Inula racemosa Hook. f. is commonly called Pushkarmool, belongs to family Asteraceae. The plant is distributed in temperate alpine Himalayas at an altitude of 1,500-4,200m from Kashmir to Kumaon, Afghanistan to Central Nepal. Pushkarmool is commercially a very important medicinal plant of the North Western Himalayas. The plant is used in Ayurveda as an expectorant, rejuvenator and immune modulator. Root powder is reportedly hypoglycemic and hypocholesterolemic in human subjects. The species is critically endangered because of the fragile nature of its habitat, habitat destruction, illegal harvesting from the wild source, high market demand and destructive harvesting practices. The objective of the present study was to develop effective pre-sowing treatments to improve the seed germination, and to reduce mean germination time, so that protocols for commercial production of the plant could be developed and natural populations restored to ensure proper conservation of the species. In the present study phytohormones and other seed dormancy breaking chemicals were used to investigate their effect on seed germination. The results revealed highest mean percentage of germination in chilling treatment Ch 1 (30 day chilled seeds) followed by treatment GA 3 1 (Gibbrellic acid, 10 -3 M) in almost all day intervals, barring 16 th day interval where highest mean percentage of germination was observed in chilling treatment Ch 2 (40 day chilled seeds) and least was observed in Com. 1 and control treatments. On 30 th day, the highest mean percentage of germination ± SE (82±1.15) was observed in treatment Ch 1 followed by GA 3 1 (79±1.73) and least (24±1.15) was observed in treatment Com .4 (H 2 SO 4 /NAA2). However, no germination was observed treatments K 1 (Potassium nitrate, 0.2 %,) and K 2 (Potassium nitrate, 0.3 %). Treatment S 1 (Acid scarification for 1 min.) with mean percentage of germination ± SE (31±1.15) was at par with treatment Com 2 (H 2 SO 4 /GA 3 2), but was statistically different from all other treatments. All the treatments were statistically significant. On 28 th day, the highest mean percentage of germination ± SE (82±1.15) was observed in treatment Ch 1 followed by Ch 2 (78±1.15) and GA 3 1 (74±1.15) least (23±1.15) was observed in treatment Com .4. From day 14 th to day 26 th , treatments GA 3 1 and GA 3 2 (Gibbrellic acid, 10 -4 M) were statistically different from each other as well as from the rest of all other treatments. From day 6 th to day 18 th , treatments NAA1 (Naphthalene acetic acid, 25 ppm) and NAA2 (Naphthalene acetic acid, 50 ppm) were at par with each other, but from day interval of 20 th to 26 th these treatments were statistically different from each other. Treatments were statistically significant on all day intervals. The germination study gives an insight into the measures to be taken to increase the efficiency of seed germination to ensure the conservation of the endangered species.
Environmental biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for the protection and restoration of the quality of our environment. Biotechnological processes to protect the environment have been used for almost a century now, even longer than the term "biotechnology" exists. Biotechnological techniques to treat waste before or after it has been brought into the environment are components of environmental biotechnological tools. Biotechnology can also be applied industrially for use in developing products and processes that generate less waste and use less nonrenewable resources and consume less energy. A biosensor is an analytical device that integrates a biological sensing element (e.g., an enzyme or an antibody) with a physical (e.g., optical, mass, or electrochemical) transducer, whereby the interaction between the target and the bio-recognition molecules is translated into a measurable electrical signal. Potent alternatives to conventional analytical techniques are Optical biosensors that exploit light absorption, fluorescence, luminescence, reflectance, Raman scattering and refractive index. Devoid of any time-consuming sample concentration and or prior sample pretreatment steps these biosensors provide rapid, highly sensitive, real-time, and highfrequency monitoring. Although optical biosensors have great potential applications in the areas of environmental monitoring, food safety, drug development, biomedical research, and diagnosis. Their use in fields of environmental pollution control and early warning is still in the early stages. Biosensors are classified according to their transduction principle such as optical, electrochemical and piezoelectric or based on their recognition element as immunosensors, apt sensors, genosensors, and enzymatic biosensors, when antibodies, aptamers, nucleic acids, and enzymes are, respectively, used.
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