Endosulfan is a chlorinated pesticide; its persistence in the environment and toxic effects on biota are demanding its removal. This study aims at improving the tolerance of the previously isolated fungus Aspergillus niger (A. niger) ARIFCC 1053 to endosulfan. Released chloride, dehalogenase activity, and released proteins were estimated along with analysis of endosulfan degradation and pathway...

Aspergillus jlavus and Aspergillus niger commonly co-occur in preharvest maize and one report suggests that this association promotes a greater incidence of aflatoxin. Other studies have shown that Aspergillus niger can prevent, or substantially reduce, aflatoxin formation by Aspergillus jlavus in autoclaved maize kernels, and this led us to examine the effect of A. niger on aflatoxin formation...

Transgenic filamentous fungi of the species Aspergillus niger, A. nidulans and A. awamori expressing and secreting Erwinia carotovora (Eca) subsp. atroseptica pectate lyase 3 (PL3) were generated. Correct processing of the pre-enzyme was achieved using the A. niger pectin lyase A (PEL A) signal peptide. With the prepro-peptide of A. niger polygalacturonase II, secreted enzymes still possessed t...

The Niger Delta is dying. Petrobusiness activities have caused severe environmental damage and climate change in its communities thus leading to massive destruction of farmlands, wild and marine lives. This has not been without dire social consequences on local communities of the Niger Delta which are doubly impoverished with attendant increase in abuse occasioned by struggle for survival. This...

Antimicrobial activity of 25, 50, 75 and 100% alcohol extract of Piper nigrum (Black Pepper), Psidium guajava (Guava), Amomum cardamom (Cardamom) and Cynogen dactylon (Bermuda grass) has been evaluated against Pseudomonas lundensis, Bacillus cereus, Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus. Psidium guajava extract showed excellent antimicrobial activity against all the test organisms. In 25% co...

Citric acid is regarded as a metabolite of energy metabolism, of which the concentration will rise to appreciable amounts only under conditions of substantive metabolic imbalances. Citric acid fermentation conditions were established during the 1930s and 1940s, when the effects of various medium components were evaluated. The biochemical mechanism by which Aspergillus niger accumulates citric a...

In the biosynthesis of tropane alkaloids, two tropinone reductases (TRs) catalyze reduction of tropinone to different stereoisomers, tropine and pseudotropine. Two TRs from Hyoscyamus niger have 64% of identical amino acids and hence a common evolutionary origin. In this study, genomic clones of TRs were isolated from H. niger. Their sequence comparison showed that although they have the same e...

In a recent issue of PNAS, Scheinfeldt et al. (1) maintained that, although Fulani mtDNA is consistent with a West African origin, the linguistic and nonrecombinant portion of the Y chromosome (NRY) supports a Middle Eastern origin for this population. Although this is their opinion, the linguistic and genetic evidence fails to support this conclusion. The Fulani speak a Niger-Congo language. T...

Parrotfishes (family Labridae: Scarini) are regarded to have important roles for maintaining the ecosystem balance in coral reefs due to their removal of organic matter and calcic substrates by grazing. The purpose of the present study was to clarify the interspecific differences in grazing ability of five parrotfish species (Chlorurus sordidus, C. bowersi, Scarus rivulatus, S. niger and S. for...