Endophytic fungi live inside plants or any part of them without creating any visible pathogenic signs. Endophytic fungi are found within medicinal plants and have shown strong biologic activity, such as anticancer and antioxidant activities, as well as producing extracellular enzymes. In this study, different fungal strains were isolated from the leaves of the medicinal plant Ziziphus spina, including Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Cladosporium sp., Rhizopus sp., and Mucor sp. Extracellular enzymes have been quantified using agar plate-based methods in which fungi were grown in specified growth media to detect the enzymes produced. The results showed that A. niger has the highest ability to produce amylase, Cladosporium sp. has the highest ability to produce protease and pectinase, Rhizopus and Mucor sp. have the highest ability to produce cellulase, and A. niger and Cladosporium sp. have the same ability to produce lipase and laccase. The ability of medicinal plant endophytic fungi to produce extracellular enzymes has great therapeutic potential in clinical microbiology. Some of the isolates showed great activity in secreting particular enzymes, indicating that the enzymes of these fungi could be used in a variety of applications.
The current study was conducted to demonstrate the effects of air pollution on different biochemical parameters in Citrus aurantium plant and calculation the Air Pollution Tolerance Index (APTI). Five sites were selected to collect plant leaves, four of them within the city of Baghdad, namely Al-Jadriya, Al-Andlous, Al-Doura and close to the private generators to represent the urban areas and Abu Ghraib site to represent the rural area. Seasonal samples were collected for the period from October 2016 to June 2017. Eleven biochemical parameters total chlorophyll, ascorbic acid, leaf extract pH, relative water content, total nitrogen, total protein content, total sugar content, proline, electrical conducti
... Show MoreThe current study was conducted to demonstrate the effects of air pollution on different biochemical parameters inCitrus aurantium plant and calculation the Air Pollution Tolerance Index (APTI). Five sites were selected tocollect plant leaves, four of them within the city of Baghdad, namely Al-Jadriya, Al-Andlous, Al-Doura and closeto the private generators to represent the urban areas and Abu Ghraib site to represent the rural area. Seasonalsamples were collected for the period from October 2016 to June 2017. Eleven biochemical parameters totalchlorophyll, ascorbic acid, leaf extract pH, relative water content, total nitrogen, total protein content, total sugarcontent, proline, electrical conductivity, cadmium and lead. The results of Citr
... Show MoreMethicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is the most common pathogenic bacteria in the hospitals and communities, the ability to form biofilm is considered the main cause of Staphylococcus pathogenicity since it provides resistance to both antibiotics and host immune response, so this study was aimed to evaluate the biofilms formation and its association with antibiotic resistance in clinical isolates of MRSA, in order to achieve this aim, 237 samples were collected from different patients with wounds infections after surgeries and samples from operations galleries from varies hospitals in Baghdad ,68 isolates out of 237 were subjected to Staphylococcus aureus according to conventional meth
... Show MoreBackground: Globally, breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women in Iraq. Several genetic and environmental factors are associated..
The presence of hydrocarbons in the soil is considered one of the main problems of pollution. In our current study, eight samples isolated from soil saturated with hydrocarbons were taken from different areas of Baghdad, Iraq. In this study, 5 isolates belonging to Pseudomonas aeruginosa by 99%, 4 isolates to Klebsiella pneumoniae by 98%, and 3 isolates to Enterobacter hormaechei by 97% were diagnosed in different ways. A molecular examination was also conducted by 16sRNA. We recorded P. aeruginosa, K. Pneumoniae and E. hormaechei as new local isolates in NCBI. In addition, a comparison was made between our isolates and the global isolates to determine the degree of convergence in the evolutionary line. The genes alkB and nahAc7 were diagno
... Show MoreA total of 100 clinical sample from (urine, sputum and swabs of wound , burn and ear) were collected from patients in different hospitals of Baghdad during the period from December 2013 to May 2014. 15 isolates (15%) identified belong to Acinetobacter baumannii, swabs of wounds were represented in high percentage of A.baumannii isolates (40%) while percentage of other samples were variable. Susceptibility of 15 A.baumannii isolates were tested toward 16 different Antimicrobial agents, the results showed all isolates were multi drug resistant. In addition, Polymerase Chain Reaction Technique (PCR) was performed to detection the resistance genes encoding the Oxacillinases enzymes. The PCR analysis showed that the presence of insertion sequ
... Show MoreFungi produce a series of toxic compounds on corn, especially Fumonisin B1 (FB1) toxin produced by Fusarium spp. and promoting cancer activity in humans and animals. This study aimed to the isolation and identification of fungi associated with local corn seeds and the detection for the presence of FB1 by using ELISA technique. Thirty samples of corn ears were collected from silos and markets in Baghdad city during the period from November 2018 to March 2019. The present study found that Fusarium was the dominant isolate among fungi in terms of the relative density 57.07%, followed by Aspergillus 31.17%, Rhizopus 3.36%, Alternaria 2.88%, Mucor 2.16%, Penicillium 1.92%, Trichothecium 0.96%, and Helminthosporium 0.48%. FB1 was detected in a
... Show MoreThis study examined the effect of essential oils extracted from peel of Citrus paradisi and Citrus sinensis on two species of fungi: Penicillium oxalicum and Fusarium oxysporum as well as effect of two fungicides: Carbendazim and Thiophanatemethyl against above fungi. Results showed that the essential oil of Citrus paradisi inhibited the radial growth of Penicillium oxalicum and Fusarium oxysporum at concentration 4%. Nevertheless, the essential oil of Citrus sinensis inhibited the radial growth at concentration 5 and 4%, respectively. Furthermore, the two studied fungicides inhibited radial growth of these fungi too. Therefore, there are a positive relationship between the evaluating of concentration and the percentage of inhibiting of rad
... Show MoreThe pollution of aquatic ecosystems with toxic heavy metals is representing a major environmental issue, as a result of releasing these metals to ecological ambient without treatment, leading to their persistence and non-biodegradation in the environment. Various traditional methods are utilized as an attempt to remove heavy metals from waste water but still without making any actual progress. This study hypothesizes that Eichhornia crassipes (water hyacinth) dried leaves powder is potential in removing some of these heavy metals (HM), including lead, copper, cadmium and chrome from aqueous solutions via biosorption influenced by some variable experimental factors. This aim was approached by using two different experimental conditions: (
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