The postabsorptive and postprandial metabolic rates of praying mantises: Comparisons across species,body masses,and meal sizes

The metabolic rate of an animal affects the amount of energy available for its growth, activity and reproduction and, ultimately, shapes how energy and nutrients flow through ecosystems. Standard metabolic rate (SMR; when animals are post-absorptive and at rest) and specific dynamic action (SDA; the cost of digesting and processing food) are two major components of animal metabolism. SMR has been studied in hundreds of species of insects, but very little is known about the SMR of praying mantises. We measured the rates of CO₂ production as a proxy for metabolic rate and tested the prediction that the SMR of mantises more closely resembles the low SMR of spiders – a characteristic generally believed to be related to their sit-and-wait foraging strategy. Although few studies have examined SDA in insects we also tested the prediction that mantises would exhibit comparatively large SDA responses characteristic of other types of predators (e.g., snakes) known to consume enormous, protein-rich meals. The SMR of the mantises was positively correlated with body mass and did not differ among the four species we examined. Their SMR was best described by the equation μW = 1526 * g^0.745 and was not significantly different from that predicted by the standard ‘insect-curve’; but it was significantly higher than that of spiders to which mantises are ecologically more similar than other insects. Mantises consumed meals as large as 138% of their body mass and within 6–12 h of feeding and their metabolic rates doubled before gradually returning to prefeeding rates over the subsequent four days. We found that the SDA responses were isometrically correlated with meal size and the relative cost of digestion was 38% of the energy in each meal. We conclude that mantises provide a promising model to investigate nutritional physiology of insect predators as well as nutrient cycling within their ecological communities.     

Balancing of lipid,protein, and carbohydrate intake in a predatory beetle following hibernation,and consequences for lipid restoration

Carnivorous animals are known to balance their consumption of lipid and protein, and recent studies indicate that some mammalian carnivores also regulate their intake of carbohydrate. We investigated macronutrient balancing and lipid restoration following hibernation in the ground beetle Anchomenus dorsalis, hypothesizing that carbohydrates might be important energy sources upon hibernation when predator lipid stores are exhausted and prey are equally lean. We recorded the consumption of lipid, protein, and carbohydrate over nine days following hibernation, as the beetles foraged to refill their lipid stores. Each beetle was given the opportunity to regulate consumption from two semi-artificial foods differing in the proportion of two of the three macronutrients, while the third macronutrient was kept constant. When analyzing consumption of the three macronutrients on an energetic basis, it became apparent that the beetles regulated lipid and carbohydrate energy interchangeably and balanced the combined energy intake from the two macronutrients against protein intake. Restoration of lipid stores was independent of the availability of any specific macronutrient. However, the energetic consumption required to refill lipid stores was higher when a low proportion of lipids was ingested, suggesting that lipids were readily converted into lipid stores while there were energetic costs associated with converting carbohydrate and protein into stored lipids. Our experiment demonstrates that carbohydrates are consumed and regulated as a non-protein energy source by A. dorsalis despite an expectedly low occurrence of carbohydrates in their natural diet. Perhaps carbohydrates are in fact an overlooked supplementary energy source in the diet of carnivorous arthropods.     

Predicting the impact of mutations on the specific activity of Bacillus thermocatenulatus lipase using a combined approach of docking and molecular dynamics

Lipases are important biocatalysts owing to their ability to catalyze diverse reactions with exceptional substrate specificities. A combined docking and molecular dynamics (MD) approach was applied to study the chain‐length selectivity of Bacillus thermocatenulatus lipase (BTL2) towards its natural substrates (triacylglycerols). A scoring function including electrostatic, van der Waals (vdW) and desolvation energies along with conformational entropy was developed to predict the impact of mutation. The native BTL2 and its 6 mutants (F17A, V175A, V175F, D176F, T178V and I320F) were experimentally analyzed to determine their specific activities towards tributyrin (C4) or tricaprylin (C8), which were used to test our approach. Our scoring methodology predicted the chain‐length selectivity of BTL2 with 85.7% (6/7) accuracy with a positive correlation between the calculated scores and the experimental activity values (r = 0.82, p = 0.0004). Additionally, the impact of mutation on activity was predicted with 75% (9/12) accuracy. The described study represents a fast and reliable approach to accurately predict the effect of mutations on the activity and selectivity of lipases and also of other enzymes. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Study of Specific Protein on Sex Differentiation of Momordica charantia

In Momordica charantia L. the soluble protein profile of flower bud at hermaphroditic stage and three early developmental stages (the 7th, 10th and 13th day after initial budding) of male and female flowers were analysed with capillary electrophoresis. Some specific proteins related to sex differentiation were detected. The 11 kD protein, which appeared at the 7th day of budding and existed through the three developmental stages of the female flowers with little change of content, might be an "essential protein" for the expression of female flower differentiation program. Similarly, the 30 kD protein might be an "essential protein" for the expression of the male flower differentiation.     

A specific alkaline phosphatase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae with protein phosphatase activity

In this paper, specific PHO13 alkaline phosphatase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae was demonstrated to possess phosphoprotein phosphatase activity on the phosphoseryl proteins histone II-A and casein. The enzyme is a monomeric protein with molecular mass of 60 kDa and hydrolyzes p-nitrophenyl phosphate with maximal activity at pH 8.2 with strong dependence on Mg²⁺ ions and an apparent K_m of 3.6×10⁻⁵ M. No other substrates tested except phosphorylated histone II-A and casein were hydrolyzed at any significant rate. These data suggest that the physiological role of the p-nitrophenyl phosphate-specific phosphatase may involve participation in reversible protein phosphorylation.     

Deciphering role of technical bioprocess parameters for bioethanol production using microalgae

Microalgae biomass is considered an important feedstock for biofuels and other bioactive compounds due to its faster growth rate, high biomass production and high biomolecules accumulation over first and second-generation feedstock. This research aimed to maximize the specific growth rate of fresh water green microalgae Closteriopsis acicularis, a member of family Chlorellaceae under the effect of pH and phosphate concentration to attain enhanced biomass productivity. This study investigates the individual and cumulative effect of phosphate concentration and pH on specific growth characteristics of Closteriopsis acicularis in autotrophic mode of cultivation for bioethanol production. Central-Composite Design (CCD) strategy and Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used for the optimization of microalga growth and ethanol production under laboratory conditions. The results showed that high specific growth rate and biomass productivity of 0.342 day⁻¹ and 0.497 g L⁻¹ day⁻¹ respectively, were achieved at high concentration of phosphate (0.115 g L⁻¹) and pH (9) at 21st day of cultivation. The elemental composition of optimized biomass has shown enhanced elemental accumulation of certain macro (C, O, P) and micronutrients (Na, Mg, Al, K, Ca and Fe) except for nitrogen and sulfur. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic analysis has revealed spectral peaks and high absorbance in spectral range of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins, in optimized biomass. The carbohydrates content of optimized biomass was observed as 58%, with 29.3 g L⁻¹ of fermentable sugars after acid catalyzed saccharification. The bioethanol yield was estimated as 51 % g ethanol/g glucose with maximum of 14.9 g/L of bioethanol production. In conclusion, it can be inferred that high specific growth rate and biomass productivity can be achieved by varying levels of phosphate concentration and pH during cultivation of Closteriopsis acicularis for improved yield of microbial growth, biomass and bioethanol production.     

Contents of macro-, microelements and long-lived radionuclides in the medicinal plants belonging to the wetland community of Siberian region,Russia

Studied contents of macro-, microelements and long-lived radionuclides in the following medicinal plants belonging to the wetland community of Siberian region, Russia: Sphagnum fuscum (Schimp.) Klinggr., Sphagnum balticum (Russ.) Russ. ex С. Jens., Polytrichum strictum Brid., Pinus sylvestris L., Pinus sibirica Du Tour, Betula pubescens Ehrh., Andromeda polifolia L., Ledum palustre L., Oxycoccus palustris Pers., Rubus chamaemorus L., Vaccinium uliginosum L., Comarum palustre L., Chamaedaphne calyculata (L.) Moench. Samples were collected in the sphagnum wetlands of Tomsk region and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. For the purpose of research, we used roots, shoots and bark of the plants in the Pinophyta and Magnoliophyta species and turf of the Bryophyta species. The content of macro-, microelements in the plants was determined by an atomic emission spectrometer with inductively coupled plasma “iCAP 6300 Duo” of the “Thermo Scientific” company. The specific activities of the long-lived radionuclides Th-232, K-40, Ra-226, Cs-137 were measured by a gamma-ray spectrometric complex with a high purity germanium semiconductor detector by “ORTEC” (AMETEK) and a digital analyser “ORTEC DSPEC LF”. The obtained results of the element content are useful when selecting a medicinal plant species (or part thereof) which may be used in preparation of new medicinal drugs.     

Upstream processes in antibody production: evaluation of critical parameters

The demand for monoclonal antibody for therapeutic and diagnostic applications is rising constantly which puts up a need to bring down the cost of its production. In this context it becomes a prerequisite to improve the efficiency of the existing processes used for monoclonal antibody production. This review describes various upstream processes used for monoclonal antibody production and evaluates critical parameters and efforts which are being made to enhance the efficiency of the process. The upstream technology has tremendously been upgraded from host cells used for manufacturing to bioreactors type and capacity. The host cells used range from microbial, mammalian to plant cells with mammalian cells dominating the scenario. Disposable bioreactors are being promoted for small scale production due to easy adaptation to process validation and flexibility, though they are limited by the scale of production. In this respect Wave bioreactors for suspension culture have been introduced recently. A novel bioreactor for immobilized cells is described which permits an economical and easy alternative to hollow fiber bioreactor at lab scale production. Modification of the cellular machinery to alter their metabolic characteristics has further added to robustness of cells and perks up cell specific productivity. The process parameters including feeding strategies and environmental parameters are being improved and efforts to validate them to get reproducible results are becoming a trend. Online monitoring of the process and product characterization is increasingly gaining importance. In total the advancement of upstream processes have led to the increase in volumetric productivity by 100-fold over last decade and make the monoclonal antibody production more economical and realistic option for therapeutic applications.     

DNA technological progress toward advanced diagnostic tools to support human hookworm control

Blood-feeding hookworms are parasitic nematodes of major human health importance. Currently, it is estimated that 740 million people are infected worldwide, and more than 80 million of them are severely affected clinically by hookworm disease. In spite of the health problems caused and the advances toward the development of vaccines against some hookworms, limited attention has been paid to the need for improved, practical methods of diagnosis. Accurate diagnosis and genetic characterization of hookworms is central to their effective control. While traditional diagnostic methods have considerable limitations, there has been some progress toward the development of molecular-diagnostic tools. The present article provides a brief background on hookworm disease of humans, reviews the main methods that have been used for diagnosis and describes progress in establishing polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods for the specific diagnosis of hookworm infection and the genetic characterisation of the causative agents. This progress provides a foundation for the rapid development of practical, highly sensitive and specific diagnostic and analytical tools to be used in improved hookworm prevention and control programmes.