Biotransformation of Artemisinin by using a Novel Soil Isolated Microorganism

Artemisinin is a potential antimalarial drug effective against the multidrug resistant forms of Malarial Parasites. The current production of artemisinin is insufficient to meet the global demand. In the present study microbial biotransformation of arteannuin B, a biogenetic precursor of artemisinin to the later has been investigated. Screening studies carried out on several soil borne microorganisms have yielded one novel species with the bioconversion ability. Crude cell free extract of 72h old culture of the isolate had shown the bioconversion activity. On incubation with the substrate arteannuin B, crude cell free extract of the isolate had shown a bioconversion of 18.54% to artemisinin on molar basis with a specific activity of 0.18 units/mg.

Effect of Dietary Linseed Oil Soap on Lamb Meat

Theexperiment was carried out with 2x5 male Merino lambs raised under intensive conditions to investigate the effect of dietary calcium soap of linseed oil on the color and fatty acid composition of longissimusdorsi muscle. Control lambs fed a basal diet and the experimental lambs consumed a diet supplemented with 3% calcium soap of linseed oil. The color values (L*, a*, b* a*/b* and chroma) were not influenced by dietary treatment. The MUFA proportion reduced, SFA and PUFA content did not alter. As expected, the linolenic (C18:3 n3) and thusthe n-3 content significantly improved by linseed supplement (0.47 and 0.81; 0.78 and 1.16 in control and in experimental samples, respectively). Other n-3 and n-6 fatty acids had similar valuestocontrol samples. The n- 6/n-3 ratio was significantly narrower in the experimental group (6.31 vs. 9.38) but the P/S ratio did not differ betweenthe two groups.In conclusion calcium soap of linseed oil seems to be a suitable supplement form of n-3 fatty acids to improve the nutritive value of lamb meat.

The Evaluation and the Comparison of the Effect of Without Engine Power and Power Mechanical Systems on Rice Weed

In order to study the influence of different methods of controlling weeds such as mechanical weeding and mechanical weeder efficiency analysis in mechanical cultivation conditions, in farming year of 2011 an experiment was done in a farm in coupling and development of technology center in Haraz,Iran. The treatments consisted of (I) control treatment: where no weeding was done, (II) use of mechanical weeding without engine and (III) power mechanical weeding. Results showed that experimental treatments had significantly different effects (p=0.05) on yield traits and number of filled grains per panicle, while treatments had the significant effects on grain weight and dry weight of weeds in the first, second and third weeding methods at 1% of confidence level. Treatment (II) had its most significant effect on number of filled grains per panicle and yield performance standpoint, which was 3705.97 kg ha-1 in its highest peak. Treatment (III) was ranked as second influential with 3559.8 kg ha-1. In addition, under (I) treatments, 2364.73 kg ha-1 of yield produced. The minimum dry weights of weeds in all weeding methods were related to the treatment (II), (III) and (I), respectively. The correlation coefficient analysis showed that total yield had a significant positive correlation with the panicle grain yield per plant (r= 0.55*) and the number of grains per panicle-1 (r= 0.57*) and the number of filled grains (r= 0.63*). Total rice yield also had negative correlation of r= -0. 64* with weed dry weight at second weed sampling time (17 DAT). The weed dry weight at third and fourth sampling times (24 and 40 DAT) had negative correlations of -0.65** and r=-0.61* with rice yield, respectively.

Pleurotus sajor-caju (PSC) Improves Nutrient Contents and Maintains Sensory Properties of Carbohydrate-based Products

The grey oyster mushroom, Pleurotus sajor-caju (PSC), is a common edible mushroom and is now grown commercially around the world for food. This fungus has been broadly used as food or food ingredients in various food products for a long time. To enhance the nutritional quality and sensory attributes of bakery-based products, PSC powder is used in the present study to partially replace wheat flour in baked product formulations. The nutrient content and sensory properties of rice-porridge and unleavened bread (paratha) incorporated with various levels of PSC powder were studied. These food items were formulated with either 0%, 2%, 4% or 6% of PSC powder. Results show PSC powder recorded β-glucan at 3.57g/100g. In sensory evaluation, consumers gave higher score to both rice-porridge and paratha bread containing 2-4% PSC compared to those that are not added with PSC powder. The paratha containing 4% PSC powder can be formulated with the intention in improving overall acceptability of paratha bread. Meanwhile, for rice-porridge, consumers prefer the formulated product added with 4% PSC powder. In conclusion, the addition of PSC powder to partially wheat flour can be recommended for the purpose of enhancing nutritional composition and maintaining the acceptability of carbohydrate-based products.

Analysis and Study of Parboiling Method, and the Following Impact on Waste Reduction and Yield Increase of Iranian Rice in Paddy Conversion Phase

An important goal of parboiling is a decrease of rice broken percentage and at the beginning Selected paddy of variety of rice Tarom and soaked at three different temperatures 45 Cº, 65 Cº and 80 Cº orderly for 5 hours, 4 hours and 1.5 hours to moisture of 40 % and then in steaming stage to operate these action two steaming methods are selected steaming under pressure condition and steaming in atmosphere pressure and In the first method after exerting air, the steam pressure is increase to 1 Kg/Cm2 which is done in two different duration times of 2.5 and 5 minutes and in second method used of three times of 5,10 and 15 minutes and dry to 8% moisture and decreases of rice broken percentage at best condition in variety of Tarom of 37.2 % to 7.3 % and increases yield percentage at best condition in variety of Tarom of 69.4 % to 75.93 % and bran percentage decreased in variety of Tarom of 9.53 % to 2.2-3.2 % and this issue cause increases yield percentage in rice and use of This method is very significant for our country because broken percentage of rice in our country is 23-33 %.

Utilization of Wheat Bran as Bed Material in Solid State Bacterial Production of Lactic Acid with Various Nitrogen Sources

The present experimental investigation brings about a comparative study of lactic acid production by pure strains of Lactobacilli (1) L. delbreuckii (NCIM2025), (2) L. pentosus (NCIM 2912), (3) Lactobacillus sp.(NCIM 2734, (4) Lactobacillus sp. (NCIM2084) and coculture of strain-1 and Stain-2 in solid bed of wheat bran, under the influence of different nitrogen sources such as baker-s yeast, meat extract and proteose peptone. Among the pure cultures, strain-3 attained lowest pH value of 3.44, hence highest acid formation 46.41 g/L, while the coculture attained an overall maximum value 47.56 g/L lactic acid (pH 3.38) at 15 g/L and 20 g/L level of baker-s yeast, respectively.

Irrigation Scheduling for Maize and Indian-mustard based on Daily Crop Water Requirement in a Semi- Arid Region

Maize and Indian mustard are significant crops in semi-arid climate zones of India. Improved water management requires precise scheduling of irrigation, which in turn requires an accurate computation of daily crop evapotranspiration (ETc). Daily crop evapotranspiration comes as a product of reference evapotranspiration (ET0) and the growth stage specific crop coefficients modified for daily variation. The first objective of present study is to develop crop coefficients Kc for Maize and Indian mustard. The estimated values of Kc for maize at the four crop growth stages (initial, development, mid-season, and late season) are 0.55, 1.08, 1.25, and 0.75, respectively, and for Indian mustard the Kc values at the four growth stages are 0.3, 0.6, 1.12, and 0.35, respectively. The second objective of the study is to compute daily crop evapotranspiration from ET0 and crop coefficients. Average daily ETc of maize varied from about 2.5 mm/d in the early growing period to > 6.5 mm/d at mid season. The peak ETc of maize is 8.3 mm/d and it occurred 64 days after sowing at the reproductive growth stage when leaf area index was 4.54. In the case of Indian mustard, average ETc is 1 mm/d at the initial stage, >1.8 mm/d at mid season and achieves a peak value of 2.12 mm/d on 56 days after sowing. Improved schedules of irrigation have been simulated based on daily crop evapo-transpiration and field measured data. Simulation shows a close match between modeled and field moisture status prevalent during crop season.

How the Kinematic Swimming of European Eel Anguilla Anguilla Changes from Axial to Non-axial Velocity Flow

The aim of this study is to investigate the kinematics of undulatory elongated fish swimming against a velocity flow. We perform the experiments on European eel Anguilla Anguilla swimming in a hydrodynamic re-circulating tank with the velocity flow fixed at 0.2 m/s. We find that the undulating shape of overall eel body changes when it swims slantwise from the flow direction, by comparison to axial undulation shape. We examine this kinematics and we propose a general equation describing the lateral position of undulation body taking into account the direction of the eel-s swimming.

Probe Selection for Pathway-Specific Microarray Probe Design Minimizing Melting Temperature Variance

In molecular biology, microarray technology is widely and successfully utilized to efficiently measure gene activity. If working with less studied organisms, methods to design custom-made microarray probes are available. One design criterion is to select probes with minimal melting temperature variances thus ensuring similar hybridization properties. If the microarray application focuses on the investigation of metabolic pathways, it is not necessary to cover the whole genome. It is more efficient to cover each metabolic pathway with a limited number of genes. Firstly, an approach is presented which minimizes the overall melting temperature variance of selected probes for all genes of interest. Secondly, the approach is extended to include the additional constraints of covering all pathways with a limited number of genes while minimizing the overall variance. The new optimization problem is solved by a bottom-up programming approach which reduces the complexity to make it computationally feasible. The new method is exemplary applied for the selection of microarray probes in order to cover all fungal secondary metabolite gene clusters for Aspergillus terreus.

Analysis of DNA-Recognizing Enzyme Interaction using Deaminated Lesions

Deaminated lesions were produced via nitrosative oxidation of natural nucleobases; uracul (Ura, U) from cytosine (Cyt, C), hypoxanthine (Hyp, H) from adenine (Ade, A), and xanthine (Xan, X) and oxanine (Oxa, O) from guanine (Gua, G). Such damaged nucleobases may induce mutagenic problems, so that much attentions and efforts have been poured on the revealing of their mechanisms in vivo or in vitro. In this study, we employed these deaminated lesions as useful probes for analysis of DNA-binding/recognizing proteins or enzymes. Since the pyrimidine lesions such as Hyp, Oxa and Xan are employed as analogues of guanine, their comparative uses are informative for analyzing the role of Gua in DNA sequence in DNA-protein interaction. Several DNA oligomers containing such Hyp, Oxa or Xan substituted for Gua were designed to reveal the molecular interaction between DNA and protein. From this approach, we have got useful information to understand the molecular mechanisms of the DNA-recognizing enzymes, which have not ever been observed using conventional DNA oligomer composed of just natural nucleobases.