Antimicrobial activity and cytotoxicity trait of a bioactive peptide purified from Lactococcus garvieae subsp. bovis BSN307T

A bioactive peptide of 8595 Da was purified from the cell free supernatant of Lactococcus garvieae subsp. bovis BSN307^T. MALDI MS/MS peptide mapping and the data base search displayed no significant similarity to any reported antimicrobial peptide of LAB. This peptide at a dose concentration of 200 µg ml⁻¹ inhibited the growth of both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria by 58–89% and a dose of 500 µg ml⁻¹ scavenged 50% of DPPH-free radicals generated. Interestingly, cytotoxicity assay demonstrated that 17 µg ml⁻¹ of peptide selectively inhibited 50% proliferation of mammalian cancer cell lines HeLa and MCF-7 whereas normal H9c2 cells remained unaffected. Fluorescent microscopic analysis after DAPI nuclear staining of HeLa cells showed characteristics of apoptosis and activation of caspase-3 was ascertained by caspase-3 fluorescence assay.     

Effect of salt-stress on translocation of photosynthates in pigeon-pea

Summary An investigation was carried out in order to study the effect of salts namely NaC1 and Na₂SO₄ on the rate of translocation of photosynthates in pigeonpea, at the pod filling stage. At the concentration of 10 EC NaC1 only 17% of the¹⁴C assimilates are translocated from the source leaf to the other parts of the plant. Out of this pods receive about 8%. On the other hand even at a concentration of 15 EC Na₂SO₄ about 30% of the total¹⁴C assimilates get translocated and out of this pods receive about 12%. From this it may be concluded that under salt-stress conditions the rate of translocation of photosynthates is adversely affected and between the two salts, NaC1 was discovered to have a marked inhibitory effect.     

The homeostatic ensemble for cells

Cells are quintessential examples of out-of-equilibrium systems, but they maintain a homeostatic state over a timescale of hours to days. As a consequence, the statistics of all observables is remarkably consistent. Here, we develop a statistical mechanics framework for living cells by including the homeostatic constraint that exists over the interphase period of the cell cycle. The consequence is the introduction of the concept of a homeostatic ensemble and an associated homeostatic temperature, along with a formalism for the (dynamic) homeostatic equilibrium that intervenes to allow living cells to evade thermodynamic decay. As a first application, the framework is shown to accurately predict the observed effect of the mechanical environment on the in vitro response of smooth muscle cells. This includes predictions that both the mean values and diversity/variability in the measured values of observables such as cell area, shape and tractions decrease with decreasing stiffness of the environment. Thus, we argue that the observed variabilities are inherent to the entropic nature of the homeostatic equilibrium of cells and not a result of in vitro experimental errors.     

FitSNPs: highly differentially expressed genes are more likely to have variants associated with disease

Background  

Candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from genome-wide association studies (GWASs) were often selected for validation based on their functional annotation, which was inadequate and biased. We propose to use the more than 200,000 microarray studies in the Gene Expression Omnibus to systematically prioritize candidate SNPs from GWASs.