Microbiology

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Objective: Helianthus annuus seeds contain various chemical components and evaluated for different biological activities. The present study was carried out to investigate the antidepressant and anxiolytic activity of methanolic extract of Helianthus annuus seeds in mice model. Methods: The efficacy of extract (100-200mg/kg) was compared with standard antidepressant drug Imipramine 60 mg/kg and anxiolytic drug diazepam (1mg/kg). Antidepressant activity was done in mice model by tail suspension test and anxiolytic activity was determined both light-dark box test and elevated plus maze test. Results: The results revealed that the methanol extract of Helianthus annuus seeds showed a significant result in tail suspension test at 100 mg/kg (93 ± 0.47 seconds) and 200 mg/kg (78 ± 1.3 seconds) and moderate result in light-dark box test at 100 mg/kg (63±0.62) and 200 mg/kg (72±0.85), in elevated plus maze test at 100 mg/kg (51± 0.58 seconds) and 200 mg/kg (60±0.62 seconds). Conclusion: The r...

Abstract—Health system is one of the vital components for the<br> people of any country. The use of electronic health in Bangladesh is<br> very limited. As a result, health cost is increasing day by day and the<br> poor people of Bangladesh could not bear the increased health cost.<br> In this study, we are going to propose and develop a cost effective<br> distributed electronic health system for patient data handing<br> considering Bangladesh perspectives. By using this model, both<br> patients and doctors will be connected through our developed system.<br> We have used open source electronic health system, business process<br> diagram and distributed characteristics of health system in this<br> research. We have successfully shown from the result section that this<br> model works as a distributed electronic health system. Our developed<br> system is interoperable and cost effective which are the noble<br&gt...

Typhoid fever (Enteric fever) is a serious life-threatening illness caused by mostly Salmonella Typhi and also by Salmonella Paratyphi to a lesser extent. This study was carried out to isolate, identify Salmonella spp. from the blood samples of patients who were suspected of suffering from typhoid fever and to determine the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of the selected Salmonella spp. Salmonella spp. was detected in 122 of 1167 samples. Among which 87 (77.68%) were Salmonella Typhi and 25 (22.32%) were Salmonella Paratyphi. The most susceptible age group for Salmonella spp. is 21-30 years. Males (67.86%) are mostly infected by Salmonella spp. than females (32.14%). Salmonella Typhi (77.68%) was found as the predominant etiological agent of typhoid fever followed by Salmonella Paratyphi (22.32%) in our study. Salmonella spp. were resistant against Nalidixic acid, Co-trimoxazole and Pipercillin but sensitive against Ceftriaxone, Imipenem, Meropenem, Amikacin, Cefixime, Ceftazidime, Gentamicin, Cefotaxime. From this study, it can be concluded that these third generation antibiotics still can be used as effective drugs for the treatment of typhoid fever.

Genetic diversity is highly relevant and significant in discovering novel insecticidal genes in Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) strains and to deal with the problems of emerging insect resistance towards Bt biopesticides. In view of this, Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR analysis was performed with a decamer AGCTCAGCCA for molecular typing of 177 Bt strains of Bangladesh to determine their genetic diversity. These Bt strains were allocated into 15 genomic types with their binary matrices as determined from the dendrogram based on a standardized distance in scale bar. Genotype 9 and 11 were the largest among others, each containing more than 25% of the Bt strains. The average diversity index, as deduced for each group by cluster: isolate ratio at a specific distance, was higher for locations (0.27 ± 0.098) than that for biotypes (0.23 ± 0.046) which indicates an unmingled and vertical transfer of biochemical properties among the strains. Prevalence of agriculturally important subgroups of cry1 gene in indigenous Bt strains was also determined where cry1Aa and cry1Ca gene were found to be the most prevalent (21.74%). While analyzing the distribution pattern of cry genes, they were observed to be present in all RAPD- genotypes but genotype 10 and were most prevalent in genotypes 1, 6 and 9. The phylogeny reconstruction among the strains was performed by neighbor-joining method with the 16S rRNA gene sequences and the correlation among the phylogeny, RAPD genotypes, Biotypes and presence of cry genes were analyzed.

Proteolytic bacteria isolated from municipal solid wastes (MSW) were identified as Serratia marcescens A3 and Pseudomonas putida A2 based on 16S rDNA sequencing. Protease produced through fermentation of organic MSW by these bacteria under some optimized physicochemical parameters was partially purified and characterized. The estimated molecular mass of the partially purified protease from S. marcescens and P. putida was approximately 25 and 38 kDa, respectively. Protease from both sources showed low K m 0.3 and 0.5 mg ml À1 and high V max 333 and 500 mmole min À1 at 40 °C, and thermodynamics analysis suggested formation of ordered enzyme-substrate (E-S) complexes. The activation energy (E a) and temperature quotient (Q 10) of protease from S. marcescens and P. putida were 16.2 and 19.9 kJ/mol, and 1.4 and 1.3 at temperature range from 20 to 40 °C, respectively. Protease of the both bacterial isolates was serine and cysteine type. The protease retained approximately 97% of activity in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulphate. It was observed that the purified protease of S. marcescens could remove blood stains from white cotton cloth and degrade chicken flesh remarkably. Our study revealed that organic MSW can be used as raw materials for bacterial protease production and the protease produced by S. marcescens A3 might be potential for applications.

The scarcity of hygienic drinking water is a normal phenomenon in the coastal areas of Bangladesh due to the high salinity of ground water. The inhabitants of this locality, therefore, live on alternative supplies of water including rain-fed pond water, and rain-water with persistent complex microbial interactions therein, often contaminated with life-threatening pathogens. Hence, this study was aimed at analyzing the prevalence of Vibrio cholerae (Vc) in the alternative drinking waters of Mathbaria, a coastal subdis-trict neighboring the Bay of Bengal, the efficacy of pond sand filter (PSF) and the co-association among Bacillus-like spore formers (Sf) and Vc. Vc presumably entrapped into the membrane filter was enriched in alkaline peptone water medium and was isolated on selective thiosulfate-citrate-bile salts-sucrose and taurocholate-tellurite-gelatin agar media. They were finally identified by immunochromatographic one step rapid test and serology test. A total of 26% Vc positive samples were obtained out of 100 [ponds—48, household (HH)—29, and PSFs—23] where 13% cases were pathogenic (Vc O1) and 13% were non-pathogenic (Vc non-O1/non-O139). The distribution of Vc as observed was 33, 26, and 13.8% in waters derived from pond surface, PSF, and HH reservoirs, respectively, and for pathogenic type, it was 62.5%, 50%, and nil, respectively. Although none of the samples was identified with pathogenic Vc O139, the statistics represents a significant and augmentative risk of cholera outbreak in the focused area. The antibiotic sensitivity pattern in this study resembled the trend observed during last few years for Vc. The PSF demonstrated its inability to remove Vc from any of the samples and in addition, the filter itself was evidenced to be the source of pathogens and spores in further contamination and transmission. The development of biofilm in the PSF could be hypothesized as the reservoir in contaminating pathogen-free water samples. From the test of homogeneity, the risk levels of alternative water sources were estimated equal regarding Vc. Simultaneously, it was determined statistically that the prevalence of Vc, by no means, is influenced by Bacillus-like Sf be it for pond surface, HH, or PSF derived water.