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