Indian Scientists sequence Tulsi genome for medicinal properties

The plant synthesises a wide range of bioactive compounds, known for their anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-pyretic and anti-cancer properties. It is widely used for therapeutic purposes. The genome map will help in making new medicines using the plant. These compounds are metabolites, compounds that are a by-product of plant metabolism, typically used for plant self-defence. These metabolites are very poorly understood because of lack of genomic information. The sequence reveals the interesting pathways used by Tulsi to make ursolic acid, a medically important compound. If one could now use modern synthetic biology techniques to synthesise ursolic acid, it would be of great benefit.

Source: Sowdhamini Ramanathan and S. Ramaswamy, 2015, National Centre of Biological Science, Bengaluru

Eating eggs for breakfast cuts calorie consumption

Eating eggs for breakfast everyday can reduce hunger and decreases calorie consumption at lunch and throughout the day. Eating eggs for breakfast as part of a reduced-calorie diet helped overweight dieters lose 65 percent more weight and feel more energetic than dieters who ate a bagel breakfast of equal calories and volume. “Starting the day with a high-quality protein breakfast like eggs is a great tool to promote long-lasting fullness and reduced calorie consumption. For only 70 calories, eggs are a compact, nutrient-rich source of high-quality protein, and nearly half of an egg’s protein, along with many other nutrients, is found in the yolk, so I always encourage eating the whole egg,” said Helenbeth Reynolds, registered dietitian and nutrition consultant.

Source: Dr. Maria Luz Fernandez, 2015, Department of nutritional sciences at the University of Connecticut

Paddy cum fish culture

Rice and fish culture involves farmers introducing fish into their rice fields. This technique is good for both fish and ice. Safely hidden from birds, the fish thrive in the dense rice plants, while they in turn provide a source of fertilizer with their droppings, eat insect pests and help to circulate oxygen around the rice field. Farmers report that keeping fish in rice fields can increase rice yields up to 10% additionally they have the supplies of fish.

Source: Agricultural Business Innovation-Indonesia.

Marijuana use linked to prediabetes

Marijuana users are more likely to have prediabetes the state of poor blood sugar control that can progress to Type-2 diabetes than those who have never used the drug. The findings suggest that marijuana use may adversely affect a person’s metabolic health in the long term.

Source: Mike Bancks, 2015, University of Minnesota, School of Public Health in Minneapolis, US.

World running out of snakebite antidote

The treatment is called Fav-Afrique. It's the only anti-venom approved to neutralize the bites of 10 deadly African snakes, like spitting cobras, carpet vipers and black mambas. Fav-Afrique has been produced by just one company, Sanofi Pasteur in France. The company stopped production last year because it was priced out of the anti-venom market. Across the world, about 100,000 people die of snakebites each year, Doctors Without Borders says. Even more have limbs amputated or disfigured because of bites. To put that into perspective, Ebola has killed about 11,000 people in West Africa.

Source: Dr Gabriel Alcoba, 2015,The snakebite medical adviser for Doctors.

Plastic decomposing bacteria isolated

Tests revealed that plastic carry bags, blood bags and plastic granules were completely degraded by the bacteria. The six strains namely, Cronobacter muytjensii mbg5, Cronobacter muytjensii mbg6, C. sakazakii mbg1, C. sakazakii mbg3, Enterobacter clocae mbg2 and Ohrobactrum intermedium mgb4 have capable of breaking down plastics into biodegradable polymers. These bacterias were also found to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a class of biodegradable polymers that could substitute synthetic plastics. In the presence high carbon sources or nutritions like nitrogen, phosporous, sulphur, oxygen and magnesium PHAs are synthesized by the bacteria as intracellular carbon and accumulate as granules in the cytoplasm, the jellylike material lining inside of a cell.  Biochemical tests and molecular analysis were used to identify the bacteria and confirm the production of PHA. With properties similar to polyethylene, polypropylene, PHAs emerged as an environmental friendly alternative to petrochemical based plastic. 

Source: R. B. Smitha, Scientist, MBGIPS, Kozhikode.

Engineering Microbiomes to Improve Plant

Arabidopsis. (stock image) Credit: © Vasiliy Koval / Fotolia

Humans have been breeding crops until they're bigger and more nutritious since the early days of agriculture, but genetic manipulation isn't the only way to give plants a boost. A new study reported that the plant soil microbiome to improve plant growth, even if the plants are genetically identical and cannot evolve. These artificially selected microbiomes, which can also be selected in animals, can then be passed on from parents to offspring. Riverside, have seen microbiome engineering to be successful withArabidopsis (a close relative of cabbage and broccoli). In the Arabidopsisexperiments, bacteria from the roots of the largest plants were harvested with a filter and given to other plants growing from seed. Over time, the plants, which were genetically identical and therefore could not evolve by themselves, grew better because of their evolved and improved microbiomes.

Microbiome experiments can be tricky and affect reproducibility because of the complexity of propagating entire microbial communities between plants or between animals. The reason grasses and honeybees are attractive pilot organisms is because their microbiomes can be manipulated to be heritable. By testing this in organisms with stable genetics, it is easier to see the effects of adding specific bacterial communities.

Selecting artificial microbiomes may be a cheaper way to help curb plant and animal diseases rather than pesticides and antibiotics or creating genetically modified organisms. The methods to generate host-mediated artificial selection on root microbiomes are super simple (all you need is a syringe and a filter), and any farmer in any location could potentially do this to engineer microbiomes that are specific to the problems of the specific location where the farmer attempts to grow food.

Ref: Mueller and Sachs, Engineering Microbiomes to Improve Plant and Animal Health, Trends in Microbiology, 2015.