Red yeast (Phaffia rhodozyma) and its effect on growth, antioxidant activity and color pigmentation of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Efficacy of orally used of red yeast (Phaffia rhodozyma) (1.6 mg astaxanthin/g product) at 15.5 g (P1), 37.3 g (P2) and 47 (P3) g per kg diet were studied on performance, carcass composition, antioxidant activity and fillet pigmentation in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) weighing 208–212 g for eight weeks at 11 °C. Synthetic astaxanthin (AX) (0.5 g/kg diet) and basal diet were used as controls. With an increase in P. rhodozyma concentration in diet, weight gain and specific growth rate exhibited an increase compared to basal diet (P 0.05). Water holding capacity and lipid loss in fillets of treatments were lower than fish fed basal diet (P < 0.05). By increasing P. rhodozyma concentration in fish diets, redness value exhibited a progressive increase, and the highest value was seen in P3 diet compared to other treatments (P < 0.05). These data show application of P. rhodozyma at 47 g/kg diet in trout could provide a better performance, antioxidant activities, and fillet pigmentation

Mutagenesis and Functional Studies with Succinate Dehydrogenase Inhibitors in the Wheat Pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola

A range of novel carboxamide fungicides, inhibitors of the succinate dehydrogenase enzyme (SDH, EC 1.3.5.1) is currently being introduced to the crop protection market. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of structurally distinct carboxamides on target site resistance development and to assess possible impact on fitness

Comprehensive transcriptome analysis of the highly complex Pisum sativum genome using next generation sequencing

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The garden pea, <it>Pisum sativum</it>, is among the best-investigated legume plants and of significant agro-commercial relevance. <it>Pisum sativum </it>has a large and complex genome and accordingly few comprehensive genomic resources exist.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We analyzed the pea transcriptome at the highest possible amount of accuracy by current technology. We used next generation sequencing with the Roche/454 platform and evaluated and compared a variety of approaches, including diverse tissue libraries, normalization, alternative sequencing technologies, saturation estimation and diverse assembly strategies. We generated libraries from flowers, leaves, cotyledons, epi- and hypocotyl, and etiolated and light treated etiolated seedlings, comprising a total of 450 megabases. Libraries were assembled into 324,428 unigenes in a first pass assembly.</p> <p>A second pass assembly reduced the amount to 81,449 unigenes but caused a significant number of chimeras. Analyses of the assemblies identified the assembly step as a major possibility for improvement. By recording frequencies of Arabidopsis orthologs hit by randomly drawn reads and fitting parameters of the saturation curve we concluded that sequencing was exhaustive. For leaf libraries we found normalization allows partial recovery of expression strength aside the desired effect of increased coverage. Based on theoretical and biological considerations we concluded that the sequence reads in the database tagged the vast majority of transcripts in the aerial tissues. A pathway representation analysis showed the merits of sampling multiple aerial tissues to increase the number of tagged genes. All results have been made available as a fully annotated database in fasta format.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We conclude that the approach taken resulted in a high quality - dataset which serves well as a first comprehensive reference set for the model legume pea. We suggest future deep sequencing transcriptome projects of species lacking a genomics backbone will need to concentrate mainly on resolving the issues of redundancy and paralogy during transcriptome assembly.</p

Bi-allelic Loss-of-Function CACNA1B Mutations in Progressive Epilepsy-Dyskinesia.

The occurrence of non-epileptic hyperkinetic movements in the context of developmental epileptic encephalopathies is an increasingly recognized phenomenon. Identification of causative mutations provides an important insight into common pathogenic mechanisms that cause both seizures and abnormal motor control. We report bi-allelic loss-of-function CACNA1B variants in six children from three unrelated families whose affected members present with a complex and progressive neurological syndrome. All affected individuals presented with epileptic encephalopathy, severe neurodevelopmental delay (often with regression), and a hyperkinetic movement disorder. Additional neurological features included postnatal microcephaly and hypotonia. Five children died in childhood or adolescence (mean age of death: 9 years), mainly as a result of secondary respiratory complications. CACNA1B encodes the pore-forming subunit of the pre-synaptic neuronal voltage-gated calcium channel Cav2.2/N-type, crucial for SNARE-mediated neurotransmission, particularly in the early postnatal period. Bi-allelic loss-of-function variants in CACNA1B are predicted to cause disruption of Ca2+ influx, leading to impaired synaptic neurotransmission. The resultant effect on neuronal function is likely to be important in the development of involuntary movements and epilepsy. Overall, our findings provide further evidence for the key role of Cav2.2 in normal human neurodevelopment.MAK is funded by an NIHR Research Professorship and receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital Charity, and Rosetrees Trust. E.M. received funding from the Rosetrees Trust (CD-A53) and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. K.G. received funding from Temple Street Foundation. A.M. is funded by Great Ormond Street Hospital, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), and Biomedical Research Centre. F.L.R. and D.G. are funded by Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. K.C. and A.S.J. are funded by NIHR Bioresource for Rare Diseases. The DDD Study presents independent research commissioned by the Health Innovation Challenge Fund (grant number HICF-1009-003), a parallel funding partnership between the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (grant number WT098051). We acknowledge support from the UK Department of Health via the NIHR comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre award to Guy's and St. Thomas' National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust in partnership with King's College London. This research was also supported by the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre. J.H.C. is in receipt of an NIHR Senior Investigator Award. The research team acknowledges the support of the NIHR through the Comprehensive Clinical Research Network. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, Department of Health, or Wellcome Trust. E.R.M. acknowledges support from NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, an NIHR Senior Investigator Award, and the University of Cambridge has received salary support in respect of E.R.M. from the NHS in the East of England through the Clinical Academic Reserve. I.E.S. is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Program Grant and Practitioner Fellowship)

Confessions of a virtual team

This paper presents the various challenges faced when working in large, multi-disciplinary, geographically dispersed research teams. The team discussed here is part of a Smart Internet Technology Cooperative Research Centre project within the Banking and Finance domain in Australia. In this project, the challenge comes not only from its multi-disciplinary approach, but also overcoming geographical distances. These challenges are exacerbated by frequent changes in team members who have differing epistemological backgrounds. New members join the &#039;virtual team&#039; at differing times in their research careers and in our project. As we are working at the intersections of different disciplines, it takes a long period of time to work with common frameworks and methodologies in our virtual team. To get to a level of connected thinking about the data, its analysis and subsequent interpretation is a challenge in itself. This paper discusses the issues faced by the people rather than the project domain. Those involved enter the &#039;virtual team&#039;