Indigenous agroforestry trees and shrubs on farmlands are an under-utilized resource that can be used as green manures (GM) to alleviate declining soil fertility and productivity. The aims of studies described in this thesis were to investigate: (1) the seasonal dynamics in chemical contents of foliage from selected tree species potentially available as sources of GM, (2) rates and patterns of ...

Pectins are major components of primary plant cell walls and the seed mucilage of Arabidopsis. Despite progress in the structural elucidation of pectins, only very few enzymes participating in or regulating their synthesis have been identified. A first candidate gene involved in the synthesis of pectinaceous rhamnogalacturonan I is RHM2, a putative plant ortholog to NDP-rhamnose biosynthetic en...

The presence of Eriophorum angustifolium in mine tailings of pyrite maintains a neutral pH, despite weathering, thus lowering the release of toxic elements into acid mine drainage water. We investigated if the presence of slightly elevated levels of free toxic elements triggers the plant rhizosphere to change the pH towards neutral by increasing organic acid content. Plants were treated with a ...

It has been hypothesised that several microbial processes contribute to mucilage formation and transformation. However, to date, none of these mechanisms have been consistently tested using different types of mucilage. We investigated the biochemical composition and the microbial activities occurring in 9 different types of mucilage aggregates (macroflocs, stringers, cobwebs, ribbons, stringers...

In the present era, polymers from natural sources become a better alternate for delivery of various kinds of drugs. The compliance and use of polymers obtained from natural origin are increasing day by day in the pharmaceutical industries due to a fewer side effects. Mucilages obtained from natural sources are a better alternative for designing and development of mucoadhesive drug delivery syst...

Mucilage extracted from Anacardium occidentale were subjected to toxicity studies for its safety and preformulation studies for its suitability as a gelling agent. The present study was undertaken with an objective to find out the gelling potentials of a natural gum obtained from plant Anacardium occidentale. The gum was extracted by using water as solvent and precipitated using acetone as non-...

To evaluate commercially available diagnostic kits for human immunoglobulin G to Toxoplasma gondii, we purchased three enzyme immunoassay (EIA) (Cordia-T, Toxo Bio-EnzaBead, and Toxoelisa), two indirect hemagglutination (IHA) (TPM-Test and ToxHAtest), one fluoroimmunoassay (Toxoplasma-G FIAX), and one latex agglutination (Eiken Toxotest-MT) kit from U.S. suppliers. A total of 100 serum specimen...

Drug delivery via buccal mucosa by means of buccoadhesive formulations offer distinct advantages over peroral administration. Recently, plant gums and exudates have been screened for their use as pharmaceutical adjuvants. The aim of this study is to evaluate matrix tablets containing Plantago psyllium seed mucilage in addition to carbopol as a mucoadhesive agent, and propranolol hydrochloride a...

Background: Tissue culture is a new approach for production of secondary metabolites with many advantages over conventional methods. Elicitors such as nano particles are molecules that can stimulate the production of secondary metabolites. Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of some nano particles on mucilage production in Linum usitatissimum under tissue culture condit...

This article contains a short introduction to the R package StepSignalMargiLike for estimating change-points in stepwise signals. In the first section, we will outline the theoretical framework of the marginal Likelihood estimator as formulated in Du, Kao and Kou (2015). The second section contains a brief introduction of the R-implementation of this method as seen in package StepSignalMargiLik...