Cost effective mass multiplication of Gymnema sylvestre in hydroponic system

Present experiment was designed with an objective to develop a cost efficient mass multiplication method for Gymnema sylvestre using hydroponic system. A plastic tub, with polyethylene cover, containing 1/10 strength of MS salts supplemented with Indole butyric acid (IBA) at different concentrations (0.5, 1.0, 2.5 mg/L) was studied. Medium containing 0.5mg/L of IBA produced highest rooting (66%) with 96 % survival. This protocol will serve as an alternative to the existing in vitro and clonal multiplication protocols

Two generalizations of the PRV conjecture

Let G be a complex connected reductive group. The PRV conjecture, which was proved independently by S. Kumar and O. Mathieu in 1989, gives explicit irreducible submodules of the tensor product of two irreducible G-modules. This paper has three aims. First, we simplify the proof of the PRV conjecture, then we generalize it to other branching problems. Finally, we find other irreducible components of the tensor product of two irreducible G-modules that appear for "the same reason" as the PRV ones

Impact of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi on Photosynthesis, Water Status, and Gas Exchange of Plants Under Salt Stress–A Meta-Analysis

Soil salinization is one of the most serious abiotic stress factors affecting plant productivity through reduction of soil water potential, decreasing the absorptive capacity of the roots for water and nutrients. A weighted meta-analysis was conducted to study the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) inoculation in alleviating salt stress in C3 and C4 plants. We analyzed the salt stress influence on seven independent variables such as chlorophyll, leaf area, photosynthetic rate (Amax), stomatal conductance (Gs), transpiration rate (E), relative water content (RWC), and water use efficiency (WUE) on AMF inoculated plants. Responses were compared between C3 and C4 plants, AMF species, plant functional groups, level of salinity, and environmental conditions. Our results showed that AMF inoculated plants had a positive impact on gas exchange and water status under salt stress. The total chlorophyll contents of C3 plants were higher than C4 plants. However, C3 plants responses regarding Gs, Amax, and E were more positive compared to C4 plants. The increase in Gs mainly maintained E and it explains the increase in Amax and increase in E. When the two major AMF species (Rhizophagus intraradices and Funnelliformis mosseae) were considered, the effect sizes of RWC and WUE in R. intraradices were lower than those in F. mosseae indicating that F. mosseae inoculated plants performed better under salt stress. In terms of C3 and C4 plant photosynthetic pathways, the effect size of C4 was lower than C3 plants indicating that AMF inoculation more effectively alleviated salt stress in C3 compared to C4 plants

Application of the group-theoretical method to physical problems

The concept of the theory of continuous groups of transformations has attracted the attention of applied mathematicians and engineers to solve many physical problems in the engineering sciences. Three applications are presented in this paper. The first one is the problem of time-dependent vertical temperature distribution in a stagnant lake. Two cases have been considered for the forms of the water parameters, namely water density and thermal conductivity. The second application is the unsteady free-convective boundary-layer flow on a non-isothermal vertical flat plate. The third application is the study of the dispersion of gaseous pollutants in the presence of a temperature inversion. The results are found in closed form and the effect of parameters are discussed

Anthropogenic Impact on Tropical Perennial River in South India: Snapshot of Carbon Dynamics and Bacterial Community Composition

Riverine systems play an important role in the global carbon cycle, and they are considered hotspots for bacterial activities such as organic matter decomposition. However, our knowledge about these processes in tropical or subtropical regions is limited. The aim of this study was to investigate anthropogenically induced changes of water quality, the distribution of selected pharmaceuticals, and the effects of pollution on greenhouse gas concentrations and bacterial community composition along the 800 km long Cauvery river, the main river serving as a potable and irrigation water supply in Southern India. We found that in situ measured pCO₂ and pCH₄ concentrations were supersaturated relative to the atmosphere and ranged from 7.9 to 168.7 µmol L⁻¹ , and from 0.01 to 2.76 µmol L⁻¹ , respectively. Pharmaceuticals like triclosan, carbamazepine, ibuprofen, naproxen, propylparaben, and diclofenac exceeded warning limits along the Cauvery. Proteobacteria was the major phylum in all samples, ranging between 26.1% and 82.2% relative abundance, and it coincided with the accumulation of nutrients in the flowing water. Results emphasized the impact of industrialization and increased population density on changes in water quality, riverine carbon fluxes, and bacterial community structure

Comparative Genomics of Emerging Human Ehrlichiosis Agents

Anaplasma (formerly Ehrlichia) phagocytophilum, Ehrlichia chaffeensis, and Neorickettsia (formerly Ehrlichia) sennetsu are intracellular vector-borne pathogens that cause human ehrlichiosis, an emerging infectious disease. We present the complete genome sequences of these organisms along with comparisons to other organisms in the Rickettsiales order. Ehrlichia spp. and Anaplasma spp. display a unique large expansion of immunodominant outer membrane proteins facilitating antigenic variation. All Rickettsiales have a diminished ability to synthesize amino acids compared to their closest free-living relatives. Unlike members of the Rickettsiaceae family, these pathogenic Anaplasmataceae are capable of making all major vitamins, cofactors, and nucleotides, which could confer a beneficial role in the invertebrate vector or the vertebrate host. Further analysis identified proteins potentially involved in vacuole confinement of the Anaplasmataceae, a life cycle involving a hematophagous vector, vertebrate pathogenesis, human pathogenesis, and lack of transovarial transmission. These discoveries provide significant insights into the biology of these obligate intracellular pathogens

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio