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Biomedical subjects

R Karthikeyan

Publications and source records attributed to R Karthikeyan.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2003

Technical note: fate and transport of jet fuel (JP-8) in soils with selected plants.

Remediation of soil and groundwater contaminated by leaking fuel storage tanks may be assisted by plants, although plant effects on abiotic and biotic removal processes remain unclear. The objectives of this study were to investigate abiotic and biotic removal of JP-8, a kerosene-based jet fuel, in soils with plants, and to determine the effects of plant-induced water movement. Loss of JP-8 in a dry-soil, control column was 25% after 5 months, primarily due to volatilization and gas-phase diffusion. By comparison, managed treatments with simulated surface spills averaged 86% mass reduction at 5 months, indicating an important contribution of biodegradation. Overall JP-8 mass reduction was similar in surface and subsurface-irrigated systems, indicating water content, not mode of water application, influences bioremediation in near-surface systems. The JP-8 concentration reductions in soil columns contaminated above a simulated watertable were 36% after 3 months and 50% after 12 months for vegetated columns compared to 26% and 34% in unplanted columns. Downward movement of JP-8 in unplanted columns was double that in planted columns. Near the groundwater table, JP-8 persists longer than near the soil surface. Plants promote upward movement of water and help draw spilled JP-8 to aerobic near-surface soil.

Armoracia↗
PubMed2003

Modeling jet fuel (JP-8) fate and transport in soils with plants.

Vegetation is often used to clean up soils and groundwater contaminated with organic contaminants. Plant-induced upward water movement may draw organic contaminants spilled near the watertable to the more aerated near-surface soil. The objective of this study was to develop and verify a 1-D model of fate and transport of JP-8, a kerosene-based jet fuel, in soil. The modeling approach considered the advective and dispersive transport of jet fuels dissolved in groundwater, which may undergo simple first-order decay or linear adsorption. The governing partial differential advection dispersion equation was solved in one dimension. Data from an experiment of fate and transport of JP-8 with plant-induced upward water movement were used to verify the model. Simulated results with different scenarios described the experimental results well for different depths above the contaminated zone in both vegetated and unvegetated columns. Advection was the dominant mechanism near the contaminated zone and advection with retardation and decay was used to fit the data away from the contaminated zone. Results indicated that the soil water movement impacted the transport and concentration of JP-8 in the soil columns. This model can be used to simulate the fate of JP-8 associated with phytoremediation and evapotranspiration.

Humans↗
PubMed2003

Soil plant microbe interactions in phytoremediation.

Use of vegetation in remediation of soil and groundwater contaminated with organic materials is a promising, cost-effective alternative to the more established treatment methods used at hazardous waste sites. Plants can transpire groundwater and lower the concentrations of organic contaminants in soils and groundwater. The evapotranspirational activity of vegetation acts as a natural pump-and-treatment system. Plants have shown the capacity to absorb, uptake, and convert organic contaminants to less toxic metabolites in laboratory and field studies. Vegetation also plays a significant role in bioremediation. This is because plants stimulate the degradation of organic compounds in the rhizosphere by the release of root exudates and enzymes. Success of any plant-based remediation system depends on the interaction of plants with the surrounding soil medium and the contaminant. Knowing the fate of an organic contaminant in the soil can help determine the persistence of the contaminant in the terrestrial environment and ultimately the success of any remediation method. Also, an understanding is needed of soil-plant-microbe interactions that determine the fate of organic contaminants in the soil-plant ecosystem. This paper presents an overview of the subsurface environment and fate and transport processes of organic contaminants as affected by soil-plant-microbe interactions.

Biodegradation, Environmental↗
PubMed2000

Evidence from mutational specificity studies that yeast DNA polymerases delta and epsilon replicate different DNA strands at an intracellular replication fork.

Although polymerases delta and epsilon are required for DNA replication in eukaryotic cells, whether each polymerase functions on a separate template strand remains an open question. To begin examining the relative intracellular roles of the two polymerases, we used a plasmid-borne yeast tRNA gene and yeast strains that are mutators due to the elimination of proofreading by DNA polymerases delta or epsilon. Inversion of the tRNA gene to change the sequence of the leading and lagging strand templates altered the specificities of both mutator polymerases, but in opposite directions. That is, the specificity of the polymerase delta mutator with the tRNA gene in one orientation bore similarities to the specificity of the polymerase epsilon mutator with the tRNA gene in the other orientation, and vice versa. We also obtained results consistent with gene orientation having a minor influence on mismatch correction of replication errors occurring in a wild-type strain. However, the data suggest that neither this effect nor differential replication fidelity was responsible for the mutational specificity changes observed in the proofreading-deficient mutants upon gene inversion. Collectively, the data argue that polymerases delta and epsilon each encounter a different template sequence upon inversion of the tRNA gene, and so replicate opposite strands at the plasmid DNA replication fork.

Alleles↗
PubMed2000

Dynamic hip screw: does side make a difference? Effects of clockwise torque on right and left DHS.

A study was performed to assess the effect of clockwise rotational torque onto the fracture configuration in unstable intertrochanteric fractures. The premise is that rotational torque in the sagittal plane imparted during screw insertion can lead to a potentially unstable construct in LEFT-sided DHS fixations when compared to the RIGHT-sided ones. This unstable fixation construct manifests as an anterior spike of the proximal fragment in left-sided fixations due to clockwise torque. Eleven out of 30 unstable left-sided fractures showed an anterior spike compared with none in 26 right-sided fractures (p<0.001). The study concludes that appropriate corrective measures of reducing the torque imparted is probably indicated in unstable left-sided fractures treated with a DHS.

Aged↗
PubMed1999

Strand interruptions confer strand preference during intracellular correction of a plasmid-borne mismatch in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Site-directed mutagenesis was used to construct yeast centromere plasmids in which a strand nick or gap could be placed 5' or 3', on either strand, to a reporter gene (SUP4-o) carrying defined base mismatches. The plasmids were then transformed into yeast cells and the direction and efficiency of mismatch repair were assayed by scoring colouring of the transformant colonies. Strands that were nicked were consistently corrected more often than intact strands, but the effect was very small. However, placement of a small gap at the same positions as the nicks resulted in a marked increase in selection for the gapped strand and an enhanced efficiency of mismatch repair. Both the preference for the gapped strand and correction of the mismatch were offset by deletion of the mismatch repair gene PMS1. Together, the results suggest that strand interruptions can direct intracellular mismatch correction of plasmid-borne base mispairs in yeast.

Base Pair Mismatch↗
PubMed1999

Analysis of yeast pms1, msh2, and mlh1 mutators points to differences in mismatch correction efficiencies between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.

Genetic stability relies in part on the efficiency with which post-replicative mismatch repair (MMR) detects and corrects DNA replication errors. In Escherichia coli, endogenous transition mispairs and insertion/deletion (ID) heterologies are corrected with similar efficiencies--but much more efficiently than transversion mispairs--as revealed by mutation rate increases in MMR mutants. To assess the relative efficiencies with which these mismatches are corrected in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we examined repair of defined mismatches on heteroduplex plasmids and compared the spectra for >1000 spontaneous SUP4-o mutations arising in isogenic wild-type or MMR-deficient (pms1, mlh1, msh2) strains. Heteroduplexes containing G/T mispairs or ID heterologies were corrected more efficiently than those containing transversion mismatches. However, the rates of single base-pair insertion/deletion were increased much more (82-fold or 34-fold, respectively) on average than the rate of base pair substitutions (4.4-fold), with the rates for total transitions and transversions increasing to similar extents. Thus, the relative efficiencies with which mismatches formed during DNA replication are repaired appear to differ in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. In addition, our results indicate that in yeast, and probably other eukaryotes, these efficiencies may not mirror those obtained from an analysis of heteroduplex correction.

Base Pair Mismatch↗
PubMed1998

DNA repair in higher plants.

Numerous studies have demonstrated a requirement in plants for repair of DNA damage arising from either intrinsic or extrinsic sources. Investigations also have revealed a capacity for repair of certain types of DNA damage, and conversely, identified mutants apparently defective in such repair. This article provides a concise overview of nuclear DNA repair mechanisms in higher plants, particularly those processes concerned with the repair of UV-induced lesions, and includes surveys of UV-sensitive mutants and genes implicated in DNA repair.

Arabidopsis↗
PubMed1998

Defects in base excision repair combined with elevated intracellular dCTP levels dramatically reduce mutation induction in yeast by ethyl methanesulfonate and N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine.

Previously, we determined that elimination of deoxycytidylate (dCMP) deaminase (DCD1) in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae increases the intracellular dCTP:dTTP ratio and reduces the induction of G x C --> A x T transitions in the SUP4-o gene by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) and N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG). Simultaneously, the G x C --> C x G transversion frequency rises substantially. We attributed the first response to dCTP outcompeting dTTP for incorporation opposite O6-alkylguanine, and the second outcome to the increased dCTP pool causing error-prone repair of apurinic (AP) sites resulting from the removal or lability of N7-alkylguanine. To test the latter hypothesis, we used isogenic dcd1 strains deleted for either of two genes (MAG1: 3-methyladenine glycosylase; APN1: apurinic endonuclease) involved in the repair of N7-alkylguanine. In these backgrounds, EMS or MNNG induction of total SUP4-o mutations, G x C --> A x T transitions and G x C --> C x G transversions were reduced by >98%, >97%, and >80%, respectively. Mutation frequencies in the dcd1 apn1 strain were close to those for spontaneous mutagenesis in the wild-type parent. These findings argue that misincorporation of dCTP during repair of alkylation-induced AP sites is responsible for the increased G x C --> C x G transversion frequency in the dcd1 strain treated with EMS or MNNG. The data also demonstrate that defective repair of AP sites coupled with an elevated dCTP:dTTP ratio eliminates most EMS and MNNG mutagenesis. In addition, the results point to a role for AP sites in the production of some EMS- and MNNG-induced G x C --> A x T transitions as well as other substitutions in the dcd1 strain.

Alkylating Agents↗