Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis is a Gram-positive pathogen that commonly causes caseous lymphadenitis which occurs in sheep, goats, cattle, buffalo and horses. This disease has long been shown to be a major cause of economic loss on sheep industries. Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is known to be effective against a wide spectrum of pathogens however, its efficacy against C. pseudotuberculosis biofilm remains uncertain. The objective of this study was to predict the antibiofilm potential of DMSO against C. pseudotuberculosis using in silico protein interaction network analysis and experimentally determine the antibiofilm activity using standard microplate assay system. As compared to the protein interaction network of S. typhimurium biofilm that had previously been shown to be inhibited by DMSO, the protein interaction network of C. pseudotuberculosis showed similar nodes, hub proteins and functional linkages between glycolytic enzymes. Further experimental validation revealed that the treatment with DMSO significantly (p<0.05) inhibited C. pseudotuberculosis biofilm at all tested concentrations (1.56% - 50%). The findings from the present study suggest the potential application of DMSO in controlling caseous lymphadenitis in ruminants.

One of the top species in the aquaculture sector, known as striped catfish or Pangasianodon hypophthalmus, is an important and valuable freshwater fish in many countries. Due to the high demand for this species, their number has declined to "threatened" levels.  Hence, the purpose of this study is to analyse the genetic variation of wild and cultured striped catfish collected from five producers in Asian countries; Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and Philippines, by using mitochondrial DNA partial region data sequence; CO1 and cytochrome b gene. Population analyses using 395 base pairs length for CO1 and 275 base pairs length of cytochrome b partial region nucleotide sequence have shown no significance difference between wild and cultured striped catfish. Vietnam species had shown a wide range of genetic distance of the intrapopulation compared with other countries in the range of 0.000-0.040 for CO1 gene and 0.003-0.008 for cytochrome b gene. The Neighbour-joining method has also been used to construct phylogenetic trees using CO1 gene; the tree formed few subclades with mixed populations, and the tree using cytochrome b showed only Vietnam species divided into a few sub-populations. For the other four countries, Thailand, Indonesia, India, and Philippines were in the same group. Hence, this study's findings may provide a reference for inter and intra-relationships of P. hypophthalmus that may help in the aquaculture activity of this striped catfish.

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Gamma irradiation is an effective and widely used method in the agricultural sector to alter the traits of plants especially for commercialization purposes and as a mitigation measure to ensure food security in the future. Vigna radiata (mung bean) is one of the most important legume crops in Asian countries that is not fully exploited. Therefore, this research aimed to determine the effects of gamma irradiation on the cytology and growth of mung beans. The mung bean seeds were exposed to different doses of gamma radiation; 0, 200, 400, 600, 800, and 1000 Gy. The increasing dose of gamma irradiation caused an insignificant decrease (p>0.05) in the mitotic index of V. radiata meristematic cells. However, a significant increase at p<0.05 in the percentage of clastogenic chromosomal aberration was observed in the meristematic cells of plants irradiated at 800 and 1000 Gy. The survival percentage, plant height, and root length were inversely proportional to the percentage of chromosomal aberration and clastogenic abnormalities when the irradiation dose exceeded the LD50 (752.50 Gy). In conclusion, gamma rays greatly induced clastogenic abnormalities which have varying impacts on the cytology and growth of V. radiata plants.