Production of Inulinase by Fusarium sp. and its Application for Fructo-oligosaccharide Production for use as Prebiotics

Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) are useful due to their applications in food and pharmaceutical industry. Fusarium spp., isolated from dahlia rhizosphere, produced endoinulinases in a medium containing inulin or sucrose as carbon substrate. In this study, characterization of exo-inulinase and production of FOS were investigated. Temperature and pH optimum of the enzyme was found to be 60°C and pH 6.0, respectively. The optimization of fermentation conditions for inulinase production was carried out using one at a time approach. The optimized medium with sucrose as a carbon source and yeast extract as a nitrogen source were found to be optimal for inulinase production at an initial pH 5.0 and incubation temperature 30 °C for 120 h. Under these conditions, the maximum inulinase concentration of 131.6 U/ml was achieved. SDS PAGE revealed that the molecular weight of the enzyme was around 90 kDa. Further study revealed that Fusarium sp. could produce inulinase as well as invertase. Thin layer chromatography was carried out to analyze the FOS production and their oligomeric properties. Inulin as well FOS can be used as prebiotics as they are selectively fermented by Bifidobacteria and Lactic acid bacteria and thus imparting health benefits

Niska masa szkieletu ważnym czynnikiem predykcyjnym osteoporozy u mężczyzn zakażonych wirusem HIV w Indiach

Introduction: This study evaluated prevalence and predictors of osteoporosis and sarcopenia in men with HIV. Material and methods: 220 men with HIV were screened, of which 115 men, 30–50 years-age, having at least 1-year follow-up, underwent hormonal and DEXA analysis. 40 controls were also evaluated. Results: Males with HIV had significantly lower BMD and Z-scores at all sites. Osteoporosis was diagnosed in 64.35%; commonest site being radius total (49.56%), followed by radius 33% (45.21%), radius ultra distal (36.52%), lumbar spine (19.13%), neck of femur (17.39%), total femur and greater trochanter (7.82% each). HIV patients had significantly lower fat mass (FM), lean mass (LM), total fat percent, bone mineral content, gynoid fat, percent skeletal muscle mass (PSMM). Men with osteoporosis had higher use of anti retroviral therapy (ART), immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), tuberculosis, lower FM, LM and PSMM. Logistic regression revealed PSMM, age and delta (Δ) CD4 count (change in CD4 count after 6–12 months of ART, compared to pre-ART) were best predictors of osteoporosis. Greater PSMM was associated with decreased osteoporosis, without adjusting for any variable (Model-1), adjusting for disease duration, tuberculosis and IRIS (Model-2), and model-2 plus gonadotropins and sex steroids (Model-3). Greater ΔCD4 count and age were associated with increased osteoporosis after adjusting for different models. Sarcopenia was observed in 40% men and none in controls. Conclusions: Men with decreased skeletal mass, age, severe immune dysfunction at diagnosis, having rapid increase in CD4 count following ART and IRIS have higher risk of osteoporosis in the long run.Introduction: This study evaluated prevalence and predictors of osteoporosis and sarcopaenia in men with HIV. Material and methods: A total of 220 men with HIV were screened, of which 115 men, 30–50 years-age, having at least one-year follow-up, underwent hormonal and DEXA analysis. Forty controls were also evaluated. Results: Males with HIV had significantly lower BMD and Z-scores at all sites. Osteoporosis was diagnosed in 64.35%, the common­est site being radius total (49.56%), followed by radius 33% (45.21%), radius ultra distal (36.52%), lumbar spine (19.13%), neck of femur (17.39%), and total femur and greater trochanter (7.82% each). HIV patients had significantly lower fat mass (FM), lean mass (LM), total fat percentage, bone mineral content, gynoid fat, and percentage skeletal muscle mass (PSMM). Men with osteoporosis had higher use of anti-retroviral therapy (ART), immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), tuberculosis, and lower FM, LM, and PSMM. Logistic regression revealed that PSMM, age, and delta (Δ) CD4 count (change in CD4 count after 6–12 months of ART, compared to pre-ART) were the best predictors of osteoporosis. Greater PSMM was associated with decreased osteoporosis, without adjusting for any variable (Model-1), adjusting for disease duration, tuberculosis and IRIS (Model-2), and model-2 plus gonadotropins and sex steroids (Model-3). Greater ΔCD4 count and age were associated with increased osteoporosis after adjusting for different models. Sarcopaenia was observed in 40% of men and in none of the controls. Conclusions: Men with decreased skeletal mass, age, severe immune dysfunction at diagnosis, having rapid increase in CD4 count fol­lowing ART and IRIS have higher risk of osteoporosis in the long run. Wnioski: Mężczyźni z obniżoną masą szkieletu, w starszym wieku i z ciężkimi niedoborami immunologicznymi w czasie rozpoznania, u których następuje gwałtowny wzrost liczby limfocytów CD4 po ART i IRIS, cechują się wyższym ryzykiem osteoporozy w perspektywie długoterminowej

Assessment of bacterial diversity in the chicken litter: A potent risk to environmental health

Using chicken litter as an organic fertilizer on land is the most common, cheapest and environmentally safest way to manage the latter generated swiftly from the poultry industry.  Raw chicken litter has been applied to field soils where various vegetables are cropped to increase yield or productivity. However, the chicken litter frequently come in contact with different environments, such as water, soil, microbes and vegetation. When chickens defecate, their litters, in a few countries, are particularly reused for the next flock, potentially causing cross-contamination. Due to various contact points in the environment, a high probability of bacterial transmission is predicted, which could lead to infection spread in animals and humans. Consumption of contaminated water, food, and meat could lead to the transmission of deadly infections. Microbes in the chicken litter also affect the grazing animals while feeding on fields duly applied with chicken litter as manure. The maximum permissible limits (MPLs) in the chicken litter for land application should not exceed 106-108 CFU/g for Coliform bacteria. Antibiotics are regularly mixed in the diet or drinking water of chicken grown in marketable poultry farms for treating bacterial diseases. Rampant usage of antimicrobials also results in resistant bacteria's survival in animal excreta. Herein, we surveyed the literature to identify the major bacterial genus harboured in the fields applied with chicken manure to increase soil fertility. Our detailed survey identified different bacterial pathogens from chicken litter samples from different investigations. Most studies showed the prevalence of Campylobacter, Salmonella, Enterococcus, E. coli, Bacillus, Comamonas, Proteus and Citrobacter, including many other bacterial species in the chicken litter samples. This article suggested that chicken litter does not meet the standard parameters for direct application as organic fertilizer in the fields. Before being applied to the ground, chicken litter should be treated to lessen the danger of polluting crops or water supplies by reducing the prevalence of harmful bacteria carrying antibiotic-resistance genes

Tandem duplication of a genomic region encoding glutathione S-transferase epsilon-2 and -4 genes in DDT-resistant Anopheles stephensi strain from India

The glutathione S-transferases (GST) genes are a multigene family of enzymes involved in the metabolism of endogenous and xenobiotic compounds by catalysing the conjugation of the reduced form of glutathione to the substrate. The epsilon class of GST (GSTe), unique to arthropods, is known to be involved in the detoxification process of several classes of insecticides, and GSTe2 in particular is known to have DDT dehydrochlorinase activity. This communication reports a tandem duplication of a genomic region encoding GSTe2 and GSTe4 genes in a laboratory-colonized DDT-resistant Anopheles stephensi. We identified duplication breakpoints and the organization of gene duplication through Sanger sequencing performed on long-PCR products. Manual annotation of sequences revealed a tandemly-arrayed duplication of a 3.62 kb segment of GST epsilon gene clusters comprised of five genes: a partial GSTe1, GSTe2, GSTe2-pseudogene, GSTe4 and partial GSTe5, interconnected by a conserved 2.42 kb DNA insert segment major part of which is homologous to a genomic region located on a different chromosome. The tandemly duplicated array contained a total of two GSTe2 and three GSTe4 functional paralog genes. Read-depth coverage and split-read analysis of Illumina-based whole-genome sequence reads confirmed the presence of duplication in the corresponding region of the genome. The increased gene dose in mosquitoes as a result of the GSTe gene-duplication may be an adaptive process to increase levels of detoxifying enzymes to counter insecticide pressure

Association of SUMOlation Pathway Genes With Stroke in a Genome-wide Association Study in India

OBJECTIVE: To undertake a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify genetic variants for stroke in an Indian population. METHODS: In a hospital-based case-control study, 8 teaching hospitals in India recruited 4,088 participants, including 1,609 stroke cases. Imputed genetic variants were tested for association with stroke subtypes using both single-marker and gene-based tests. Association with vascular risk factors was performed with logistic regression. Various databases were searched for replication, functional annotation, and association with related traits. Status of candidate genes previously reported in the Indian population was also checked. RESULTS: Associations of vascular risk factors with stroke were similar to previous reports and show modifiable risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, and alcohol consumption as having the highest effect. Single-marker–based association revealed 2 loci for cardioembolic stroke (1p21 and 16q24), 2 for small vessel disease stroke (3p26 and 16p13), and 4 for hemorrhagic stroke (3q24, 5q33, 6q13, and 19q13) at p < 5 × 10(−8). The index single nucleotide polymorphism of 1p21 is an expression quantitative trait locus (p(lowest) = 1.74 × 10(−58)) for RWDD3 involved in SUMOylation and is associated with platelet distribution width (1.15 × 10(−9)) and 18-carbon fatty acid metabolism (p = 7.36 × 10(−12)). In gene-based analysis, we identified 3 genes (SLC17A2, FAM73A, and OR52L1) at p < 2.7 × 10(−6). Eleven of 32 candidate gene loci studied in an Indian population replicated (p < 0.05), and 21 of 32 loci identified through previous GWAS replicated according to directionality of effect. CONCLUSIONS: This GWAS of stroke in an Indian population identified novel loci and replicated previously known loci. Genetic variants in the SUMOylation pathway, which has been implicated in brain ischemia, were identified for association with stroke

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 (&gt;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)

Making and Unmaking the Endangered in India (1880-Present): Understanding Animal-Criminal Processes

The concerns of the present paper emerge from the single basic question of whether the available histories of the tiger are comprehensive enough to enable an understanding of how this nodular species comprises/contests the power dynamics of the present. Starting with this basic premise, this paper retells a series of events which go to clarify that a nuanced understanding of the manner in which a species serves certain political purposes is not possible by tracking the animal alone. A discourse on endangerment has beginnings in the body and being of species that are remarkably cut off from the tiger-the elephant, birds, and the rhino (and man if we might add)-and develops with serious implications for power, resource appropriation, and criminality, over a period of time, before more directly recruiting the tiger itself. If we can refer to this as the intermittent making and unmaking of the endangered, it is by turning to the enunciations of Michel Foucault that we try to canvas a series of events that can be described as animal-criminal processes. The role of such processes in the construction of endangerment, the structuring of space, and shared ideas of man-animal relations is further discussed in this paper

Comparisons of metabolite profile from paired serum and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid–plasma samples using dry chemistry technology: An emergency department perspective

BACKGROUND: No data is available evaluating the difference in serum versus plasma sample assay of commonly tested parameters in the emergency department, where the sample processing time can be significantly reduced if plasma is used for analysis instead of conventionally used serum. Hence, this study aimed to evaluate the differences in serum versus plasma sample estimation of commonly evaluated biochemical parameters using dry chemistry technology. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Paired blood samples were collected from a single venipuncture of 405 patients admitted to the emergency department. Dry chemistry autoanalyzer (Vitros-350, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics) was used to process all the samples. RESULTS: Data from 401 patients were analyzed. Percentage differences between serum versus plasma samples for all analytes ranged from 0.0% to 57.44% and were <±4% for a majority of parameters, except uric acid (−6.25%), albumin (+11.90%), chloride (–5.05%), phosphorus (−6.06%), creatine phosphokinase (CPK) total (−57.44%), amylase (−37.53%), lipase (−42.74%), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (−8.53%), and C-reactive protein (−7.44%). For albumin, CPK total, amylase, and lipase, the difference between serum and plasma samples was more than the accepted upper range recommended by College of American Pathologists. CONCLUSION: Glucose, urea, creatinine, bilirubin, total protein, serum glutamate-pyruvate transaminase, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, sodium, and CPK-mb can be reliably assayed from either serum or plasma samples in emergency/routine practice. CPK total, amylase, and lipase should always be assayed from serum and not plasma due to significant variations. Uric acid, chloride, phosphorous, and LDH only in emergency situations should be assayed from plasma. For routine assays, serum should be preferred