Culex mosquitoes have emerged as important model organisms for mosquito biology, and are disease vectors for multiple mosquito-borne pathogens, including West Nile virus. We characterized epoxide hydrolase activities in the mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus, which suggested multiple forms of epoxide hydrolases were present. We found EH activities on epoxy eicosatrienoic acids (EETs). EETs and other eicosanoids are well-established lipid signaling molecules in vertebrates. We showed EETs can be synthesized in vitro from arachidonic acids by mosquito lysate, and EETs were also detected in vivo both in larvae and adult mosquitoes by LC-MS/MS. The EH activities on EETs can be induced by blood feeding, and the highest activity was observed in the midgut of female mosquitoes. The enzyme activities on EETs can be inhibited by urea-based inhibitors designed for mammalian soluble epoxide hydrolases (sEH). The sEH inhibitors have been shown to play diverse biological roles in mammalian systems, and they can be useful tools to study the function of EETs in mosquitoes. Besides juvenile hormone metabolism and detoxification, insect epoxide hydrolases may also play a role in regulating lipid signaling molecules, such as EETs and other epoxy fatty acids, synthesized in vivo or obtained from blood feeding by female mosquitoes.

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Silk fibroin (SF), which is a protein‐based biomacromolecule, proved to be an important biomaterial in biomedical applications and tissue engineering. The present study mainly focused to investigate the effective antibiotic against the common pathogens found at the site of burn wounds. The SF films prepared with selected antibiotics had shown activity against the target bacterial pathogens, but no activity was found against fungal species. The release of antibiotics from films resulted in the microbial susceptibility. Results have shown Ciprofloxacin—6 μg, Amoxicillin—15 μg, and Nystatin—70 μg at minimal inhibition concentration (MIC) has shown maximum zone of inhibition when compared with other antibiotics. The antibiotic‐based silk fibroin (ABSF) films have shown a positive effect on cell viability and cell adhesion on the L929 fibroblast cell line. The structural conformations of films were also carried out by FTIR and XRD, an increase in the crystalline size was observed in the antibiotic‐based film. Results demonstrate that ABSF films can act against the pathogens without losing their drug nature, can reduce the chance of infections at the site of the wound, and also can establish the basis for the accelerated healing process of the burn wound.

Soil - crop suitability studies provide information on choice of crops to be grown on best suited soil unit for maximizing crop production per unit of land, labour and inputs. Soil-site suitability evaluation for identifying potential areas of pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) was conducted at 1:8000 scale in Basavanagiri of Mysore district, Karnataka. Detailed soil survey of study area was carried out using cadastral map and four soil series mapped with 23 soil-mapping units. The results showed that 22 per cent of total area covering four mapping units of Bg 3 soil series is highly suitable for growing pigeon pea. Whereas, sixteen units covering 122 ha is moderately suitable and two mapping units of Bg1soil series are found not suitable for pigeon pea cultivation. Soil depth, topography, effective rooting depth and gravelliness found to be major limitations for pigeon pea production in the study area.