Opuntia ficus indica cladodes possess a protective action against ethanol-induced ulcer in the rat. The major components of cladodes are carbohydrate polymers, mainly mucilages and pectin. To clarify the cytoprotective effects of cladodes on experimental ethanol-induced ulcer in rat, mucilages and pectin were extracted and were administered instead of cladodes. The above mentioned effects induc...

Antibiotics provide the main basis for the therapy of microbial (bacterial and fungal) infections. Since the discovery of these antibiotics and their use as chemotherapeutic agents there was a belief in the medical fraternity that this would lead to the eventual eradication of infectious diseases. However, overuse of antibiotics has become the major factor in the emergence and dissemination of ...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I . Introduction * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I1 . Protonic coupling in electron transport phosphorylation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A . Background: the chemiosmotic and local proton hypotheses B . Some recent experimental work concerned with the measurement of Ap . . . . . . . . 1 . Results f...

Cytochrome c oxidase purified from the bacterium Paracoccus denitrificans was analyzed by analytical ultracentrifugation. In the detergent octyltetra/pentaoxyethylene (C8E45), the isolated enzyme exhibits a molecular weight of 79,000 to 84,000. The detergent-solubilized enzyme is thus a monomer which contains one copy of each of the two subunits.

Paracoccus pantotrophus cytochrome cd(1) nitrite reductase is isolated under aerobic conditions from anaerobically grown cells in an inactive form. This state requires reductive activation to make it catalytically competent for nitrite reduction. In this work, we discuss the methods of this reductive activation and its consequences for the cell.

The many species of figs (Ficus, Moraceae) have evolved a variety of reproductive phenologies that ensure the survival of both the fig plants and their short-lived, species-specific, pollinating wasps. A phenological study of 28 male and 23 female plants of a dioecious hemiepiphytic fig, Ficus tinctoria, was conducted in Xishuangbanna, SW China at the northern margin of tropical SE Asia. In con...

We have compared the efficacy of inhibition of the cytochrome bc1 complexes from yeast and bovine heart mitochondria and Paracoccus denitrificans by antimycin, ilicicolin H, and funiculosin, three inhibitors that act at the quinone reduction site at center N of the enzyme. Although the three inhibitors have some structural features in common, they differ significantly in their patterns of inhib...

Certain Ficus spp. are dependent on wasps for pollination. The invading wasps usually shed their wings on entering a fig through the ostiole; and during attempted or successful egg deposi t ion, transfer pollen to the female flowers and then die. A gall forms around each egg, and within the gall develops a male or a female wasp. Male wasps are the first to emerge from galls, and they then ferti...

The work aimed to study all the possible factors affecting efficiency of plant propagation via stem cuttings. Several factors including type of cutting, culture medium, type and concentration of growth regulators were investigated. These factors were studied on Ficus hawaii as woody tree and Chrysanthemum morifolium as herbaceous plant to investigate the effect of plant type factor. All experim...

BACKGROUND The common fig (Ficus carica L.) is a gynodioecious species with two sexual forms: male trees (caprifigs) with male and female flowers and female trees that produce only female flowers that will result in the edible fig syconium. In this study the genetic diversity of 20 Tunisian accessions of caprifig is analyzed using SSR markers previously developed for this crop. RESULTS The re...