Bioprospecting the African Renaissance: The new value of <Emphasis Type="Italic">muthi</Emphasis> in South Africa

This article gives an overview of anthropological research on bioprospecting in general and of available literature related to bioprospecting particularly in South Africa. It points out how new insights on value regimes concerning plant-based medicines may be gained through further research and is meant to contribute to a critical discussion about the ethics of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). In South Africa, traditional healers, plant gatherers, petty traders, researchers and private investors are assembled around the issues of standardization and commercialization of knowledge about plants. This coincides with a nation-building project which promotes the revitalization of local knowledge within the so called African Renaissance. A social science analysis of the transformation of so called Traditional Medicine (TM) may shed light onto this renaissance by tracing social arenas in which different regimes of value are brought into conflict. When medicinal plants turn into assets in a national and global economy, they seem to be manipulated and transformed in relation to their capacity to promote health, their market value, and their potential to construct new ethics of development. In this context, the translation of socially and culturally situated local knowledge about muthi into global pharmaceuticals creates new forms of agency as well as new power differentials between the different actors involved.     

Volatile Methyl Esters of Medium Chain Length from the Bacterium Chitinophaga Fx7914

The analysis of the volatiles released by the novel bacterial isolate Chitinophaga Fx7914 revealed the presence of ca. 200 compounds including different methyl esters. These esters comprise monomethyl‐ and dimethyl‐branched, saturated, and unsaturated fatty acid methyl esters that have not been described as bacterial volatiles before. More than 30 esters of medium C‐chain length were identified, which belong to five main classes, methyl (S)‐2‐methylalkanoates (class A), methyl (S)‐2,(ω?1)‐dimethylalkanoates (class B), methyl 2,(ω?2)‐dimethylalkanoates (class C), methyl (E)‐2‐methylalk‐2‐enoates (class D), and methyl (E)‐2,(ω?1)‐dimethylalk‐2‐enoates (class E). The structures of the compounds were verified by GC/MS analysis and synthesis of the target compounds as methyl (S)‐2‐methyloctanoate ( 28 ), methyl (S)‐2,7‐dimethyloctanoate ((S)‐ 43 ), methyl 2,6‐dimethyloctanoate ( 49 ), methyl (E)‐2‐methylnon‐2‐enoate ( 20a ), and methyl (E)‐2,7‐dimethyloct‐2‐enoate ( 41a ). Furthermore, the natural saturated 2‐methyl‐branched methyl esters showed (S)‐configuration as confirmed by GC/MS experiments using chiral phases. Additionally, the biosynthetic pathway leading to the methyl esters was investigated by feeding experiments with labeled precursors. The Me group at C(2) is introduced by propanoate incorporation, while the methyl ester is formed from the respective carboxylic acid by a methyltransferase using S‐adenosylmethionine (SAM).     

Untersuchungen zur lichtinduzierten Hemmung der Ascosporenbildung bei Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Zusammenfassung Die Ascosporenbildung wird durch sichtbares Licht in zweifacher Weise beeinflußt, a) durch Blockierung der Ascusbildung in einem Teil der Zellen (= 1. Lichteffekt) und b) durch Verzögerung des Sporulationsbeginns (=2. Lichteffekt). Der wirksame Spektralbereich im sichtbaren Bereich des Spektrums liegt bei Wellenlängen um 400–500 nm, während Rotlicht keinen Einfluß ausübt. Der 1. Lichteffekt (Hemmung der Sporulation) ist anscheinend unspezifischer Natur, betrifft z. B. nicht spezifisch die Meiose, da Licht während der vormeiotischen Periode der Sporulationskultur gleich stark wirkt wie Licht, das erst während und nach der Meiose eingestrahlt wird. Bei Belichtung beider Abschnitte wird etwa die doppelte Wirkung erzielt. Das Ausmaß der Hemmung ist unabhängig von der Dauer der Vorkultur. Dagegen ist der 2. Lichteffekt (Verzögerung des Sporulations-beginns) stärker bei Zellen aus der 1. Vermehrungsphase der Vorkultur als bei solchen aus der zweiten und betrifft offenbar Prozesse, die mit der Assimilation, nicht aber mit der Oxidation von C2-Körpern wie Äthanol (Vorkultur) bzw. Acetat (Sporulationskultur) zusammenhängen. Dies wird aus folgenden Ergebnissen geschlossen: nur geringfügige Hemmung der O₂-Aufnahme, Möglichkeit der Unterdrückung der 2. Vermehrungsphase durch Belichtung der Vorkultur und lichtbedingte Hemmung des in der Anfangsphase der Sporulationskultur erfolgenden Wachstums. Die Hemmung der Äthanol-bzw. Acetatassimilation läßt sich jedoch nicht oder nicht allein aus einer nur vergleichsweise geringen lichtinduzierten Aktivitätserniedrigung der Glyoxylatcyclusenzyme erklären.

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Studies on the light-induced inhibition of ascospore formation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Summary Visible light influences sporulation in two different ways: a) by completely blocking ascospore formation in a varying percentage of the cells dependent on the intensity and duration of illumination, and b) by delaying the onset of sporulation. Blue light (400–500 nm) is found to be responsible for both these effects while red light (600–700 nm) is ineffective. The first effect of light i.e. the inhibition of ascospore formation seems to be nonspecific. There is e.g. no specific effect on meiosis, since the inhibition of sporulation is the same whether the illumination is given during the premeiotic period or during the meiotic and postmeiotic period. The inhibition is twice as high when the cells have been illuminated during both periods. The extent of inhibition is independent of the length of the preculture. On the other hand, the second effect of light (delay of sporulation onset) is stronger with cells from the first phase than with those from the second phase of exponential growth. This effect seems to be concerned with processes of assimilation of C2-compounds such as ethanol (preculture) or acetate (sporulation culture), respectively, but it has nothing or almost nothing to do with the oxidation of these compounds. This is concluded from the following results: only little inhibition of O₂-consumption, light-induced suppression of the second growth phase of the preculture and inhibition of the growth which normally occurs during the first hours in the sporulation medium. The inhibition of ethanol or acetate assimilation is only partly explained by the comparably small light-induced decline of the activity of glyoxylate cycle enzymes.

     

Clp-dependent proteolysis down-regulates central metabolic pathways in glucose-starved Bacillus subtilis

Entry into stationary phase in Bacillus subtilis is linked not only to a redirection of the gene expression program but also to posttranslational events such as protein degradation. Using ³⁵S-labeled methionine pulse-chase labeling and two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis we monitored the intracellular proteolysis pattern during glucose starvation. Approximately 200 protein spots diminished in the wild-type cells during an 8-h time course. The degradation rate of at least 80 proteins was significantly reduced in clpP, clpC, and clpX mutant strains. Enzymes of amino acid and nucleotide metabolism were overrepresented among these Clp substrate candidates. Notably, several first-committed-step enzymes for biosynthesis of aromatic and branched-chain amino acids, cell wall precursors, purines, and pyrimidines appeared as putative Clp substrates. Radioimmunoprecipitation demonstrated GlmS, IlvB, PurF, and PyrB to be novel ClpCP targets. Our data imply that Clp proteases down-regulate central metabolic pathways upon entry into a nongrowing state and thus contribute to the adaptation to nutrient starvation. Proteins that are obviously nonfunctional, unprotected, or even “unemployed” seem to be recognized and proteolyzed by Clp proteases when the resources for growth become limited.     

Patchy bed disturbance and fish predation independently influence the distribution of stream invertebrates and algae

1. The identification of factors determining the patchy distribution of organisms in space and time is a central concern of ecology. Predation and abiotic disturbance are both well-known drivers of this patchiness, but their interplay is still poorly understood, especially for communities dominated by mobile organisms in frequently disturbed ecosystems. 2. We investigated the separate and interactive influences of bed disturbance by floods and predation by fish on the benthic community in a flood-prone stream. Electric fields excluded fish predators from half of 48 stream bed patches (area 0·49 m(2) ) with contrasting disturbance treatments. Three types of bed disturbance were created by either scouring or filling patches to a depth of 15-20 cm or by leaving the patches undisturbed, thus mimicking the mosaic of scour and fill caused by a moderate flood. Benthic invertebrates and algae were sampled repeatedly until 57 days after the disturbance. 3. Disturbance influenced all ten investigated biological response variables, whereas predation affected four variables. Averaged across time, invertebrate taxon richness and total abundance were highest in stable patches. Algal biomass and densities of five of the seven most common invertebrate taxa (most of which were highly mobile) were higher in fill than in scour patches, whereas two taxa were more abundant in scour and stable than in fill patches. Furthermore, two common invertebrate grazers were more abundant and algal biomass tended to be reduced in fish exclusion patches, suggesting a patch-scale trophic cascade from fish to algae. 4. Our results highlight the importance of patchy physical disturbance for the microdistribution of mobile stream organisms and indicate a notable, but less prevalent, influence of fish predation at the patch scale in this frequently disturbed environment. Disturbance and predation treatments interacted only once, suggesting that the observed predation effects were largely independent of local bed disturbance patterns.     

Structural basis for lipoxygenase specificity. Conversion of the human leukocyte 5-lipoxygenase to a 15-lipoxygenating enzyme species by site-directed mutagenesis

Mammalian lipoxygenases constitute a heterogeneous family of lipid-peroxidizing enzymes, and the various isoforms are categorized with respect to their positional specificity of arachidonic acid oxygenation into 5-, 8-, 12-, and 15-lipoxygenases. Structural modeling suggested that the substrate binding pocket of the human 5-lipoxygenase is 20% bigger than that of the reticulocyte-type 15-lipoxygenase; thus, reduction of the active-site volume was suggested to convert a 5-lipoxygenase to a 15-lipoxygenating enzyme species. To test this "space-based" hypothesis of the positional specificity, the volume of the 5-lipoxygenase substrate binding pocket was reduced by introducing space-filling amino acids at critical positions, which have previously been identified as sequence determinants for the positional specificity of other lipoxygenase isoforms. We found that single point mutants of the recombinant human 5-lipoxygenase exhibited a similar specificity as the wild-type enzyme but double, triple, and quadruple mutations led to a gradual alteration of the positional specificity from 5S- via 8S- toward 15S-lipoxygenation. The quadruple mutant F359W/A424I/N425M/A603I exhibited a major 15S-lipoxygenase activity (85-95%), with (8S,5Z,9E,11Z,14Z)-8-hydroperoxyeicosa-5,9 ,11, 14-tetraenoic acid being a minor side product. These data indicate the principle possibility of interconverting 5- and 15-lipoxygenases by site-directed mutagenesis and appear to support the space-based hypothesis of positional specificity.