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This research aims to control Seedling damping off disease in plants by using antagonistic actinomycetes against the causative fungi. Phytophthora infestans was isolated from the infected tomato plant seedling obtained from an economic plant nursery in Amphoe Pak Chong, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand. The chitinolytic Streptomyces rubrolavendulae S4, isolated from termite mounds at the grove of Amphoe Si-Sawat, Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand, was proven to be the most effective growth inhibition of fungal pathogens tested on potato dextrose agar. Tomato and chili seedlings that colonized with antagonistic S. rubrolavendulae S4 were grown in P. infestans artificial inoculated peat moss. Percents of noninfested seedling in fungal contaminated peat moss were compared to the controls with uninoculated peat moss. In P. infestans contaminated peat moss, the percents of survival of tomato and chili seedling were significantly increased (P < 0.05) from 51.42 to 88.57 and 34.10 to 76.71 for the S. rubrolavendulae S4 treatment, respectively. The S. rubrolavendulae S4 also showed high efficiency equivalent to fungicide, metalaxyl with no significant difference (P > 0.05). It was clearly demonstrated that S. rubrolavendulae S4 can prevent the tomato and chili seedling damping off disease in economic plant nurseries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BSTRACT: Nucleotide sequence and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) - restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the ribosomal RNA gene (rDNA) regions containing the internal transcribed spacers (ITSs) and the 5.8S rRNA coding sequence was used to differentiate between 7 typical Flammulina strains. These nucleotide sequences revealed the presence of strain-specific deletions, insertions, and substitutions. Moreover, RFLP patterns produced using restriction endonucleases DraI, FokI, HaeII, MboII, and NlaIV, enabled identification of specific Flammulina strains. Thus, PCR-RFLP analysis of the ITS regions appears to be a useful tool for the identification of Flammulina strains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examination was made of the structure and assembly of the cortical microtubule (MT) cytoskeleton in the coenocytic green alga Boodlea coacta (Dickie) Murray et De Toni by immunofluorescence microscopy. Cortical MTs in Boodlea protoplasts are arranged randomly but some show a meridional arrangement within 6 h after protoplast formation. At 6-9 h such MTs become highly concentrated and parallel to each other in certain areas. At 12 h the concentration is uniformly high throughout the cell, indicating the completion of high density meridional arrangement of cortical MTs. Cortical MTs exhibiting a high density, meridional arrangement show characteristic disassembly by treatment with 10 μM amiprophos-methyl (APM) or cold treatment (0 °C). Disassembly occurs by each MT unit at positions skipping 30-40 μm in the transverse direction, and neighboring MTs subsequently disassemble to form MT groups. Each group becomes slender and then disappears completely within the following 24 h. The meridional arrangement of cortical MTs is disrupted by N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) accompanied by a remarkable reduction in density. The remaining MTs form groups at 30-40 μm intervals from each other, as also occurs with drug or cold treatment, but disruption and density return to normal levels following removal of NEM. It appears that there are meridionally oriented channels, anchor-rich and anchor-poor, in the plasma membrane. The channels could be distributed alternately and anchors could be deposited in a cross-linking manner with cortical MTs to form a stable cortical MT-cytoskeleton. MTs comprising the cortical MT cytoskeleton could be oriented by meridionally oriented channels of anchors which are distributed following establishment of cell polarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background A stereoisomer of inositol, scyllo-inositol, is known as a promising therapeutic agent for Alzheimer's disease, since it prevents the accumulation of beta-amyloid deposits, a hallmark of the disease. However, this compound is relatively rare in nature, whereas another stereoisomer of inositol, myo-inositol, is abundantly available. Results Bacillus subtilis possesses a unique inositol metabolism involving both stereoisomers. We manipulated the inositol metabolism in B. subtilis to permit the possible bioconversion from myo-inositol to scyllo-inositol. Within 48 h of cultivation, the engineered strain was able to convert almost half of 10 g/L myo-inositol to scyllo-inositol that accumulated in the culture medium. Conclusions The engineered B. subtilis serves as a prototype of cell factory enabling a novel and inexpensive supply of scyllo-inositol.

Water-ethanol mixtures exhibit interesting anomalies in their macroscopic properties. Despite a lot of research, the origin of the anomalies and the microscopic structure itself is still far from completely known. We have utilized the synchrotron x-ray Compton scattering technique to elucidate the structure of aqueous ethanol from a new experimental perspective. The technique is uniquely sensitive to the local molecular geometries at the angstrom and subangstrom scales. The experiments reveal two distinct mixing regimes in terms of geometry: the dilute 5 mol % and the concentrated > 15 mol % regimes. By comparing with pure liquids, the former regime is characterized by an intramolecular and the latter by an intermolecular change. The findings bring new light to evaluating the hypothesis of formation of clathratelike structures at the dilute concentrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]