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Soil acidification and low SOC are the main limiting factors in acidic paddy soils. Straw returning with lime is an effective measure to alleviate soil acidification and improve soil fertility; however, its interaction effects on SOC and carbon pool management are still unclear. To investigate the impact of straw returning with lime on the organic carbon pool of acidic paddy soil, field experiments were conducted on acidic paddy soil in Baiyun District and Huiyang District of Guangdong Province. The changes in soil total organic carbon (TOC), water-soluble organic carbon (DOC), active organic carbon (LOC), particulate organic carbon (POC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), carbon pool index (CPI), stable organic carbon (IOC), carbon pool activity ( L ), carbon pool activity index (CPAI), and carbon pool management index (CPMI) were analyzed under three treatments (CK, conventional fertilization; RS, straw returning+conventional fertilization; RS+L straw returning with lime+conventional fertilization). The results demonstrated that compared with that in CK, the TOC, LOC, POC, and MBC in the RS+L treatment were significantly increased by 10.24%-17.79%, 34.49%-44.37%, 19.27%-23.59%, and 33.36%-43.26%, respectively ( P <0.05). Compared with that in CK, the RS+L treatment significantly increased the DOC content during the early growth stage (15-45 days after transplanting) of rice ( P <0.05) but had no significant influence on the DOC content during the late growth stage of rice. Compared with that in RS, the TOC, LOC, POC, and MBC in the RS+L treatment were increased by 2.15%-6.95%, 1.17%-17.90%, 4.27%-8.65%, and 12.99%-14.53%, respectively. Compared with that in CK, the RS+L treatment significantly increased IOC and CPI by 8.32%-15.57% and 14.00%-20.00%, respectively ( P <0.05). Compared with that in the CK treatment, the RS treatment significantly increased CPI by 14.00%-18.00% ( P <0.05). No significant differences in L , CPAI, or CPMI were detected among the different treatments. The soil pH in the RS+L treatment was significantly higher than that in the CK treatment ( P <0.05). No significant differences in rice yield were detected among the different treatments. Principal component analysis demonstrated that rice yield was primarily correlated with DOC, LOC, CPAI, and CPMI but its contribution to SOC and carbon pool management index was low. Principal component analysis also indicated that straw returning with lime could improve soil pH and nutrient contents of acidic paddy soil, driving the formation and accumulation of organic carbon fraction such as MBC and POC, thus boosting the increase in SOC. In conclusion, straw returning with lime is beneficial to the accumulation of MBC, POC, LOC, and IOC in acidic paddy soil to improve the content and stability of soil total organic carbon, which is an effective way to improve the carbon sequestration of acidic paddy soil.

Drought is one of the major environmental constraints affecting the crop productivity worldwide. One of the agricultural challenges today is to develop plants with minimized water utilization and reduced water loss in adverse environmental conditions. Epicuticular waxes play a major role in minimizing water loss. Epicuticular wax covers aerial plant parts and also prevents non-stomatal water loss by forming the outermost barrier from the surfaces. Epicuticular wax content (EWC) variation was found to be affiliated with drought tolerance of groundnut cultivars. In the current study, a fatty acid elongase gene, KCS1 , which catalyzes a rate limiting step in the epicuticular wax biosynthesis was isolated from drought tolerant cultivar K-9 and overexpressed in drought sensitive groundnut cultivar (K-6) under the control of CaMV35S constitutive promoter. Transgenic groundnut plants overexpressing AhKCS1 exhibited normal growth and displaying greenish dark shiny appearance. Environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) revealed the excess of epicuticular wax crystal depositions on the transgenic plant leaves compared to non-transgenic wild type plants. The findings were further supported by gas chromotography-mass spectroscopic analysis (GC-MS) that revealed enhanced levels of fatty acids, secondary alcohols, primary alcohols, aldehydes, alkanes, and ketones in transgenics compared to wild types. The AhKCS1 overexpressing transgenic groundnut plants exhibited increase in the cuticular wax content, reduction of water loss, lower membrane damage, decreased MDA content, and high proline content compared to that of non-transgenic groundnut plants. Our findings suggest that the AhKCS1 gene plays a major role in combating drought stress by preventing non-stomatal water loss in drought sensitive groundnut cultivar (K-6).

Background: Suicide is an act of intentionally causing one's own death. Number of suicidal incidences is proportional to attempted suicide cases hence if attempt cases are reduced, number of suicidal death can also be decreased and for that purpose risk factors should be identified and reduced. Therefore, this study is planned to identify risk factors among lower socioeconomic rural population of surrounding areas of Hyderabad in India., Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study in which all the suicide attempt cases reported at Bhaskar Medical College and General Hospital were included. The study period was from January 2013 to July 2013. They were undergone a detailed psychiatric interview, including their demographic details, and complete suicide risk assessment was done using Beck's suicide intent scale., Results: It was found that females in the age group of 20-30 years, uneducated, married and daily laborers by occupation had higher incidence of suicidal attempts. Depressive disorder is the most common associated psychiatric disorder in both the genders, followed by alcohol use related problems. Family disputes are the other major risk factors. Most common mode for attempt was organophosphorous poisoning followed by ingestion of calotropis., Conclusion: Risk of suicide attempt is almost equal in terms of medium and high category of suicide assessment scale in both genders. We suggest that all individuals with alcohol related disorders must be screened for suicidal ideation so that appropriate methods can be adopted to reduce the risk.

By combining pseudorandom bead-based aptamer libraries with conjugation chemistry, we have created next-generation aptamers, X-aptamers (XAs). Several X-ligands can be added in a directed or random fashion to the aptamers to further enhance their binding affinities for the target proteins. Here we describe the addition of a drug (N-acetyl-2,3-dehydro-2-deoxyneuraminic acid), demonstrated to bind to CD44-HABD, to a complete monothioate backbone-substituted aptamer to increase its binding affinity for the target protein by up to 23-fold, while increasing the drug's level of binding 1-million fold.

CD44, the primary receptor for hyaluronic acid, plays an important role in tumor growth and metastasis. CD44-hyaluronic acid interactions can be exploited for targeted delivery of anticancer agents specifically to cancer cells. Although various splicing variants of CD44 are expressed on the plasma membrane of cancer cells, the hyaluronic acid binding domain (HABD) is highly conserved among the CD44 splicing variants. Using a novel two-step process, we have identified monothiophosphate-modified aptamers (thioaptamers) that specifically bind to the CD44's HABD with high affinities. Binding affinities of the selected thioaptamers for the HABD were in the range of 180-295 nM, an affinity significantly higher than that of hyaluronic acid (K(d) above the micromolar range). The selected thioaptamers bound to CD44 positive human ovarian cancer cell lines (SKOV3, IGROV, and A2780) but failed to bind the CD44 negative NIH3T3 cell line. Our results indicated that thio substitution at specific positions of the DNA phosphate backbone results in specific and high-affinity binding of thioaptamers to CD44. The selected thioaptamers will be of great interest for further development as a targeting or imaging agent for the delivery of therapeutic payloads for cancer tissues.

Objective: To investigate the possible differences in antimicrobial resistance of Escherichia coli isolated from different samples in children., Methods: Six hundred and twenty-nine samples from urine, sputum, blood and secretion were collected from June 2004 to May 2009 for bacterial identification by VITEK-32 automatic system and antimicrobial susceptibility tests by Kirby-Bauer method. The drug resistance rate of Escherichia coli isolated from different samples was compared., Results: Two hundred and sixty strains of Escherichia coli were isolated , and 108 of which were from urine , 64 from sputum, 54 from secretion and 23 from blood. ESBLs were detected in 96 (36.9%) of the 260 isolates, AmpC enzymes in 32 (12.3%), and ESBLs+AmpC in 8 (3.1%). The ESBLs positive rate of Escherichia coli isolates from sputum was significantly higher than that from other samples (P<0.05). The antimicrobial resistance rate of Escherichia coli strains from different samples to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, ticarcillin/clavulanic acid, piperacillin, cefotaxime, cefuroxime, cefepime, gentamicin, cotrimoxazole, and nitrofurantoin was different. The resistance rate of the strains from sputum samples was higher than that from the other samples (P<0.05)., Conclusions: Escherichia coli isolated from different samples have different antimicrobial resistance rates in children, so the selection of antibiotics for infections confirmed by bacterial cultures from different samples should based on drug sensitivity results.

A comparative study of different species of storage fungi isolated from rice showed them to be truly osmophilic rather than osmotolerant. Their osmophilism was of a high order, their optimum sucrose requirement being in the range of 50% to 75% w/v in the medium. However, only Aspergillus glaucus was obligately osmophilic. A sucrose concentration of 50% w/v in Czapek-Dox agar was concluded to be the most suitable for the isolation of these different fungi from foodgrains.