NOPR Collection:

A simple and cost effective liquid culture system for the micropropagation of two commercially important apple rootstocks†

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Title: A simple and cost effective liquid culture system for the micropropagation of two commercially important apple rootstocks† Authors: Mehta, Mohina; Ram, Raja; Bhattacharya, Amita Abstract: The two commercially important apple rootstocks i.e., MM106 and B9 were micropropagated using a liquid culture system. Three different strengths of 0.8% agar solidified PGR free basal MS medium were first tested to optimize the culture media for both the rootstocks. Full strength medium (MS0) supported maximum in vitro growth, multiplication, rooting and survival under field conditions as opposed to quarter and half strength media. When three different volumes of liquid MS0 were tested, highest in vitro growth, multiplication, rooting and also survival under field conditions were achieved in 20 mL liquid MS0. The cost of one litre of liquid medium was also reduced by 8 times to Rs. 6.29 as compared to solid medium. The cost of 20 mL medium was further reduced to Rs. 0.125. Page(s): 748-754

Large scale propagation of an exotic edible bamboo, Phyllostachys pubescens Mazel ex H. De Lehale (Moso Bamboo) using seeds^†

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Title: Large scale propagation of an exotic edible bamboo, Phyllostachys pubescens Mazel ex H. De Lehale (Moso Bamboo) using seeds^† Authors: Sood, Anil; Nadha, Harleen Kaur; Sood, Sangita; Walia, Shivani; Parkash, Om Abstract: For ex vitro propagation, seeds of P.pubescens were treated with different concentrations of gibberellic acid (GA₃) and germination of seeds was tested both in plastic pots as well as by direct sowing in the nursery beds. Maximum seed germination was achieved when treated with 200 mgL^–1 (w/v) GA_3. For in vitro propagation, an exposure of nodal explants from in vitro raised seedlings to 0.2 mgL^–1 1–phenyl–3–(1,2,3–thiadiazol–5–yl) urea and 1 mgL^–1 kinetin supplemented medium for 30 days and thereafter to hormone free Murashige and Skoog basal medium resulted in axillary shoot proliferation. For rooting, in vitro raised shoots were exposed to MS medium containing 2 mgL^–1 indole-3-butyric acid for 15 days and then shifted to hormone free medium. On an average, 2.8 shoots were obtained in 75% of the cultures within 4 weeks. Such in vitro raised plants were successfully hardened and shifted to field conditions. Page(s): 755-758

Isolation of mosquitocidal bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis, B.sphaericus and B.cereus) from excreta of arid birds

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Title: Isolation of mosquitocidal bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis, B.sphaericus and B.cereus) from excreta of arid birds Authors: Poopathi, Subbiah; Thirugnanasambantham, K; Mani, C; Ragul, K; Sundarapandian, SM Abstract: Mosquitocidal bacteria are environmentally friendly alternatives to chemical insecticides for controlling mosquitoes and therefore, there have been tremendous world-wide efforts to identify novel mosquitocidal bacteria from natural environment. In the present study, excreta from arid-birds were analyzed for identifying mosquitocidal bacteria. The selection of sample for bacterial screening is significant, because, arid-birds are the unique living species and gathering the foods from variety of sources from environment. Out of 1000 samples examined, twelve bacterial strains were identified as mosquitocidal and the 16S rRNA gene sequence alignment depicted that these isolates belonged to Bacillus species (Bacillus thuringiensis, B.sphaericus and B.cereus). Toxicity assay against mosquito vectors have shown that these isolates are potential. The B. sphaericus VCRC-B547 (NCBI: JN377789) has shown a higher toxicity against Cx. quinquefasciatus, An. stephensi, and Aed. aegypti. Result from SDS-PAGE has shown that there was considerable difference in the protein profiles among the new bacterial isolates. Phylogenetic tree with branch length 0.05 revealed three distinct groups with homology among the closely related Bacillus strains. This study therefore throws considerable interest on the diversity of microbial organisms from arid birds and its application in mosquito control. Page(s): 739-747

Influence of environmental hypertonicity on the induction of ureogenesis and amino acid metabolism in air-breathing walking catfish (Clarias batrachus, Bloch)

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Title: Influence of environmental hypertonicity on the induction of ureogenesis and amino acid metabolism in air-breathing walking catfish (Clarias batrachus, Bloch) Authors: Banerjee, Bodhisattwa; Bhuyan, Gitalee; Saha, Nirmalendu Abstract: Effect of environmental hypertonicity, due to exposure to 300 mM mannitol solution for 7 days, on the induction of ureogenesis and also on amino acid metabolism was studied in the air-breathing walking catfish, C. batrachus, which is already known to have the capacity to face the problem of osmolarity stress in addition to other environmental stresses in its natural habitats. Exposure to hypertonic mannitol solution led to reduction of ammonia excretion rate by about 2-fold with a concomitant increase of urea-N excretion rate by about 2-fold. This was accompanied by significant increase in the levels of both ammonia and urea in different tissues and also in plasma. Further, the environmental hypertonicity also led to significant accumulation of different non-essential free amino acids (FAAs) and to some extent the essential FAAs, thereby causing a total increase of non-essential FAA pool by 2-3-fold and essential FAA pool by 1.5-2.0-fold in most of the tissues studied including the plasma. The activities of three ornithine-urea cycle (OUC) enzymes such as carbamoyl phosphate synthetase, argininosuccinate synthetase and argininosuccinate lyase in liver and kidney tissues, and four key amino acid metabolism-related enzymes such as glutamine synthetase, glutamate dehydrogenase (reductive amination), alanine aminotransaminase and aspartate aminotransaminase were also significantly up-regulated in different tissues of the fish while exposing to hypertonic environment. Thus, more accumulation and excretion of urea-N observed during hypertonic exposure were probably associated with the induction of ureogenesis through the induced OUC, and the increase of amino acid pool was probably mainly associated with the up-regulation of amino acid synthesizing machineries in this catfish in hypertonic environment. These might have helped the walking catfish in defending the osmotic stress and to acclimatize better under hypertonic environment, which is very much uncommon among freshwater teleosts. Page(s): 728-738

NOPR Collection:

A simple and cost effective liquid culture system for the micropropagation of two commercially important apple rootstocks†

Large scale propagation of an exotic edible bamboo, Phyllostachys pubescens Mazel ex H. De Lehale (Moso Bamboo) using seeds†

Isolation of mosquitocidal bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis, B.sphaericus and B.cereus) from excreta of arid birds

Influence of environmental hypertonicity on the induction of ureogenesis and amino acid metabolism in air-breathing walking catfish (Clarias batrachus, Bloch)

Large scale propagation of an exotic edible bamboo, Phyllostachys pubescens Mazel ex H. De Lehale (Moso Bamboo) using seeds^†