Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In vitro antibacterial activity analysis of leaves of Limonia acidissima.

The present study was carried out the antibacterial activity and phytochemical screening of the hexane, chloroform and methanol extracts of leaves of Limonia acidissima . The antibacterial activity was evaluated against four Gram-negative ( Escherichia coli , Klebsiella pneumoniae , Pseudomonas aeruginosa , Proteus vulgaris ) and five Gram-positive bacteria ( Bacillus subtilis , Enterococcus faecalis , Micrococcus luteus, Staphylococcus aureus , Streptococcus pneumoniae ) by agar well diffusion method. Methanol extract showed good antibacterial activity with the high inhibition zones while chloroform extract exhibited mild to moderate activity and hexane extract was found to be less active. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of various secondary metabolites like steroids, alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids, coumarins, saponins, tannins and triterpenoids. The results of the present study suggest that leaves of Limonia acidissima can be used to treating infectious diseases caused by E. coli , P. vulgaris and S. pneumoniae .
Lipase‐Catalyzed Transesterification of Polyesters to Ester Copolymers

Lipase-catalyzed intermolecular transesterification between two different polyesters has been carried out using in toluene. The transesterification of poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL) and (1,4-butylene adipate) took place via catalysis of lipase from Candida antarctica to give an ester copolymer. 13 C NMR analysis showed that the resulting polymer was not a mixture of the starting polyester, but a copolymer consisting of both units. The reaction temperature and solvent amount greatly affected the microstructure of the ester copolymer. Under appropriate conditions, the random copolymer was formed. The enzymatic transesterification has been monitored by seze exclusion chromatography (SEC) and 13 C NMR. Ester copolymers were enzymatically obtained from PCL and other poy(αω-alkylene dicarboxylate)s and their microstructure depended on the polyester structure.
Translesion DNA Synthesis Catalyzed by Human Pol η and Pol κ across 1,N 6-Ethenodeoxyadenosine*

1,N 6-Ethenodeoxyadenosine, a DNA adduct generated by exogenous and endogenous sources, severely blocks DNA synthesis and induces miscoding events in human cells. To probe the mechanism for in vivo translesion DNA synthesis across this adduct, in vitro primer extension studies were conducted using newly identified human DNA polymerases (pol) η and κ, which have been shown to catalyze translesion DNA synthesis past several DNA lesions. Steady-state kinetic analyses and analysis of translesion products have revealed that the synthesis is >100-fold more efficient with pol η than with pol κ and that both error-free and error-prone syntheses are observed with these enzymes. The miscoding events include both base substitution and frameshift mutations. These results suggest that both polymerases, particularly pol η, may contribute to the translesion DNA synthesis events observed for 1,N 6-ethenodeoxyadenosine in human cells.
Changes in total carotenoid content at different stages of traditional processing of yellow-fleshed cassava genotypes.

The changes in content of total carotenoid at each stage of processing cassava storage roots were investigated with three improved yellow-fleshed cassava varieties (TMS 94/0006, TMS 01/1235 and TMS 01/1371) grown in 2005/2006 in a randomised complete block design with two replications at Ibadan, Nigeria. When the cassava roots were grated to a mash, results obtained indicate that there was a significant reduction in total carotenoid content for all the genotypes. The reduction was highest for TMS 01/1235 (1.20 μg g ―1 ), intermediate for TMS 01/1371 (0.78 μg g ―1 ) and least for TMS 94/0006 (0.35 μg g ―1 ). In most cases, we observed higher total carotenoid concentration, especially when the intermediate step involved pressing to remove excess water, and during roasting compared with the initial concentration in the raw cassava storage roots. In conclusion, grating, drying and cooking to a paste resulted in reduction of total carotenoid content, while roasting and pressing resulted in higher carotenoid concentration. A change in total carotenoid content during processing depends on variety, processing method, especially unit operation and the initial total carotenoid content of the variety.
Patterns in habitat and fish assemblages within Great Lakes coastal wetlands and implications for sampling design

Discerning fish–habitat associations at a variety of spatial scales is relevant to evaluating biotic conditions and stressor responses in Great Lakes coastal wetlands. Ordination analyses identified strong, geographically organized associations among anthropogenic stressors and water clarity, vegetation structure, and fish composition at both whole-wetland and within-wetland spatial scales. Lacustrine-protected wetlands were generally internally homogeneous in fish composition, whereas riverine or barrier-beach lagoon wetlands could be more heterogeneous, especially if they had large tributaries and complex morphology or if the mouth area was more directly exposed to the adjacent lake than were other areas. A tendency towards more turbidity-tolerant fish but fewer vegetation spawners, nest guarders, or game and panfish differentiated both more-disturbed from less-disturbed wetlands and open-water from vegetated areas within wetlands. Variation in vegetation structure related to wetland hydromorphology and.
Helix‐coil stability constants for the naturally occurring amino acids in water. XXIV. Half‐cystine parameters from random poly(hydroxybutylglutamine‐CO‐S‐methylthio‐L‐cysteine)

Water‐soluble, random copolymers containing N5‐(4‐hydroxybutyl)‐L‐glutamine (host) and S‐methylthio‐L‐cysteine (guest) have been prepared, fractionated, and characterized, with S‐methylthio‐L‐cysteine serving as a model for cystine residues in proteins. From the thermally induced helix‐coil transition curves of these copolymers in water at neutral pH, the Zimm‐Bragg parameters σ and s for the helix‐coil transition of “poly(L‐cystine)” were deduced. The results show that the cystine model acts as a weak helix‐breaker over the entire temperature range from 0 to 60°C. The implications of this finding are evaluated in the context of a general discussion of the Zimm‐Bragg parameters for all the 20 naturally occurring amino acids.
How loyal can a graduate ever be? The influence of motivation and employment on student loyalty

ABSTRACT The Higher Education Sector is improving its relationship with graduates due to the economic, social and technological changes that affect universities. We present a consolidated model in this study of both the consequences and the antecedents of satisfaction that are determinative of the formation of loyalty in the university sector. In addition to testing the model, we evaluate the differences found in the relations between the motives given by the graduates for their choices (vocation and career paths) and their current employment situation (employed or unemployed). Grounded on the literature, we propose the conceptual model and test it with PLS supported by a sample of 805 graduates qualified in economics/business/management. The results highlight that perceived value determines image, satisfaction and loyalty, as well as the causal relation between image and both satisfaction and loyalty. Vocation determines the influence of value on satisfaction while career options produce no differences. However, employment status to a great extent conditions the perspective of the graduate. The influence of these variables has not been examined earlier in the literature. Given the competitive world of Higher Education, the conclusions may assist directors and managers of Higher Education institutions in decision-making, as well as improving graduate satisfaction and loyalty and the reputation of the university.
Nuclear localization of liver X receptor α and β is differentially regulated

Activity of nuclear receptors is regulated by their nuclear localization. Liver X receptors (LXR) α and β are nuclear receptors that regulate transcription of genes for cholesterol metabolism, cholesterol transport, and lipogenesis. While LXR α and β are very similar in structure and exhibit similar ligand binding properties, their physiological roles are quite different. Since the LXRs fall into a class of receptors that move between the nucleus and cytoplasm, experiments were conducted to determine whether LXR α and LXR β show differences in their nuclear localization pattern. To determine the location of each receptor, cell lines stably expressing yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) chimeras with either LXR α or LXR β were examined. Retention in the nucleus of the chimeric proteins in the presence or absence of ligands was assessed using fluorescence microscopy coupled with digitonin permeabilization assays. Surprisingly, differences were found between LXR α and LXR β. Whereas unliganded LXR α was retained in the nucleus, unliganded LXR β was partially exported. Mutations were then introduced into putative nuclear localization sequences (NLS) to determine which sequences are important for nuclear localization and function. Mutation in one such sequence abolished nuclear localization of LXR α, whereas the analogous change in LXR β had a much less dramatic effect. Mutations in analogous putative NLS also differentially affected transcriptional activation by LXR α and LXR β. These data demonstrate for the first time that nuclear retention and localization as well as function of LXR α and LXR β are differentially regulated. J. Cell. Biochem. 100: 69–85, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Response of Spores to High‐Pressure Processing

ABSTRACT: This review focuses on the responses of microbial spores to food processes that incorporate high hydrostatic pressures. While the majority of information deals with spores of Bacillus species, spores of Clostridium and Alicyclobacillus species are also discussed, and a section of the review surveys the responses of fungal spores to high-pressure processing. The mechanisms of the germination of bacterial spores are outlined in detail with regard to spore physiology and structure, along with molecular aspects of germinants and the interaction with spore receptors. Use of treatments combining pressure and temperature for a range of different food products is reviewed, including examples of hurdle technology employing high hydrostatic pressure. Pressure-assisted thermal sterilization is also discussed.
The relation between age and size at first flowering of Plantago major in various habitats

Survival, age and size at first flowering and seed production of five populations of Plantago major were studied in a reciprocal-transplant experiment to investigate if differences in flowering phenology can be explained by different selection regimes. Survival in the pre-reproductive phase was relatively low on a river bank, a beach plain and a path, compared to that in a sea-shore meadow and a dune grassland. Age at first flowering depended on the site as well as on the population from which plants originated (.)
Age-related changes in the visual pigments of the white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus)

Using in situ microspectrophotometry, the spectral absorbance characteristics of the photoreceptors in the retinas of larval, juvenile, and adult white sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus) were determined. The adult has one type of rod, containing a visual pigment with maximum spectral absorbance (λmax) near 540 nm. There are three types of cones, morphologically identical but distinguished from one another by containing either a blue-sensitive (λmax 464 nm), green-sensitive (λmax 531 nm), or red-sensitive (λmax 605 nm) visual pigment. Juvenile sturgeon have visual pigments similar to those of the adult. However, no evidence could be found for the presence of either blue-sensitive or red-sensitive cones in larval white sturgeon through the age of 10 weeks. Larval sturgeon up to about 10 weeks yielded only green-sensitive rods and cones. The absence of red-sensitive cones in the larvae, and their presence in older fish, was confirmed by the use of 4,4′-diisothiocyanato-stilbene-2,2′-disulfonic acid, a fluore.
Functional significance of the male brood pouch in the reproductive strategies of pipefishes and seahorses: a morphological and ultrastructural comparative study on three anatomically different pouches

The morphological organization of the male brood pouch skin of three different species of syngnathids (Nerophis ophidion, Syngnathus abaster and Hippocampus hippocampus), investigated using light and electron microscopy, showed that each pouch had a skin with a different ultrastructure. This reflected different relationships between the paternal body and the developing embryos. In N. ophidion, the bilayered epidermis of the pouch consisted mainly of pavement cells (filament-containing cells) typical of fish skin. In S. abaster, pavement cells were interspersed with many mitochondria-rich cells. These cells varied in number during the different functional stages of the pouch and died by apoptosis after the breeding period. Modified secretory ‘flame cone cells’ rich in vesicles and granules characterized the epidermis of H. hippocampus. Although there were specific differences, the vascularized dermis was the only feature common to all three types of pouch. These findings suggest that the brood pouch in Syngnathidae has different functions, which may be related to the different reproductive strategies and ecology of each species.
The role of microRNAs in HIV infection

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of approximately 22-nt long non-coding RNAs found in eukaryotes. miRNAs are involved in the specific regulation of both protein-coding and putatively non-coding genes by post-transcriptional silencing. Evidences support the idea that mammals continue to employ non-coding RNA to silence viruses. Although HIV-1 infection modulation by miRNAs is unclear, there are several hypotheses that may possibly explain the confounded nature of miRNAs effects in virus-infected host systems. Studies of the interactions of HIV-1 and miRNAs might generate new insights into the mechanism of HIV-1 infection, for instance, whether HIV-1 infection affects the miRNA pathways and whether miRNA pathways target the HIV-1 genome to modulate infection. Research into how HIV-1 infection affects the host miRNA pathway also could improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying HIV-1 mediated pathologies and T lymphocytes depletion. In this paper, we discuss several possible mechanisms of interaction between miRNAs and HIV-1 including silencing of cellular mRNAs sequences that relevant to HIV-1 replication.
Evolutionary emergence of synaptic nervous systems: what can we learn from the non‐synaptic, nerveless Porifera?

Abstract. The Porifera represent one of the only two recent nerveless and muscleless metazoan phyla. Nevertheless, sponges provide behavioral, physiological, pharmacological, morphological, and, more recently, an increasing amount of genetic evidence for a paracrine pre-nervous integration system. Although this system might be derived, it allows us to draw conclusions, on the basis of comparative data, about the origin of the nervous system sensu stricto as found in the eumetazoan phyla. The goal of the present review is to compile recent evidence on the sponge integration systems. Based on this framework, new light is also shed on the evolutionary origin of the eumetazoan synaptic nervous systems, which can be regarded to form an evolutionary biochemical continuum with the paracrine signaling system in sponges. Thus, we can assume that the evolutionary transition from a paracrine-dominated, pre-nervous system to an electrochemically dominated, primordial nervous system resulted in part from compartmentalization effects. As intermediate evolutionary stages, regionalized synapse precursor areas might have occurred within pre-nervous cells, which foreshadowed the highly organized synaptic scaffolds present in recent nerve cells of the Eumetazoa.
Creation and Validation of the Spanish Durum Wheat Core Collection

Spanish wheat (Triticum spp.) landraces have a considerable polymorphism, containing many unique alleles, relative to other collections. The existence of a core collection is a favored approach for breeders to efficiently explore novel variation and enhance the use of germplasm. In this study, the Spanish durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) core collection (CC) was created using a population structure–based method, grouping accessions by subspecies and allocating the number of genotypes among populations according to the diversity of simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The CC of 94 genotypes was established, which accounted for 17% of the accessions in the entire collection. An alternative core collection (CH), with the same number of genotypes per subspecies and maximizing the coverage of SSR alleles, was assembled with the Core Hunter software. The quality of both core collections was compared with a random core collection and evaluated using geographic, agromorphological, and molecular marker data not previously used in the selection of genotypes. Both core collections had a high genetic representativeness, which validated their sampling strategies. Geographic and agromorphological variation, phenotypic correlations, and gliadin alleles of the original collection were more accurately depicted by the CC. Diversity arrays technology (DArT) markers revealed that the CC included genotypes less similar than the CH. Although more SSR alleles were retained by the CH (94%) than by the CC (91%), the results showed that the CC was better than CH for breeding purposes.
Chromocenter association in plant cell nuclei: determinants, functional significance, and evolutionary implications

Owing to close associations of different chromosomes at their heterochromatic regions, nuclear repatternings consisting of changes in the number and size of the chromocenters may occur with tissue differentiation in plant species. By studying these changes in the nuclear structure in a number of Magnoliopsida with chromocentric nuclei, we found: (i) that chromocenter association is affected by the degree of partitioning of the genome, since the extent of the phenomenon correlates positively with the number of chromosomes in the complement, the level of ploidy, and the number of chromocenters in meristematic nuclei, whereas the correlation with the mean DNA content per chromosome is negative; (ii) that this kind of nuclear repatterning plays a role in or is a marker of events that have a part in the control of nuclear activity, since a negative correlation was found to exist, as a rule, between the extent of chromocenter association and that of RNA synthesis in the nucleus; and (iii) that this large-scale .
Insecticidal and antifeedant activities of proteins secreted by entomopathogenic fungi against Spodoptera littoralis (Lep., Noctuidae)

Abstract: Entomopathogenic fungi are a poorly exploited source of insecticidal proteins, which may be used for the development of new natural insecticides and as alternative molecules for transgenic deployment. The crude soluble protein extracts in Adamek's liquid medium of 25 fungal isolates belonging to the fungal species Metarhizum anisopliae, Beauveria bassiana, Beauveria brongniartii and Scopulariopsis brevicaulis were screened by per os toxicity on Spodoptera littoralis larvae. Whilst extracts from two M. anisopliae and two B. bassiana isolates gave significant mortalities when applied either on alfalfa leaf discs or incorporated into artificial diet, the one from M. anisopliae 01/58‐Su isolate was the only most toxic that showed promise for S. littoralis control. In leaf disc assays, this extract exhibited strong dose‐related toxic and antifeedant activity against the larvae. At 10, 20 and 40 μg protein/insect, the extract gave 61.3%, 96.6% and 100.0% mortality, respectively, and average survival time of 5.7, 4.3 and 3.1 days respectively. Not only the antifeeding index was dose‐related, but it significantly increased over time in a dose‐related manner. Longer exposure times led to a dose‐related significant increase in larval mortality. The exposure times for 50% mortality were 91.3 h and 62.1 h for 20 and 40 μg protein/insect respectively. The crude extract when exposed to higher temperature or protease treatment lost toxicity, indicating that toxicity was protein mediated. In addition, the liquid medium composition did not influence its insecticidal activity. The effects of the protein extract on midgut cells of second instar larvae of S. littoralis were investigated by using both light and electron microscopy. A progressive bleeding of the midgut epithelium into the gut lumen was observed along with lysis of the epithelium and deterioration of the microvilli.
The Question That Launched My Career

Excellent questions are rare commodities. Take, for instance, one of the questions that fascinated Hutchinson (1961): “Why do so many species co-exist? ” Approximately 42,042,042,042 papers have been written on this question, so it has clearly fascinated a lot of people. What makes it excellent? Excellence is subjective, of course, but I posit that there are three keys. (1) The empirical pattern is clear and general: Many species do, in fact, co-exist in most ecosystems. (2) It is counter-intuitive, and thus fascinating: Competitive exclusion (Hardin 1960) is one of the oldest and most pervasive principles of ecology, and should limit the number of coexisting species to well below what we actually see. (3) The set of mechanistic explanations to resolve this question (e.g., Chesson 2000) is large, and crosses boundaries of discipline and scale: No single explanation is ubiquitous, and a variety of people can contribute. This makes it a hard question to answer in full, and thus one that has remained interesting for a long time.
Dispersal in Kelps: Factors Affecting Spore Swimming and Competency

The distance over which propagules can successfully colonize new sites de- pends on processes that increase the time they remain competent while being dispersed. As do feeding larvae, algal spores can contribute to their own nutrition (via photosynthesis) during dispersal. We explored the dispersal potential of the kelps Macrocystis pyrifera and Ptervgophora californica in laboratory experiments by examining (1) how long their spores can swim, (2) the contribution of energy derived from photosynthesis to spore swimming duration, and (3) the ability of spores to germinate and attach after they stop swimming. Results indicate that under photosynthetically saturating irradiance no spores of either species can swim longer than 120 h; < 10% of the spores were still swimming after 72 h. When placed in the dark, spores did not swim longer than 72 h; < 10% remained swimming after 48 h. More importantly, spores did not die after they stopped swimming; most germinated in the water column and retained their capacity to produce viable sporophyte recruits. The ability of spores to attach after they stopped swimming differed between the two species; settlement density declined in Macrocystis and increased in Pterygophora. Thus, the viable planktonic stage of these algae is not necessarily restricted to the spore but may include later life history stages. These results provide biological evidence that the spores and germlings of these kelps can remain competent in the plankton for extended periods of time, which is consistent with our previous findings that their dispersal can occur over greater distances than previously thought possible.