Crop diseases are usually caused by inoculum of pathogens which might exist on alternate hosts or weeds as endophytes. These endophytes, cum pathogens, usually confer some beneficial attributes to these weeds or alternate hosts from protection against herbivores, disease resistance, stress tolerance to secondary metabolites production. This study was therefore carried out to isolate potential crop pathogens which exist as endophytes on weed species in the University of Ilorin plantations. Green asymptomatic leaves were collected from 10 weed species across the plantations, and processed for their endophytic fungi isolation. Isolates were purified into pure cultures and used for molecular identification using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal DNA. Phylogenetic analysis of the fungal sequences using MEGA software revealed 9 fungal genera belonging to 13 species, with species in the genera Curvularia, Epicoccum and Daldinia occurring in more than one weed species, while other genera such as Alternaria, Fusarium, Chaetomium, Macrophomina, Arthrinium and Phomopsis occurred in just one weed species each. Daldinia eschscholtzii was isolated in this study as an endophyte from Loudetia arundinacea for the first time. This plant is very abundant in Nigeria and Africa where it is used majorly for thatching and feeding livestocks. This also represents the first endophytic fungi from the genus Loudetia. Potential relationship between the occurrences of these fungi as endophytes and as pathogens are discussed. These discoveries represent the first large-scale molecular identification and several first reports of endophytes from these weed species. These results also represent the first records of some of these fungi in Nigeria.
Background: The aim of this study was to measure the radiopacity (RO) of modified microhybrid composite resins by adding 2 types of nanofillers (Zinc Oxide and Calcium Carbonate) in two concentrations 3% and 5% and comparing them to unmodified microhybrid composite resins and to nanofilled composite resin. Materials and Methods: Two types of composite resin were used (Microhybrid composite MH Quadrent anterior shine and Nanofilled composite resin Filtek Z350 XT), for each tested group five disk-shaped specimens (1-mm-thick and 15 mm diameter) were fabricated. The material samples were radiographed together with the aluminum step wedge. The density of the specimens was determined with a transmission densitometer and was expressed in term of
... Show MoreHydrocarbon displacement at the pore scale is mainly controlled by the wetness properties of the porous media. Consequently, several techniques including nanofluid flooding were implemented to manipulate the wetting behavior of the pore space in oil reservoirs. This study thus focuses on monitoring the displacement of oil from artificial glass porous media, as a representative for sandstone reservoirs, before and after nanofluid flooding. Experiments were conducted at various temperatures (25 – 50° C), nanoparticles concentrations (0.001 – 0.05 wt% SiO2 NPs), salinity (0.1 – 2 wt% NaCl), and flooding time. Images were taken via a high-resolution microscopic camera and analyzed to investigate the displacement of the oil at dif
... Show MoreHeat shock protein 70 (HSP70) is a crucial protein with vital biological tasks in cell continuation of life. The variation of HSP70 activation occurs as a consequence of stress that includes temperature states, toxicity, poisoning with heavy metals, and tumor-related conditions. One of the master jobs of the HSP family is the suppression of caspase-mediated apoptosis signals. A high level of the expression of HSP70 is accountable for tumorigenesis and resistance against chemotherapeutic drugs. For this reason, the detection of HSP70 may help to diagnose cancerous diseases. From the other side, targeting this chaperone might help in treatment by maintaining late caspase-dependent events. This study was conducted to detect the presenc
... Show MoreRecently The problem of desertification and vegetation cover degradation become an environmental global challenge. This problem could be summarized as as the land cover changes. In this paper, the area of Al- Muthana in the south of Iraq will be consider as one of Semi-arid lands. For this purpose, the Ladsat-8 images can be used with 15 m in spatial resolution. In order to over Achieve the work, many important ground truth data must be collected such as, rain precipitation, temperature distribution over the seasons, the DEM of the region, and the soil texture characteristics. The extracted data from this project are tables, 2-D figures, and GIS maps represent the distributions of vegetation areas, evaporation / precipitation, river levels
... Show MoreRemoval of direct blue dye by electrocoagulation method has been investigated using aluminum electrode in a bench-scale electrochemical system. Current density, NaCl concentration, electrocoagulation time, and dye concentration has been studied as effecting parameters in color removal efficiency. Increasing of current density will increase the color removal efficiency and energy consumption as well. While increasing NaCl concentration increase the color removal efficiency but it decrease energy consumption. High dye concentration is needed for extra electrocaogolation time to reach the same efficiency that obtained with low dye concentration .With current applied 0.35 amps. and NaCl concentration of 2 g/l more
... Show MoreTo assess the use of miniaturized percutaneous nephrolithotomy (mini-PCNL) for renal stones in children, as well as its safety and efficacy. Seventy-seven patients with more than 15 mm renal stones whose age was less than 15 years were enrolled in this prospective case-controlled study at Al-Ramadi Teaching Hospital, Ar Razi Private Hospital, and Ghazi Al-Hariri Hospital for Surgical Specialties, Anbar and Baghdad, Iraq. The study was conducted from January 2020 to January 2024. The group mentioned above served as group A, and it was compared to the control group (group B), which consisted of 70 adult patients aged 18–60 years. Patients in both groups underwent mini-PCNL. Gender, stone size and location, time of operation, stone-free rate
... Show Moreobjectives: To investigate the polyomaviruses (BK, JC) in asymptomatic kidney transplant recipients and healthy persons as control. It is one of the first reports on serological detection and molecular characterization that describes the circulation of polyomaviruses (BKV, JCV) have been done in Iraq recently. Methodology: The present study was designed as prospective case control study was done during the period from November 2015 to August 2016. Total of 97 serum and urine samples were collected randomly from 25 healthy control person and 72 renal transplant recipients, attending Iraqi Renal Transplantatio