Varate Giduga (Acc. No. 21067; IC No. 418238) : A unique mango (Mangifera indica L.) variety

Varate Giduga is one of the unique variety from Sirsi region of Karnataka. The tree is Semi-circular shaped with dense foliage, leaves about 25cm long; dark green in colour with wavy margin. It is a very consistent and heavy producer. The fruit of this tree matures by mid-April and fruit has a distinctive yellow skin color on fruit exposed to the sun. The fruit shape is round, fruit weight ranged from 350-400 g, fruit length was 9.8 cm, fruit diameter was 9.2 cm, fruit thickness was 8.0cm and bisexual flowers were 16.53%. Biochemical constituents such as the total phenols (317.50 mg/100 g), flavonoids (5.79 mg/100g), carotenoids (1.46 mg/100 g) and acidity (0.19%) were recorded which suggests that these characters are unique as compared to other varieties. The fruit skin is rough and glossy in appearance and the fruit has little or no fiber. It is very delicious in taste with high pulp percentage (74.0%) and high TSS (23.4º B). The flesh color is orange. The fruits have deep orange firm pulp and very sweet with pleasant flavor. Besides,several other traits have drawn special attention to this mango variety as it has large sized fruits (Fig-1), late variety with very good taste, fruit can be cut into two halves by retaining the stone in one half, regular bearer and fruit fly resistant genotype because of its thick peel and high phenolic content in pulp (317.50 mg/100 g)

Bacterial lipid modification of proteins for novel protein engineering applications

Functioning of proteins efficiently at the solid-liquid interface is critical to not only biological but also modern man-made systems such as ELISA, liposomes and biosensors. Anchoring hydrophilic proteins poses a major challenge in this regard. Lipid modification, N-acyl-S-diacylglyceryl-Cys, providing an N-terminal hydrophobic membrane anchor is a viable solution that bacteria have successfully evolved but remains unexploited. Based on the current understanding of this ubiquitous and unique bacterial lipid modification it is possible to use Escherichia coli, the popular recombinant protein expression host, for converting a non-lipoprotein to a lipoprotein with a hydrophobic anchor at the N-terminal end. We report two strategies applicable to non-lipoproteins (with or without signal sequences) employing minimal sequence change. Taking periplasmic Shigella apyrase as an example, its signal sequence was engineered to include a lipobox, an essential determinant for lipid modification, or its mature sequence was fused to the signal sequence of abundant outer membrane lipoprotein, Lpp. Lipid modification was proved by membrane localization, electrophoretic mobility shift and mass spectrometric analysis. Substrate specificity and specific activity measurements indicated functional integrity after modification. In conclusion, a convenient protein engineering strategy for converting non-lipoprotein to lipoprotein for commercial application has been devised and tested successfully

Morphological characterization and genetic barcoding of kuttiatoor mango accessions

A survey conducted during 2013-14 to collect and characterize the Kuttiattoor mango accessions from Kerala, revealed large unique variability in morphological, biochemical and DNA barcode data. All the accessions were polyembryonic with fruit maturity during February-March. The mature fruit length (cm), width (cm) and leaf length (cm) ranged from 5.10 – 9.60 (cm), 4.60 – 8.40 (cm) and 12.47- 30.40 (cm) respectively

Characterization and diversity assessment in coconut collections of Pacific Ocean Islands and Nicobar Islands

Characterization and genetic diversity assessment among 30 conserved coconut accessions collected from Pacific Ocean Islands and Nicobar Islands for morphological traits, physico-chemical traits of tender nut water, leaf biochemical parameters and molecular characterization by using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were undertaken at World Coconut Germplasm Centre, Andaman. Significant variations were observed for most morphological and nut component traits. Out of the 30 accessions characterized, four accessions, namely, Niu Leka, Hari Papua, Niu Oma and Nikkore were dwarfs among which Niu Leka was identified as a unique dwarf with higher copra content. A dendrogram of genetic relationship obtained through RAPD markers showed distinct variation with 66% in all accessions. The average polymorphic information content (PIC) value of 13 selected primers was 0.29 and maximum and minimum PIC values was 0.46 and 0.17 for primers OPF-19 and OPH-25, respectively. Cluster analysis by UPGMA method grouped the accessions into two major clusters. The results will be useful in the selection among these conserved accessions for specific traits for future utilization in crop improvement initiatives based on their performance for different desirable traits and the level of diversity.Key words: Coconut, genetic diversity, characterization, RAPD, cluster analysis

Association between Obesity and Hypertension in South Indian Patients

Two hundred and forty four newly diagnosed hypertensives (cases) of age 40 years and above, attending the hypertensive clinic of the Government General Hospital during one year and three hundred and twelve normotensives (controls) belonging to the same age group and attending the outpatient department during the same period for other minor ailments formed the subjects for this case control study. There were 18 (7.4%) obese subjects among hypertensives and 6 (1.9%) among controls. Inspite of these low proportions, there was a strong association between obesity and hypertension with an overall odds ratio of 4 and there appeared to be a significant increasing trend in the proportion of cases of hypertension (37%, 63%, 75%) observed according to the different grades (underweight or normal. overweight, obese) of nutrition

Writhing Photons and Berry Phases in Diffusive Wave Scattering

We study theoretically the polarization state of light in multiple scattering media in the limit of weak gradients in refractive index. Linearly polarized photons are randomly rotated due to the Berry phase associated with the scattering path. For circularly polarized light independent speckle patterns are found for the two helical states. The statistics of the geometric phase is related to the writhe distribution of semiflexible polymers such as DNA.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

The Kodaira dimension of the moduli of K3 surfaces

The moduli space of polarised K3 surfaces of degree 2d is a quasi-projective variety of dimension 19. For general d very little has been known about the Kodaira dimension of these varieties. In this paper we present an almost complete solution to this problem. Our main result says that this moduli space is of general type for d>61 and for d=46,50,54,58,60.Comment: 47 page

Floral biology and reproductive potential of Annona hybrid Arka Sahan

Annona hybrid Arka Sahan has become a commercially important fruit in recent times and it needs an assisted pollination to get good size. Studies on floral biology of Annona hybrid Arka Sahan revealed that major bloom occurs during March-April. Most of the flowers start opening during the afternoon and continued till 7.00 pm, while, pollen dehiscence mainly occurred in early morning in the following day. The maximum stigma receptivity was recorded on the day of anthesis. Completely pendulous petal was more common in Arka Sahan flowers resulting = improper pollination. The minimum number of beetles and bees were observed between 7.00 to 8.00 am. Pollen germination and viability were lower at anthesis (5.8% and 44%, respectively) and declined as the day progressed. The pendulous nature of petals eventually brings some un-pollinated stigmas potentially resulting in delayed selfing leading to misshaped fruits

The effect of supplementing a rice diet with lysine, methionine, and threonine on the digestibility coefficient, biological value, and net protein utilization of the proteins and on the retention of nitrogen in children

The effect of supplementing a rice diet providing about 1.3-1.4 g protein per kg body weight with lysine, methionine, and threonine individually or together on true digestibility coefficient (DC), biological value (BV), and net protein utilization (NPU) of the proteins has been studied in girls aged 8–9 years. The retention of nitrogen on the rice diet was very low (9.5% of intake in the first series and 8.5% in the second series). The BV and NPU of the proteins of rice diet were 64.1 and 52.9 in the first series and 66.6 and 54.9 in the second series. Supplementation of the rice diet with lysine or methionine or lysine + methionine brought about a significant improvement in N retention (12.6, 12.0, 13.5% of intake) and in the BV (68.3, 66.3, 69.3) and NPU (54.8, 55.7, 55.8). When the rice diet was supplemented with lysine and threonine, a highly significant improvement in the N retention (18.9% of intake) and in the BV (77.4) and NPU (63.4) was observed. Addition of methionine to rice diet containing lysine and threonine resulted in a further improvement in N retention, BV, and NPU of the diets. The net available protein (g/kg body weight) from the different diets were as follows: rice diet, 0.71; rice diet + lysine, 0.76; rice diet + methionine, 0.74; rice diet + lysine + methionine, 0.77; rice diet + lysine + threonine, 0.85; rice diet + lysine + threonine + methionine, 0.91; and skim milk powder diet, 0.96-0.98