Arbuscular mycorrhizae reduced arsenic induced oxidative stress by coordinating nutrient uptake and proline-glutathione levels in Cicer arietinum L. (chickpea).

Accumulation of Arsenic (As) generates oxidative stress by reducing nutrients availability in plants. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis can impart metalloid tolerance in plants by enhancing the synthesis of sulfur (S)-rich peptides (glutathione- GSH) and low-molecular-weight nitrogenous (N) osmolytes (proline- Pro). The present study, therefore investigated the efficiency of 3 AM fungal species (Rhizoglomus intraradices-Ri, Funneliformis mosseae -Fm and Claroideoglomus claroideum- Cc) in imparting As (arsenate-AsV -40 at 60 mg kg-1 and arsenite- AsIII at 5 and 10 mg kg-1) tolerance in two Cicer arietinum (chickpea) genotypes (HC 3 and C 235). As induced significantly higher negative impacts in roots than shoots, which was in accordance with proportionately higher reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the former, with AsIII more toxic than AsV. Mycorrhizal symbiosis overcame oxidative stress by providing the host plants with necessary nutrients (P, N, and S) through enhanced microbial enzyme activities (MEAs) in soil, which increased the synthesis of Pro and GSH and established a redox balance in the two genotypes. This coordination between nutrient status, Pro-GSH levels, and antioxidant defense was stronger in HC 3 than C 235 due to its higher responsiveness to the three AM species. However, Ri was most beneficial in inducing redox homeostasis, followed by Fm and Cc, since the Cicer arietinum-Ri combination displayed the maximum ability to boost antioxidant defense mechanisms and establish a coordination with Pro synthesis. Thus, the results highlighted the importance of selecting specific chickpea genotypes having an ability to establish effective mycorrhizal symbiosis for imparting As stress tolerance.

Relative roles of Arbuscular Mycorrhizae in establishing a correlation between soil properties, carbohydrate utilization and yield in Cicer arietinum L. under As stress.

Accumulation of As (metalloid) degrades soil by negatively affecting the activities of soil enzymes, which in turn reduce growth and yield of the inhabiting plant. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis can impart metalloid tolerance in plants by secreting glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) which binds with As or inertly adsorb in the extraradical mycelial surface. However, profitable use of AM requires selection of the most efficient combination of host plant and fungal species. The current study, therefore designed to study the efficacy of 3 a.m. fungal species: Rhizoglomus intraradices (Ri), Funneliformis mosseae (Fm) and Claroideoglomus claroideum (Cc) in imparting arsenate As(V) and arsenite As(III) stress tolerance in Cicer arietinum (chickpea) genotypes (G) - relatively metalloid tolerant- HC 3 and sensitive- C 235. Roots were found to be more severly affected as compared to shoots which resulted into a major decline in uptake of nutrients, chlorophyll concentrations and yield with As(III) inducing more toxic effects than As(V). HC 3 established more effective mycorrhizal symbiosis and was able to extract higher nutrients from the soil than C 235. Ri was most beneficial in improving plant biomass, carbohydrate utilization and productivity followed by Fm and Cc which could be due to its capability to initiate highest percent colonization and least metalloid uptake in roots through higher glomalin production in the soil. Moreover, Ri was highly efficient in improving soil enzymes activities-phosphatases (PHAs), ß-glucosidase (BGA) and invertase (INV), thereby, imparting metalloid tolerance in chickpea genotypes. The results suggested use of Ri-chickpea symbiosis as a promising strategy for ameliorating As stress in chickpea.

Newly identified Phonocardiography frequency bands for psychological stress detection with Deep Wavelet Scattering Network.

The timely psychological stress detection can improve the quality of human life by preventing stress-induced behavioral and pathological consequences. This paper presents a novel framework that eliminates the need of Electrocardiography (ECG) signals-based referencing of Phonocardiography (PCG) signals for psychological stress detection. This stand-alone PCG-based methodology uses wavelet scattering approach on the data acquired from twenty-eight healthy adult male and female subjects to detect psychological stress. The acquired PCG signals are asynchronously segmented for the analysis using wavelet scattering transform. After the noise bands removal, the optimized segmentation length (L), scattering network parameters namely-invariance scale (J) and quality factor (Q) are utilized for computation of scattering features. These scattering coefficients generated are fed to K-nearest neighbor (KNN) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) classifier and the ten-fold cross validation-based performance metrics obtained are-accuracy 94.30 %, sensitivity 97.96 %, specificity 88.01 % and area under the curve (AUC) 0.9298 using XGBoost classifier for detecting psychological stress. Most importantly, the framework also identified two frequency bands in PCG signals with high discriminatory power for psychological stress detection as 270-290 Hz and 380-390 Hz. The elimination of multi-modal data acquisition and analysis makes this approach cost-efficient and reduces computational complexity.

Marker-assisted pyramiding of lycopene-ε-cyclase, ß-carotene hydroxylase1 and opaque2 genes for development of biofortified maize hybrids.

Malnutrition affects growth and development in humans and causes socio-economic losses. Normal maize is deficient in essential amino acids, lysine and tryptophan; and vitamin-A. Crop biofortification is a sustainable and economical approach to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition. We combined favorable alleles of crtRB1 and lcyE genes into opaque2 (o2)-based four inbreds viz. QLM11, QLM12, QLM13, and QLM14 using marker-assisted backcross breeding. These are parents of quality protein maize versions of two elite hybrids viz. Buland and PMH1, grown in India. Gene-based SSRs for o2 and InDel markers for crtRB1 and lcyE were successfully employed for foreground selection in BC1F1, BC2F1, and BC2F2 generations. The recurrent parent genome recovery ranged from 88.9 to 96.0% among introgressed progenies. Kernels of pyramided lines possessed a high concentration of proA (7.14-9.63 ppm), compared to 1.05 to 1.41 ppm in the recurrent parents, while lysine and tryptophan ranged from 0.28-0.44% and 0.07-0.09%, respectively. The reconstituted hybrids (RBuland and RPMH1) showed significant enhancement of endosperm proA (6.97-9.82 ppm), tryptophan (0.07-0.09%), and lysine (0.29-0.43%), while grain yield was at par with their original versions. The dissemination of reconstituted hybrids holds significant promise to alleviate vitamin-A deficiency and protein-energy malnutrition in developing countries.

Acute normovolemic hemodilution is not beneficial in patients undergoing primary elective valve surgery.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of acute normovolemic hemodilution (ANH) as a sole method of reducing allogenic blood requirement in patients undergoing primary elective valve surgery. One hundred eighty eight patients undergoing primary elective valve surgery were prospectively randomized into two groups: Group I (n=100) acted as control and in Group II (n=88) autologous blood was removed (10% of estimated blood volume in patients with hemoglobin (Hb) > 12g% and 7% when the Hb was < 12g%) in the pre-cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) period for subsequent re-transfusion after protamine administration. The autologous blood withdrawn was replaced simultaneously with an equal volume of hydroxyl-ethyl starch solution. Banked blood was transfused in both the groups when Hb was < or = 6g% on CPB and < or = 8g% after CPB. Platelets were transfused when the count fell to < 100 x 10(9)/L and fresh frozen plasma (FFP) was transfused whenever there was diffuse bleeding with laboratory evidence of coagulopathy. The two groups were comparable as regards demographic data, type of surgical procedures performed, duration of CPB and ischemia, duration of elective ventilation and re-exploration for excessive bleeding. The autologous blood withdrawn in patients with Hb > or = 12g% was 288.3+/-69.4 mL and 244.4+/-41.3 mL with Hb < 12g% (P=NS). The Hb concentration (g%) was comparable pre-operatively (Group I = 12.1+/-1.6, Group II = 12.4+/-1.4), on postoperative day 1 (Group I = 10.3+/-1.1, Group II = 10.6+/-1.2) and day 7 (Group I = 10.9+/-1.5, Group II = 10.4+/-1.5). However, the lowest Hb recorded on CPB was significantly lower in Group II (Group I = 7.7+/-1.2, Group II = 6.7+/-0.9, P < 0.05). There was no difference in the chest tube drainage (Group I = 747.2+/-276.5 mL, Group II = 527.6+/-399.5 mL), blood transfusion (Group I = 1.1+/-1.0 units vs. Group II = 1.3+/-1.0 units intra-operatively and Group I = 1.7+/-1.2 units vs. Group II = 1.7+/-1.4 units post-operatively) and FFP transfusion (Group I = 581.4+/-263.4 mL, Group II = 546.5+/-267.8 mL) in the two groups. We conclude that low volume autologous blood pre-donation does not seem to provide any added advantage as a sole method of reducing allogenic blood requirement in primary elective valve surgery.