Nova Biologica Reperta

A preliminary study on the breeding birds of Dez Protected Area in Khuzestan Province, Iran.

Seyed masoud Hosseini-Moosavi

This investigation is a collection of studies on the breeding birds of Dez Protected Area performed from Fe-bruary 2011 to Jun 2012. During that period, field studies were executed every other 2-4 days. 5 species of native bree-ding birds including White-eared Bulbul Pycnonotus leucotis, Common Babbler Turdoides caudatus, Collared Dove St-reptopelia decaocto, Laughing Dove Streptopelia senegalensis, European Roller Coracias garrulous and 7 species of migratory breeding birds including Grey Hypocolius Hypocolius ampelinus, Great Grey Shrike Lanius excubitor, Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius, Red-wattled Lapwing Vanellus indicus, Pin-tailed Sandgrouse Pterocles alchata Ba-nk Swallow Riparia riparia, Blue cheeked Bea-eater Merops persicus were observed. Among the breeding birds, Coll-ared Dove S.decaocto had the most extensive breeding period from February till the early of August. Common Babbler T. caudatus (53 nests) was the frequent breeder in the terrestrial part of the Dez Protected area. Terrestrial breeding bi-rds of the area prefer habitats with Ziziphus nummularia, vegetations for breeding. Bank Swallow R.riparia with more than 300 nests was the most common species in the watery part of Dez Protected Area. They selected riparian walls for nest building. Habitat destruction was the most important threatening factor for the breeding birds.

The study of factors affecting on vegetation in sand beaches of the Boujagh National Pa-rk, Guilan Province

Shahriyar Saeidi Mehrvarz

This paper concerns itself with the study of sand beaches of the Boujagh National Park with an area of 3477 ha. The purposes of this study include the determination of the plant species diversity and plant groups. In ad-dition, the determination of the impact of environmental and specific variables on the presence or absence of certain species and their communities is another aim that the study follows. In order to attain those purposes, 52 plots across 6 transects of the district were used. In each plot, the materials were identified and abundance-dominance of species by using Braun-Blanquet criteria were obtained and their life forms were determined according to Raunkiaer clas-sification. To determine the plant groups, a Two-way analysis of significant modified species (Modified TWINSP-AN) was utilized. Detrended Canonical Analysis (DCA) was used to determine factors affecting plant groups. The results showed that four plant groups exist in this district: Convolvulus persicus-Crepis foetida subsp. Foetida grou-p, Argusia sibirica group, Eryngium caucasicum-Juncus acutus group and Rubus sanctus group. The first and seco-nd groups consist of higher percentages of therophytes and spread in areas where the soil contains more sand. Plants in the third and fourth groups spread in areas with stabilized sand and high percentage of silt. DCA analysis results showed that soil factors (texture, OC, Na, K, N, Ca, Mg) have significant relation with plant groups were studied. Among the plant groups, the percentage of silt and sand, species richness and life forms of therophytes and geop-hytes show significant relations. Therefore it can be concluded that these factors affect on the separation and distri-bution of plant groups.

Two interesting annual Silene species (Caryophyllaceae) reported for the flora of Iran

Abbas Gholipour

In a revision of annual Silene species some interesting specimens were observed, which belonged to the sp-ecies that had not been previously reported in detail from Iran. In this paper S. nocturna from the section Scorpioideae was added to the checklist of the third important genus of the flora of Iran, i.e. Silene, and new localities for S. gallica from the section Lasiocalycinae were reported. The description, geographical distribution in Iran and photos of each sp-ecies were also presented

Investigation of antimicrobial activity of polymeric nanofibers using henna additive

Zahra Sadat Mirei

Main agent orange-red coloured pigment of henna is a molecule called Lawson which is responsible for anti-microbial, anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity. Chitosan is a biopolymer with high strength, biocom-patibility and biodegradability, non-toxicity and antimicrobial properties. Electrospinning is a method of producing su-bmicron polymeric fibers with high porosity and high surface/volume ratio. In this study, electrospinning of chitos-an/polyethylene oxide (Chit/PEO) nanofibers with the addition of henna extract to create nanofibers with antimicrobial properties were examined. Nanofibers was constructed by electrospinning of polymeric solution with proper size and si-ze distribution of Chit/PEO with a ratio 90/10. Then, Lawsonia inermis (henna) extract as an additive to Chit/PEO co-polymer was added and electrospined on the surface. After characterization of nanofibers using SEM, the antimicrobial properties of polymeric solution and nanofibers were investigated. The scanning electron micrographs showed that Ch-it/PEO nanofibres with a low percentage of henna extract have suitable diameters and size distribution similar to Ch-it/PEO nanofibres without adding extract. In bacteriological studies, it was found that chitosan polymer solutions cont-aining 1% of henna extract has bactericidal properties against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudo-monas aeruginosa bacteries better than polymer chitosan solution without adding the extract.

The protective effect of ZnO nanoparticles on liver and impairments induced by Paclitaxel treatment in female Wistar rat

Homa Mohseni Kouchesfahani

Paclitaxel is a chemotherapy drug inhibiting cell growth. In some studies, patients with normal liver function have experienced increase in bilirubin, ALT and AST by using paclitaxel. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ef-fect of intra-peritoneal injection of doses 5 and 10 mg/kg nZnO on the liver of rats treated with paclitaxel. 35 adult fe-male Wistar rats were divided into 7 groups including control, sham (saline injection), experimental groups1 and 2 (nZnO injection), experimental group 3 (paclitaxel injection), experimental groups 4 and 5 (nZnO and paclitaxel inje-ction). Liver function was examined 28 days after the end of injection. Experimental group3 had large and swollen liver morphology. Most hepatocytes had dense nuclei and changed cell shape indicating of cell death. Blood test showed si-gnificant increase in the levels of ALT, AST and bilirubin and decrease in the level of ALP in comparison with the co-ntrol group. In experimental groups 4 and 5, cell shape alterations, increase in cell death and increase in liver markers were remarkably reduced in comparison with the experimental group 3, in a way that there were no significant differ-ences with the control group. No significant differences were observed between the control group and experimental gr-oups 1 and 2. According to the findings, nZnO can reduce the side effects of paclitaxel on liver tissue.

Effect of drought stress on the activity of antioxidant enzymes and soluble sugars content of Pe-nnyroyal (Mentha pulegium L.)

Mansour Afsharmohammdian

Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium L.) from the Lamiaceae family is a medicinal plant which has great antioxidant properties. Environmental stresses such as drought can result in changes in the activity of antioxidant enzymes and the content of some biochemical factors in plants. In this investigation, the effects of drought stress on the activity of supe-roxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase, catalase, peroxidase, malondialdehyde and soluble sugars content in pennyroyal shoots and roots were evaluated. To create the water deficit, 24-day seedlings of pennyroyal were placed in 1/2 strength Hoagland solution, containing PEG 6000 (0 and 5% (w/v)) for 24 hours. The results showed that drought stress incr-eased catalase activity and lipid peroxidation and decreased superoxide dismutase and peroxidase activity of the shoots. On the other hand, the activity of catalase and peroxidase increased in the roots. Ascorbate peroxidase activity showed no significant difference in the shoots and the roots. Moreover, drought stress significantly increased the amount of so-luble sugars of glucose, galactose, xylose and rhamnosus in the shoots. Therefore, the increased activity in antioxidant enzymes as well as the amount of soluble sugars under drought stress might be a sign of tolerance of M. pulegium under low levels of drought.

Designing and cloning a MaSp1-based synthetic gene in binary vector for transient expression in cotton fiber

Seyed Javad Davarpanah

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is an important crop in the world and increasing its fiber quality is very cr-ucial for textile industries. Spider silk is the strongest and most elastic fiber ever known in the nature. Cotton is one of the main crops in the world and increasing its fiber quality is very important for textile industries. In this regard, a synt-hetic construct has been designed to offer spider silk quality to cotton fibers by fiber-specific expression of Major am-pullate spidroin1 (MaSp1) gene under control of core sequence of GaRD22-like1 promoter. The synthetic construct was double digested by the EcoRI and NheI and sub-cloned in pCAMBIA1304 binary vector. E.coli DH5α was transformed using new plasmid namely pCSP. Ligation and intact backbone of plasmid was conformed using MaSp1 and hygrom-ycin re-sistance genes specific primers and finally with EcoRI/NheI double digestion. Agrobacterium tumefaciens LBA4404 was transformed with pCSP to transform cotton ovules of Varamin cultivar. The expression of MaSp1 in co-tton ovules and fibers showed that this synthetic sequence had been successfully expressed under control of GaRDL1 core promoter and this construct without codon optimization could be used for cotton transformation and its fiber qual-ity manipulation.

Anatomy of peduncle in species of Scrophularia L. (Scrophulariaceae) in Iran

Nastaran Bayat

The peduncle anatomy in 35 populations, which belonged to 18 taxa of Scrophularia L., were studied. Am-ong 37 quantitative and qualitative characters related to peduncle anatomy, several traits showed more taxonomic value for taxa delimitation, including presence of palisade parenchyma and the number of its layers, the presence of phloem fiber, the presence of bundle sheath, the presence of lamellar collenchyma at ridge location and the number of its layers, the dimensions of cross section, thickness of vascular bundle, the dimensions of pith parenchyma, thickness of xylem, thickness of parenchymatous part and thickness of lamellar collenchyma at ridge location. Finally, in comparison with the results obtained by Grau (1981), in which 12 groups have been introduced, the current study confirms the validity of 3 groups. However, for the remaining groups, no noticeable concordance was found.

Point mutation in amino acid 263 of streptokinase gene as well as cloning and expression of the cysteine containing mutated protein

Reza Arabi Mianroodi

Streptokinase is one of the best known thrombolytic agents with widespread clinical use. However, its use is not risk-free due to its immunogenicity, hemorrhagic complications and relatively short half-life in circulation. Specific PEGylation of cysteine residue is a useful technique for reducing most of these complications. The aim of this study was designing and producing a cysteine containing mutant of streptokinase, to be used for specific PEGylation. Glut-amic acid 263, which is a surface amino acid in the structure of streptokinase protein, was selected for replacement with cysteine amino acid by site directed mutagenesis. The Glu263 codon was changed to cysteine codon by SOEing PCR technique. Then, the intact and mutated streptokinase genes were inserted into expression vector pET-26b (+). The co-nstructs were transformed to Escherichia.coli Rosetta (DE3) strain and the proteins were expressed by IPTG induction. The proteins were confirmed by SDS-PAGE and western blot analysis, purified by Ni-NTA agarose affinity chroma-tography under denaturing condition with urea and Sephadex G-25 column was applied to remove urea to refold the pr-oteins. This study indicated that by using aforesaid vector and host, cysteine containing mutant gene is expressed well and it will be appropriate for specific PEGylation.