Mycoplasma and allied diseases of forest trees in India and vector-host-pathogen interactions

Mycoplasma and allied diseases of forest trees in India have been described,mlo disease has been intensively studied in ‘sandal’ (Santalum album L.). Other forest trees showing typicalmlo etiology are ‘toon’(Toona ciliata), Acacia catechu, A. mearnsii, Eucalyptus grand is and E. tereticornis. Disease symptoms, collateral hosts, transmission tests with possible insect vectors and vector biology have been described for sandal spike disease. Reasons for contradictory results for sandal spike vectors have been discussed and possible lines of vector search for woody plants are described. Vector-host-pathogen interactions have been reviewed. During the feeding process, phloem cells are punctured, torn and disturbed by vectors. The hypertrophy of the plant cells around the site of puncture is caused by the action of injected salivary secretion. Vector borne procaryotic disease pathogens multiply within the vectors and circulate through a sequence of tissues and organs of vectors when the latent period of pathogen is long. These initiate both harmful and beneficial interactions within the vector. Possible lines of research to fill up the existing lucunae for insect vectors of mycoplasma and allied diseases of forest trees and vector-host-pathogen interactions have been discussed

Optimizing zebrafish rearing−Effects of fish density and environmental enrichment

Introduction: Despite its popularity in research, there is very little scientifically validated knowledge about the best practices on zebrafish (Danio rerio) husbandry, which has led to several facilities having their own husbandry protocols. This study was performed to expand knowledge on the effects of enrichment and fish density on the welfare of zebrafish, with hopes of providing a scientific basis for future recommendations and legislations.Methods: Zebrafish were reared at three different stocking densities, (1, 3 or 6 fish/L), in tanks with or without environmental enrichment. Agonistic behavior was observed twice a week for 9 weeks directly in the housing tanks. Aspects of welfare is known to be reflected in neuroendocrine stress responses. Thus, cortisol secretion in response to lowering the water level was analyzed for each group. In addition, we assessed cortisol secretion in response to confinement and risk-taking behavior (boldness) using the novel tank diving test for individual fish. At termination of the experiment fish were subjected to stress by transfer to a novel environment and brain tissue was sampled for analysis of brain monoaminergic activity.Results: Fish kept at the lowest density (1 fish/L) showed a significantly higher level of aggression than fish kept at 3 or 6 fish/L. Moreover, fish kept at this low density showed significantly higher cortisol secretion on a group level than fish kept at the higher stocking densities, when subjected to lowering of the water level. Keeping fish at 1 fish/L also had effects on brain monoamines, these fish showing higher brain dopamine concentrations but lower dopamine turnover than fish kept at higher densities. Neither stocking density or enrichment had any clear effects on the behavior of individual fish in the novel tank diving test. However, fish kept at high densities showed lower and more variable growth rates than fish kept at 1 fish/L.Discussion: Taken together these results suggest that zebrafish should not be kept at a density of 1 fish/L. The optimal stocking density is likely to be in the range of 3–6 fish/L

Identifying overrepresented concepts in gene lists from literature: a statistical approach based on Poisson mixture model

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Large-scale genomic studies often identify large gene lists, for example, the genes sharing the same expression patterns. The interpretation of these gene lists is generally achieved by extracting concepts overrepresented in the gene lists. This analysis often depends on manual annotation of genes based on controlled vocabularies, in particular, Gene Ontology (GO). However, the annotation of genes is a labor-intensive process; and the vocabularies are generally incomplete, leaving some important biological domains inadequately covered.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We propose a statistical method that uses the primary literature, i.e. free-text, as the source to perform overrepresentation analysis. The method is based on a statistical framework of mixture model and addresses the methodological flaws in several existing programs. We implemented this method within a literature mining system, BeeSpace, taking advantage of its analysis environment and added features that facilitate the interactive analysis of gene sets. Through experimentation with several datasets, we showed that our program can effectively summarize the important conceptual themes of large gene sets, even when traditional GO-based analysis does not yield informative results.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We conclude that the current work will provide biologists with a tool that effectively complements the existing ones for overrepresentation analysis from genomic experiments. Our program, Genelist Analyzer, is freely available at: <url>http://workerbee.igb.uiuc.edu:8080/BeeSpace/Search.jsp</url></p

Luminescence in Mn-doped CDS nanocrystals

We have synthesized Mn-doped CdS nanocrystals (NCs) with size ranging from 1.8-3 nm. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the doped NCs differ from that of the undoped NCs with an additional peak due to Mn d-d transitions. Electron paramagnetic resonance spectra along with X-ray absorption spectroscopy and PL spectra confirm the incorporation of Mn in the CdS lattice. The fact that emissions from surface states and the Mn d levels occur at two different energies, allowed us to study the PL lifetime decay behaviour of both kinds of emissions