Nascent Nanoformulations as an Insight into the Limitations of the Conventional Systemic Antifungal Therapies.

More than 150 million people have significant fungal diseases that greatly impact health care and economic expenditures. The expansion of systemic fungal infections and invasive mycoses is being driven by an increase in the number of immunocompromised patients and the recent COVID-19 patients, especially severely ill. There have been numerous cases of fungal infections linked to COVID-19, with pulmonary aspergillosis dominating at first but with the subsequent appearance of mucormycosis, candidiasis, and endemic mycoses. Candida spp. is the most frequent pathogen, with approximately 1 billion infections yearly, among other species causing the most prevalent invasive fungal infections. The importance of recognizing the epidemiological shifts of invasive fungal infections in patient care cannot be overstated. Despite the enormous antifungal therapies available, these infections are difficult to diagnose and cause high morbidity and mortality rates. Treatment choices for systemic fungal infections are severely limited due to the limitations of conventional therapy effectiveness and drug toxicities. So the researchers are still looking for novel therapeutic options, such as carrier-based approaches that are convenient and cost-effective with high and long-lasting fungal infection cure rates with reduced toxicities. The focus of this study is on summarizing the nanotechnology, immunotherapy methods and the drugs under clinical trials that have been employed in treatment as carrier-based antifungal formulations. Most of these have been reported to be promising strategies with broad-spectrum antifungal action and the potential to overcome antibiotic resistance mechanisms. We speculate that this review summarized the current knowledge to its best that will help the future developments of new antifungal therapies.

Formation of secondary organic material from gaseous precursors in wood smoke.

The apportionment of the contribution of wood smoke emitted particles to the total concentration of particulate matter in a region has been greatly aided by the development of new analytical methods. These analytical methods quantitatively determine organic marker compounds unique to wood combustion such as levoglucosan and dehydroabietic acid. These markers have generally been determined in 24-hour averaged samples. We have developed an instrument based on the collection of particles on an inert filter, desorption of the organic material in an inert atmosphere with subsequent GC separation and MS detection of the desorbed compounds. The GC-MS Organic Aerosol Monitor (OAM) instrument has been used in three field studies. An unexpected finding from these studies was the quantification of the contribution of secondary organic aerosols from gases present in wood smoke in addition to primary wood smoke emitted particles. The identification of this secondary material was made possible by the collection of hourly averaged data that allowed for the time patterns of black carbon, organic material, and wood smoke marker compounds to be included and compared in a Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) analysis. Most of the organic markers associated with wood smoke (levoglucosan, stearic acid and dehydroabietic acid) are associated with primary wood smoke emissions, but a fraction of the levoglucosan and stearic acid are also associated with secondary organic material formed from gaseous precursors in wood smoke. Additionally, this secondary material was shown to be present in each in of the three urban area where wood smoke burning occurs. There is a need for additional studies to better understand the contribution of secondary particulate formation from both urban and wildfires.Implications: This paper presents results from three field studies which show that in addition to the formation of primary particulate matter from the combustion of wood smoke and secondary particulate matter is also formed from the gaseous compounds emitted with the wood smoke. This material is identified in the studies of wood combustion reported here by the identification and quantification of specific organic marker compounds related to wood combustion and is shown to and represents a contributor nearly as large as the primary emitted material and better quantifying the impact of wood combustion on airborne fine particulate matter.

First report of Curvularia penniseti causing leaf blight of Bajra Napier hybrid grass in India.

Bajra Napier hybrid (Pennisetum glaucum x Pennisetum purpureum) is a perennial, high yielding grass and is widely grown for fodder in India. During August-2021, Bajra Napier hybrid germplasm line (NBN 15-2) showed severe leaf blight symptoms at ICAR-Indian Grassland and fodder research institute, Jhansi (25.527890 N, 78.5451400 E). Symptoms were initial irregular yellow spots on the leaf lamina, which later became brownish, coalesced and gave blighted appearance to the leaf surface. Disease severity recorded was 55 to 60 percent. To isolate the pathogen, 10 symptomatic leaf samples were cut into small pieces (~4 mm2), surface-sterilized with 70% ethanol for 30 seconds and rinsed with sterile water. Sterilized leaf pieces were transferred to potato dextrose agar (PDA) and incubated at 28°C for 7 days. Four similar fungal isolates (BNHCP-1 to BNHCP-4) were obtained from the affected portions. The colonies were grayish-brown with dark brown margins. Conidia were mostly clavate, elongated, straight or bent at the terminal cell, with 2-3 septa with dimensions of 17.5 to 30 µm × 10 to 12.5 µm (avg. 24 µm × 12 µm; n=40). The third cell from the base was broader and darker. These morphological characteristics were consistent with previous descriptions of Curvularia penniseti (Mitra) Boedijn (Ellis, 1971). To confirm the species, BNHCP-1 was chosen as representative isolate for further studies. Internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) gene of isolate BNHCP-1 was amplified with primers ITS1F/ITS4R (White et al. 1990) and GDF/GDR (Templeton et al. 1992), and sequenced. The sequences were deposited in GenBank (ITS: OM073980; GAPDH: OM103702.2). BLASTn analysis showed 99.6% and 98% similarity of ITS and GAPDH gene respectively with GenBank accession numbers MH859833.1 (548 bp/550 bp) and MN688838.1 (130 bp/133 bp) of C. penniseti. A maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analysis based on concatenated sequences of ITS and GAPDH gene using MEGA X placed the isolate BNHCP-1 within a clade comprising C. penniseti. Pure culture of BNHCP-1 was deposited in National Agriculturally Important Microbial Culture Collection (NAIMCC), Maunath Bhanjan (Uttar Pradesh) with accession number NAIMCC-F-04251. For pathogenicity, root slips of Bajra Napier hybrid germplasm line NBN 15-2 were transplanted in pots (6 pots; 2 root slips per pot) and kept for fresh growth in a growth chamber at 25 0C for 21 days. Bajra-Napier hybrid plants were sprayed until runoff with conidial suspension (5 × 105 conidia/ml) made from 2-week old fungal colony grown on PDA petri dish. The pots were covered with plastic bag for 48 h to maintain humidity. Inoculated plants displayed small, brown, oval-shaped lesions within seven days on the lamina and edges of the leaf which later enlarged and gave blighted appearance to the leaf. Control plants were asymptomatic. The pathogen was re-isolated from the inoculated leaves and confirmed morphologically, fulfilling Koch's postulates. C. penniseti has been reported earlier from Pennisetum americanum, P. clandestinum, Sorghum and Triticum sp. from different parts of the world (Sivanesan, 1987). However, there is no report of C. penniseti in Bajra Napier hybrid. Thus, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of C. penniseti from Bajra-Napier hybrid grass in India. Further studies on economic impact of this disease on Bajra-Napier hybrid production and its presence on commercial cultivars are needed.

Detection of Sulfur Dioxide by Broadband Cavity-Enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy (BBCEAS).

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is an important precursor for the formation of atmospheric sulfate aerosol and acid rain. We present an instrument using Broadband Cavity-Enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy (BBCEAS) for the measurement of SO2 with a minimum limit of detection of 0.75 ppbv (3-σ) using the spectral range 305.5-312 nm and an averaging time of 5 min. The instrument consists of high-reflectivity mirrors (0.9985 at 310 nm) and a deep UV light source (Light Emitting Diode). The effective absorption path length of the instrument is 610 m with a 0.966 m base length. Published reference absorption cross sections were used to fit and retrieve the SO2 concentrations and were compared to fluorescence standard measurements for SO2. The comparison was well correlated, R2 = 0.9998 with a correlation slope of 1.04. Interferences for fluorescence measurements were tested and the BBCEAS showed no interference, while ambient measurements responded similarly to standard measurement techniques.

Status and use of pesticides in forage crops in India.

The Indian livestock population is huge. Most (99%) of the livestock owners still follow traditional animal husbandry practices and graze their livestock, especially small ruminants, on natural pastures where no pesticides are used. In order to feed the ever-increasing livestock population, efforts are being made to increase quality fodder productivity from limited land resources. In such situations, pesticides play an important role by minimizing the loss of green fodder due to disease and pest attack. In countries such as Canada, Israel, the UK, and other European countries, pesticides have been registered for forage crops; in India, however, although pesticides have been registered for cultivable grain, horticultural and cash crops, etc., there are no registration guidelines or authenticated information regarding pesticide use with regard to forage crops. Hence, there is a need to take necessary steps in this direction, keeping in view the importance of fodder and livestock in the country. In this review, detailed aspects of the status and use of pesticides in forage crops in India are discussed.