Upregulation of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), in particular MMP-2 and MMP-9 contributes to secondary pathogenesis of spinal cord injury (SCI) via promoting inflammation. Recently, we reported that trehalose suppresses inflammatory responses following SCI. Therefore, we investigated the effect of trehalose on MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression in SCI. A weight-drop contusion SCI was induced in male ...

seems to inspire great science. Since moving, I’ve developed wonderful long-term collaborations with my colleagues Phil Zamore and Zhiping Weng. I love to think about the biology of germline development; Phil has amazing insights into small RNA function and mechanism; and Zhiping can pull it all together through elegant and rigorous computational analyses. Working with these two has been a blas...

This work presents results on the effect of manganese ions on the development and biological activities of the fungal antagonists Trichoderma harzianum, Trichoderma pseudokoningii and Trichoderma viride. The effects of manganese on linear growth of Trichoderma spp. depend on the metal concentration and the fungal species. T. harzianum proved the most sensitive fungus. on the other hand, none of...

The aim of this work is to select filamentous fungal strains isolated from saw dust, soil, and decaying wood with the potential to produce xylanase and cellulase enzymes. A total of 110 fungi were isolated. Fifty-seven (57) of these fungi were isolated from soil samples, 32 from sawdust, and 19 from decaying wood. Trichoderma and Aspergillus had the highest relative occurrence of 42.6% and 40.8...

macrophomina phaseolina is an important soil-borne pathogen causing charcoal rot in many important crop plants including sesame, in iran. a total of 60 isolates of m. phaseolina were collected from the main sesame producing regions in ten provinces of iran. the genetic diversity among m. phaseolina populations was estimated using inter-simple sequence repeat (issr), focusing particularly on geo...

Fungal pathogens pose a major problem in causing reduction in yield of vanilla crop to considerable level. Fusarium oxysporum, was isolated from naturally infected vanilla plants and an attempt was made to minimize the damage caused by the pathogen using biocontrol agents Trichoderma harzianum, and Pseudomonas fluorescens isolated from soil. The combined inoculation of Trichoderma harzianum wit...

Interactions between leaf-cutting ants, their fungal symbiont (Leucoagaricus) and the endophytic fungi within the vegetation they carry into their colonies are still poorly understood. If endophytes antagonistic to Leucoagaricus were found in plant material being carried by these ants, then this might indicate a potential mechanism for plants to defend themselves from leaf-cutter attack. In add...

Wilt-susceptible cultivar 'Rowden' cotton was inoculated wilh Meloidogyne incognita (N), Trichoderma harzianum (T), and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum (F) alone and in all combinations in various time sequences. Plants inoculated with F alone or in combination with T did not develop wilt, Simultaneous inoculation of 7-day-old seedlings with all three organisms (NTF) produced earliest wil...