb elements. These two elements also showed a high degree of variation coefficient in the studied area, which can indicate the high impact of human activities on the content of these elements. The results obtained from the application of multivariate statistics showed that there is a positive correlation between the elements such as Zn, Ni, and Pb in the study area, indicating that these metals probably have the same source. Whereas the absence of correlation of Cr with these elements indicates a separate source for this element compared to Pb, Zn, and Ni. There was also a strong relationship among these elements based on the PCA and CA classification. Based on the multivariate statistical analysis the source of pollution for the metals studied was mainly from both anthropogenic and geogenic activities. The results showed that the soil samples taken from the study area are in the low pollution category based on the individual element indices of CF and Igeo, but in the moderate pollution class based on the EF index. In addition, the evaluation based on the cumulative and multi-element indices of PI and MPI showed that 100% of samples have high pollution.   Conclusion The present study concludes that the average values of Zn, Ni, Cr, and Pb were found to be below the guidelines set by the IEPA (Iran Environmental Protection Agency) as well as the Earth's crust values. The results indicate existing relationships among the studied variables, revealing that the heavy metals Zn, Ni, and Zn share the same source in the study area. Additionally, it was observed that the source of Cr is primarily geogenic in nature. These findings highlight the significance of utilizing multivariate statistical methods and pollution indicators in tandem, as they prove to be valuable tools for evaluating and quantitatively determining the potential pollution risk

Cyclic-AMP regulates postnatal development of neural and behavioral responses to NaCl in rats

During postnatal development rats demonstrate an age-dependent increase in NaCl chorda tympani (CT) responses and the number of functional apical amiloride-sensitive epithelial Na+channels (ENaCs) in salt sensing fungiform (FF) taste receptor cells (TRCs). Currently, the intracellular signals that regulate the postnatal development of salt taste have not been identified. We investigated the effect of cAMP, a downstream signal for arginine vasopressin (AVP) action, on the postnatal development of NaCl responses in 19–23 day old rats. ENaC-dependent NaCl CT responses were monitored after lingual application of 8-chlorophenylthio-cAMP (8-CPT-cAMP) under open-circuit conditions and under ±60 mV lingual voltage clamp. Behavioral responses were tested using 2 bottle/24h NaCl preference tests. The effect of [deamino-Cys1, D-Arg8]-vasopressin (dDAVP, a specific V2R agonist) was investigated on ENaC subunit trafficking in rat FF TRCs and on cAMP generation in cultured adult human FF taste cells (HBO cells). Our results show that in 19–23 day old rats, the ENaC-dependent maximum NaCl CT response was a saturating sigmoidal function of 8-CPT-cAMP concentration. 8-CPT-cAMP increased the voltage-sensitivity of the NaCl CT response and the apical Na+ response conductance. Intravenous injections of dDAVP increased ENaC expression and γ-ENaC trafficking from cytosolic compartment to the apical compartment in rat FF TRCs. In HBO cells dDAVP increased intracellular cAMP and cAMP increased trafficking of γ- and δ-ENaC from cytosolic compartment to the apical compartment 10 min post-cAMP treatment. Control 19–23 day old rats were indifferent to NaCl, but showed clear preference for appetitive NaCl concentrations after 8-CPT-cAMP treatment. Relative to adult rats, 14 day old rats demonstrated significantly less V2R antibody binding in circumvallate TRCs. We conclude that an age-dependent increase in V2R expression produces an AVP-induced incremental increase in cAMP that modulates the postnatal increase in TRC ENaC and the neural and behavioral responses to NaCl

"You have to get wet to learn how to swim" applied to bridging the gap between research into personnel scheduling and its implementation in practice

Personnel scheduling problems have attracted research interests for several decades. They have been considerably changed over time, accommodating a variety of constraints related to legal and organisation requirements, part-time staff, flexible hours of staff, staff preferences, etc. This led to a myriad of approaches developed for solving personnel scheduling problems including optimisation, meta-heuristics, artificial intelligence, decision-support, and also hybrids of these approaches. However, this still does not imply that this research has a large impact on practice and that state-of-the art models and algorithms are widely in use in organisations. One can find a reasonably large number of software packages that aim to assist in personnel scheduling. A classification of this software based on its purpose will be proposed, accompanied with a discussion about the level of support that this software offers to schedulers. A general conclusion is that the available software, with some exceptions, does not benefit from the wealth of developed models and methods. The remaining of the paper will provide insights into some characteristics of real-world scheduling problems that, in the author’s opinion, have not been given a due attention in the personnel scheduling research community yet and which could contribute to the enhancement of the implementation of research results in practice. Concluding remarks are that in order to bridge the gap that still exists between research into personnel scheduling and practice, we need to engage more with schedulers in practice and also with software developers; one may say we need to get wet if we want to learn how to swim

Metabolic and evolutionary insights into the closely-related species Streptomyces coelicolor and Streptomyces lividans deduced from high-resolution comparative genomic hybridization

Whilst being closely related to the model actinomycete Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2), S. lividans 66 differs from it in several significant and phenotypically observable ways, including antibiotic production. Previous comparative gene hybridization studies investigating such differences have used low-density (one probe per gene) PCR-based spotted arrays. Here we use new experimentally optimised 104,000 × 60-mer probe arrays to characterize in detail the genomic differences between wild-type S. lividans 66, a derivative industrial strain, TK24, and S. coelicolor M145

Genome-wide inference of regulatory networks in Streptomyces coelicolor

Background: The onset of antibiotics production in Streptomyces species is co-ordinated with differentiation events. An understanding of the genetic circuits that regulate these coupled biological phenomena is essential to discover and engineer the pharmacologically important natural products made by these species. The availability of genomic tools and access to a large warehouse of transcriptome data for the model organism, Streptomyces coelicolor, provides incentive to decipher the intricacies of the regulatory cascades and develop biologically meaningful hypotheses. Results: In this study, more than 500 samples of genome-wide temporal transcriptome data, comprising wild-type and more than 25 regulatory gene mutants of Streptomyces coelicolor probed across multiple stress and medium conditions, were investigated. Information based on transcript and functional similarity was used to update a previously-predicted whole-genome operon map and further applied to predict transcriptional networks constituting modules enriched in diverse functions such as secondary metabolism, and sigma factor. The predicted network displays a scale-free architecture with a small-world property observed in many biological networks. The networks were further investigated to identify functionally-relevant modules that exhibit functional coherence and a consensus motif in the promoter elements indicative of DNA-binding elements. Conclusions: Despite the enormous experimental as well as computational challenges, a systems approach for integrating diverse genome-scale datasets to elucidate complex regulatory networks is beginning to emerge. We present an integrated analysis of transcriptome data and genomic features to refine a whole-genome operon map and to construct regulatory networks at the cistron level in Streptomyces coelicolor. The functionally-relevant modules identified in this study pose as potential targets for further studies and verification.