Non-rhizobial nodule endophytes improve nodulation, change root exudation pattern and promote the growth of lentil, for prospective application in fallow soil.

Non-rhizobial endophytes (NREs) are active colonizers inhabiting the root nodules. Though their active role in the lentil agroecosystem is not well defined, here we observed that these NREs might promote the growth of lentils, modulate rhizospheric community structure and could be used as promising organisms for optimal use of rice fallow soil. NREs from root nodules of lentils were isolated and examined for plant growth-promoting traits, exopolysaccharide (EPS) and biofilm production, root metabolites, and the presence of nifH and nifK elements. The greenhouse experiment with the chosen NREs, i.e., Serratia plymuthica 33GS and Serratia sp. R6 significantly increased the germination rate, vigour index, development of nodules (in non-sterile soil) and fresh weight of nodules (33GS 94%, R6 61% growth) and length of the shoot (33GS 86%, R6 51.16%) as well as chlorophyll levels when compared to the uninoculated control. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) revealed that both isolates could successfully colonize the roots and elicit root hair growth. The inoculation of the NREs resulted in specific changes in root exudation patterns. The plants with 33GS and R6 treatment significantly stimulated the exudation of triterpenes, fatty acids, and their methyl esters in comparison to the uninoculated plants, altering the rhizospheric microbial community structure. Proteobacteria dominated the rhizospheric microbiota in all the treatments. Treatment with 33GS or R6 also enhanced the relative abundance of other favourable microbes, including Rhizobium, Mesorhizobium, and Bradyrhizobium. The correlation network analysis of relative abundances resulted in numerous bacterial taxa, which were in cooperation with each other, having a possible role in plant growth promotion. The results indicate the significant role of NREs as plant growth promoters, which also includes their role in root exudation patterns, enhancement of soil nutrient status and modulation of rhizospheric microbiota, suggesting their prospects in sustainable, and bio-based agriculture.

Preparation of nanolignin rich fraction from bamboo stem via green technology: assessment of its antioxidant, antibacterial and UV blocking properties.

This work reports the preparation of nano lignin-rich fraction material via green technology from the holistic use of lignocellulosic biomass bamboo. The bamboo is first chemically treated, followed by acid precipitation to extract bamboo-derived macro lignin-rich fraction material. The nano lignin-rich fraction material was then prepared via ultrasonication technique from the extracted bamboo-derived macro lignin-rich fraction material. The confirmation of the distinct lignin functional groups in the extracted lignin-rich fractions has been done by FTIR. Surface morphology by FESEM and TEM revealed spherical nano-lignin-rich fraction materials from extracted bamboo-derived macro lignin-rich fraction materials. DPPH assays indicated that both the obtained fractions depict beneficial antioxidant characteristics. They were found to be effective in terms of their antibacterial activity against both gram-positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (S.aureus) and gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli (E.coli), using the disc diffusion method. These fractions have UV blocking property, and nano-lignin-rich fraction material acts as a more potential UV blocking agent than others. Thus, the nano-lignin-rich fraction material has great potential as a high antioxidant, antibacterial, and UV blocking agent useful in biomedical applications.Highlights Extraction of macro-lignin rich fraction material using chemical treatment of lignocellulosic biomass bamboo via refluxing followed by acid precipitation.Preparation of nano-lignin rich fraction material from extracted bamboo-derived macro-lignin rich fraction material via ultrasonication technique as a green technology.Structural and surface morphology of the extracted macro-lignin & nano lignin-rich fraction materials have been analyzed by XRD, FTIR, EDX, SEM and TEM.The macro lignin & nano lignin-rich fraction materials showed good antioxidant, antibacterial activity and UV-blocking properties, but the nano-lignin rich fraction material exhibited more efficient properties.

Advances in Nanoarchitectonics of Antimicrobial Tiles and a Quest for Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Tiles.

Design of antimicrobial tiles seems necessary to combat against contagious diseases, especially COVID-19. In addition to personal hygiene, this technology facilitates public hygiene as antimicrobial tiles can be installed at hospitals, schools, banks, offices, lobbies, railway stations, etc. This review is primarily focused on preparing antimicrobial tiles using an antimicrobial layer or coatings that fight against germs. The salient features and working mechanisms of antimicrobial tiles are highlighted. This challenge is a component of the exploratory nature of nanoarchitectonics, that also extends farther than the realm of nanotechnology. This nanoarchitectonics has been successful at the laboratory scale as antimicrobial metal nanoparticles are mainly used as additives in preparing tiles. A detailed description of various materials for developing unique antimicrobial tiles is reported here. Pure metal (Ag, Zn) nanoparticles and a mixture of nanoparticles with other inorganic materials (SiO2,, TiO2, anatase, nepheline) have been predominantly used to combat microbes. The developed antimicrobial tiles have shown excellent activity against a wide range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The last section discussed a hypothetical overview of utilizing the antimicrobial tiles against SARS-CoV-2. Overall, this review gives descriptive knowledge about the importance of antimicrobial tiles to create a clean and sustainable environment.

Random amplified polymorphic DNA and inter simple sequence repeat markers reveals genetic diversity between micro propagated, wild and field cultivated genotypes of Gloriosa superba: an endangered medicinal plant.

Gloriosa superba L., an endangered medicinal plant with global interest due to presence of colchicine, an important alkaloid used in formulations of Indian and Traditional medicine. The plant has become endangered due to its unscientifically exploitation and high medicinal values. In the Present study 10 randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and 6 ISSR markers were employed to assess genetic divergence among micro propagated, wild and field cultivated plants of Gloriosa superba collected from different parts of India. In RAPD analysis, all the 10 accession with 10 RAPD primers amplified 466 fragments, with 96.43 % polymorphism and with an average of 46.6 bands per primer. The size of amplicons varied from 1656 to 100 bp. While, ISSR primers produced 328 fragments of which 298 were polymorphic with an average of 49.7 bands per primer with 91.83% polymorphism. The size of amplicons ranges from 2395 to 181 bp. RAPD, ISSR markers were also assessed by calculating polymorphic information content (PIC) to discriminate the genotypes, Average PIC value for RAPD, ISSR and combined RAPD + ISSR markers obtained was ≤ 0.50 suggesting the informativeness of markers. Jaccard's coefficient ranges from 0.18 to 0.75 (RAPD) and 0.17 to 0.61 (ISSR) and 0.21-0.52 for pooled ISSR and RAPD markers. The clustering pattern based on UPGMA analysis of the genotypes in the combined analysis revealed that the majority of the genotypes remained similar to the ISSR dendrogram, while the RAPD-based dendrogram showed some variation in the clustering of genotypes. The result of PCA scattered plot obtained were in agreement with the UPGMA dendrogram, which further confirms the genetic relationships explain by cluster analysis. Results confirmed that the genotype studied had good genetic diversity and can be used for identification, conservation, and future breeding program of Gloriosa species and consequently for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industries.

Comparative Metagenomic Analysis of Two Alkaline Hot Springs of Madhya Pradesh, India and Deciphering the Extremophiles for Industrial Enzymes.

Hot springs are considered to be a unique environment with extremophiles, that are sources of industrially important enzymes, and other biotechnological products. The objective of this study was to undertake, analyze, and characterize the microbiome of two major hot springs located in the state of Madhya Pradesh explicitly, Chhoti Anhoni (Hotspring 1), and Badi Anhoni (Hotspring 2) to find out the inhabitant microbial population, and their functional characteristics. The taxonomic analysis of the microbiome of the hot springs revealed the phylum Proteobacteria was the most abundant taxa in both the hot-springs, however, its abundance in hot-spring 1 (~88%) was more than the hot-spring 2 (~52%). The phylum Bacteroides (~10-22%) was found to be the second most abundant group in the hot-springs followed by Spirocheates (~2-11%), Firmicutes (~6-8%), Chloroflexi (1-5%), etc. The functional analysis of the microbiome revealed different features related to several functions including metabolism of organics and degradation of xenobiotic compounds. The functional analysis showed that most of the attributes of the microbiome was related to metabolism, followed by cellular processes and environmental information processing functions. The functional annotation of the microbiomes at KEGG level 3 annotated the sequences into 279 active features that showed variation in abundance between the hot spring samples, where hot-spring 1 was functionally more diverse. Interestingly, the abundance of functional genes from methanogenic bacteria, was higher in the hot-spring 2, which may be related to the relatively higher pH and temperature than Hotspring 1. The study showed the presence of different unassigned bacterial taxa with high abundance which indicates the potential of novel genera or phylotypes. Culturable isolates (28) were bio-prospected for industrially important enzymes including amylase, protease, lipase, gelatinase, pectinase, cellulase, lecithinase, and xylanase. Seven isolates (25%) had shown positive results for all the enzyme activities whereas 23 isolates (82%) produced Protease, 27 isolates (96%) produced lipase, 27 isolates produced amylase, 26 isolates (92%) produced cellulase, 19 isolates (67%) produced pectinase, 19 isolates (67%) could produce lecithinase, and 13 isolates (46%) produced gelatinase. The seven isolates, positive for all the enzymes were analyzed further for quantitative analysis and identified through molecular characterization.

Autophagic cell death is induced by acetone and ethyl acetate extracts from Eupatorium odoratum in vitro: effects on MCF-7 and vero cell lines.

Eupatorium odoratum (EO) contains many biologically active compounds, the anticancer effects of which are not well documented. This study evaluates the cytotoxic effects and mechanism of action of EO extracts on MCF-7 and Vero cell lines. Evaluation of the cytotoxic activity using MTT assay, morphological alterations, and apoptosis were carried out. Autophagy was evaluated by LC3-A protein expression. Cytotoxic activity, membrane blebbing and ballooning at 24 hours, replacement by mass vacuolation, and double membrane vesicles mimicking autophagy and cell death were observed in the cancer cells. No apoptosis was observed by DNA fragmentation assay. Overexpression of LC3-A protein indicated autophagic cell death. Cell cycle analysis showed G0 and G2/M arrest. The Vero cells did not show significant cell death at concentrations <100 µg/mL. These results thus suggest that acetone and ethyl acetate extracts of EO induce cell death through induction of autophagy and hold potential for development as potential anticancer drugs.

Immunomodulatory activity of the aqueous extract of seeds of Abrus precatorius Linn (Jequirity) in mice.

BACKGROUND: Various compounds of plant origin have been widely investigated since ancient times for their possible immunomodulatory properties as well as for the treatment of a wide range of diseases. OBJECTIVE: To study the immunomodulatory functions of the aqueous extract of the seeds of Abrus precatorius commonly known as Indian liquorice (Fabaceae), a medicinal plant native to central India. METHODS: Swiss albino mice were intraperitoneally treated with three doses (0.75, 1.25 and 2.5 µg/kg b.w.) of extract for 7 days. Relative organ weight, delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) response, haemagglutination titre (HT) and Phagocytic index (PI) were studied in various groups of animals. RESULTS: The results showed no significant difference in relative organ weight of spleen, liver, thymus and kidney in various groups of animals. Treatment of rats with increasing concentrations of the extract decreased the footpad thickness indicating a dose related inhibitory effect of the extract on delayed type hypersensitivity. In the HT test, the plant extract showed a suppressive effect at all doses, and these changes were significant as the dose increased. Phagocytic index was also increased in a dose dependent manner. CONCLUSION: The reduction of antibody titre, delayed type hypersensitivity response and the increase in phagocytic index indicates that Abrus precatorius has an inhibitory effect on the immune functions in mice.