A systematic spectrophotometric study on the complexation of chromium (III) ion with sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) was carried out. The effects of the degree of substitution (DS) of the polymer, the concentrations of Cr(III) and CMC solutions, the pH and temperature on the complex formation were studied in the aqueous state. CMC complexes with Cr(III) were characterized by elemental analysis, magnetic moment and spectral (Vis and IR) data. The results showed that CMC (L) chelated to the metal ion according to the formula CrL2 · 2H2O. The ligand field parameters, namely Dq, B and β were calculated; the β‐values indicate strong covalency in the ligand σ bond. The IR spectra revealed that the chelating sites of CMC are not only the carboxymethyl groups, via the ether‐ and the carboxyl‐oxygen atoms, but also the secondary hydroxyl groups.

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Sugarcane is one of the most important crops in the world for its syrup and by-products. Eight sugarcane genotypes (i.e.G.T.54-9, F.153, Co.997, Co.775, and F.161) were kindly provided by Sugar Crops Research Institute (SCRI), they were selected depending on previous screening of SCRI germplasm for studying the efficiency of technique that combined Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSRs) as marker to assist selection for drought tolerance in sugarcane and compared it with RAPD and ISSR each separately. This technique is called R-ISSR.The performances of studied genotypes revealed that RAPD, ISSR, and R-ISSR techniques are useful as marker assisted selection for drought tolerance in sugarcane. 26 positive and negative markers were obtained from used techniques (RAPD, ISSR and R-ISSR), which would be used as marker to assist selection for drought tolerance. The study revealed that R-ISSR technique was more efficiency in this case. The study encourages breeder to use R-ISSR technique in the early selection for drought tolerance through sugarcane breeding programs.

Pomegranate fruit is a rich source of antimicrobial agents. Herein, the antibacterial potencies of four pomegranate cultivar peel extracts; Wonderful, H116, Manfalouty and Black, against five pathogenic bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Salmonella typhimurium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli have been evaluated with routine disc diffusion susceptibility testing. The gross effects of peel extracts on bacterial DNA have been assessed with the rep-PCR DNA fingerprinting technique. The results indicated that all cultivar peel extracts showed enhanced antibacterial activities against the tested strains compared to controls. The polymorphic DNA banding patterns of E. coli O157:H7, as a reference strain, treated with different cultivar peel extracts were used as a reference test to detect the mutagenic effect of peel extracts. The study indicated that pomegranate peel is a promising source as antibacterial agents or bacterial mutagens.

Eight sugarcane genotypes (i.e.G.T.54-9, F.153, Co.997, Co.775, F.161) were selected depending on previous screening of Sugar Crops Research Institute (SCRI) germplasm for detecting morphological parameters and some molecular markers which could assist selection for drought tolerance in sugarcane using Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs). The eight sugarcane genotypes were screened for drought tolerance depending on five traits (i.e. stalk height, stalk diameter, stalk weight, leaf area and number of stalks /m 2 ) in two dislocated experiments (sandy culture and open field experiments), where molecular studies were carried out. All studied genotypes were significantly affected by drought in both field and sandy culture experiments. The most affected trait was stalk weight which had the highest reduction percentage (21.55 and 28.93%), followed by No. stalk/m 2 (15.22 and 19.7 %) in sandy culture and field experiments, respectively. The highest reduction percentage was recorded for genotype Co775 with leaf area trait (39.88 %) in field experiment and stalk weight (64.44 %) in sandy culture. The most drought tolerant genotypes were Sp8032-80, Co997 and BOT41, while the most sensitive were Co775, F153 and F161.The performances of studied genotypes revealed the ability of using SSR technique as marker assisted selection for drought tolerance in sugarcane, in this context three positive and negative markers were obtained. Primer SSR15 produced one band with molecular weight 123 bp which could be used as marker for drought sensitivity (negative marker), however, SSR80 produced two bands 24 bp and 35 bp that could be used as negative and positive markers. This data would help the exploitation of sugarcane germplasm on molecular basis, so we highly recommend using SSR as marker assisted selection for drought tolerance in sugarcane.