Selective medium for isolation of Fusarium species and dematiaceous hyphomycetes from cereals

A selective medium containing 2 micrograms of dichloran per ml, 200 micrograms of chloramphenicol per ml, and 1.5% bacteriological peptone was developed for the isolation of Fusarium species and dematiaceous hyphomycetes from cereals. The medium, designated DCPA, was shown to select against species of Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, and mucoraceous fungi. DCPA was evaluated for use as an enumeration medium and compared satisfactorily with dichloran-rose bengal-chloramphenicol agar when both media were tested with a range of cereal samples. Fusarium species and dematiaceous hyphomycetes produced well-formed colonies with good conidial production on DCPA, permitting rapid identification of such isolates on this medium.     

Recovery of ethanol from fermentation broths using selective sorption-desorption

Industrialized nations face a critical problem in replacing the sources of liquid fuels that traditionally have been supplied by petroleum. One solution that has gained increasing support in this country is the use of ethanol produced by fermentation of renewable biomass as an extender in, or supplement to, gasoline for transportation fuel. Distillation, the present method of separating ethanol from the fermentation broth, is an energy-intensive one and frequently uses more energy than is available from the ethanol recovered. There are many investigations under way to find alternative, less energy-intensive techniques for the ethanol-water separation. The separations method described in this article involves the use of solid materials to preferentially remove ethanol from fermentation broths. Subsequent stripping of the ethanol from the sorbent with a dry gas reduces dramatically the energy required for the separation. Three solid sorbents have been investigated experimentally. Their sorption/desorption characteristics are described, and their incorporation in an ethanol recovery process is evaluated. Three sorbents were investigated: two commercially available divinylbenzene crosslinked polystyrene resins in bead form (one with a nominal surface area of 300 m(2)/g, the other with 750 m(2)/g) and an experimental proprietary molecular sieve with hydrophobic properties. Equilibrium adsorption isotherms for two of the sorbents were obtained at ambient temperature (21 degrees C) for ethanol-water solutions containing up to 12 wt. % ethanol. In addition, 40 degrees C isotherms were obtained for the polystyrene sorbents. Although different, the equilibrium isotherms for the sorbents indicated that ethanol could be preferentially sorbed from a dilute solution. Column breakthrough curves indicated very favorable kinetics. Desorption of the ethanol was readily effected with warm (60-80 degrees C), dry nitrogen.     

Heterogeneous binding of high mobility group chromosomal proteins to nuclei

A dramatic difference is observed in the intracellular distribution of the high mobility group (HMG) proteins when chicken embryo fibroblasts are fractionated into nucleus and cytoplasm by either mass enucleation of cytochalasin-B-treated cells or by differential centrifugation of mechanically disrupted cells. Nuclei (karyoplasts) obtained by cytochalasin B treatment of cells contain more than 90 percent of the HMG 1, while enucleated cytoplasts contain the remainder. A similar distribution between karyoplasts and cytoplasts is observed for the H1 histones and the nucleosomal core histones as anticipated. The presence of these proteins, in low amounts, in the cytoplast preparation can be accounted for by the small percentage of unenucleated cells present. In contrast, the nuclei isolated from mechanically disrupted cells contain only 30-40 percent of the total HMGs 1 and 2, the remainder being recovered in the cytosol fraction. No histone is observed in the cytosol fraction. Unike the higher molecular weight HMGs, most of the HMGs 14 and 17 sediment with the nuclei after cell lysis by mechanical disruption. The distribution of HMGs is unaffected by incubating cells with cytochalasin B and mechanically fractionating rather than enucleating them. Therefore, the dramatic difference in HMG 1 distribution observed using the two fractionation techniques cannot be explained by a cytochalasin-B-induced redistribution. On reextraction and sedimentation of isolated nuclei obtained by mechanical cell disruption, only 8 percent of the HMG 1 is released to the supernate. Thus, the majority of the HMG 1 originally isolated with these nuclei, representing 35 percent of the total HMG 1, is stably bound, as is all the HMGs 14 and 17. The remaining 65 percent of the HMGs 1 and 2 is unstably bound and leaks to the cytosol fraction under the conditions of mechanical disruption. It is suggested that the unstably bound HMGs form a protein pool capable of equilibrating between cytoplasm and stably bound HMGs.     

Molecular evolution of rodent insulins

Several trees of amino acid sequences of rodent insulins were derived with the maximum-parsimony procedure. Possible orthologous and paralogous relationships were investigated. Except for a recent gene duplication in the ancestor of rat and mouse, there are no strong arguments for other paralogous relationships. Therefore, a tree in agreement with other biological data is the most reasonable one. According to this tree, the capacity to form zinc-binding hexamers was lost once in the ancestor of the hystricomorph rodents, followed by moderately increased evolutionary rates in the lineages to African porcupine and chinchilla but highly increased rates in at least three independent lines to other taxa of this suborder: guinea pig, cuis, and Octodontoidea (coypu and casiragua).