The Influence of CO2 Supply on Colonial Formation of Leptospires

The colonial formation of three serotypes of Leptospires on Cox's solid medium was promoted by microaerophilic incubation of one to three per cent of CO₂ supplied by carbon dioxide cylinder, sodium carbonate oxalic acid, and candle method. In anaerobic incubation Leptospira pomona grew the same as with CO₂ incubation.

The pH of the medium was an important influence on the rate of colonial formation of Leptospires.

Addition of hemoglobin and inactivation of rabbit serum was not an essential condition for rapid colonial formation. It was found that variation in the morphology of leptospiral colonies occurred with hemoglobin from different species and individuals.

     

云南省马铃薯晚疫病菌的交配型、抗药性及生理小种分布的研究

 从云南省陆良县、建水县和南涧县采集2000年秋播的马铃薯晚疫病标本,分离获得124个致病疫霉菌株,连同1999~2000年分离自昆明、曲靖等地的春播马铃薯晚疫病的10个菌株共134个,采用常规技术对这些菌株进行了交配型、抗药性及生理小种的研究。交配型测定结果为:陆良县的18个菌株中有3个为A₂交配型,其余15个菌株为A₁交配型,建水县和南涧县的106个菌株及昆明、曲靖1999~2000年的10个菌株都是A₁交配型。测定了83个菌株对瑞毒霉(metalaxyl)和烯酰吗啉(dimethomorph)的抗药性,结果有12.0%的菌株对瑞毒霉表现抗性,16.9%表现中抗,71.1%表现敏感,其中陆良、昆明和曲靖的抗瑞毒霉菌株的比例大于建水和南涧的抗药性菌株的比例;所测定的83个菌株都对烯酰吗啉表现敏感。生理小种鉴定结果表明,云南晚疫病菌为3.4、0、3和4生理小种,分别占鉴定菌株总数的48.0%、32.5%、15.6%和3.9%。但南涧仅发现3.4和0小种,而昆明有0、3、3.4和4小种,陆良有0、3和3.4小种,可见昆明和陆良地区的晚疫病菌生理小种比南涧地区的生理小种的组成更趋多样。     

Seaweeds and Their Natural Products for Preventing Cardiovascular Associated Dysfunction

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), which involves the onset and exacerbation of various conditions including dyslipidemia, activation of the renin–angiotensin system, vascular endothelial cell damage, and oxidative stress, is a leading cause of high mortality rates and accounts for one-third of deaths worldwide. Accordingly, as dietary changes in daily life are thought to greatly reduce the prevalence of CVD, numerous studies have been conducted to examine the potential use of foods and their bioactive components for preventing and treating CVD. In particular, seaweeds contain unique bioactive metabolites that are not found in terrestrial plants because of the harsh environment in which they survive, leading to in vitro and in vivo studies of their prevention and treatment effects. This review summarizes studies that focused on the beneficial effects of seaweeds and their natural products targeting markers involved in a cascade of mechanisms related to CVD pathogenesis. The purpose of this review is to describe the potential of seaweeds and their natural products for preventing and treating CVD based on in vivo and in vitro studies. This review provides a basis for future research in the field of marine drugs.     

Nutritional Properties of Various Tissues from New Kenaf Cultivars

Kenaf is an economically important crop that contains various functional compounds. The objective of this study was to evaluate the nutritional properties of leaves, stem bark, flowers, and seeds collected from three mutant kenaf cultivars (Jangdae, Baekma, and Jeokbong) and two original cultivars (Jinju and C14). For all analyzed tissues, there were no significant differences in the proximate compositions (moisture, crude protein, crude fiber, crude fat, ash, and nitrogen-free extract) among the tested genotypes, except for the leaf crude protein content, which was highest in Jinju plants. Of the tested minerals, potassium and calcium were the most abundant in all tissues. Additionally, we detected significant differences in the mineral contents (e.g., calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, zinc, and iron) of various tissues in all cultivars. Proline and phenylalanine were the major amino acids detected in leaves, and the highest total amino acid (TAA) and essential amino acid (EAA) contents were observed in Jinju plants. The TAA and EAA contents were lower in stem bark than in the other tissues, except in Baekma plants, in which the lowest levels were observed in flowers. Moreover, the TAA and EAA contents were approximately 20 times lower in white flowers (Baekma) than in ivory flowers. Furthermore, the highest TAA and EAA concentrations were observed in Jangdae seeds. These results may be useful for identifying the optimal cultivar and tissues for use in food products.     

Evaluation of performance of sorghum varieties grown in Tokyo for sugar accumulation and its correlation with vacuolar invertase genes SbInv1 and SbInv2

ABSTRACT

The sugar-accumulating potential of global and local sweet and grain sorghum varieties were tested under the local conditions. The basis for this study was the dependency of sugar accumulation on temperature and photoperiod. Thus, the efficacy of cultivars as a bioenergy source would need to be determined based on their performance under the local environmental conditions. A strong correlation of sucrose content with brix was observed, enabling large-scale screening of varieties for high sucrose content. The morphological characteristics inherent in sweet sorghum, such as tall stems, greater number of leaves and a longer vegetative period, were found to correlate with the total stem sugar content. Assessment of sugars along the stem revealed maximum sugar accumulation in the upper intermediate to upper internodes in most of the varieties tested. The maximum theoretical ethanol yield (MTEY), a function of brix and juice yield, was determined as a better indicator of testing the performance of a variety as a potential source of bioethanol, mainly due to a negative correlation of stem juiciness and sucrose content in the varieties tested. Further, the relative expression of vacuolar invertase genes, SbINV1 and SbINV2, was studied, and a strong negative correlation of SbINV2 to stem sucrose content was observed. This reveals a possibility of involvement of vacuolar invertase gene, SbINV2, in sugar accumulation in sweet sorghum stems, and as a key candidate for molecular breeding studies for higher stem sugar content.     

Assessment of growth and seed oil composition of kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) germplasm

This study was conducted to evaluate the growth characteristics and fatty acid composition among 15 kenaf mutants derived from the kenaf germplasm C14 and 15 kenaf accessions originating from Russia, India, China, Iran, and Italy. The overall growth performance (plant height, stem diameter, flowering date, leaf, and flower size) of the stem color mutant lines derived from C14 are similar to those of the original variety. However, the flower color mutant lines derived from C14 showed flowering to occur 10 days later when compared with the original variety and showed smaller leaf sizes than the original variety. Late-ripened kenaf accessions (Jinju, Auxu, and Jnagdae) can yield more bio-mass compared with early or medium-maturing germplasm. The late maturity kenaf (Auxu, Jinju, and Jangdae) has a higher oil percentage than the early maturity germplasm. Linoleic, oleic, and palmitic acids were the predominant fatty acids in all kenaf seeds. The stem color mutant lines significantly surpassed the parental means of all saturated fatty acids. In addition, the flower color mutant lines showed broad ranges of variation in oleic acid. The 15 accessions showed a wide range of fatty acid compositions, spanning from 29.75 to 38.30% saturated fatty acids and 61.70 to 70.24% total unsaturated fatty acids, and the late maturity kenaf has a higher linoleic acid percentage than the early maturity germplasm. The flowering period was highly positively (P ≤ 0.01) correlated with the plant height, stem diameter, oil percent, and linolenic acid (C_18:3), and it was significantly negatively (P ≤ 0.01) correlated with stearic acid (C_18:0). These results will provide valuable information to assist the parental selection of kenaf breeding.     

Tracking the structural and functional development of a perennial pepperweed (Lepidium latifolium L.) infestation using a multi-year archive of webcam imagery and eddy covariance measurements

The continued spread of invasive weeds is threatening ecosystem health throughout North America. Understanding the relationships between invasive weeds’ key phenological phases and structural and/or functional canopy development is an essential step for making informed decisions regarding their management. We analyzed a three-year image archive obtained from an inexpensive webcam overlooking a perennial pepperweed (Lepidium latifolium L.) infestation in California to explore the ability of red (R)-green (G)-blue (B) color space information to track the structural and functional development of the pepperweed. We characterized structural and functional canopy development through surface roughness length (z_0m; a proxy for canopy height and leaf area index) and canopy photosynthesis (F_A), respectively, both of which we derived from eddy covariance measurements. Here we demonstrate the use of cross-correlation functions to determine the temporal lags between chromatic coordinates and two color indices, all calculated from RGB brightness levels, with z_0m and F_A. We found that these color metrics fail to represent the structural and/or functional state of the canopy. In contrast, relative luminance (CIE Y) appears to be a better indicator for z_0m and especially for F_A. We calculated CIE Y from pepperweed RGB brightness levels in relation to hypothetical horizontal reference RGB brightness levels. We obtained the latter by applying the ratio between horizontally measured and hypothetical incoming solar radiation on a vertical surface to RGB brightness levels of a vertically oriented reference of invariant light-grey color. We conclude that webcam image archives may provide an inexpensive tool for making informed decisions regarding the timing but not for assessing the effectiveness of invasive plant control measures such as mowing.     

A Bayesian Generalized Linear Model for Crimean–Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Incidents

Global spread of the Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a fatal viral infection disease found in parts of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Middle East, with a fatality rate of up to 30%. A timely prediction of the prevalence of CCHF incidents is highly desirable, while CCHF incidents often exhibit nonlinearity in both temporal and spatial features. However, the modeling of discrete incidents is not trivial. Moreover, the CCHF incidents are monthly observed in a long period and take a nonlinear pattern over a region at each time point. Hence, the estimation and the data assimilation for incidents require extensive computations. In this paper, using the data augmentation with latent variables, we propose to utilize a dynamically weighted particle filter to take advantage of its population controlling feature in data assimilation. We apply our approach in an analysis of monthly CCHF incidents data collected in Turkey between 2004 and 2012. The results indicate that CCHF incidents are higher at Northern Central Turkey during summer and that some beforehand interventions to stop the propagation are recommendable. Supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear on-line.