Grazing Selectivity of Red Abalone Haliotis rufescens Postlarvae on Benthic Diatom Films under Culture Conditions

The gut contents of Haliotis rufescens postlarvae that had grazed on a diatom film grown in PVC buckets were analyzed to determine selectivity in feeding. Species composition and abundances were compared to that of the surrounding film. Diatom samples were oxydized and mounted permanently, or observed directly by the squash technique under phase contrast microscopy. The surrounding flora yielded 111 taxa, while 64 species appeared in the gut contents. A high proportion of Pinnularia biceps v. minor and Navicula incerta (and others) in the gut contents, which were rare or absent from the samples of the surrounding flora, indicated grazing selectivity by the postlarvae. An analysis of similarity confirmed that samples from the gut contents could be grouped together and that they were clearly different from the surrounding flora.     

Effect of fertilization of a biochar and compost amended technosol: Consequence on Ailanthus altissima growth and As- and Pb-specific root sorption

The remediation of metal(loid) polluted soil using plants (i.e. phytoremediation) often requires the application of amendments, as well as chemical fertilizer. However, such fertilizers can have negative effects when applied alone and can thus be applied together with other organic amendments to diminish this negative effect. Finally, plants to be used in phytoremediation should be selected based on their adaptive capacity and tolerance to poor and highly contaminated soils, characteristics that possesses Ailanthus altissima. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of osmocote fertilization on the amended mining technosol properties and plant growth parameters, as well as to study the accumulation pattern of As and Pb in plant roots. Results showed that osmocote ameliorated soil conditions, but increased Pb mobility. It also greatly improved plant growth. Finally, different behaviours of metal(loid) accumulation were observed in the roots: As was absorbed mainly in the roots because of its similarity with P, with very low amounts in the leaves, whereas Pb was adsorbed mainly on the root surface, with lesser proportion absorbed inside the root system.     

Presumed primary immune-mediated thrombocytopenia in four cats

Feline primary immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (pIMT) is a rare hematological disorder. Platelet-bound antibody assays for cats have variable specificity and sensitivity and are not widely available. Diagnosis of pIMT is made on the basis of exclusion of other identifiable causes of thrombocytopenia and the response to immunosuppressive therapy. This report describes four cats with severe thrombocytopenia and no detectable underlying disease. One cat was euthanased because of pulmonary hemorrhage, while the other cats had frequent relapses, two of these cats developed diabetes mellitus due to long-term corticosteroid therapy. In these cats IMT had a chronic course and responded poorly to therapy with prednisolone. Alternative immunomodulatory drugs may be considered in the treatment of feline IMT.     

Ethnobotanical Uses and Antimicrobial Properties of Plants in Small‐Scale Tropical Fish Farms: The Case of Indonesian Fish Farmers in Java (Indonesia)

Among the most common plants used by fish farmers in Java, 18 were selected for deeper ethnobotanical and laboratory investigation into their antimicrobial activity. These plants are mainly used against fish diseases, but with no precise therapeutic indication, leading to low specificity of use. Leaves, which were the most commonly used part of plants, were generally placed directly in water or less frequently added to the feed. Disk diffusion tests showed that 15 plants of the 18 (83%) displayed varying degrees of antibacterial activity and that Streptococcus agalactiae was more sensitive than Aeromonas hydrophila. Crude ethanolic extracts (EE) were more active than water macerates (WM), and minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) ranged from 12.5 to 25 mg/mL. Only the EE of Piper betle had an inhibitory effect against A. hydrophila. No MIC was found for any of the WM studied here. Furthermore, both the EE and, to a lesser extent, the WM of active plants were able to reduce bacterial growth by more than 99%, even at doses below their MICs. These results suggest that these plant extracts have a potential for eco‐friendly prevention of bacterial fish diseases.     

Interaction of four monoterpenes contained in essential oils with model membranes: implications for their antibacterial activity

The present article reports the antimicrobial efficacy of four monoterpenes (thymol, carvacrol, p-cymene, and gamma-terpinene) against the Gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and the Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli. For a better understanding of their mechanism of action, the damage caused by these four monoterpenes on biomembranes was evaluated by monitoring the release, following exposure to the compounds under study, of the water-soluble fluorescent marker carboxyfluorescein (CF) from large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs) with different lipidic composition (phosphatidylcholine, PC, phosphatidylcholine/phosphatidylserine, PC/PS, 9:1; phosphatidylcholine/stearylamine, PC/SA, 9:1). Furthermore, the interaction of these terpenes with dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine multilamellar vesicles as model membranes was monitored by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique. Finally, the results were related also with the relative lipophilicity and water solubility of the compounds examined. We observed that thymol is considerably more toxic against S. aureus than the other three terpenes, while carvacrol and p-cymene are the most inhibitory against E. coli. Thymol and carvacrol, but not gamma-terpinene and p-cymene, caused a concentration-dependent CF leakage from all kinds of LUVs employed; in particular, thymol was more effective on PC and PC/SA LUVS than on PC/PS vesicles, while carvacrol challenge evoked a CF leakage from PC/PS LUVs similar to that induced from PC/SA LUVs, and lower than that measured with PC vesicles. Concerning DSC experiments, these four terpenes caused a decrease in Tm and (especially carvacrol and p-cymene) DeltaH values, very likely acting as substitutional impurities. Taken together, our findings lead us to speculate that the antimicrobial effect of thymol, carvacrol, p-cymene, and gamma-terpinene may result, partially at least, from a gross perturbation of the lipidic fraction of the plasmic membrane of the microorganism. In addition to being related to the physicochemical characteristics of the compounds (such as lipophilicity and water solubility), this effect seems to be dependent on the lipidic composition and net surface charge of the microbic membranes. Furthermore, the compounds might cross the cell membranes, thus penetrating into the interior of the cell and interacting with intracellular sites critical for antibacterial activity.     

Protein and Quality Characterization of Triticale Translocation Lines in Breadmaking

Introduction of high molecular weight glutenin subunits (HMW‐GS) from the Glu‐D1d locus of wheat into triticale restores the genetic constitution of high molecular weight glutenin loci to that of wheat and subsequently improves the breadmaking quality of triticale. One means of achieving such restoration of the genetic constitution is through the use of translocation lines. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the performance of translocations 1A.1D and 1R.1D with HMW‐GS 5+10 and 2+12 in terms of physical dough tests and baking quality using four different sets of triticale lines, GDS7, Trim, Rhino, and Rigel. In general, significantly lower milling quality (flour yield), very low mixing times with lower loaf volume were typical of all the triticales studied except 1A.1D 5+10 lines, when compared to hard wheat flour (Pegaso). Among the lines studied, significantly higher loaf volume, mixograph dough development time (MDDT), and maximum resistance to extension (R_max) were observed with 1A.1D 5+10 lines indicating that translocation of the Glu‐D1d allele with HMW‐GS 5+10 was beneficial in terms of improving the quality attributes. Although pure triticale flour from these lines did not possess the functional characteristics for good quality bread, the translocation 1A.1D that contains HMW glutenin subunits 5+10 showed significant improvement in quality characteristics, and could reasonably be expected to yield commercially satisfactory bread loaves when combined with bread wheat flour. Significantly higher UPP, R_max, and MDDT values along with a lower gliadin‐to‐glutenin ratio in 1A.1D 5+10 of GDS7 and Rigel sets indicate that the molecular weight distribution was shifted to higher molecular weights, resulting in greater dough strength associated with 5+10 subunits.     

Variation of DNA methylation and phenotypic traits following unilateral sexual polyploidization in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Medicago</Emphasis>

Sexual hybridization is an important generator of biodiversity and a powerful breeding tool. Hybridization can also overcome ploidy barriers when it involves 2n gametes, as in the case of unilateral sexual polyploidization (USP) that has been utilized in several crops, among which alfalfa. This research was aimed at gaining insights into the effects of USP on genome methylation and on phenotypic traits in alfalfa, an important forage species. The Methylation-Sensitive Amplified Polymorphism technique was used to estimate the cytosine methylation changes occurring in a tetraploid (2n = 4x = 32) USP progeny from crosses between a diploid Medicago sativa subsp. falcata genotype that produces 2n eggs and a cultivated tetraploid Medicago sativa subsp. sativa variety. De novo methylation or demethylation in the USP progeny were observed for 13% of the detected genomic sites, indicating that methylation changes can be relevant. USP plants showed larger surface area of the leaf epidermis cells than both parents, but this did not result in larger leaf size or higher plant biomass. They displayed significant higher ovule sterility than the tetraploid parent, but normal fertility was observed in crosses with unrelated male testers. We conclude that hybridization and sexual polyploidization resulted in novel variation in terms of remodeling of the methylation landscape as well as changes in phenotypic traits in alfalfa.