December 2010
Application of short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) to study gene function in mammalian systems
Over the past decade, RNA interference (RNAi) plays an important role in biology, especially for silencing gene expression. RNA interference (RNAi) is a natural process through which expression of a targeted gene can be knocked down with high specificity and selectivity. Methods of mediating the RNAi effect involve small interfering RNA (siRNA) and short hairpin RNA (shRNA). In various applications, RNAi...
December 2010
Molecular and biochemical characterization of Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri pathotypes
Prevalence of citrus bacterial canker caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citriin citrus groves is the major impediment and limiting factor in successful citrus production. Severity varies among different species, varieties and prevailing climatic conditions. Despite extensive studies on the biology, epidemiology and management of this disease, there is still little known about the role of...
December 2010
An overview on the allelic variant of CYP2D6 genotype
An overview on the allelic variant of CYP2D6 genotype
December 2010
Division of the water-saving crop planning system in the Heihe River basin
Instituting water-saving crop planning (WSCP) is an effective way for the Heihe River basin to reverse its current growing scarcity of water resources and continuing environmental deterioration. However, because different areas of the river basin have different natural resources and diverse social and economic conditions, the planting structure for the region must be divided before the optimal adjustment of WSCP....
December 2010
Use of gibberellin in floriculture
This review aimed to show the use of gibberellin in floriculture. In this context, it should be noted that the benefit of the activity of the gibberellins has brought major advances in the field of physiology. Its use is one of the most important tools for the development of agriculture. Thus, the study concluded that the use of gibberellins has been increasingly used by producers and is also a vast important...
December 2010
Lethal yellowing disease of the coconut palms (cocos nucifera l.): An overview of the crises
Phytoplasmas are minute cell, wall-less prokaryotes with a diameter less than 1 micrometer ranging from 200 to 800 µm. They have cytoplasma, ribosome and strands of nucleus materials. They arose from gram-positive Clostridium-like bacterial ancestor of the lactobacillus lineage, which appears to have suffered extreme genome reductions when compared with their gram-positive relatives. The inability to...
December 2010
Possible effects of regulating hydroponic water temperature on plant growth, accumulation of nutrients and other metabolites
Water temperature can affect many physiological processes during plant growth and development. Temperatures below or above optimum levels may influence plant metabolic activities positively or negatively. This may include accumulation of different metabolites such as phenolic compounds, reactive oxygen species (ROS), nutrient uptake, chlorophyll pigment formation, the photosynthesis process and finally the...
December 2010
Value-adding post harvest processing of cooking bananas (Musa spp. AAB and ABB genome groups)
Cooking bananas (including plantains) are among the major commodities used in Sub Saharan Africa to combat food insecurity. It is estimated that more than 30% of the banana production are lost after harvest. The losses are mostly due to the rapid ripening of the fruits, poor handling, inadequate storage and transportation means, and poor knowledge of food processing options. Processing the...
December 2010
Historical perspective of in situ hybridization for the analysis of genomic constitution of plants
In situ hybridization involves hybridization of DNA or RNA probes to the cytological preparations. The technique originally used auto-radiographic labeling to map both repetitive and low copy DNA sequences. The problem associated with this technique was its short half life, lack of safety and long exposure time which hindered its widespread use in DNA hybridization. To overcome these problems, non...
December 2010
Fish milt quality and major factors influencing the milt quality parameters: A review
In commercial fish production, the evaluation of milt quality is essential in order to increase the efficiency of artificial fertilization. Numerous studies have demonstrated that qualitative parameters of milt (i.e. seminal fluid composition, spermatozoa motility and sperm production) could be influence by several factors including biological characteristics of brooders (age, weight and length), rearing...
December 2010
Use of elicitors as an approach for sustainable agriculture
Plant pathogens are responsible for large declines in agricultural production. Their control is carried out mainly by chemical and frequently proposed biological methods to reduce their environmental impact. On the other hand, plant-pathogen or microbe interactions generate multiple signals within plants activating defense mechanism, some of which can also be induced by elicitors (protective...
December 2010
The impacts of the transgenes on the modified crops, non-target soil and terrestrial organisms
Agriculture forms a basis for survival and advancement of civilization of mankind and economic growth. The production and quality of food depends on nature of cultivars that have hitherto been obtained by mutation and hybridization of selected plants. Since the productivity of many crops has reached a plateau the gene transfer technology is used to break the yield barriers to meet the demand of the...
December 2010
Broiler meat quality: Proteins and lipids of muscle tissue
Proteins and lipids of muscle tissue are important meat quality parameters. They contribute substantially to the nutritional characteristics of meat. A number of studies has been conducted on the effect of different factors on the protein and lipid content of broiler meat. Given the above, the subject matter of the present paper was to provide a review of latest research results on the said quality traits as...
December 2010
Antibiotic resistance plasmids in wastewater treatment plants and their possible dissemination into the environment
Antibiotic resistance plasmids found in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) may represent a threat to public health if they are readily disseminated into the environment and ultimately into pathogenic bacteria. The wastewater environments provide an ideal ecosystem for development and evolution of antibiotic resistance plasmids. Selective pressures for resistance to toxic compounds, high organic content and...
December 2010
Solute carrier transporters: Pharmacogenomics research opportunities in Africa
Membrane transporters play a critical role in drug response as they provide the targets for many commonly used drugs and are major determinants of drug absorption, distribution, and elimination. Most of them belong to one of the two major super-families of membrane transport proteins, the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, and the solute carrier (SLC) transporters. They are subject to both genotypic and...
December 2010
Plant mitochondrial genome: “A sweet and safe home’’ for transgene
Transfer of transgene through pollens to related plant species is a big environmental concern. Mitochondrion is also a superb and putative aspirant for transgene containment like plastids. Having its own transcription and translation machinery, and maternal inheritance gives assurance of transgene containment with high expression level. Regulation of mtDNA is under nuclear control, mediated by nuclear encoded...
December 2010
Agar alternatives for micropropagation of African violet (Saintpaulia ionantha)
Agar is one of the most popular solidifying agents in plant tissue culture. High price of pure grade agar and fear of over exploitation of its resources caused searching for low cost alternatives. In this study, liquid medium with cotton substratum and different combinations of starch, semolina, potato powder and agar in two steps of micropropagation (shoot induction and proliferation) were investigated. The highest...
December 2010
Understanding the relationship between indigenous (traditional) knowledge systems (IKS), and access to genetic resources and benefits sharing (ABS)
Indigenous local communities have coexisted with their natural biological resources for millennia. This has entailed that the local people use a great deal of conservation methods to ensure that this coexistence does indeed exist to this present date. Invariably, as this happened, a huge wealth of sophisticated indigenous (traditional) knowledge systems (IKS) has been building up and concurrently been passed...
December 2010
Plant functional group classifications and a generalized hierarchical framework of plant functional traits
The plant functional group concept has been proven to be an excellent research framework for investigating the linkages between ecosystem functions and plant biodiversity. The large number of plant functional group classifications however makes it difficult to compare data from different studies and draw general conclusions. In this article, we briefly review the major plant functional group classifications,...
December 2010
Interaction of Mycobiont: Piriformospora Indica with Medicinal plants and plants of Economic importance
Traditional medicines of plant origin are used by world’s large population. Economic development including eradication of poverty in developing countries like, India or other countries of the world required increase in agricultural productivity. Bio fertilizers plays a very important role in modern agriculture, in achieving higher productions in Agriculture at lower input costs using biotechnological...
December 2010
Microalgae for biofuels production and environmental applications: A review
Microalgae can provide several different types of renewable biofuels. These include methane produced by anaerobic digestion of the algal biomass; biodiesel derived from microalgal oil and photobiologically produced biohydrogen. This review presents the current classification of biofuels, with special focus on microalgae and their applicability for the production of biodiesel. The paper considered issues...
December 2010
Photosynthesis and photoprotective systems of plants in response to aluminum toxicity
Aluminum (Al) toxicity is the major factor limiting plant growth in acidic soils, which comprise up to 70% of the world’s potentially arable lands. Although, Al toxicity and tolerance in plant roots have been extensively studied during the past decades because inhibition of root growth is one of the earliest symptoms of Al injury and the most easily recognized symptom in solution culture, limited data...
December 2010
Whole genome amplification: Use of advanced isothermal method
Laboratory method for amplifying genomic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) samples, aiming to generate more amounts and sufficient quantity DNA for further subsequent specific analysis is named, whole genome amplification (WGA). This method is only a way to increase input material from few cells and limited DNA contents. While polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based WGA methods have been under continuous development...
December 2010
Regulation of plant stress response by dehydration responsive element binding (DREB) transcription factors
Plant growth and productivity are greatly affected by environmental stresses such as dehydration, high salinity, low temperature and biotic pathogen infection. Plant adaptation to these environmental stresses is controlled by cascades of molecular networks. The dehydration responsive element binding (DREB) transcription factors, which specifically interact with C-repeat/DRE (A/GCCGAC), play an important role...
December 2010
From HAMLET to XAMLET: The molecular complex selectively induces cancer cell death
HAMLET (human α-lactalbumin made lethal to tumor cells) is a complex consisting of decalcinated α-lactalbumin and oleic acid. It has been shown to induce massive cell death in various cancers without serious damage to normal tissues in both in vitro and in vivo experiments. The complexity of the mechanism in the cellular functions of HAMLET results from its heterogeneous...
December 2010
Progress in strategies for sequence diversity library creation for directed evolution
Protein engineering has been the most attractive strategy for biologists to redesign enzymes. As the simplest technique of protein engineering, directed evolution has been applied to many fields, such as industry, agriculture and medicine. An experiment of directed evolution comprises mutant libraries creation and screening or selection for enzyme variants with desired properties. Therefore, a successful...
December 2010
Structure and role of neutrophil cytosol factor 1 (NCF1) gene in various diseases
The neutrophil cytosol factor 1 (NCF1) gene consists of 11 exons and is found in two forms; one is wild type gene and the other is pseudogene. It has more than 98% homology. Both genes occupy the same chromosome region. The mutation in this gene leads to various types of diseases such as chronic granulomatous disease, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and parasitic infection. The common mutation of this gene in...
December 2010
Novel idea to monitor and measure blood hemoglobin noninvasively
Measuring blood hematocrit noninvasively is reviewed in this paper. Although there is an inclination to measure the hematocrit by determining the bioelectrical impedance of the blood, in vitro experimental methods still remain practically inapplicable. The blood sample size is determined when blood samples are examined. Determining the impedance and volume of blood is the biggest challenge in...
December 2010
A review on integrated agro-technology of vegetables
The aim of this review was threefold: First, to explore the effect of different preharvest treatments on postharvest quality of fruits and vegetables. Second, the principles of biological, chemical and biochemical changes in fruits and vegetables during development, maturation, ripening and storage were reviewed. Third postharvest handling and factors affecting quality of fruits and vegetables were examined....
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