136 research outputs found
Marine biodiversity: An important resource base to develop bioactive compounds for health and diseases
A bioactive compound means a substance which has a biological activity. The definition
of bioactive compounds takes different dimensions like deriving from nature or synthetic,
compounds usually occur in small quantity, adhere potential effect on human health. It is
well known that many organism like sponge, jellyfish, fish, coral, mussels, bivalves, sea hare,
seahorse, crustacean, marine plants and turtles yield bioactive compounds of great
importance to human welfare.
The long coastline of 8129 Km2 with an EEZ of 2.02 million Sq. km including the continental
shelf of 0.5 million Sq. Km harbors extensively rich multitude of species. Vast regions of
mangroves are found along the coast of West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu,
Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andaman Islands which extends up to about 682000 ha area. Coral
reefs are found in the Gulf of Kutch, along the Maharashtra coast, Kerala coast, in the Gulf of
Mannar, Palk Bay and the Wadge Bank along the Tamilnadu coast and around Andaman and
Lakshadweep Islands. The variety of coastal ecosystems include brackish water lakes, lagoons,
estuaries, back waters, salt marshes, rocky bottom, sandy bottom and muddy areas provides
a home and shelter for the mega biodiversity of India. These regions support very rich fauna
and flora and constitute rich biological diversity of marine ecosystems. This great mega
diversity of abundant species along the Indian marine ecosystems provided immense
opportunity for the exploration and utilization of the bioactive compounds
CATALOGUE-2018 Marine Biodiversity Museum CMFRI Special Publication No. 129
A new Marine Biodiversity Museum was established at Kochi following the
shifting of the headquarters of the Institute from Mandapam to Kochi. The
Museum was inaugurated by Padma Vibhushan Prof. M.S. Swaminathan on
4th February 2006. The museum now holds around 2300 specimens of various
categories such as fishes, echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans, corals, seaweeds
etc. These specimens are of fundamental importance to taxonomic, systematic
and biodiversity studies. The first catalogue on Marine Biodiversity Museum
comprised of specimens belonging to all the groups was published in 2012. The
present catalogue prepared by the Marine Biodiversity Division of the Institute
is expected to update the present status of the specimens in the museum as
on March 2017. I am happy to bring out this catalogue in the year of Platinum
Jubilee celebrations of CMFRI (1947-2017). The help and support extended
by the previous Directors of CMFRI and Museum-in-charges are gratefully
acknowledged.
Majority of the specimens in the Museum represents the collections made by
scientists of CMFRI as part of their research activities. The keen interest shown
and the sincere effort put in by the scientists of the Institute in building up this
Museum as an invaluable gift to those who pursue science need special mention.
They have deposited their valuable specimens in the Museum and contributed
in one way or the other to bring it to the present status. I congratulate all
those who have been involved in the collection, preservation, identification and
cataloguing of the specimens in the Marine Biodiversity Museum
Delay-enhanced coherent chaotic oscillations in networks with large disorders
We study the effect of coupling delay in a regular network with a ring
topology and in a more complex network with an all-to-all (global) topology in
the presence of impurities (disorder). We find that the coupling delay is
capable of inducing phase-coherent chaotic oscillations in both types of
networks, thereby enhancing the spatiotemporal complexity even in the presence
of 50% of symmetric disorders of both fixed and random types. Furthermore, the
coupling delay increases the robustness of the networks up to 70% of disorders,
thereby preventing the network from acquiring periodic oscillations to foster
disorder-induced spatiotemporal order. We also confirm the enhancement of
coherent chaotic oscillations using snapshots of the phases and values of the
associated Kuramoto order parameter. We also explain a possible mechanism for
the phenomenon of delay-induced coherent chaotic oscillations despite the
presence of large disorders and discuss its applications.Comment: 13 pages, 20 figure
Free energy barrier for melittin reorientation from a membrane-bound state to a transmembrane state
An important step in a phospholipid membrane pore formation by melittin
antimicrobial peptide is a reorientation of the peptide from a surface into a
transmembrane conformation. In this work we perform umbrella sampling
simulations to calculate the potential of mean force (PMF) for the
reorientation of melittin from a surface-bound state to a transmembrane state
and provide a molecular level insight into understanding peptide and lipid
properties that influence the existence of the free energy barrier. The PMFs
were calculated for a peptide to lipid (P/L) ratio of 1/128 and 4/128. We
observe that the free energy barrier is reduced when the P/L ratio increased.
In addition, we study the cooperative effect; specifically we investigate if
the barrier is smaller for a second melittin reorientation, given that another
neighboring melittin was already in the transmembrane state. We observe that
indeed the barrier of the PMF curve is reduced in this case, thus confirming
the presence of a cooperative effect
मैंग्रोव पर्यावरण प्रणाली : भारत में एक निराशाजनक संसाधन
मैंग्रोव पर्यावरण प्रणाली : भारत में एक निराशाजनक संसाध
Sponge fauna of the Lakshadweep Islands of Indian Ocean
The present study deals with four new records of sponges found at Lakshadweep area and a checklist of sponges reported off. The new records are Agelas oroides, Callyspongia (Cladochalina) aculeata, Raspailia (Clathriodendron) arbuscula and Stylissa massa. Details about the species diversity of common sponges, massive sponges, boring sponges of the area are discussed and presented
Current practice and surgical outcomes of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for early breast cancer : UK NeST study
Funding Information: This work was funded by a grant from the Association of Breast SurgeryPeer reviewedPublisher PD
The Clock Input to the First Optic Neuropil of Drosophila melanogaster Expressing Neuronal Circadian Plasticity
In the first optic neuropil (lamina) of the fly's visual system, two interneurons, L1 and L2 monopolar cells, and epithelial glial cells show circadian rhythms in morphological plasticity. These rhythms depend on clock gene period (per) and cryptochrome (cry) expression. In the present study, we found that rhythms in the lamina of Drosophila melanogaster may be regulated by circadian clock neurons in the brain since the lamina is invaded by one neurite extending from ventral lateral neurons; the so-called pacemaker neurons. These neurons and the projection to the lamina were visualized by green fluorescent protein (GFP). GFP reporter gene expression was driven by the cry promotor in cry-GAL4/UAS-GFP transgenic lines. We observed that the neuron projecting to the lamina forms arborizations of varicose fibers in the distal lamina. These varicose fibers do not form synaptic contacts with the lamina cells and are immunoreactive to the antisera raised against a specific region of Schistocerca gregaria ion transport peptide (ITP). ITP released in a paracrine way in the lamina cortex, may regulate the swelling and shrinking rhythms of the lamina monopolar cells and the glia by controlling the transport of ions and fluids across cell membranes at particular times of the day
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