Potential of indigenous plants seed extracts of Anisophyllea boehmii and Aframomum sanguineum from Burundi to protect against oil oxidation.

The objective of seed extracts from Anisophyllea boehmii and Aframomum sanguineum were to evaluate their ability to stabilize against oxidation of oils exposed to sunlight on one hand and subjected to high temperatures on the other hand. Determination of the peroxide value (PV) showed that the extracts had reduced the oxidation of sunflower oils. After 8 weeks of sunlight exposure, the concentration of 265.45 mg/l of A. boehmii extract showed a PV of 30.78 meq O2/kg, 67.4 mg/l extract of A. sanguineum had a PV of 42.75 meq O2/kg while the oils without extracts had a very high PV (125.06 meq O2/kg). Heating of the oils to 180°C for 8 hours was found, with A. boehmii extract (265.45 mg/l), to have a PV of 29.66 meq O2/kg, with that of A. sanguineum, while the PV of the oils without extract reached 50.66 meq O2/kg. In the light of these results, the seeds of A. boehmii and A. sanguineum contain antioxydant compounds, which, once extracted, can be used for many purposes in the food processing, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.

Ecological drivers of helminth infection patterns in the Virunga Massif mountain gorilla population.

The Virunga Massif mountain gorilla population has been periodically monitored since the early 1970s, with gradually increasing effort. The population declined drastically in the 1970s, but the numbers stabilized in the 1980s. Since then, the population has been steadily increasing within their limited habitat fragment that is surrounded by a dense human population. We examined fecal samples collected during the Virunga 2015-2016 surveys in monitored and unmonitored gorilla groups and quantified strongylid and tapeworm infections using egg counts per gram to determine environmental and host factors that shape these helminth infections. We showed that higher strongylid infections were present in gorilla groups with smaller size of the 500-m buffered minimum-convex polygon (MCP) of detected nest sites per gorilla group, but in higher gorilla densities and inhabiting vegetation types occurring at higher elevations with higher precipitation and lower temperatures. On the contrary, the impact of monitoring (habituation) was minor, detected in tapeworms and only when in the interaction with environmental variables and MCP area. Our results suggest that the Virunga mountain gorilla population may be partially regulated by strongylid nematodes at higher gorilla densities. New health challenges are probably emerging among mountain gorillas because of the success of conservation efforts, as manifested by significant increases in gorilla numbers in recent decades, but few possibilities for the population expansion due to limited amounts of habitat.

CRAMER: a lightweight, highly customizable web-based genome browser supporting multiple visualization instances.

SUMMARY: In recent years, the ability to generate genomic data has increased dramatically along with the demand for easily personalized and customizable genome browsers for effective visualization of diverse types of data. Despite the large number of web-based genome browsers available nowadays, none of the existing tools provides means for creating multiple visualization instances without manual set up on the deployment server side. The Cranfield Genome Browser (CRAMER) is an open-source, lightweight and highly customizable web application for interactive visualization of genomic data. Once deployed, CRAMER supports seamless creation of multiple visualization instances in parallel while allowing users to control and customize multiple tracks. The application is deployed on a Node.js server and is supported by a MongoDB database which stored all customizations made by the users allowing quick navigation between instances. Currently, the browser supports visualizing a large number of file formats for genome annotation, variant calling, reads coverage and gene expression. Additionally, the browser supports direct Javascript coding for personalized tracks, providing a whole new level of customization both functionally and visually. Tracks can be added via direct file upload or processed in real-time via links to files stored remotely on an FTP repository. Furthermore, additional tracks can be added by users via simple drag and drop to an existing visualization instance. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: CRAMER is implemented in JavaScript and is publicly available on GitHub on https://github.com/FadyMohareb/cramer. The application is released under an MIT licence and can be deployed on any server running Linux or Mac OS. CONTACT: f.mohareb@cranfield.ac.uk. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.