ramezanali khavari

Rice is one of the most important crops in Asian countries, because of limitation in water resources, the studies on plant tolerance mechanisms to drought stress and the use of tolerant genotypes are going to be more considered. In current research, three Iranian rice cultivars named Neda, Amol3, and Sang-tarom with different responses to drought stress were used. The rice seedlings were grown in three treatments including control (Fraction of Transpirable Soil Water=1.0), mild drought stress (FTSW=0.5) and severe drought stress (FTSW=0.2) in glasshouse. The root length and the expression levels of three transcription factors, ZFP252, MYB3R-2 and AP37were investigated in vegetative stage of growth by qRT-PCR. Neda showed significant increase (P<0.05) in root length with compared to Sang-tarom in mild and severe drought stress but there were not any significant differences between Neda and Amol3. Neda had less significant increases (P<0.05) in expression levels of ZFP252, MYB3R-2 and AP37with compared to Sang-tarom in mild drought stress and also less significant increases in expression levels of ZFP252 and AP37 with compared to Amol3.In severe drought stress (FTSW=0.2), Neda showed less significant expression levels of all three transcription factors with compared to Sang-tarom. Neda is probably more tolerant line and also a candidate for selection against drought stress due to longer roots but there are different mechanisms in responses to drought stress in genes expression levels in different rice lines.

Mycoplasmas hominis, Mycoplasmas genitalium and Ureaplasma urealyticum are associated with infections of the genitourinary tract, reproductive failure, and neonatal morbidity and mortality. A multiplex PCR was developed for simultaneously detection of these Mycoplasmas species in a single amplification reaction. The total number of 104 samples was collected from 104 women’s genital specimens with urogenital infections for identification of M.hominis, M.genitalium and U.realyticum by multiplex PCR. The High Pure PCR Template Preparation Kit purified nucleic acids from 100 μl of specimen (American, Roche Company). In addition to the kit, boiling method was used to extraction of DNA from samples. UUA2 and UUS2 primers were used for urease gene amplification of U.urealyticum, MH1 and MH2 used for 16S rRNA gene amplification of M.hominis, and Adhesionproteingene (MgPa) used for 16S rRNA gene amplification of M.genitaliumin all samples. The number of 28 samples (27%) was positive for Mycoplasmas. M.hominis, M.genitalium,and U.urealyticum were detected in 8.7, 3.9, and 14.5 percent of samples, respectively. The accumulated frequencies for M.hominis, M.genitalium,and U.urealyticum were 9(8.7%), 4(3.9%), and 15(14.5 %), respectively. The results of this study revealed that Multiplex PCR is a highly sensitive, specific and cost-effective test for screening of genitourinary tract infections.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the main cause of tuberculosis (TB), has still remained a global health crisis especially in developing countries. Tuberculosis treatment is a laborious and lengthy process with high risk of non compliance, cytotoxicity adverse events and drug resistance in patient. Recently, there has been an alarming rise of drug resistant in TB. In this regard, it is an unmet need to develop novel antitubercular medicines that target new or more effective biochemical pathways to prevent drug resistant Mycobacterium. Integrated study of metabolic pathways through in silico approach played a key role in antimycobacterial's design and development process in this study. Our results suggest that pantothenate synthetase (PanC), anthranilate phosphoribosyl transferase (TrpD) and 3-isopropylmalate dehydratase (LeuD) might be appropriate drug targets. In the next step, in silico ligand analysis was used for more detailed study of chemical tractability of targets. This was helpful to identify pantothenate synthetase (PanC, Rv3602c) as the best targets for antimycobacterial design procedure. Virtual library screening on the best ligand of PanC was then performed for inhibitory ligands design. In the end, five chemical intermediates showed significant inhibition of Mycobacterium bovis with good selectivity indices (SI) ≥10 according to Tuberculosis Antimicrobial Acquisition & Coordinating Facility of US criteria for antimycobacterial's screening programs.

Aim and Environment is the likely source of most Non-Tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) involved in human infections, especially pulmonary, skin, and soft tissue infections. In order to measure the prevalence of NTM in different aquatic ecosystems, we tried to standardize the isolation methods used for surface water testing since many procedures have been described previously. Cultivation of mycobacteria requires long-term incubation in rich media and inactivation of rapidly growing microorganisms whose growth impedes observation of mycobacterial colonies. 38 samples were collected from surface waters in Tehran. Water sampling was carried out in a volume of 200-100 ml. water sample was transferred immediately to the laboratory and examined. Three methods (Cetylpyridinium chlori, Petroff, Tacquet-Tison) for the isolation of mycobacteria were compared by applying them in parallel to 38 samples of surface water. Each method was defined by a particular combination of decontamination method. The efficacy of each method was determined by calculating the positivity, negativity, and contamination rates, the mean numbers of mycobacterial colonies grown and number of different mycobacterial strains isolated. The last value was determined by subjecting the isolates to PCR. Decontamination with CPC appeared to be the best decontamination method, on the one hand, it significantly decreased the level of non-target microorganisms and, on the other hand, it was significantly less lethal for the NTM strains studied. Our goal was to measure the effects of various methods known to inhibit the growth of non-target microorganisms, while we also took into consideration the inhibitory effects of these methods on the growth of NTM. We propose that CPC procedure could be used for detection of NTM in aquatic samples.

This research was performed in order to investigate the effect of salicylic acid and sodium nitroprusside on growth and essential elements content in spring canola under nickel stress in laboratory of Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University of Tehran. The interactive effects of nickel, salicylic acid (SA) and sodium nitroprusside (SNP) as a donor of nitric oxide (NO) were examined on canola (Brassica napus L. cv. PF) growth. 21-day old canola seedlings (cv. PF) were exposed to different concentrations of NiCl2, 6H2O (0, 0.5 mM), SA (0, 0.2 mM) and SNP (0, 0.2 mM) for 10 days. Nickel toxicity symptoms such as chlorosis and necrosis were observed on leaves of Ni-treated seedlings. Treatment with Ni resulted in a decrease in fresh and dry weight of roots and shoots. Mineral elements content (Mg, Fe, Ca, P, K) extremely decreased in roots and shoots of Ni-stressed canola seedlings, while the content of N in these seedlings increased in roots and decreased in shoots. Ni was more accumulated in roots than in shoots. In Ni-stressed seedlings, application of SA or NO, especially SA+NO, improved the growth and decreased the toxicity symptoms as compared to Ni-treated seedlings. SA or NO, especially both together, considerably reduced root-to-shoot translocation of Ni and increased the content of mineral elements in roots and shoots of Ni-stressed seedlings. These results showed that SA or NO and in particular their combination, markedly reduced the toxic effects of nickel on canola seedlings by sequestration of Ni in roots and amelioration of mineral nutrition.

The genetic diversity of 17 Cuscuta campestris ecotypes collected from different regions of Iran was assessed using ISSR and protein markers. Ten ISSR primers generated a total of 361 bands, of which 347 bands were polymorphic. PIC (polymorphism information content), based on ISSR and protein data, averaged 0.66 and 0.4 per primer, respectively. Cluster analysis and PCA plots derived from Dice’s similarity coefficient of the two-marker systems were highly concordant. The analysis of molecular variance allowed us to partition variation into: 81% (variance among populations) and 19% (variance within populations) based on ISSR data; and 85% (variance among populations) and 15% (within populations) for protein data. This high variation among ecotypes could be due to the high self fertilization, limited gene flow or the low rate of pollen and seed migration among ecotypes. Knowledge of the genetic variability of the weed acquired through using different molecular tools can be helpful in developing management programs in order to effective control of the weed in crop fields.