For many organisms, there is agreement on the specific genomic region used for developing barcode markers. With nematodes, however, it has been found that the COI region designated for most animals lacks the taxonomic coverage (ability to amplify a diverse group of taxa) required of a metabarcoding marker. For that reason, studies on metabarcoding of nematodes thus far have utilized primarily regions within the highly conserved 18S ribosomal DNA. Two popular markers within this region are the ones flanked by the primer pairs NF1-18Sr2b and SSUF04-SSUR22. The NF1-18Sr2b primer pair, especially, has been critiqued as not being specific enough for nematodes leading to suggestions for other candidate markers while the SSUF04-SSUR22 region has hardly been tested on soil nematodes. The current study aimed to evaluate these two markers against other alternative ones within the 28S rDNA and the COI region for their suitability for nematode metabarcoding. The results showed that the NF1-18Sr2b marker could offer wide coverage and good resolution for characterizing soil nematodes. Sufficient availability of reference sequences for this region was found to be a significant factor that resulted in this marker outperforming the other markers, particularly the 18S-based SSUFO4-SSUR22 marker. None of the other tested regions compared with this marker in terms of the proportion of the taxa recovered. The COI-based marker had the lowest number of taxa recovered, and this was due to the poor performance of its primers and the insufficient number of reference sequences in public databases. In summary, this study highlights how dependent the success of metabarcoding is on the availability of a good reference sequence collection for the marker of choice as well as its taxonomic coverage.

Zinc oxide nanopartciles (ZnONPs) involved in advanced technologies, and their wide-scale use in consumer market makes human beings more prone to the exposure to ZnONPs. The present study was undertaken to evaluate amelioration of ZnONP-induced toxicities with querectin in male albino rats. ZnONPs-treated rats showed a significant decrease in sperm cell count, sperm motility, live and normal sperms, as well as serum testosterone level. Severe histopathological damage with a significant increase in lipid peroxidation and a decrease in antioxidant enzymes activity and the GSH level were observed in the affected testis. Relative quantitative polymerase chain reaction results showed a significant decrease in antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase and catalase) and a significant decrease in 3β-HSD, 17β-HSD, and Nr5A1 transcripts. Rats-administered querectin along with ZnONPs showed less toxic effects on all studied reproductive traits and mRNA transcripts. Our results suggest that querectin is beneficial for preventing or ameliorating ZnONP reproductive toxicities in males.

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The utility of a species can be divided into its direct, indirect, and options values. In the marine environment, direct consumptive values predominate and often lead to overexploitation at the expense of significant options values derived through bioprospecting for natural products. We surveyed the waters of the Egyptian Red Sea coast (Gulf of Aqaba [north] and the Red Sea [south]) for species of sea cucumbers and analyzed extracts from species for a range of bioactivities with potential biomedical applications. All habitat types were surveyed within these regions. We found 22 species of sea cucumber of which two, Holothuria fuscogilva and Holothuria flavomaculata, were recorded in Egypt for the first time. Although none of the species identified were unique to the Gulf of Aqaba, 10 species were only found in the Red Sea sector. Bioassay results showed that although no species had antibacterial activity, most extracts exhibited activity against Candida and Leishmania but were most active against a LoVo mammalian carcinoma cell line. Our most significant finding was the intraspecific variation in bioactivity in individuals collected from different habitat types and sectors of the coast. This variation may reflect the effect of environment on secondary metabolite production or may indicate significant genetic diversity between populations within a species. Our results indicate a potentially significant options value to sea cucumbers through bioprospecting. Given the importance of economic development in countries such as Egypt and the perceived low conservation value of invertebrates such as sea cucumbers, the linking of these factors to conservation is vital for the maintenance and sustainable exploitation of these animals.