Stevia rebaudiana produces sweet steviol glycosides extractable from the leaves. With zero calorie contents, it represented inevitable health diet for diabetic patients. Poor seed germination (10%) posed obstacles towards large scale establishment. Pollens play fundamental role in fertilization and seed sets. Studying pollen in vitro germination and growth of pollen tube are essential for explaining lack of fertility in spermatophytes. Limited studies exist on the pollen profile of this crop. Pollen viability and germinability in Stevia accessions MS007, MS012 and SBK were studied. 3000 pollen grains per accession were examined for viability. Evaluated parameter includes pollen staining ability in Cotton blue in lacto phenol. Boric acid concentrations (0.025 g, 0.05 g and 0.1 g) prepared with 20 g of sucrose in 100 ml distilled water were formulated into pollen germination medium (GM), 300 pollens per accession were scored for germinability. Analysis of variance revealed no significant difference with pollen viability at p<.424 among all the accessions; while though gernminabilty showed no significant difference at p<.478 and p<.246 for MS007 and MS012 respectively, the SBK differed significantly, with 0.1% treatment, at p<.000. The pollens were viable and possess germination ability. Optimum germination medium comprised 0.025g Boric acid. Poor seed germination in Stevia is unconnected with its pollen profile.

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Aims: Piper sarmentosum or locally known as Kaduk, is a tropical herb plant that was investigated for its phenolic content by previous researchers. The present study aimed at the analysis of crude methanolic extract of P. sarmentosum leaves for phenolic compounds identification and its anti-amoebic properties against pathogenic Acanthamoeba castellanii. Methodology and results: Folin-Ciocalteu assay was used to determine P. sarmentosum leaves methanolic extract (PSLME)'s total phenolic content (TPC). The extract was further characterized by using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) and liquid chromatographymass spectrometry (LC-MS) analyses to determine the chemical constituents in methanolic PSLME extract. The cytotoxicity of the extract was evaluated through the determination of inhibition concentration for half of cell population (IC50) of pathogenic A. castellanii followed by cell morphological analysis using inverted light and scanning electron microscopies. Acridine-orange/Propidium iodide (AOPI) staining was also conducted to determine the integrity of cell membrane for quantitative analysis. The results demonstrated that the TPC from PSLME was 142.72 mg [GAE]/g with a total of 33 phenolic compounds identified. The IC50 value obtained for A. castellanii was low (74.64 μg/mL) which indicates promising anti-acanthamoebic activity. Microscopy analyses showed that the plant extract caused cells encystment, in which exhibited by distinctive morphological changes on the cells shape and organelle, as well as shortening of acanthopodia. The dual staining and its quantitative analysis prove compromised membrane integrity in the treated amoeba. Conclusion, significance and impact of study: This finding provides the evidence that PSLME contains active phenolic compounds contributing to the anti-acanthamoebic activity on pathogenic Acanthamoeba species.

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Knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of response to environmental stress is fundamental for the development of genetically stress-tolerant crops. This study aims to find vegetable soybean accessions tolerant to cultivation in stressful tropical environments. Fourteen accessions of the vegetable soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) were grown in mineral and beach ridges interspersed with swale (BRIS) soils. The genetic diversity, estimated using inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers, revealed 42.50% polymorphism and was regarded as moderate. The unweighted pair-group method arithmetic average (UPGMA) analysis allocated the tested accessions into five major clusters at a similarity coefficient level of 0.43. The lowest values of the genetic distance were between IIUMSOY11 and IIUMSOY13 &amp; IIUMSOY13 and IIUMSOY14, indicating that these accessions were more genetically distant from the other accessions. Ten differentially expressed proteins were identified in the three selected accessions IIUMSOY1, IIUMSOY11 and IIUMSOY14 using mass spectrometry, revealing a unique expression of the proteins involved in the storage, flavonoid metabolism, protein modification, oxidative stress defence, carbohydrate metabolism and respiratory chain. The findings may be valuable for the selection of genetically diverse accessions, to enhance the breeding of vegetable soybean genotypes suitable for stressful tropical environments.