Molecular epidemiology on seasonal variation of yellow mosaic disease incidence in blackgram (Vigna mungo L. Hepper) with its vector Bemisia tabaci.

The yellow mosaic disease (YMD) of blackgram caused by Mungbean yellow mosaic virus has emerged as a serious threat to grain legume production, especially in Southeastern Asia. Seasonal incidence of YMD with its vector population was assessed in three different agroclimatic zones of Tamil Nadu in India for three consecutive cropping seasons namely, Rabi 2018 (October-December), Summer 2019 (March-May), and Kharif 2019 (June-August) at three different time intervals viz., 20, 40, and 60 days after sowing (DAS). For all three seasons, disease incidence and whitefly count were recorded for a resistant and susceptible variety of blackgram in fields without any vector control intervention. The highest disease incidence (87%) was observed in the Panpozhi location during the summer season followed by Vamban and Coimbatore locations. The whitefly count was made through both visual count and yellow sticky traps. The whitefly population was highest at 20 DAS and decreased with the increasing age of crop for all the three locations assessed. Molecular epidemiology was analyzed by determining latent infection of mungbean yellow mosaic virus (MYMV) using molecular diagnosis. Latent infection was found to be well pronounced in the Coimbatore location during the Kharif season, where the crop was asymptomatic in both the resistant and susceptible varieties for all the three time periods assessed. The latent infection of MYMV observed in Coimbatore and Vamban ranged from 16.6 to 83.3% in both resistant and susceptible varieties for all three seasons. In Panpozhi, the latent infection of MYMV ranged from 16.6 to 66.6% for the susceptible variety (CO-5) for all three seasons observed. However, in the Panpozhi location, the resistant variety (VBN-8) failed to record any latent infection.

State of the art in total pulse production in major states of India using ARIMA techniques.

Pulses are staple protein-rich food for Indian vegetarians, and India is one of the largest producers in the world. The present investigation is an attempt to study the trend in the production of total pulses in India using the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) method. For stochastic trend estimation, yearly data were used for the period from 1961 to 2019. On the basis of the performance of several goodness of model fit criteria, the most suitable ARIMA model is chosen to capture the trend of pulse production. Forecasting for the 10 years from 2020 to 2029 is done, and it is observed that India has the highest forecast value (31.03302 million tonnes) in 2029. This study will play an important role in determining the gap between production of and demand for pulses in the future.

Efficacy of rasburicase (recombinant urate oxidase) in the prevention and treatment of malignancy-associated hyperuricemia: an Indian experience.

BACKGROUND: Patients with hematological malignancies that are highly proliferative and have high tumor burden are at high risk of developing hyperuricemia and tumor lysis syndrome (TLS), spontaneously and while undergoing chemotherapy. AIM: To assess the safety and efficacy of a new generic formulation of recombinant rasburicase in prevention and treatment of malignancy-associated hyperuricemia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An open-label, multicenter, phase-III study was conducted on 100 eligible patients with high risk for TLS. Rasburicase was administered 0.2 mg/kg intravenously over 30 min, daily, for 4 days. The outcome measures were percentage of reduction in plasma uric acid at 4 h after rasburicase, plasma uric acid area under the curve (AUC)(0-96 h) and incidence of adverse events. RESULTS: Eighty eight patients completed the study period of 10 days. After rasburicase administration, there was a 75.3 ± 28.5% of reduction in plasma uric acid at 4 h as compared to baseline. The plasma uric acid AUC(0-96 h) was 259.9 ± 215.5 mg/dL h. Safety of rasburicase was assessed on the basis of changes in vitals, hematological, and biochemical parameters from baseline to termination. Except for the plasma uric acid level, there was no significant difference in any of the parameters. Mild to moderate adverse events were reported in 29 patients. Three patients had serious adverse events (SAEs) unrelated to rasburicase. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrated that recombinant rasburicase that is indigenously developed is effective for prevention and management of hyperuricemia in patients who are at high risk of developing TLS.

Intraosseous acinic cell carcinoma.

Acinic cell carcinoma is an uncommon low-grade malignant tumor of salivary glands. It was first described by Nasse in 1892, arising in parotid salivary gland. Salivary gland tumors are also known to develop within jaw bones, arising within the jaw as a primary central lesion, and are extremely rare with only a few cases reported. We present a rare case report of 65-year-old woman with intraosseous acinic cell carcinoma of left side of the mandible.

Environmental arsenic contamination and its health effects in a historic gold mining area of the Mangalur greenstone belt of Northeastern Karnataka, India.

This report summarizes recent findings of environmental arsenic (As) contamination and the consequent health effects in a community located near historic gold mining activities in the Mangalur greenstone belt of Karnataka, India. Arsenic contents in water, hair, nail, soil and food were measured by FI-HG-AAS. Elemental analyses of soils were determined by ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry). Of 59 tube-well water samples, 79% had As above 10 µg L(-1) (maximum 303 µg L(-1)). Of 12 topsoil samples, six were found to contain As greater than 2000 mg kg(-1) possibly indicating the impact of mine tailings on the area. All hair and nail samples collected from 171 residents contained elevated As. Arsenical skin lesions were observed among 58.6% of a total 181 screened individuals. Histopathological analysis of puncture biopsies of suspected arsenical dermatological symptoms confirmed the diagnosis in three out of four patients. Based on the time-course of As-like symptoms reported by the community as well as the presence of overt arsenicosis, it is hypothesized that the primary route of exposure in the study area was via contaminated groundwater; however, the identified high As content in residential soil could also be a significant source of As exposure via ingestion. Additional studies are required to determine the extent as well as the relative contribution of geologic and anthropogenic factors in environmental As contamination in the region. This study report is to our knowledge one of the first to describe overt arsenicosis in this region of Karnataka, India as well as more broadly an area with underlying greenstone geology and historic mining activity.

Site dependence of thickness and speed of sound in articular cartilage of bovine patella.

Researchers have made efforts to quantify thickness of articular cartilage as well as its acoustic and mechanical properties using various ultrasound (US) techniques during the last decades, because they are important indicators of articular cartilage degeneration. However, the variation of the thickness and speed of sound of articular cartilage at different anatomical sites would result in the uncertainty of US assessment of degeneration. In this paper, the site dependences of speed of sound and thickness of bovine patellar articular cartilage (n = 10) were investigated using a custom-made US measurement system. The thickness and speed of sound of articular cartilage at different locations of the bovine patella were measured on excised specimens ex situ using a noncontact US approach. A total of 10 patellae were tested. The results showed the overall mean value of the speed of sound in the articular cartilage at the 25 measured sites was 1626 +/- 86 m/s (range, 1507 to 1834 m/s). No statistically significant difference in the speed of sound was observed among the 25 locations or among the four quadrants of the patella. The highest speed of sound (1834 +/- 74 m/s) was obtained at the medial-upper quadrant and the lowest value (1507 +/- 74 m/s) at the medial-lower quadrant. Further grouping of the data revealed that the speed of sound in the central region (1633 +/- 21 m/s) was significantly (p < 0.01) larger than that for the surrounding region (1621 +/- 22 m/s). The overall mean thickness of the patellar articular cartilage was 1.34 +/- 0.34 mm. No significant difference was obtained in the thickness among the 25 locations and also among the four quadrants. However, when the thickness values were divided diagonally, a significant difference (p < 0.01) was observed between the upper region (1.27 +/- 0.11 mm) and the lower region (1.31 +/- 0.41 mm) of the patellae. Although no significant differences in the thickness and speed of sound among the tested sites were observed, it was demonstrated in this study that they did show some degree of site dependence.

Crop nutrition through distillery spentwash in maize (Zea mays L.).

Agronomic evaluation of fertilizing efficiency of the spentwash was carried out at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad in 2006. Initial chemical analysis confirmed its usefulness as a source of fertilizer as it consists most essential plant nutrients. Application of spentwash at the recommended level of nitrogen significantly affected both maize growth (plant height, number of leaves, leaf area, chlorophyll etc.) and yield (cob characteristics, test weight etc.) parameters. Spentwash is useful not only in meeting the crop N requirement but also other plant nutrients besides decreasing the current environmental problems faced by the industries. A highest maize yield (81.2 q/ha) was obtained when chemical fertilizer was replaced by the spentwash at the recommended nitrogen level. There was no advantage of applying spentwash higher than the recommended level in view of loading of soils with potassium. Application limited to the recommended level not only supplied N but also other essential plant nutrients. Spentwash substitution directly reduced fertilizer cost and thus benefited farmers by decreasing the cost with no adverse effect on soil's physical, chemical and biological properties when applied at the level recommended.

Strain dependence of ultrasound speed in bovine articular cartilage under compression in vitro.

The change of the ultrasound (US) speed in articular cartilage (artC) under applied strain conditions may induce significant measurement errors of the mechanical properties of the artC during both indentation and compression tests using US. In this paper, the strain dependence of the US speed in bovine artC (n = 20) under compression in vitro was investigated by virtue of using a custom-made US compression testing system. The US speed of the artC at the instant after the compression and that after a period of stress-relaxation were estimated under the applied strain ranging from 0% to 20%. Moreover, the instantaneous modulus and the modulus after the stress-relaxation of the artC were measured and correlated with the US speed. There was no significant difference (p > 0.05) between the US speed at the instant after the compression and that after the stress-relaxation, although there was a discrepancy between the instantaneous modulus and the modulus after stress-relaxation. The US speed was found to be highly correlated to the applied strain (r(2) = 0.98, p < 0.001) in a quadratic relation and changed by 7.8% (from 1581 +/- 36 m/s to 1671 +/- 56 m/s) when the applied strain reached 20%. The results suggest that the strain-dependent effect on the US speed in artC should be considered when the US is deployed for the assessment of artC using the compression or indentation test.

Measurement of depth-dependence and anisotropy of ultrasound speed of bovine articular cartilage in vitro.

The inhomogeneous and anisotropic mechanical properties and structural components of articular cartilage (artC) may cause complex acoustic properties in this important tissue. In this study, we used 50-MHz ultrasound (US) to measure in vitro the depth-dependence and anisotropy of the US speed of artC collected from the bovine patellae. The US speeds of 18 disk artC specimens sampled from 18 different patellae were measured in two orthogonal directions. One full-thickness layer (n=18) and three horizontal slices (n=18 x 3) with approximately equal thickness were prepared from each artC disk and measured with the US beam perpendicular to the artC surface. One full-thickness vertical slice (n=10) was measured at different depths with the US beam parallel to the artC surface. The measured US speeds of artC in the two orthogonal directions were significantly different (p < 0.001). The US speeds also significantly increased with the increase of tissue depth for both measurement directions (p < 0.001). The US speeds of artC from the superficial to deep regions were 1518 +/- 17 (mean + SD), 1532 +/- 26 and 1554 +/- 42 m/s for the US beam parallel to the artC surface, and 1574 +/- 29, 1621 +/- 34 and 1701 +/- 36 m/s for the beam perpendicular to the artC surface. The sound speed of the full-thickness layer was 1636 +/- 25 m/s. The results suggested that the depth-dependence and anisotropy of the US speed in artC should be taken into account when US is used for the artC measurement. It was also demonstrated in this study, using additional specimens (5 x 2), that the swelling of artC after detaching from its subchondral bone could cause the change of its sound speed.

Dynamic depth-dependent osmotic swelling and solute diffusion in articular cartilage monitored using real-time ultrasound.

The objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of ultrasonic monitoring for the transient depth-dependent osmotic swelling and solute diffusion in normal and degenerated articular cartilage (artC) tissues. Full-thickness artC specimens were collected from fresh bovine patellae. The artC specimens were continuously monitored using a focused beam of 50 MHz ultrasound (US) during sequential changes of the bathing solution from 0.15 mol/L to 2 mol/L saline, 0.15 mol/L saline, 1 mg/mL trypsin solution, 0.15 mol/L saline, 2 mol/L saline and back to 0.15 mol/L saline. The transient displacements of US echoes from the artC tissues at different depths were used to represent the tissue deformation and the NaCl diffusion. The trypsin solution was used selectively to digest the proteoglycans in artC. It was demonstrated that high-frequency US was feasible for monitoring the transient osmotic swelling, solute transport and progressive degeneration of artC in real-time. Preliminary results showed that the normal bovine patellar artC shrank during the first several minutes and then recovered to its original state in approximately 1 h when the solution was changed from 0.15 mol/L to 2 mol/L saline. Degenerated artC showed neither shrinkage nor recovery during the same process. In addition, a dehydrated-hydrated artC specimen showed much stronger shrinkage and it resumed the original state when the solution was changed from 2 mol/L back to 0.15 mol/L saline. The diffusion of NaCl and the digestion process of proteoglycans induced by trypsin were also successfully monitored in real-time.

Measurement of ultrasound speed of articular cartilage in variable conditions.

Ultrasound (US) imaging and measurement have been widely used for the assessment of articular cartilage (AC) in recent years. Assessment involved the measurement of acoustic properties such as US speed in AC. Those measurements were normally carried out either at room temperature or at 37 degrees C and at 0.15 M saline concentrations. The changes in the structure of AC due to the change in the concentration of bathing saline solution have been previously reported. However, the change in the US speed of AC has not been yet documented. In addition, the variation of temperature during measurements may affect the US speed in AC. The objective of this study is to investigate the change of the US speed in AC with the variations in temperature and the bathing saline concentration. Results demonstrated that the US speed significantly increased with the increase of temperature (15 degrees C to 40 degrees C) and saline concentration (0 M to 2.5 M).

Myasthenia gravis.

Myasthenia gravis is the prototype neuromuscular disease with immunological pathogenesis. The recognition and interpretation of the symptoms should be stressed as the diagnosis is initially achieved on clinical ground. Tests in the areas of immunology, electrophysiology and imaging further help the diagnosis, management and prognosis of the condition. The recent knowledge of immunology seems to point to variations in the immune abnormalities, but it remains to be seen whether the differences have clinical relevance. With the availability of intensive care units, the management of acute events in the myasthenic patients has improved considerably and the morbidity is reduced. Long term remissions are achievable in majority of patients, with supervised use of immunosuppression. In the modern times, the grave connotations of the name myasthenia gravis may be only rarely justified.

Chemoenzymatic synthesis of D(-)phenylglycine using hydantoinase of Pseudomonas desmolyticum resting cells.

We screened 125 Pseudomonas strains from our culture collection for the production of hydantoinase activity using DL-phenylhydantoin as a substrate. Pseudomonas desmolyticum NCIM 2112 was found to be the best hydantoinase (dihydropyrimidinase E.C. 3.5.2.2) producer. The enzymatic reactions were carried out using 18-20-h grown cells in nutrient broth and 5-phenylhydantoin as the substrate. Optimization studies for the biotransformation reaction were performed to increase product yield. The optimum pH and temperature for D(-)N-carbamoylphenylglycine production were 9.5 and 30 degrees C, respectively. Biotransformation under these alkaline conditions allowed the complete conversion of 27.0 g l-1 of DL-phenylhydantoin to 26.5 g l-1 of N-carbamoylphenylglycine within 24 h, with a molar yield of 90%. The hydantoinase involved in this biotransformation process was strictly D-stereospecific, because the product isolated was pure D(-)N-carbamoylphenylglycine. This pure product was further chemically converted to D(-)phenylglycine using nitrous acid with an 80% chemical yield. Thus, the overall conversion efficiency of DL-5-phenylhydantoin to D(-)phenylglycine was found to be 65-68%.

Protection of Aspergillus niger cellulases by urea during growth on glucose or glycerol supplemented media.

The cellulase enzymes of Aspergillus niger were found to undergo catabolite repression in the presence of glucose and glycerol accompanied by sudden drop in pH of the fermentation medium below 2.0. This sudden drop in pH caused inactivation of cellulolytic enzymes produced by Aspergillus niger. The supplementation of nitrogen sources, especially urea, protects A. niger cellulases from inactivation caused by a sudden drop in pH, since urea helped to maintain the pH of the fermentation medium between 3.5 and 4.5. The role of urea in the protection of cellulase was more prominent when it was used in combination with glycerol (5%).

Optimization of cellulase production by Aspergillus niger NCIM 1207.

Aspergillus niger NCIM 1207 produces high levels of extracellular beta-glucosidase and xylanase activities in submerged fermentation. Among the nitrogen sources, ammonium sulfate, ammonium dihydrogen orthophosphate, and corn-steep liquor were the best for the production of cellulolytic enzymes by A. niger. The optimum pH and temperature for cellulase production were 3.0-5.5 and 28 degrees C, respectively. The cellulase complex of this strain was found to undergo catabolite repression in the presence of high concentrations of glucose. Glycerol at all concentrations caused catabolite repression of cellulase production. The addition of glucose (up to 1% concentration) enhanced the production of cellulolytic enzymes, but a higher concentration of glucose effected the pronounced repression of enzymes. Generally the growth on glucose- or glycerol-containing medium was accompanied by a sudden drop in the pH of the fermentation medium to 2.0.