Diversity of Endophytic Actinomycetes From Wheat and Its Potential as Plant Growth Promoting and Biocontrol Agents

A total of 35 endophytic actinomycetes strains was isolated from the roots, stems and leaves tissues of healthy wheat plants and identified as Streptomyces sp. (24), Actinopolyspora sp. (3), Nocardia sp. (4), Saccharopolyspora sp. (2) Pseudonocardia (1) and Micromonospora sp. (1). Seventeen endophytic actinomycetes isolate showed abilities to solubilize phosphate and produce IAA in the range of 5 to 42mg/100ml and 18-42µg/ml respectively. Nineteen isolates produced catechol-type of siderophore ranging between 1.3-20.32µg/ml. Also, hydroxamate-type siderophore produced by 9 isolates in the range of 13.33-50.66µg/ml. Maximum catechol-type of siderophore production was observed in Streptomyces roseosporus W9 (20.32µg/ml) which was also displaying maximum antagonistic activity against ten different pathogenic fungi. The results indicated that internal tissues of healthy wheat plants exhibited endophytic actinomycetes diversity not only in terms of different types of isolates but also in terms of functional diversity

EVALUATION OF HEPATOPROTECTIVE ACTIVITY OF STEM EXTRACTS OF CUSCUTA REFLEXA (ROXB) IN RATS

Objective: Cuscuta Reflexa (Convolvulaceae) is a plant with a variety of ethnic medicinal uses along with antioxidant activity. Hence it was planned to evaluate the hepatoprotective activity with alcoholic extracts of stem of Cuscuta reflexa (AESCR) and aqueous extracts of stem of Cuscuta reflexa (AQESCR).Methods: Hepatoprotective activity of both the extracts was studied against paracetamol induced hepatotoxicity in rats. Functional (thiopentone induced sleeping time), physical (wet liver weight and volume), biochemical parameters Alanine aminotransferase (ALT), Aspartate aminotransferase (AST), Serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Serum direct bilirubin (BILD), Serum total bilirubin (BILT), Serum albumin (ALB), Serum total proteins (PRO), Serum cholesterol (CHO), and histopathological changes of livers were assessed in control/toxicant/standard/and extract treated animals with paracetamol induced hepatotoxic models in rats.Results: In LD50 studies for AESCR and AQESCR up to the maximum dose level of 2000 mg/kg dose no mortality was observed in any of the animals, indicating the practically nontoxic. When compared to toxicant control groups both the extracts have significantly reduced the paracetamol induced elevated levels of serum ALT, AST, ALP, BILT, BILD, CHO, and elevated the levels of ALB and PRO. The histopathological changes (steatosis), necrosis etc. Were partly or fully prevented in animals treated with the two extracts.Conclusion: AESCR and AQESCR showed a significant hepatoprotective effect against paracetamol induced hepatic damage. The medium and high doses of AESCR and AQESCR (200 and 400 mg/kg) treated groups showd better hepatoprotective activity when compared to standard drug silymarin (25 mg/kg).Â

Impact of medication and psychological behaviour assessment by community pharmacists in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients after hospital stay

Drug related problem (DRPs) is a key factor which will affect the outcome of therapy and safety. The aim of the present study is to assess the DRPs in T2DM patients and psychological aspects of patients by community pharmacists to observe the rate of DRP. Prospective randomized controlled intervention study involved T2DM patients and conducted in two community pharmacies at Kanpur from January 2012 to December 2012. The assessment of DRPs was based on the PCNE. Changes in HBA1C, LDL, BP, foot examinations, changes medical and medication utilization were studied. Using as control group, received usual care, and interventional group provided, intervened with use of the STG. Researcher provided the knowledge to community pharmacists and patients. Baseline and interventional data were collected at 0,3,6,9 and 12 months. Over 12 month study, participants’ average HBA1C reduced from 8.9% at initial visit to 7.5%. During this time, the eye examination rate was raised from 31% to 48%, and the foot examination rate was raised from 35% to 50%. It may be concluded that the intervention of pharmacists showed very less significant influence on any of the intermediate health outcomes in T2DM.Keywords: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Drug related problems , PCNE classification, Medication review, Psychological behavior

Influence of balanced fertilization on productivity and nutrient use efficiency of cereal based cropping systems

Increasing the use efficiency of nitrogen in system mode was always a concern due to escalating input cost of fertilizer. The “researcher designed farmer managed trials” were conducted in farmers’ field during 2009 -10 at 27 districts covering 17 states. A total of 192 trials in rice-rice, 233 in rice (Oryza sativa L.) -wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), 48 in rice- greengram and 77 in maize-wheat system were conducted with five common treatments, viz. control, recommended quantity of N alone, NP, NK and NPK in all the locations and cropping systems. Application of recommended quantity of NPK in all the systems recorded higher yield and increase was found to be more than 50% in maize (Zea mays L.) -wheat and rice-rice systems and > 30% in rice-greengram [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek] and rice-wheat systems over application of N alone. On an average additional yield of 2 794 kg rice equivalent yield (REY)/ha was realized, in cereal based systems with application of all the nutrients together instead of N alone. Among the various systems, maize-wheat was found to respond well to balanced application as it recorded 162% increase in yield over control. Partial factor productivity (PFP) of N, can be increased by >50% in rice-rice and maize-wheat system through application of recommended dose of NPK. Efficiency of applied nutrients measured in the form of agronomic efficiency was found to be >100% for all the systems under balanced application compared to N alone, or with P with K. Similarly combined application increased the P and K efficiency in all the systems with maize-wheat recording the highest efficiency of K. Relative response of treatment over control also displayed similar trend. Marginal returns due to application of NPK together was found to be 136.7, 24.5, 11.5 and 46.4% higher in rice-rice, rice-wheat, rice-greengram and maize-wheat systems respectively over application of N alone. Balanced application of N, P and K was found to increase the system productivity and nutrient use efficiency of cereal based systems

Antagonistic Bioactivity of Endophytic Actinomycetes Isolated from Medicinal Plants

Endophytic actinomycetes are promising biocontrol agents for use in agriculture and have been isolated from various plant species. In the present study, 40 endophytic actinomycetes were isolated from roots, stems and leaves of three medicinal plants viz. Aloe vera, Mentha arvensis and Ocimum sanctum. The identification revealed that the majority of the isolates were Streptomyces spp. and the rest were identified as Saccharopolyspora spp., Micromonospora spp. and Actinopolyspora spp. The dual tests revealed that nine endophytic actinomycete isolates displayed a wide spectrum activity against nine fungal phytopathogens. Out of 8 isolates, 90% inhibited the growth of at least one or more phytopathogenic fungi and Saccharopolyspora 0-9 (Out of 8 isolates, 90% inhibited the growth of at least one or more phytopathogenic fungi and Saccharopolyspora 0-9 exhibited antagonistic activity against Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Alternaria brassicicola, Botrytis cinerea, Penicillium digitatum, Fusarium oxysporum, Penicillium pinophilum, Phytophthora dresclea and Colletotrichum falcatum

Diversity of Endophytic Actinomycetes from Wheat and its Potential as Plant Growth Promoting and Biocontrol Agents

A total of 35 endophytic actinomycetes strains was isolated from the roots, stems and leaves tissues of healthy wheat plants and identified as Streptomyces sp. (24), Actinopolyspora sp. (3), Nocardia sp. (4), Saccharopolyspora sp. (2) Pseudonocardia (1) and Micromonospora sp. (1). Seventeen endophytic actinomycetes isolate showed abilities to solubilize phosphate and produce IAA in the range of 5 to 42mg/100ml and 18-42µg/ml respectively. Nineteen isolates produced catechol-type of siderophore ranging between 1.3-20.32µg/ml. Also, hydroxamate-type siderophore produced by 9 isolates in the range of 13.33-50.66µg/ml. Maximum catechol-type of siderophore production was observed in Streptomyces roseosporus W9 (20.32µg/ml) which was also displaying maximum antagonistic activity against ten different pathogenic fungi. The results indicated that internal tissues of healthy wheat plants exhibited endophytic actinomycetes diversity not only in terms of different types of isolates but also in terms of functional diversity

Leiomyoma of the nasal septum

Leiomyoma of nasal cavity is an extremely rare and unusual benign mass that uncommonly arises from the nasal septum. These are vascular or nonvascular masses of myogenic origin. We present a rare case of leiomyoma arising from the nasal septum and discuss its management using KTP 532 laser

SPRING-INX: A Multilingual Indian Language Speech Corpus by SPRING Lab, IIT Madras

India is home to a multitude of languages of which 22 languages are recognised by the Indian Constitution as official. Building speech based applications for the Indian population is a difficult problem owing to limited data and the number of languages and accents to accommodate. To encourage the language technology community to build speech based applications in Indian languages, we are open sourcing SPRING-INX data which has about 2000 hours of legally sourced and manually transcribed speech data for ASR system building in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi and Tamil. This endeavor is by SPRING Lab , Indian Institute of Technology Madras and is a part of National Language Translation Mission (NLTM), funded by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. We describe the data collection and data cleaning process along with the data statistics in this paper.Comment: 3 pages, About SPRING-INX Dat

Use of chelating agent for optimum post thaw quality of buck semen

Ejaculates (35) from adult Sirohi bucks (2–4 years old) were utilized for the present study to find out the freezability of buck semen at different levels of chelating agent used (ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid - EDTA: 0, 0.01, 0.05 and 0.1%) by conventional method of freezing. The ejaculates were collected twice at weekly intervals using artificial vagina and were extended to maintain sperms concentration approximately 100 million / dose (0.25 ml) with tris- citric acid- fructose (TCF) diluent having 10% (v/v) egg yolk and 6% (v/v) glycerol as cryo protecting agent. Filling and sealing of straws were done at 5ºC in cold handing cabinet after 4 h of equilibration period then straws were vapor frozen for 10 min above 2 cm of liquid nitrogen and finally put in to liquid nitrogen. Post thaw motility, live sperm count, abnormalities, acrosomal integrity and hypo osmotic swelling test had been conducted to know freezability. Analysis of data using SPSS 16 revealed that post thaw motility, live sperm count, abnormalities, acrosomal integrity and hypo osmotic swelling positive spermatozoa differed significantly at different levels of EDTA. The post thaw motility, live sperm count, acrosomal integrity and hypo osmotic swelling positive spermatozoa were significantly highest in 0.1% of EDTA used in the present study. So, 0.01% EDTA can be used as an additive in semen dilutor in routine freezing process for better post thaw recovery of buck semen