Advancements in Life Sciences, volume 4, issue 1
Published online: 25-November-2016
ISSN 2310-5380
IN THIS ISSUE
Correspondence:
Re-engineering of RuBisCO for the purpose of producing algal biofuels may be a lost cause
Svetoslav Dimitrov Alexandrov, pages 01-02
Short Communication
DNA Barcoding: Amplification and sequence analysis of rbcl and matK genome regions in three divergent plant species
Javed Iqbal Wattoo, Muhammad Zafar Saleem, Muhammad Saqib Shahzad, Amina Arif, Amir Hameed, Mushtaq Ahmad Saleem, pages 03-07
Read Abstract Background: DNA barcoding is a novel method of species identification based on nucleotide diversity of conserved sequences. The establishment and refining of plant DNA barcoding systems is more challenging due to high genetic diversity among different species. Therefore, targeting the conserved nuclear transcribed regions would be more reliable for plant scientists to reveal genetic diversity, species discrimination and phylogeny. Methods: In this study, we amplified and sequenced the chloroplast DNA regions (matk+rbcl) of Solanum nigrum, Euphorbia helioscopia and Dalbergia sissoo to study the functional annotation, homology modeling and sequence analysis to allow a more efficient utilization of these sequences among different plant species. These three species represent three families; Solanaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Fabaceae respectively. Biological sequence homology and divergence of amplified sequences was studied using Basic Local Alignment Tool (BLAST). Results: Both primers (matk+rbcl) showed good amplification in three species. The sequenced regions reveled conserved genome information for future identification of different medicinal plants belonging to these species. The amplified conserved barcodes revealed different levels of biological homology after sequence analysis. The results clearly showed that the use of these conserved DNA sequences as barcode primers would be an accurate way for species identification and discrimination.Conclusion: The amplification and sequencing of conserved genome regions identified a novel sequence of matK in native species of Solanum nigrum. The findings of the study would be applicable in medicinal industry to establish DNA based identification of different medicinal plant species to monitor adulteration.
Review Article
Role of MicroRNA in Endometrial Carcinoma
Zeeshan Javed, Mukhtar Ullah, Hafiz Ahsan Ashfaq, Afzaal Hussain Shah, Muhammad Shahzad, Muhammad Bilal, Aleena Sumrin, Hamid Bashir, Muhammad Hassan Siddiqi, Haleema Sadia, pages 08-13
Read Abstract Endometrial carcinoma (EC) is a hall mark of gynecological malignancies that usually affects women above the age 50. It is one of the major causes of mortality in females with ever increasing prevalence and the mortality rate is 1.7 to 2.4 per 100000 and each year 10000 death occur due to ECs. MiRNAs regulate the expression of different proto-oncogenes and signaling pathways that are directly or indirectly involved in the development of cancer. Different miRNAs i.e. (miRNA-449, miRNA 370, miRNA-424, and miRNA-152) which gets up or down regulated during endometrial cancer are the potential biomarkers for early diagnosis of EC. Targeting this relationship between the miRNA and signaling pathways may help in the development of new treatment in endometrial cancer. In current study, we reviewed literature from PubMed using miRNA and endometrial cancer as keywords and outlined the synthesis of potent miRNA and role of different miRNAs involved in ECs. The study revealed different sub types of miRNA played crucial role in the development of cancer by up and down regulation of different metabolic pathways. Many evidences have supported that miRNAs play role in control and regulation of different pathways leading to cancer and targeting these pathways may bring changes in the diagnosis as well as in treatment of EC.
Full Length Research Articles
Toxicity, analgesic and sedative potential of crude extract of soil-borne phytopathogenic fungi Aspergillus flavus
Bashir Ahmad, Muhammad Rizwan, Sadiq Azam, Abdur Rauf, Shumaila Bashir, pages 14-19
Read Abstract Background: Aspergillus flavus is one of the most abundant mold present around the world. The present study was conducted to investigate the acute toxicity, analgesic and sedative effect of the crude extract obtained from soil borne fungi A. flavus. Methods: The fungi was isolated from soil samples and identified morphologically and microscopically. The growth condition i.e. media, temperature, pH, and incubation period were optimized. In these optimized growth condition, A. flavus was grown in batch culture in shaking incubator. Crude contents were extracted by using ethyl acetate solvent. Crude secondary metabolites were screened for acute toxicity, analgesic and sedative effect. Results: Upon completion of the experiment, blood was collected from the tail vein of albino mice, and different haematological tests were conducted. White blood cells counts displayed a slight increase (10.6× 109/L) above their normal range (0.8–6.8 × 109/L), which may be due to the increment in the number of lymphocytes or granulocytes. However, the percentage of lymphocytes was much lower (17.7%), while the percentage of the granulocytes was higher (61.4%) than its normal range (8.6–38.9%). A reduction in the mean number of writhing in the different test groups was caused by the application of the crude ethyl acetate extract through the i.p. route at different doses (50, 100, and 150 mg/kg body weight). The results of our investigation showed the EtOAc extract of A. flavus can cause a significant sedative effect in open field. Conclusion: It was concluded from the present study that the A. flavus has the potential to produce bioactive metabolites which have analgesic and sedative effect.
Functional characterization of fifteen hundred transcripts from Ziarat juniper (Juniperus excelsa M.Bieb)
Humaira Abdul Wahid, Muhammad Younas Khan Barozai, Muhammad Din, pages 20-26
Read Abstract Background: Ziarat juniper (Juniperus excelsa M.Bieb) is an evergreen and dominant species of Balochistan juniper forests. This forest is providing many benefits to regional ecosystems and surrounding populations. No functional genomics study is reported for this important juniper plant. This research is aimed to characterize the Ziarat juniper functional genome based on the analyses of 1500 transcripts. Methods: Total RNA from shoot of Juniperus excelsa was extracted and subjected for transcriptome sequencing using Illumina HiSeq 2000 with the service from Macrogen, Inc., South Korea. The Illumina sequenced data was subjected to bioinformatics analysis. Quality assessment and data filtration was performed for the removal of low-quality reads, ambiguous reads and adaptor sequences. The high-quality clean reads data was deposited in the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) at NCBI, and used for downstream processes. Fifteen hundred transcripts were randomly chosen and used for functional characterization. Results: As a result of homology search 80.3% transcripts showed significant similarities and were placed in significant similarities category, 19.3% transcripts showed low similarities and assigned to the ‘‘unclassified’’ category while 0.4% transcripts are defined as no hits. The functional characterization results showed that most (18%) of the transcripts are involved in metabolism, followed by 11.7% in transcription and 11.5% as structural protein. 8.8% transcripts are engaged in stress response, whereas the transcripts involved in growth and development constituted 6.7%. Transcripts involved in signal transduction represented 5.6%, while 3.5% facilitating transport and 34.1% are involved in hypothetical functions. Conclusion: The functional annotation data produced in this study will be very useful for future functional genome analysis of Juniperus excelsa.
