Observations on the occurrence of crystal-like structures in nematode parasites of sheep and cattle

Waller P. J., Dash K. M. and Major G. W. 1979. Observations on the Occurrence of crystal-like structures in nematode parasites of sheep and cattle. Internationl Journal for Parasitology9: 147–151. Intracellular rod-like inclusions were found in a high percentage of inhibited fourth-stage larvae of H. contortus in sheep with naturally acquired infections. Artificial infections showed inclusions occurred in developing as well as inhibited fourth-stage larvae. The presence of these structures was associated with degenerative changes of the parasites and serial worm counts showed that larvae with large numbers of inclusions failed to persist within the host.Large refractive hexagonal crystals were observed in the gut lumen of fourth-stage and adult O. ostertagi acquired by previously worm-free lambs grazed on cattle pastures. The crystals tended to accumulate in the posterior gut region where they may cause gut blockage and lead to early mortality of the parasites in the abnormal host. No inclusions or crystals were observed in O. ostertagi from cattle or goats, or in O. circumcincta from sheep.     

Ascorbic acid turnover and excretion in two arboreal marsupials and in laboratory rabbits

Rates of turnover and routes of excretion of 1-14C-ascorbic acid were compared among laboratory rabbits and two species of arboreal marsupials. Ringtail possums (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) exhibited higher blood ascorbate levels than either brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula) or rabbits, as well as greater pool sizes, shorter half-times and higher total entry rates of ascorbic acid. These differences were due partly to the high ascorbic acid content of Eucalyptus foliage, the ringtail's diet; when the dietary contribution of ascorbate was taken into account, endogenous entry rates (i.e. 'synthesis') were not significantly different among species. The main excretory route of 14C from 1-14C-ascorbate was expired CO2 in all three species. Estimates to total pool size of ascorbate by isotope dilution were higher than those by tissue analysis. This was considered to be due to excretion of 14C during equilibration of injected 1-14C-ascorbate with the body pool.     

Classification and inheritance study of transverse cephalic curvature index

In the present paper an arbitrary classification of the transverse cephalic curvature index has been proposed as low (up to 36.9), medium (37.0–39.9) and high (40.0 and upwards) on the basis of the study of 163 Punjabi families. The inheritance study of this index has been attempted by estimating the coefficient of correlation of the different familial combinations of 49 Punjabi families (all adults). The correlation coefficients observed for the different combinations suggest the hereditary nature of this index, but presently it could not be decided whether or not there exists any sex-influence or sex-limitation of the character, though population studies suggest significant sex difference.     

Carbon-Mercaptooctadecane/Carboxylated Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes Composite Based Genosensor for Detection of Bacterial Meningitis

Human brain bacterial meningitis is a life-threatening disease mainly caused by Neisseria meningitidis, lead to several complications including damage of brain or even death. The present available methods for diagnosis of meningitis have one or more limitations. A rmpM gene based genosensor was fabricated by immobilizing 5′-amino modified 19-mer single stranded DNA probe onto carbon-mercaptooctadecane/carboxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes composite electrode and hybridized with 2.5–40 ng/6 μL of single stranded genomic DNA (ssG-DNA) of N. meningitidis from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of the suspected meningitis patients. The electrochemical response was measured by using cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) using 1 mM methylene blue as redox indicator in 30 min (including a response time of 1 min) at 25 °C. The sensitivity of the genosensor was 3.762 (μA/cm²)/ng and limit of detection was 2 ng of ssG-DNA of N. meningitidis with DPV. The genosensor has specificity only to N. meningitidis and does not hybridize with the genomic DNA of any other possible pathogen in human CSF. The immobilization of the probe and hybridization of the ssG-DNA were characterized by using electrochemical impedance in presence of 5 mM potassium ferricyanide and scanning electron microscopy. The genosensor loses only 12 % of its original DPV current on storage at 4 °C for 6 months. Carbon composite based electrochemical array can be constructed to detect multiple bacterial meningitis suspected patient CSF samples during an outbreak of the disease.     

Selection of relevant features from amino acids enables development of robust classifiers

Machine learning (ML) has been extensively applied to develop models and to understand high-throughput data of biological processes. However, new ML models, trained with novel experimental results, are required to build regularly for more precise predictions. ML methods can build models from numeric data, whereas biological data are generally textual (DNA, protein sequences) or images and needs feature calculation algorithms to generate quantitative features. Programming skills along with domain knowledge are required to develop these algorithms. Therefore, the process of knowledge discovery through ML is decelerated due to lack of generic tools to construct features and to build models directly from the data. Hence, we developed a schema that calculates about 5,000 features, selects relevant features and develops protein classifiers from the training data. To demonstrate the general applicability and robustness of our method, fungal adhesins and nuclear receptor proteins were used for building classifiers which outperformed existing classifiers when tested on independent data. Next, we built a classifier for mitochondrial proteins of Plasmodium falciparum which causes human malaria because the latest corresponding classifiers are not publically accessible. Our classifier attained 98.18 % accuracy and 0.95 Matthews correlation coefficient by fivefold cross-validation and outperformed existing classifiers on independent test set. We implemented this schema as user-friendly and open source application Pro-Gyan (http://code.google.com/p/pro-gyan/), to build and share executable classifiers without programming knowledge.