May 2017

Polymorphism analysis of kisspeptin (KISS1) gene and its association with litter size in Ethiopian indigenous goat populations

Polymorphism analysis of the Kisspeptin (KISS1) gene and its association with litter size were conducted in two (Gondar and Woyto Guji) Ethiopian indigenous goat populations. Three new pairs of primers were designed for touchdown PCR condition.  A total of 173 and 242 Sanger sequences were employed for further analysis of exon1 (1210 bp) and exon2 (325 bp) regions of the KISS1 gene, respectively. In addition, the...

Author(s): Getinet Mekuriaw,, Joram M. Mwacharo, Tadelle Dessie, Okeyo Mwai, Appolinaire Djikeng, Sarah Osama, Grum Gebreyesus, Alayu Kidane, Solomon Abegaz and Kassahun Tesfaye

May 2017

Establishing sterilization protocol and shoot induction medium for in vitro regeneration of sweetbriar (Rosa rubiginosa L.)

Rosa rubiginosa L. is popular in Lesotho where rural communities harvest the rosehips for sale to the local companies which process them into various products. There is, however, a challenge in establishing plantations of the species due to deep seed dormancy and so difficulty in germination. In this study, nodal explants of R. rubiginosa L. were sterilized with 20 g·L-1 Ridomil Gold MZ (RGM) and cultured on...

Author(s): Miloane Meshack Mokhobo, Remmy Wekesa Kasili and Amos Emitati Alakonya

May 2017

Biodiesel production from marine microalgae Nannochloropsis gaditana by in situ transesterification process

Microalgae is one of the best sources of renewable energy production, such as biofuels. The production of biodiesel from microalgae has several advantages, including the high productivity of lipid and the possibility of cultivating them on marginal land. One of the challanges in using microalgae for biodiesel production is the complexities process of lipids extraction by organic solvents followed by transesterification....

Author(s): BENZIDANE Dehiba, BABA HAMED Mohamed Bey and ABI-AYAD Sidi-Mohammed El-Amine

May 2017

Truffle mediated (Terfezia claveryi) synthesis of silver nanoparticles and its potential cytotoxicity in human breast cancer cells (MCF-7)

Terfezia claveryi is a species that belongs to the genera of Terfeziaceae or desert truffles, which is a family of truffles. In the present study, silver nanoparticles were synthesized from aqueous extract of T. claveryi which are in the range of 25 to 60 nm. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction...

Author(s): Habeeb Khadri, Yousef H. Aldebasi and Khateef Riazunnisa

May 2017

Genetic and morphological diversity among sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L) Lam.) accessions from different geographical areas in Malawi

An understanding of morphological and genetic diversity of sweet potato landraces is fundamental to any breeding program in a country. Fifty-nine sweet potato accessions from three eco-geographical populations of northern, south eastern and southern Malawi were examined using ten Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) loci and seven International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) descriptors of sweet potato. The study...

Author(s): Felistus Chipungu, Wisdom Changadeya, Aggrey Ambali, John Saka, Nzola Mahungu and Jonathan Mkumbira

May 2017

Postpartum serum biochemical profile of Sudanese cystic ovarian crossbred dairy cattle

Cystic ovarian disease (COD) is an ovarian dysfunction in cows resulting in a serious economic loss in the dairy industry. This study was conducted to examine the hemoglobin (Hb) concentration, serum total protein (TP), phosphorus (P), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) levels of Sudanese crossbred (Friesian x Kenana) cows with COD in semi-closed condition. Forty-five dairy cows were divided into two...

Author(s): Nasser Mohammed Osman, Imadeldin Elfaki, Faisal Omer Ahmed and Abdelrahim Hommeida