Bangladeshi medicinal plants (BMP) have a history of traditional use in treating chronic inflammatory diseases, but a BMP bark’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects remain largely unexplored. This study assessed methanolic extracts’ antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties from the bark of 15 medicinal plant species native to Bangladesh. The methanol extracts of BMP bark were evaluated for their total antioxidant activity and ability to counteract inflammation induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in RAW 264.7 macrophages. Among the 15 bark extracts from BMP, Albizia odoratissima (A. odoratissima), Engelhardia spicata (E. spicata), and Shorea robusta (S. robusta) showed the highest total phenolic contents and total antioxidant capacity by effectively scavenging free radicals. In particular, these three bark extracts significantly reduced the mRNA expression of LPS-induced inflammatory cytokines and enzymes inducible by inflammation in macrophages. Also, the mRNA expression of NADPH oxidase 2 was significantly suppressed by the three bark extracts in LPS-induced RAW 264.7 macrophages. These results suggest that out of the 15 bark extracts obtained from medicinal plants in Bangladesh, the extracts from A. odoratissima, E. spicata, and S. robusta exhibit substantial total antioxidant capacity by efficiently scavenging free radicals and also inhibit LPS-induced inflammation in macrophages.

Fowl typhoid (FT) is a septicemic disease caused by Salmonella Gallinarum (S. Gallinarum) and is responsible for severe economic losses in Korea. In this study, 49 aminoglycosides (AMG)-resistant S. Gallinarum were analyzed to determine the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. Thirty-six (73.5%) out of 49 AMG-resistant S. Gallinarum exhibited resistance to at least one agent in three or more of antimicrobial categories as multidrug-resistant (MDR) isolates. Among the AMG-resistant isolates exhibiting MDR, 21 (58.3%) and 11 (30.6%) of the isolates harbored ant(2")-I, which encodes an aminoglycoside adenylyltransferase, and blaTEM-1, which is a β-lactamase-encoding gene, respectively. The qnrB, cmlA, and sul1 and sul2 genes, which are related to resistance to quinolones, chloramphenicol and sulfonamides, respectively, were detected in 8.3~22.2% of the AMG-resistant isolates that exhibited MDR. Twenty-four (66.6%) of 36 AMG-resistance S. Gallinarum exhibiting MDR carried class 1 integrons with aadA genes cassettes. Several plasmid replicon types, such as B/O, FIIA, FIB, and Frep were considered to play a prominent role in S. Gallinarum, and the presence of these genetic characteristics remain a serious concern to the selection of antimicrobials for the treatment of FT.

Artificial insemination (AI) has been performed widely in swine industry using fresh liquid sperm instead of frozen type of sperm. However fresh sperm are not able to preserve more than three days with optimal motility and other sperm parameters for the successful fertilization, since in vitro stored sperm has an oxidative stress that resulted increase of abnormality and acrosome reation. To overcome these major problems, novel preservative formulation is needed to neutralize the oxidative stress and to provide suitable physiological environment for sperm in in vitro. In this study, naturally derived substances such as Poncirus trifoliate (Trifoliate orange), Garcinia mangostana (Mangosteen), pig placenta and testis extracts were tested as sperm preservative agents. Placenta extracts (PE), trifoliate orange extracts (TOE), testes extracts (TE) and mangosteen extracts (ME) were applied to analyze specific parameters for sperm motion characteristics individually and combinatorial. Each individual extract treatment can accelerate the sperm motility but noticeably TOE, TE and ME treatments exhibited the considerable and significant preservation of sperm motility. PE, TE and ME showed a significant (p<0.05) increase in ALH after one week. Further we evaluated the five different combinations of these extracts on sperm motility and its motion characteristics. Surprisingly even after one week ME, TOE and TE combination significantly preserved the sperm motility about 75%. It is noteworthy that unlike individual extract treatment, combination of ME, TOE and TE simultaneously protect the sperm motility and its motion characteristics. Taken together these data conclude that addition of ME, TOE and TE can be effective for preservation of pig sperm.

The current status of insect pollinator use was surveyed. Honeybee was larger than mason bee and bumblebee in average use area per farm household at kinds of insect pollinator. Insect pollinator was used at 19 crops. Among them, tomato was the most used crop, which was 44.9%, and in order to apple 26.7%, strawberry 13.1%, red-pepper 7.7% and watermelon 3.7%. In the use of insect pollinators, bumblebee, which was 56.9%, was higher than honeybee (31.3%) and mason bee (11.8%). The most farmers were a positive intention except for 1.5% of farmer in the use of insect pollinator for crop pollination. The best advantage in insect pollinator use was improvement of seed setting percentage, which was 28.3% and the worst problem was low activity at bad weather, which was 25.8%. And also, 97% of farmers have an intention to use continuously insect pollinator.

Mungbean (Vigna radiata) is a fast-growing, warm-season legume crop that is primarily cultivated in developing countries of Asia. We constructed a draft genome sequence of mungbean to facilitate genome research into the subgenus Ceratotropis and to enable a better understanding of the evolution of leguminous species. The draft genome sequence covers 80% of the estimated genome, of which 50.1% consists of repetitive sequences. In total, 22,427 high confidence protein-coding genes were predicted. Based on the de novo assembly of additional wild mungbean species, the divergence of what was eventually domesticated and the sampled wild mungbean species appears to have predated domestication. Moreover, the de novo assembly of a tetraploid Vigna species (Vigna reflexo-pilosa var. glabra) provided genomic evidence of a recent allopolyploid event. To further study speciation, we compared de novo RNA-seq assemblies of 22 accessions of 18 Vigna species and protein sets of Glycine max and Cajanus cajan. The species tree was constructed by a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo method using highly confident orthologs shared by all 24 accessions. The present assembly of V. radiata var. radiata will facilitate genome research and accelerate molecular breeding of the subgenus Ceratotropis.

Mutagenesis approach in combination with whole genome sequencing has become an import role in genetic and molecular biological study and breeding of crop plants. In this study, we screened the fast neutron M4 10,000 soybean mutant plants based on morphological phenotypes of agronomically important traits and characterized the mutant of interest using resequencing. Fast neutron radiation has been known to be a very effective mutagen to cause large deletion in genome. The screened mutant showed abnormal phenotypes in plant heights, seed sizes, color of leaves, number of leaves, maturity and number of branches etc. Among them, the mutant displaying short plant height and bush type of growth habit was selected for identification of the altered genomic regions. Analysis of deletion sites of genome in interesting soybean mutant was performed using next generation sequencer Illumina Hi-seq. Mutant sequence reads generated by paired-end shotgun library were mapped on a draft soybean reference soybean (G. max cv. Williams 82). The paired-end DNA sequences of 21.6 Gb produced by Illumina Hi-seq produced 21 fold sequence depth. Among the predicted deletion sites, total 3 deletion regions confirmed by PCR. Glyma03g02390 gene and Glyma03g03560 gene were involved in the deletion regions. Glyma03g02390 gene was related to AMP binding, catalytic activity, cofactor binding and metabolic process of cell growth and Glyma03g03560 gene was concerned to oxygen binding, defense response to bacterium, and especially process of indole acetic acid (IAA) biosynthesis. These genes detected in this mutant will be studied about their molecular function in stunted phenotype.