Fungi intercepted from abroad

In a previous paper fungi intercepted on plant consignments imported from Afghanistan were described. The present paper gives an account of some more fungi that have been intercepted from time to time on plants and plant material imported from different countries.     

Associations between Retinal Markers of Microvascular Disease and Cognitive Impairment in Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Case Control Study

Objective

To investigate associations between retinal microvascular changes and cognitive impairment in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Design

Case control study.

Setting

A primary care cohort with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Methods

For this analysis, we compared 69 cases with lowest decile scores (for the cohort) on the Modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status and 68 controls randomly selected from the remainder of the cohort. Retinal images were rated and the following measures compared between cases and controls: retinal vessel calibre, arterio-venous ratio, retinal fractal dimension, and simple and curvature retinal vessel tortuosity.

Results

Total and venular (but not arteriolar) simple retinal vessel tortuosity levels were significantly higher in cases than controls (t = 2.45, p = 0.015; t = 2.53, p = 0.013 respectively). The associations persisted after adjustment for demographic factors, retinopathy, neuropathy, obesity and blood pressure. There were no other significant differences between cases and controls in retinal measures.

Conclusions

A novel association was found between higher venular tortuosity and cognitive impairment in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus. This might be accounted for by factors such as hypoxia, thrombus formation, increased vasoendothelial growth factor release and inflammation affecting both the visible retinal and the unobserved cerebral microvasculature.     

Schistosoma mansoni: kinetics of glomerulonephritis in Mongolian gerbils and its correlation with intensity and duration of infection

The frequent occurrence of glomerular lesions in schistosomiasis patients has been reported, although appropriate animal models for the study of schistosomal glomerulonephritis have not been developed. To analyze the relationship between glomerulonephritis and Schistosoma mansoni infection, gerbils, Meriones unguiculatus, were infected with different number of cercariae and sacrificed at different weeks of post infection. Fifty cercariae were the optimum dose to produce the disease, glomerulonephritis, without early death of the animal. Infected gerbils showed heterogeneous types of glomerular lesions with increased serum creatinine level. Immune complex deposition was not detected at glomeruli of infected gerbils even by means of immunuofluorescence and also by transmission electron microscopy. However, infiltration of mononuclear cells in and around some of the altered glomeruli was observed. Immunohistochemical staining, using monoclonal antibody (HUSM-M.g. 15) specific to gerbil's T-cells, revealed significant infiltration of T-cells. These findings suggest that T-cells might be involved in the development of glomerulonephritis. Gerbil could be a useful model to clarify the role of T-cells in the development of glomerulonephritis of schistosomiasis.     

Monoclonal antibodies reactive with dendritic cells of Mongolian gerbils

Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) serve as an valuable model animal for several infectious diseases of medical and veterinary importance. Reagents available for characterization of the immune response of Mongolian gerbils are strictly limited. We describe three novel murine monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to dendritic cells of Mongolian gerbils. These include HUSM-M.g.11 of IgG2b isotype, HUSM-M.g. 20 of IgG2a isotype, and HUSM-M.g.30 of IgG1 isotype. All of these mAbs had an identical profile of immunohistochemical reactions with various tissues taken from immune-naive Mongolian gerbils, and were intensively expressed on dendritic cells, including epidermal Langerhans cells, B-cell follicles, and the thymic reticulum. Positive reactions of the epidermis and intestinal mucosa with these mAbs were induced by cutaneous or intestinal infections with parasites. Competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunoblot analysis (western blotting) indicated that all of these mAbs recognize an identical peptide epitope on a molecule with approximate molecular mass of 29 kDa. These data suggest that the mAbs recognize major histocompatibility complex class-II molecules of gerbils. Use of described mAbs would facilitate characterization of immune responses as well as investigations on host responses to infections of medical and veterinary importance, using the gerbil model.     

Human health risk assessment of toxic elements in fish species collected from the river Buriganga,Bangladesh

Abstract

Multielement (48) analysis was carried out of various fish species collected from river Buriganga, the most polluted river in Bangladesh to assess human health risk by toxic elements. Sixteen elements that is, Be, V, Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Mo, Cd, Ba, Hg, Pb, Bi, and U, were taken into account due to their toxicities on human health. Results show that concentrations of elements in various fish species were higher in winter than those in monsoon. Among 16 elements, Mn, Cu, Zn, Cd, Ba, Pb were above Food Safety Guideline in some fishes in winter. THQ and TTHQ/HI values were less than 1 for all fishes in monsoon while THQ and TTHW/HI values were more than 1 for most of fishes in winter. These results suggesting non-carcinogenic health hazard through consumption of contaminated fishes. Only As showed low cancer risk while no cancer risk was observed for other toxic elements in monsoon. In winter, Pb showed only moderate cancer risk for Mystus vittatus (site-7) while for other fishes low cancer risk was found by Pb. It can therefore be concluded that there is human health risk in consuming of fishes collected from river Buriganga especially in winter.     

Role of ACE and PAI-1 Polymorphisms in the Development and Progression of Diabetic Retinopathy

In the present study we determined the association of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) gene polymorphisms with diabetic retinopathy (DR) and its sub-clinical classes in Pakistani type 2 diabetic patients. A total of 353 diabetic subjects including 160 DR and 193 diabetic non retinopathy (DNR) as well as 198 healthy controls were genotyped by allele specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for ACE Insertion/Deletion (ID) polymorphism, rs4646994 in intron 16 and PAI-1 4G/5G (deletion/insertion) polymorphism, rs1799768 in promoter region of the gene. To statistically assess the genotype-phenotype association, multivariate logistic regression analysis was applied to the genotype data of DR, DNR and control individuals as well as the subtypes of DR. The ACE genotype ID was found to be significantly associated with DR (p = 0.009, odds ratio (OR) 1.870 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.04–3.36]) and its sub-clinical class non-proliferative DR (NPDR) (p = 0.006, OR 2.250 [95% CI = 1.098–4.620]), while PAI polymorphism did not show any association with DR in the current cohort. In conclusion in Pakistani population the ACE ID polymorphism was observed to be significantly associated with DR and NPDR, but not with the severe form of the disease i.e. proliferative DR (PDR).     

Patterns of ion excretion and survival in two stoloniferous arid zone grasses

Desert plants show specific mechanisms to thrive under prevailing harsh conditions. To study the survival mechanism(s) in native desert plant species, Lesser Cholistan desert in Pakistan was surveyed and two potential salt secretory grass species, Aeluropus lagopoides and Ochthochloa compressa , were selected from five saline sites. Both these grasses responded differentially to saline environments by showing specialized mechanisms of survival including excretion of toxic ions through trichomes, vesicular and glandular hairs through leaf surface. In A. lagopoides , salt tolerance was associated with excreted Na⁺ concentration through leaf surface and accumulation of useful ions like Ca²⁺ and K⁺ in the shoot. Contrarily, O. compressa excreted all the ions through leaves without discriminating among toxic or beneficial ions. Results suggested that A. lagopoides was more successfully adapted to saline desert environments than O. compressa by excretion of excessive toxic ions and retention of Ca²⁺ and K⁺ in the shoot. This appears to be an adaptive character of the former species to successfully thrive in harsh desert conditions.     

Experimental study of the effect of hydrology and mechanical soil disturbance on plant communities in Mediterranean temporary pools in Western Morocco

Physical soil disturbance and the hydrology of temporary pools affect the biomass, species composition and richness of plant communities. Disturbance liberates sites for the random recruitment of new individuals. The addition of seeds modifies the structure of the communities. In order to verify these hypotheses concerning the vegetation of temporary pools, an experiment was carried out using 72 soil samples collected from a pool in Western Morocco and placed in containers. Three types of laboratory treatments were applied, each combined with control treatments: soil disturbance (control/disturbed), hydrology (flooded, saturated and dry) and seed addition (sowing/no sowing). The total biomass, the annual and perennial species richness were calculated for each sample to test the effects of disturbance, hydrology and seed addition on the biomass and species richness of the various plant communities. The results show that disturbance reduces the total biomass, especially of perennials, but without significantly increasing the richness of annuals. Seed addition does not affect the total biomass and reduces total richness only in saturated soil, where biomass production is high. The most extreme stress conditions (drought and flooding) limit the abundance of species and therefore competition. Guest editors: B. Oertli, R. Cereghino, A. Hull & R. Miracle Pond Conservation: From Science to Practice. 3rd Conference of the European Pond Conservation Network, Valencia, Spain, 14–16 May 2008     

Structure,chemistry, and biological activity of pseudophomins A and B,new cyclic lipodepsipeptides isolated from the biocontrol bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens

Pseudophomins A and B are cyclic lipodepsipeptides isolated from Pseudomonas fluorescens strain BRG100, a bacterium with potential application for biocontrol of plant pathogens and weeds. Their chemical structures were established by a combination of spectroscopic data, X-ray crystallography, and selective chemical degradation. This unique chemical degradation allowed the unambiguous determination of the absolute configuration of the amino acid residue Leu-1, due to gamma-lactam formation followed by selective cleavage of the adjacent N(8)-C(7) bond. To the best of our knowledge this is the first application of gamma-lactam formation to the determination of absolute configuration of an adjacent amino acid. Pseudophomin B showed higher antifungal activity against the phytopathogens Phoma lingam/Leptosphaeria maculans and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum than pseudophomin A, and is likely to be the main component responsible for the antifungal activity of EtOAc extracts of strain BRG100. By contrast, pseudophomin A showed stronger inhibition of green foxtail (Setaria viridis) root germination than pseudophomin B.