Volume 71, Issue 10

Fungi provide a readily available alternative source of naturally derived pigmented molecules that may be utilized in different areas as foods, textile, medicine and cosmetics. These have been considered as potent biocompounds under two perspectives: for coloring to products, or as powerful chemical structures with biological functions. Both properties are also often found in their study and application in these areas. The present review presents an overview of diverse aspects that have been studied on the obtaining of fungal pigments, including pigment class, and metabolic pathway of biosynthesis, producer’s species of pigment, physicochemical condition of biosynthesis, extracting, isolation, purifying and storage. Commercial production and application of fungal pigments status is also described in this research as main findings.

To understand fundamental defense mechanisms of an individual and to perceive organization and functioning of the human immune system, it is inevitable to sum up its phylogenic development. Lymphoid organs are crucial in regulation of physiological lymphocytes development and subsequently play a significant role in appropriate immunological responses to foreign pathogens. Throughout the evolutionary tree, the primary lymphoid organs have emerged earlier than the secondary lymphoid organs. Considering the sites for cell populations’ development responsible for adaptive immunity, B lymphocytes differentiation and maturation have considerably differed during phylogeny as well as ontogeny. On the contrary, T lymphocytes development is defined exclusively in the thymus. From the evolutionary point of view, location of primary lymphoid organs must have been sophistically pre-programmed in terms of their function. Need for thymus evolving from the foregut supports the fact of emerging diverse repertoire of antigen receptors. The thymus represents the very first lymphoid organ evolved in Vertebrata to deal with potentially autoreactive, somatically heterogeneous T lymphocyte receptors. The necessity of maintaining an immunological integrity was the most crucial stimulus for evolution. Thymus as a primary lymphoid organ constitutes an eminent structure that markedly differentiates the higher Vertebrata from the rest of the animal phyla. The present paper is meant to provide a profound evolutionary insight into the lymphoid organs with the emphasis on the thymus morphology through the phylogenesis.

A different form of lung disease including acute lung injury (ALI) and its most severe form, acute respiratory distress syndrome, bronchiolitis, interstitial lung diseases and drug-induced lung diseases are often associated with alveolar epithelial cell apoptosis. Epithelial cells that are the prime important cell in the alveolar architecture produce fibrinolytic components, such as urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), its receptor (uPAR), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), and tumor suppressor protein p53. The increased expression of p53, which is responsible for apoptosis of alveolar epithelial cells, and the other components of the fibrinolytic system, and a decreased alveolar fibrinolysis, are strongly involved in the pathogenesis of ALI. The fibrinolytic system, such as uPA, uPAR and PAI-1 interaction with p53, brings about the regulation of the signaling response, as well as the fibrinolytic properties, which will be useful in maintaining the unity of the cell, and also providing the signals to the cells on whether they undergo apoptosis or survival after ALI.

The use of electromagnetic field in the treatment of diseases has already been known for centuries. Low hazard, wide applicability, good clinical effect and the relatively low cost enable the electromagnetic field therapy to be widely used. The biological effect of the electromagnetic field is based on inter alia, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, osteogenetic and regenerative actions, which are associated with the changes in cellular signal transmission, action on biological membranes, ion transport processes, protein synthesis, cell proliferation and apoptosis. In addition, the electromagnetic field increases quantity of collagen content elevating its density and a more regular arrangement. Furthermore, it induces the activation of glutathione peroxidase and intensification of the process of erythropoiesis leading to better use of oxygen in the tissues around the wound. The electromagnetic field is used in rehabilitation of patients with diseases of skeletal, nervous and respiratory systems. Moreover, electromagnetic field may be used in the course of most inflammatory diseases and in the case of concomitant pain. The objective of this paper is to present the actual state of knowledge on selected applications of electromagnetic field in the biomedical treatment area.

The antibacterial activity of ethyl acetate extracts and 95% ethanol extracts from 14 microalgal strains against human pathogenic bacteria was tested, and four microlalgal strains were selected for their high biomass productivity and strong antibacterial activity. Subsequently, these four strains (C14, C74, C79, and SY01) were identified as Chlorella sp., Chlorella sorokiniana , Scenedesmus armatus and Chlorella sp., respectively through BLAST analysis of homologous sequences. Additionally, three flocculants including non-ionic polyacrylamide, ferric chloride and chitosan were used to investigate the flocculation of Chlorella sorokiniana C74. The highest flocculation efficiency (96.7 ± 0.7%) was obtained with the chitosan at a dosage of 12 mg/L. Besides, the results showed that the non-ionic polyacrylamide had little influence on flocculation efficiency. None of these three flocculants had effect on the microalgal cell integrity through observing under the microscope. Basically, flocculation with chitosan was feasible for harvesting C. sorokiniana C74.

Plant Myb transcription factors are crucial in regulating secondary metabolism, cellular morphogenesis and responses to hormone and stress signals. In this study, 19 Myb gene fragments were isolated from five Leymus species, three of which, LrMyb 3, LmMyb 8 and LmMyb 6 were nearly complete open reading frames encoding putative Leymus Myb genes. Sequence and phylogenetic analysis indicated that all these putative Myb from Leymus represent plant typical R2R3-Myb genes. Compared with Myb gene in Arabidopsis thaliana , the 19 Leymus Myb gene fragments of the R2R3 region amino acid showed three different types, W-x (19) W-x (19) W-x (12) F-x (18) W-x (18) W, W-x (19) W-x (19) W-x (12) M-x (18) W-x (18) W and W-x (19) W-x (19) R-x (12) L-x (18) W-x (18) W. LmMyb 8 gene shares high similarity to ZmMyb 39 which was possible involvement of caffeic acid O-methyl-transferase (COMT) in the lignification process. TheLmMyb8 gene is expressed at high level in leaves and roots while at low level in stems.

In northern Algeria, the physical degradation of land by water erosion is one of the most serious forms of degradation. As is well known, vegetation plays an important role against water erosion. In the mentioned area the potential vegetation called maquis is currently characterized by an advanced stated of degradation, often ranging between sparse cover and bare soil. In the Oued Fergoug watershed belonging to the Beni Chougrane Mountains (NW of Algeria), a trial was carried out with a mini rainfall simulator designed by ORSTOM to evaluate the runoff rate and the sediment load at experimental plot scale and in a situation of bare soil. The experimental layout took into account two different surface slopes, three different rainfall intensities, and three levels of initial soil water content. The highest runoff values observed exceeded 0.50 mm min − 1 and the maximum sediment load yield was 94.2 g L −1 per square meter. Summarizing, the intensity of rain is the main factor for runoff generation, independently of the slope and the initial soil water content values. Since vegetation cover is a crucial component in maintaining stable slopes and limiting soil losses, the most effective practice to protect bare soil against erosion is to provide a protective ground plant cover in this area.

Soil water repellency (SWR) can affect the hydrophysical properties of soils. The objective of this study was to evaluate a new approach, which allows estimating both the extent (the modified soil water repellency index, RI m ) and persistence (the water repellency cessation time, WRCT) of water repellency from a single measurement of the combined infiltration of water against time. The measurements were carried out on wettable and water repellent soil samples from 0–60 cm depth. Combined soil water repellency index, RI c , was estimated from all the water and ethanol sorptivity values. The persistence of water repellency in soil aggregates (about 20 mm × 20 mm × 20 mm in size) was measured with the water drop penetration time (WDPT) test on both the field-moist aggregates (actual WDPT, A-WDPT) and aggregates dried at 65–70°C for 24 hours (potential WDPT, P-WDPT). In comparison with the wettable soil, hydrophysical parameters of the repellent soil were significantly different at the upper part of the profile (0–40 cm, P < 0.01), what can be attributed to the differences in organic matter content in both soils. Maximum organic matter (OM) content of the repellent soil was observed at the depth of 30–40 cm. Curiously, an insignificant difference between the studied soils was found in the saturated hydraulic conductivity, K s . The mean values of A-WDPT and P-WDPT for water repellent soil were 438- and 106-times greater than those for wettable soil, respectively. All the water and ethanol sorptivities ( S w , S e , S ww , and S wh ) were significantly ( P < 0.01) greater in the wettable soil than those in the water repellent soil. The repellency indices RI c and RI m in water repellent soil were about seven- and two-times higher than those in the wettable soil, respectively. Our findings pointed out the proposed method to estimate SWR can be used as a new approach. Considering that the contact angle (CA) of soil and water intrinsically depends on sorptivity state, it is suggested that the relation of CA and RI m is investigated to find reference classes for WRCT and RI m (i.e. WDPT > 5 s) and to classify water repellency states of soils.

This study is focused on the comparison of soil structure and soil hydraulic properties of a Haplic Cambisol on paragneiss under two different land managements. Soil samples were taken from all diagnostic horizons (A, Bw and C) of the soil profile under the permanent grass cover (grassland) and under the conventional tillage (arable land). Basic soil properties were measured. Aggregate stability was assessed using the WSA index. Soil composition was evaluated using micromorphological images. Tension disk infiltrometers with two diameters of 2.22 and 10.25 cm (and applied pressure head of −2 cm) and Guelph permeameter were used to measure unsaturated and saturated hydraulic conductivities, respectively. Soil hydraulic properties were measured in the laboratory using the multistep outflow experiment, which was performed on the undisturbed 100 cm 3 soil samples. Results showed that the unsaturated and saturated hydraulic conductivities measured in all horizons were lower at the arable land than conductivities at the grassland. The shapes of the soil water retention curves for A and Bw horizons were also different, indicating that soil below the grass contained larger fraction of the large capillary pores, which also corresponded to measured hydraulic conductivities and soil structure characteristics. Differences between both locations were caused by a negative impact of tillage (inflicting soil degradation) and positive influence of grass (increasing organic matter content and improving soil aggregation).

Tetranychoid communities from urban landscapes of Tehran area were compared in 2012. The landscapes covering two main climates of Tehran Province and the related regions were mostly planted with Ulmus , Platanus , Ficus and Morus trees. A total of 259 mite specimens, belonging to two families, were collected. Cenopalpus meyerae was the dominant species in Lavizan Forest Park, Qeytariyeh, Taleqani, Laleh, Besat and Golbon parks with 96.1%, 89.6%, 85.72%, 64.86%, 40% and 32%, respectively, while in Chitgar Forest Park, Tetranychus urticae and C. meyerae had the highest dominancy with 40%. Among the species, C. meyerae , Tetranychus sp., T. urticae and Eotetranychus sp. were found in most of parks. Eutetranychus orientalis , Eu. africanus and Eutetranychus sp. were only found in Golbon Park with mainly ornamental plants; and Mononychellus sp. occurred occurred in Laleh Park and only found on Ficus species. Modelling of ecological niches by support vector machines method showed the most suitable areas for each species. Accuracy of the model according to maximum Kappa value and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve values were high.

A total of 333 specimens of Erebia medusa from four sites with different altitudes in the Western Carpathians, specifically from orographical units of the Košická kotlina basin (Beniakovce), the Busov Mts (Cigeľka), the Pieniny Mts (Targov) and the Muránska planina Mts (Studňa), were collected and subsequently analyzed for specific morphological structures of valvae using morphometric techniques to explore the pattern of shape variation of genitalia in the different environments. The degree of influence of selected abiotic factors in eastern Slovakia on the occurrence of different morphological features of E. medusa valvae was studied. The variation was defined using principal component analysis. The altitude and bedrock type showed significant effects on morphological variation. The morphology of male butterfly genitalia from sites at higher altitude showed different shapes of valvae than males from sites at lower altitude. Targov and Cigeľka areas contain the largest populations of E. medusa in the Western Carpathians. Although morphological features of valvae are considered to be permanent, variation of these features could be caused by different factors such as geographical isolation and abiotic factors.

Fish species from the subfamily Leuciscinae are one of the most abundant and ecologically valuable among riverine cyprinids of Central Europe. In order to support their recruitment or properly manage the restocking operations, there is a need to recognize the recruitment success which relies on the necessity of proper species discrimination among the larvae of those species caught on the spawning and/ or nursery grounds. In the present study a comparative analysis of the morphological and molecular (PCR-RFLP technique with two restriction endonucleases HinfI and TaqI based on mitochondrial DNA fragment encoding cytochrome b ) techniques for identification of the species status among larvae of five cyprinid species, the ide ( Leuciscus idus ), common dace ( Leuciscus leuciscus ), asp ( Leuciscus aspius ), roach ( Rutilus rutilus ) and the European chub (Squalius cephalus ) was performed. It was shown that the application of morphometric features solely could create many ambiguities in species discrimination. The use of applied molecular techniques was found to be a great support for the larvae identification, regardless the developmental stage of the fish. Moreover, this molecular method may also be used for the identification of the species even if the preserved fish (e.g., in ethanol), having usually deformed and/ or shrunk body caused by preservation, are about to be investigated.

The physiological values for blood plasma leucine (Leu), isoleucine (Ile) and valine (Val) were measured in 130 farmed rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss (mean standard length 284 mm), kept from June to October at a photoperiod of 11.00–16.00 h : 08.00–13.00 h (light : dark). A direct non-parametric method was used to calculate the physiological value intervals determined by the lower 2.5% and upper 97.5% quantiles. These were 437 ± 171 μmol L –1 ( n = 129) (mean ± standard deviation) for Leu, 198 ± 82 μmol L –1 ( n =127) for Ile and 623 ± 232 μmol L –1 ( n = 133) for Val. The fish were given dry pellets that contained 39.1% crude protein and 14.4% crude fat and were kept at a stocking density of 50 kg m –3 in tanks provided with running fresh water at a temperature of 6–14°C and dissolved oxygen of 8.5–10.6 mg L –1 . When the dynamics was examined in dependence on time, the Leu, Ile and Val values were decreasing until the 56 th day and then they slightly increased. Trends between amino acids and uric acid, which, during a period of 86 days, had the nature of a second-degree polynome and the shape of a convex parabola, were discussed.