Prevalence and evolution of clinical cases of Yellow Fever in Brazil between the years 2007 to 2016

Yellow Fever (YF) is a non-contagious infectious disease of variable symptoms that occurs mainly in tropical forests regions of the Americas and Africa and is caused by a Flavivirus belonging to the Flaviviridae family. Its vectors are mosquitoes of the genus Haemagogus, Sabethes and Aedes, and these have non-human primates as the main source of infection. In Brazil, there has been no record of urban AF since 1942, although the increase in cases of the wild form combined with low vaccination coverage contribute to the risk of re-urbanization of the disease Material and methods: For the study, epidemiological data were obtained from confirmed cases of Yellow Fever reported in the Notification System for Health Disorders (SINAN) available at the Informatics Department of the Unified Health System (DATASUS). Results and discussion: A total of 177 cases of were reported in Brazil, the year with the highest notification was in 2016 (52). The region with the highest occurrence of cases were the Southeast (95). Regarding the clinical evolution, of the 177 cases, 68 affected patients were cured, while 89 died from the reported injury, evidencing a high rate of lethality (50.2%). Conclusion: YF remains a public health problem, over the years there was a decrease in cases, this was due to immunization campaigns in the country, however, there was a significant increase in notifications in 2016, this whole panorama reinforces the need intensifying surveillance and expanding vaccine coverage.

Nutraceutical Properties of Important Weeds in India

The group of plants, apart from the forest trees, agricultural, horticultural crop and medicinal plants, certain weed plants also play important role to formulate the qualitative and quantitative food and health supplements. These plants may be very specific in producing certain compound to heal the specific ailment chronically or serve as a good nutritive food supplement. There are numbers of crop species have been fortified with multi-nutrients or with the particular nutrient supplements e.g. Rice, Wheat, Maize, Sweet Potato. Instead, weeds remained underutilized and un-exploited and also treated as unwanted species. The nutritive compounds available in these plants such as polyphenols and vitamins can be the extraction from different plant portion to formulate the fortified food or curing medicine. The weed species prevailing in the nature are one of the major sources of dietary and health supplements for humans and animals since past i.e. Amaranthus lividus, Chenopodium album and many more weed species. There is still much to explore the Indian ecologic components present in wild form of flora. Hence, this chapter will majorly contribute to highlight nutritive nutaceurtical and edible weeds prevailing in Indian ecosystems.

Transcription Factor: A Powerful Tool to Regulate Biosynthesis of Active Ingredients in Salvia miltiorrhiza

Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge is a common Chinese herbal medicine, and its major active ingredients are phenolic acids and tanshinones, which are widely used to treat vascular diseases. However, the wild form of S. miltiorrhiza possess low levels of these important pharmaceutical agents; thus, improving their levels is an active area of research. Transcription factors, which promote or inhibit the expressions of multiple genes involved in one or more biosynthetic pathways, are powerful tools for controlling gene expression in biosynthesis. Several families of transcription factors have been reported to participate in regulating phenolic acid and tanshinone biosynthesis and influence their accumulation. This review summarizes the current status in this field, with focus on the transcription factors which have been identified in recent years and their functions in the biosynthetic regulation of phenolic acids and tanshinones. Otherwise, the new insight for further research is provided. Finally, the application of the biosynthetic regulation of active ingredients by the transcription factors in S. miltiorrhiza are discussed, and new insights for future research are explored.

Structural Characterization of Novel Luciferase from Bioluminescence Fungi Verticillium longisporum

Luciferase is an enzyme that catalyses a reaction to produce a visible light using an oxidative process, a chemical reaction that is typically referred to as bioluminescent. Insects, bacterial origin or microorganism of marine nature were considered as the mainly sources of discovered luciferase. The protein was commercialized for biomedical and biotechnological use as reporter gene. The first discovered wild form of luciferase originally from Photinu spyralis (firefly). Hence, there is need for both exploration and examination of novel luciferase to be expanded to new sources such as fungal which may likely be exploited to serve commercial purposes and applications. In this study, a novel uncharacterized luciferase protein from a fungal species Verticillium longisporum, was modelled and analysed using bioinformatic tools. The modelled 3D structure is of high quality with a PROCHECK score of 99.5%, ERRAT2 value of 91.01%, and Verify3D score of91.01%, showing that the conformational structure is acceptable. The result showed that the fungal luciferase enzyme share major characteristics with luciferase representative from various fungal and bacterial species. There is only a slight difference in the two nucleotide bindings in V. longisporum with a D/E substitution of D with E and S/T substitution. The difference of the two nucleotides binding from the two proteins may be related to the evolutionary trends. Other differences include increased number of hydrophobic and polar amino acid groups than aromatic and aliphatic ones, as well as more coils and loops with less strands. The distance between the ligand and the binding site that houses Asp 64 and Thr 110 from template proteins (Riboflavin lyaseRcaE) and Asp 543 and Thr 589 from model luciferase is similar. The only difference occurred in the V. longisporum; protein oxidoreductase activities acts on paired donors, incorporate or reduce molecular oxygen, while in the template protein oxidoreductase activities act on single donors with incorporation of molecular oxygen. This study on fungal sourced luciferase present a unique opportunity away from the more well established bacterial and insect based luciferase.

Long-Term Reciprocal Gene Flow in Wild and Domestic Geese Reveals Complex Domestication History

Hybridization has frequently been observed between wild and domestic species and can substantially impact genetic diversity of both counterparts. Geese show some of the highest levels of interspecific hybridization across all bird orders, and two of the goose species in the genus Anser have been domesticated providing an excellent opportunity for a joint study of domestication and hybridization. Until now, knowledge of the details of the goose domestication process has come from archaeological findings and historical writings supplemented with a few studies based on mitochondrial DNA. Here, we used genome-wide markers to make the first genome-based inference of the timing of European goose domestication. We also analyzed the impact of hybridization on the genome-wide genetic variation in current populations of the European domestic goose and its wild progenitor: the graylag goose (Anser anser). Our dataset consisted of 58 wild graylags sampled around Eurasia and 75 domestic geese representing 14 breeds genotyped for 33,527 single nucleotide polymorphisms. Demographic reconstruction and clustering analysis suggested that divergence between wild and domestic geese around 5,300 generations ago was followed by long-term genetic exchange, and that graylag populations have 3.2–58.0% admixture proportions with domestic geese, with distinct geographic patterns. Surprisingly, many modern European breeds share considerable (> 10%) ancestry with the Chinese domestic geese that is derived from the swan goose Anser cygnoid. We show that the domestication process can progress despite continued and pervasive gene flow from the wild form.

Molecular diagnosis of phytoplasma infection in some Moldavian tomato varieties

Relevance. The use of molecular methods allows reliable and fast determination of the resistance of genotypes (varieties) to pathogens, thereby reducing possible product losses and, at the same time, maintaining its environmental safety. It is very important in conditions of increasing demand for high-quality agricultural production. Aim: Using molecular diagnosis of ʹCandidatus Phytoplasma solaniʹ to compare the degree of infection in some Moldavian tomato varieties at different stages of plant development.Material and methods. The molecular analysis (nested-PCR) of plants of the four Moldavian tomato varieties (Elvira, Cerasus, Mary Gratefully, Desteptarea) created at the Institute of Genetics, Physiology and Plant Protection, and the wild formSolanum habrochaites, was carried out for the presence of the phytopathogen ʹCa. P. solaniʹ. Researches were made during two growing seasons. Results. The distribution of infection between the studied varieties was different in the process of plants development. The spread of infection in the tomato field was recorded under the climatic conditions of two growing seasons: the season of 2018, which was hot but with normal rains in the middle of summer, and the season of 2019, in conditions of a very hot and dry summer. During both seasons, Cerasus variety manifested the highest resistance to ʹCa. P. solaniʹ infection. A little more than half of plants of this variety were affected by stolbur only at the end of the growing season, after harvesting most of the crop. Varieties Elvira and Desteptarea had similar levels of infection of plants with phytoplasma during two years of research. These varieties manifested a higher sensitivity to phytoplasma infection compared with Cerasus. Mary Gratefully was the genotype with the highest dependence of the sensitivity toʹCa. P. solaniʹ infection from the climatic conditions of the growing season. Plants of the wild form Solanum habrochaites demonstrated complete immunity to phytoplasma infection during the growing season. Conclusion.The Cerasus variety, as well as the wild form Solanum habrochaites, can be recommended for including in breeding programs for the creating tomato varieties or hybrids resistant to phytoplasma. Thus, molecular diagnosis may be a useful tool for the breeding resistant genotypes.

Genetic Identification of the Wild Form of Olive (Olea europaea var. sylvestris) Using Allele-Specific Real-Time PCR

The wild-type of olive tree, Olea europaea var Sylvestris or oleaster, is the ancestor of the cultivated olive tree. Wild-type olive oil is considered to be more nutritious with increased antioxidant activity compared to the common cultivated type (Olea europaea L. var Europaea). This has led to the wild-type of olive oil having a much higher financial value. Thus, wild olive oil is one of the most susceptible agricultural food products to adulteration with other olive oils of lower nutritional and economical value. As cultivated and wild-type olives have similar phenotypes, there is a need to establish analytical methods to distinguish the two plant species. In this work, a new method has been developed which is able to distinguish Olea europaea var Sylvestris (wild-type olive) from Olea europaea L. var Europaea (cultivated olive). The method is based, for the first time, on the genotyping, by allele-specific, real-time PCR, of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) present in the two olives’ chloroplastic genomes. With the proposed method, we were able to detect as little as 1% content of the wild-type olive in binary DNA mixtures of the two olive species.

Functional Deimmunization of Interferon Beta-1b by Identifying and Silencing Human T Cells Epitopes

Interferonbeta-1b (IFNβ-1b) developed as therapeutic protein for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). Studies have been shown that Long-term usage of this protein can lead to the development of anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) and this phenomenon cause total loss or reduced efficacy of IFNβ-1b. The aim of this study was to predict and silence IFNβ-1b T-cells epitopes by in silico methods and genetic engineering. Based on bioinformatics studies we identified optimal sets of conservative point mutations for eliminating T-cells epitopes in IFNβ-1b protein. Four synthetic genes with desirable mutation constructed and PET26b+ was used as an expression vector in E. coli. The expression of this proteins confirmed by SDS-PAGE and Western blotting, consequently, IFNβ-1b proteins was purified by His-tag chromatography. To determined activity of mutants’ variants anti-proliferative and anti-viral activity compared to wild form was evaluated using MTT assay in A549 and Vero cells lines respectively. Also the immunogenicity of mutant proteins compared with Betaseron measured in BALB/c mice. The in vitro bioactivity analysis demonstrated that functional activities of all mutant proteins were maintained and is the same as biological activity of Betaseron. Pharmacokinetic studies suggest that, in engineered proteins that contain substitution of Histidine to Glutamic Acid at position 131 (mut 2 and mut 1+2) antibodies response reduced by about 50%, as compared to that for Betaseron. Computational analysis expedites identification and prediction of epitopes in therapeutic protein, therefore, we used immunoinformatic tools for modification of dominant T-cell epitope in IFNβ-1b protein, and this strategy has capacity to create proteins which have naturally reduced immunogenicity.

Active Site Architecture and Reaction Mechanism Determination of Cold Adapted β-d-galactosidase from Arthrobacter sp. 32cB

ArthβDG is a dimeric, cold-adapted β-d-galactosidase that exhibits high hydrolytic and transglycosylation activity. A series of crystal structures of its wild form, as well as its ArthβDG_E441Q mutein complexes with ligands were obtained in order to describe the mode of its action. The ArthβDG_E441Q mutein is an inactive form of the enzyme designed to enable observation of enzyme interaction with its substrate. The resulting three-dimensional structures of complexes: ArthβDG_E441Q/LACs and ArthβDG/IPTG (ligand bound in shallow mode) and structures of complexes ArthβDG_E441Q/LACd, ArthβDG/ONPG (ligands bound in deep mode), and galactose ArthβDG/GAL and their analysis enabled structural characterization of the hydrolysis reaction mechanism. Furthermore, comparative analysis with mesophilic analogs revealed the most striking differences in catalysis mechanisms. The key role in substrate transfer from shallow to deep binding mode involves rotation of the F581 side chain. It is worth noting that the 10-aa loop restricting access to the active site in mesophilic GH2 βDGs, in ArthβDG is moved outward. This facilitates access of substrate to active site. Such a permanent exposure of the entrance to the active site may be a key factor for improved turnover rate of the cold adapted enzyme and thus a structural feature related to its cold adaptation.