The Potential Role of Plastome Copy Number as a Quality Biomarker for Plant Products using Real-time Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction.

Plastids are plant-specific semi-autonomous self-replicating organelles, containing circular DNA molecules called plastomes. Plastids perform crucial functions, including photosynthesis, stress perception and response, synthesis of metabolites, and storage. The plastome and plastid numbers have been shown to be modulated by developmental stage and environmental stimuli and have been used as a biomarker (identification of plant species) and biosensor (an indicator of abiotic and biotic stresses).

Enhancing Cohort PASA Efficiency from Lessons Assimilated by Mutant Genotyping in C. elegans.

Classical restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and sequencing are labor-intensive and expensive methods to study single base changes, whereas polymerase chain reaction amplification of specific alleles (PASA) or allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (ASPCR) is a PCR-based application that allows direct detection of any point mutation by analyzing the PCR products in an ethidium bromide-stained agarose or polyacrylamide gel. PASA is based on oligonucleotide primers containing one or more 3' mismatch with the target DNA making it refractory to primer extension by Thermus aquaticus DNA polymerase lacking the 3' to 5' exonuclease proofreading activity because of which it is also called amplification refractory mutation system-PCR (ARMS-PCR). This technique has found application in detection of allele, mutation, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) causing genetic and infectious diseases.

A-90 Day Gavage Safety Assessment of Boswellia serrata in Rats.

The present study deals with the evaluation and assessment of the safety/toxic potential of Boswellia serrata, a well known Ayurvedic herb used to treat disorders of digestive system, respiratory ailments and bone related diseases. A repeated dose oral (90 days) toxicity study of Boswellia serrata was carried out. For this, 10 rats of each sex were treated with the Boswellia serrata at three different doses i.