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Honey bees (Apidae: Apini) and stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) act as the main pollinators for many wild and cultivated tropical plants, playing a vital role in the ecology, economy, and culture. Honey bees and stingless bees ...
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Honey bees (Apidae: Apini) and stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) act as the main pollinators for many wild and cultivated tropical plants, playing a vital role in the ecology, economy, and culture. Honey bees and stingless bees are one of the major sources of antimicrobial peptides/proteins (AMPs) synthesized in fat bodies and blood cells of bees. Bee AMPs are a class of small peptides having amino acid residues between 9 and 340, classified based on source, activity, structural characteristics, and amino acid-rich species. AMP's have a wide range of inhibitory effects against bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses. Four antimicrobial peptide families, i.e., apidaecins (proline-rich), abaecin (proline-rich), hymenoptaecin (glycine-rich), and defensin (cystine-rich) are synthesized in the haemolymph, signifying a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity. Jelleines (I-IV), royalisin, apisimin (serine-valine-rich peptide), 10 HDA, apalbumin, and apisin, which are present in royal jelly, have antimicrobial, mast cell degranulating, and hemolysis activity. Bee venom also contains several bioactive peptides, such as apamin (leucine-cystine-rich), melittin (leucine-alanine-rich), melectin (lysine-rich), adolapin, secapin (proline-rich), and tertiapin (cystine-lysine-rich). Currently, AMPs databases are displaying an essential role in exploration, identification, characterization, and annotation. Several AMPs databases (CAMP, DRAMP, APD, InverPep, LAMP, ADAPTABLE, ADAM, AntiBP, AMPer, AVPpred, EFC-FCBF, and class AMP) are open-access resources that have been developed to enhance research on antimicrobial peptides. Bee immune responses are composed of a multifaceted group of individual immune mechanisms and special types of behavioral adaptations. Given the importance of drug discovery from honey bee AMPs, this review is aimed at providing an exhaustive screening of the AMPs detected in honey and honeybee products and their classification, databases, computational tools, physicochemical properties, signaling pathways, pharmaceutical and clinical uses, application status, prospects, and problems to be solved.
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Using Density Functional Theory (DFT), 2D hexagonal silicene-ZnS-silicene trilayer heterostructure was studied with van der Waals correction as implemented in Grimme's method. Small lattice mismatch of about 0.77% only between sil...
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Using Density Functional Theory (DFT), 2D hexagonal silicene-ZnS-silicene trilayer heterostructure was studied with van der Waals correction as implemented in Grimme's method. Small lattice mismatch of about 0.77% only between silicene and ZnS monolayer suggest ease in formation of sandwiched heterostructure. The negative value of total energy at 298 K from MD simulation confirms its ground state stability. Unlike monolayer silicene, our trilayer heterostructure exhibits a direct band gap of 0.63 eV in its equilibrium state. Calculated elastic moduli predict that Si-ZnS-Si has an enhanced ability to resist tensile and shear deformation than the pristine silicene and ZnS monolayer. Due to strong van der Waal's interaction between the layers, Si-ZnS-Si has much lower thermal coefficient of linear expansion and therefore is more stable against any thermally induced deformation. When a transverse external electric field is applied, we observe direct-to-indirect band gap transition. On increasing the electric field further, the heterostructure remains indirect band gap semiconductor until it abruptly transforms to metallic nature at 1.0 V angstrom(-1). Theoretical prediction of heterostructure property presented in this work may provide valuable data for developing future nanoelectronic devices.
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Home gardens (HGs) in North-East India are the oldest form of land use practice next to shifting cultivation. Every garden is a unique entity in terms of component arrangement, organization and management, and it reflects the pers...
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Home gardens (HGs) in North-East India are the oldest form of land use practice next to shifting cultivation. Every garden is a unique entity in terms of component arrangement, organization and management, and it reflects the personal preferences of the owner, keeping in mind the suitability and site quality of the area. This study was initiated to determine the species diversity of home gardens in North-East India and also to assess the association of tree species with different site quality parameters (elevation, slope, aspect, rainfall, temperature, home garden type and age). A total of 300 home gardens were selected randomly from 11 districts of North-East India. Hill numbers were used to analyse sample completeness, size-based diversity and coverage-based diversity. Canonical correspondence analysis, Pearson's correlation, stepwise multiple linear regression, Poisson log-linear model and linear mixed effect model were performed to study the interactions between species diversity and site quality. In total, 137 species belonging to 102 genera and 46 families were recorded from the 300 home gardens. Fabaceae was the dominant family, and Parkia timoriana (DC.) Merr. (IVI = 20.12) was the dominant species. Abundance of Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam. and Mangifera indica L had no bearing with the environmental variables and therefore are considered potential species for restoration of degraded HGs. Number of species in the HGs was best reflected by the interaction of HG type and temperature, while the model best fitted for stem density and basal area was with HG type and HG age, respectively.
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DNA isolation is critical in many molecular biology studies, including genetics and genomics. Various DNA isolation techniques have been established to extract DNA from beetle species with DNA isolation kits available on the marke...
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DNA isolation is critical in many molecular biology studies, including genetics and genomics. Various DNA isolation techniques have been established to extract DNA from beetle species with DNA isolation kits available on the market. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) success rate depends on the quality of DNA extracted from biological samples. In this study, four DNA isolation methods were compared, Chelex 100, N-cetyl-N, N, N,-trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS), and Tris, NaCl, EDTA, SDS (TNES), to determine the amount and quality of DNA obtained, the amount of time it took, and the effects of ethanol volume, incubation time, and temperature on DNA precipitation. The Chelex 100 method was the most successful compared to other methods and proved to be the superior DNA isolation method. We obtained the best amplification results for the beetle cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1) gene at A1 Master Mix concentrations and A5 PCR cycle conditions. This study provides a road map for selecting the optimum DNA isolation methods for beetle species based on DNA quality, quantity, time consumption, cost, protein contamination, and success rate. The DNA isolated by the four DNA isolation techniques was suitable for further molecular studies like conservation genetics and genomics.
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This study provides the first morphological data from a female specimen of the recently described Stoliczkia vanhnuailianai from Mizoram, Northeast India. Based on a new individual collected from a stream habitat around 80 km nort...
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This study provides the first morphological data from a female specimen of the recently described Stoliczkia vanhnuailianai from Mizoram, Northeast India. Based on a new individual collected from a stream habitat around 80 km northwards from the type locality, we provide an expanded summary of diagnostic key characters of the species, additional notes on the habitat, and new genetic data for this rare snake.
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The poorly known northeastern water skink Tropidophorus assamensis is only known from the type locality (Harigaj Range, Sylhet District) in Bangladesh, and few localities in Assam and Mizoram States, north-eastern India. Little is...
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The poorly known northeastern water skink Tropidophorus assamensis is only known from the type locality (Harigaj Range, Sylhet District) in Bangladesh, and few localities in Assam and Mizoram States, north-eastern India. Little is known about the biology including the systematics of the species. In this study, we present for the first time, genetic data (16s rRNA) and inferred its phylogenetic position. In addition to this, we provide updated morphological data along with new distributional records of the species from Mizoram State of north-east India.
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Structural, electronic and optical properties of strained CdS monolayer and bilayer structures are studied to examine the possibility of controlling their properties for application in the field of nano-devices. First-principles d...
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Structural, electronic and optical properties of strained CdS monolayer and bilayer structures are studied to examine the possibility of controlling their properties for application in the field of nano-devices. First-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations are done as implemented in SIESTA code that uses a pseudopotential and a numerical nano-orbital basis set. Exchange correlation energies were described using the general gradient approximation (GGA) in the form of Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) functional. We have found that the electronic band structure of monolayer and bilayer CdS is quite sensitive to biaxial strain, and as a result bandgap energy can be tuned over a wide range with compressive and tensile strains. While both the monolayer and bilayer structures maintain the direct bandgap nature of the relaxed structure even under compressive strain, tensile strain transforms the material into indirect gap semiconductors with degenerate electronic band structure. It is found that effective masses can also be controlled with biaxial strain, and hence carrier mobility can be improved in the process. Our DFT calculations also predict that in addition to tuning the optical absorption, intensity of direct bandgap absorption in these two structures can be enhanced under tensile strain.
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Ophiocordyceps mizoramensisis described as a new species from Mizoram by using a combination of morphological and molecular phylogenetic analysis. The molecular phylogenetic analysis include both the subunits (LSU and SSU), the in...
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Ophiocordyceps mizoramensisis described as a new species from Mizoram by using a combination of morphological and molecular phylogenetic analysis. The molecular phylogenetic analysis include both the subunits (LSU and SSU), the internal transcribed spacers (ITS1 and ITS2) with the 5.8S gene region, along with Tef (Translation elongation factor). The new species Ophiocordyceps mizoramensis, differs from other closely related species based on molecular phylogenetic relationships, genetic distance, and minor morphological characters related to sexual structures. The entomopathogenic Ophiocordyceps mizoramensis infected the host Polistes olivaceus (paper wasp) causing death to the whole colony of the hive.
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The present investigation was carried out to find out the response of plant growth regulators on the growth, yield and quality of tissue cultured papaya (Carica papaya L.) cv. Red Lady in Mizoram, north-east India. The study indic...
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The present investigation was carried out to find out the response of plant growth regulators on the growth, yield and quality of tissue cultured papaya (Carica papaya L.) cv. Red Lady in Mizoram, north-east India. The study indicates that growth yield and quality of the papaya fruits were significantly influenced by plant growth regulators studied. Among treatments, the highest vegetative growth, yield attributing characters and yield were recorded with GA(3) 200 ppm. It also recorded maximum value with respect to different growth parameters, viz. plant height, girth and E-W and N-S spread. Treatment with 200 ppm GA(3) also showed superiority in different yield-attributing characteristics, such as fruit set percentage, number of fruits/plant, fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit circumference, fruit weight, and fruit volume. Quality parameters, such as TSS, acidity, total, reducing and non-reducing sugars of fruits, 400 ppm of ethrel, exhibited significantly maximum value.
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Nanoceria (CeO2NP) has emerged as a promising carrier for effective delivery of various anticancer drugs. Herein, folic acid (FA) conjugated and amine-functionalized CeO(2)NPs (CeO2-NH-FA) have been synthesized for targeted and co...
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Nanoceria (CeO2NP) has emerged as a promising carrier for effective delivery of various anticancer drugs. Herein, folic acid (FA) conjugated and amine-functionalized CeO(2)NPs (CeO2-NH-FA) have been synthesized for targeted and controlled delivery of Morin (a natural flavonoid) towards folic acid overexpressed breast cancer cells. Morin was successfully loaded onto the surface of CeO2-NH-FA via metal ion-ligand coordination bonds to form Morin-CeO2-NH-FA nanohybrids. The as synthesized nanohybrid exhibited nearly spherical shape with an average diameter of similar to 2-3 nm. Moreover, the nanohybrid displayed drug loading content of similar to 10 % along with pH-responsive drug release behaviour. The nanohybrids exhibited significant cytotoxic effect towards human breast cancer (MCF-7) cells via the generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) which subsequently induced mitochondria-dependent apoptotic cell death. In addition, the nanohybrids also triggered potential antimigratory effect. The in vivo results also revealed the highest anticancer effect of the Morin-CeO2-NH-FA nanohybrids in tumor-bearing mice as compared with free Morin and CeO2-NH-FA. Furthermore, Morin-CeO2-NH-FA nanohybrid did not show any significant change in serum biochemical parameters. To gain possible mechanistic pathway, we carried out molecular docking study of Morin with Bcl-2 protein which revealed that Morin can bind to Bcl-2 with an affinity of -7.1 kCal/mol. The pronounced anticancer effect of the nanohybrid towards breast cancer cells is mainly ascribed to the combined cytotoxic effect of both Morin as well as nanoceria. Overall, our study represents Morin-CeO2-NH-FA nanohybrid as a potential drug delivery vehicle with improved therapeutic efficacy against cancer.
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