Curse of La Corona: unravelling the scientific and psychological conundrums of the 21st century pandemic.

Microbes possess a tremendous potential to interact with their surroundings and have continued to shape the future of all life forms existing on earth. Of all the groups of microbes, viruses are the most nefarious creatures which cannot be solely classified as living or non-living but still pose the greatest threats to the biosphere. Viruses are minuscule, diverse and are probably the only entities that exhibit non-mutualistic association with other lifeforms while retaining their ability to infect and hijack any of the existing living being on the planet. The latest global devastation, caused by novel SARS-CoV-2, is unparalleled in the last century. This review encompasses the mysterious origin of this virus by tracking its lineage, which may help to decode the conundrum of SARS-CoV-2 and shed more light on its epidemiology. The implications and the challenge posed by this virus to the scientific community to the medical community and the economy at large are reflected. Also discussed is the paradigm shift brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic on the human psyche and their behaviour.

Revisiting the plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria: lessons from the past and objectives for the future.

Plant beneficial rhizobacteria (PBR) is a group of naturally occurring rhizospheric microbes that enhance nutrient availability and induce biotic and abiotic stress tolerance through a wide array of mechanisms to enhance agricultural sustainability. Application of PBR has the potential to reduce worldwide requirement of agricultural chemicals and improve agro-ecological sustainability. The PBR exert their beneficial effects in three major ways; (1) fix atmospheric nitrogen and synthesize specific compounds to promote plant growth, (2) solubilize essential mineral nutrients in soils for plant uptake, and (3) produce antimicrobial substances and induce systemic resistance in host plants to protect them from biotic and abiotic stresses. Application of PBR as suitable inoculants appears to be a viable alternative technology to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Furthermore, PBR enhance nutrient and water use efficiency, influence dynamics of mineral recycling, and tolerance of plants to other environmental stresses by improving health of soils. This report provides comprehensive reviews and discusses beneficial effects of PBR on plant and soil health. Considering their multitude of functions to improve plant and soil health, we propose to call the plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPR) as PBR.

Stimulation of the growth of Jatropha curcas by the plant growth promoting bacterium Enterobacter cancerogenus MSA2.

A novel Enterobacter cancerogenus MSA2 is a plant growth promoting gamma-proteobacterium that was isolated from the rhizosphere of Jatropha cucas a potentially important biofuel feed stock plant. Based on phenotypic, physiological, biochemical and phylogenetic studies, strain MSA2 could be classified as a member of E. cancerogenus. However, comparisons of characteristics with other known species of the genus Enterobacter suggested that strain MSA2 could be a novel PGPB strain. In vitro studies were carried for the plant growth promoting attribute of this culture. It tested positive for ACC (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid) deaminase production, phytase, phosphate solubilization, IAA (Indole acetic acid) production, siderophore, and ammonia production. The isolate was then used as a inoculant for the vegetative study of Jatropha curcas plant. Enterobacter cancerogenus MSA2 supplemented with 1% carboxymethylcellulose showed overall plant growth promotion effect resulting in enhanced root length (124.14%), fresh root mass (81%), fresh shoot mass (120.02%), dry root mass (124%), dry shoot mass (105.54%), number of leaf (30.72%), chlorophyll content (50.41%), and biomass (87.20%) over control under the days of experimental observation. This study was designed for 120 days and was in triplicate and the data was collected at every 30 days.

Isolation of Rhizobacteria from Jatropha curcas and characterization of produced ACC deaminase.

Decreased levels of ACC (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid) result in lower levels of endogenous ethylene, which eliminate the potentially inhibitory effects of stress-induced higher ethylene concentrations. It is worth noting the substantial ability of the bacterial species to colonize different environments, including taxonomically distinct plants cultivated in distantly separated geographical regions. For example, Enterobacter cloacae, designated as MSA1 and Enterobacter cancerogenus, designated as MSA2 were recovered from the rhizosphere of Jatropha in the present work. This study first time confirms the ACC deaminase activity in the Enterobacter cancerogenus on the preliminary basis. Several bacterial plant growth-promoting mechanisms were analyzed and detected like phosphate solubilization, siderophore production, IAA production, GA(3) (gibberellic acid) production and ACC deaminase activity in the isolated cultures. Isolates were grown until exponential growth phase to evaluate their ACC deaminase activity and the effect of pH, temperature, salt, metals and substrate concentration after the partial purification of enzyme by ion exchange chromatography. The FOURIER TRANSFORM INFRARED (FT-IR) spectra were recorded for the confirmation of α-ketobutyrate production. By using lineweaver Burk plot K(m) and V(max) value for ACC deaminase of both the organism was calculated in the different fractions. In this work, we discuss the possible implications of these bacterial mechanisms on the plant growth promotion or homeostasis regulation in natural conditions.

Combinatorial assessment on dominance and informative diversity of PGPR from rhizosphere of Jatropha curcas L.

The extensive and enduring challenges in soil microbiology depend on the development of efficient methods to be acquainted with the types of microbes present in soil, and to determine the functional performance of the overall microbial groups in situ. This study aims to investigate the combined uses of species richness and diversity as well as to estimate the combinatorial effect of species richness and diversity in order to understand their role and distribution in their habitat. To achieve this objective a study was designed targeting the rhizosphere of Jatropha curcas L. which were planted in various soil conditions on five distinctive sites of Gujarat state (India). These sites were constantly monitored and studied for the species richness and evenness ("heterogeneity"). The isolates were checked for their PGPR potentials like Phosphate solubilisation, Siderophore production, Indole acetic acid production, ACC deaminase production, HCN production, EPS production and Ammonia production. The results obtained were used to calculate richness, evenness and diversity indices. Results reveal the total heterogeneity in the site of fertile Jatropha rhizosphere (GS4) as well as sodic soil site (GS5) than other three sites. Absence of equitability under the selected and defined condition was also observed in GS4 and GS5 sites. The combinatorial estimates provide the information on their distribution and roles in the habitat. In particular, such an empirical relationship from a single rhizosphere of a distinctive species Jatropha is useful to test diversity predictions in natural sites, and further it can be applied to either by performing trials over larger spatial and temporal scales or by conducting correlational studies of biodiversity gradients.