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The use of potent fungal mixed cultures is a promising technique for the biodegradation of crude oil. Four isolates of fungi, namely, Alternaria alternata (AA-1), Aspergillus flavus (AF-3), Aspergillus terreus (AT-7), and Trichoderma harzianum (TH-5), were isolated from date palm soil in Saudi Arabia. The mixed fungal of the four isolates have a powerful tool for biodegradation up to 73.6% of crude oil (1%, w/v) in 14 days. The fungal consortium no. 15 containing the four isolates (1:1:1:1) performed significantly better as a biodegradation agent than other consortium in a variety of environmental factors containing crude oil concentration, incubation temperature, initial pH, biodegradation time and the salinity of the medium. The fungal consortium showed better performance in the biodegradation of normal alkanes (n-alkanes) than that of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs); the biodegradation efficiency of normal alkanes of the fungal consortium (67.1%) was clearly high than that of the PAHs (56.8%).

Maize is a significant staple crop and utilized in Saudi Arabia as food and feed, but maize is often infected with Aspergillus flavus in tropical and subtropical climates, especially during storage. This study intended at a polyphasic approach, consisting of microscopic morphological, biochemical, and molecular characterizations that were applied to 29 of A. flavus isolates of stored maize, with the goal of characterization and identification of aflatoxigenic and non-aflatoxigenic A. flavus isolates. The technique of real-time PCR (RTi-PCR) was used to detection of A. flavus in stored maize samples, the findings have been very accurate. Centered on macroscopic morphological (primarily colony color and morphology of conidia) and microscopic (morphology of conidia and size) characteristics. Results have shown 23 A. flavus isolates (80%) were categorized as the dark green of colonies also all isolates were rough conidia. The isolates have been two different groups, 16 isolates (62%) had sclerotium-forming and the remaining 13 isolates (38%) had no sclerotium-forming isolates. To the identification of aflatoxigenic isolates of A. flavus in stored maize, we utilized the qualitative methods (easy and inexpensive) like UV test, yellow pigmentation, and ammonia vapor and quantitative method as HPLC (accurate and expensive). the accuracy methods to the identification aflatoxigenicity isolates, vary, and classified in the following descending order: HPLC (100%) > UV method (81%) > yellow pigmentation (YP) and ammonia vapor (AV) (63%). The profile of Aflatoxigenicity of A. flavus isolates by HPLC has been involved in two types first of 11 isolates (38%) have been aflatoxigenic isolates while 18 isolates (62%) were non-aflatoxigenic isolates. The expression of six aflatoxins (AFs) genes ( aflD , aflM , aflO , aflP , aflR , and aflQ ) was estimated using PCR and RT-PCR. PCR of all genes did not correspond to the aflatoxigenic isolates. The transcriptional analysis of aflO and aflQ was a beneficial marker for discriminating aflatoxigenic from non-aflatoxigenic A. flavus isolates. Also, qRT-PCR indicated that non-aflatoxigenic isolates had a high incidence of defect or downregulation in late AF-genes contrast with early AF-genes. therefore, these non-aflatoxigenic isolates could be critical factors for an efficient and competent strategy for the control of aflatoxin contamination pre-harvest can be considered.

A new rapid and simple stability-indicating spectrofluorimetric method has been developed for the determination of two irreversible tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), neratinib (NER) and pelitinib (PEL). The method is based upon measurement of the native fluorescence intensity of both drugs at λ 270 nm in aqueous borate buffer solutions (pH 10.5). The fluorescence intensity recorded at 545 nm (NER) and 465 nm (PEL) were rectilinear over the concentration range of 0.1-10 μg/mL for both drugs with a high correlation coefficient (r > 0.999). The proposed method provided low limits of detection and of quantitation of 0.07, 0.11 μg/mL (NER) and 0.02, 0.05 μg/mL (PEL), respectively. The method was successfully applied for the determination of NER and PEL in bulk powder. The proposed methods were fully validated as per the International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH) guidelines. The application of the method was extended to stability studies of both NER and PEL under different forced-degradation conditions (acidic-induced, base-induced, oxidative, wet heat, and photolytic degradation). Moreover, the kinetics of the base-induced and oxidative degradation of both drugs was investigated and the pseudo-first-order rate constants and half-lives were estimated at different temperatures. Also, an Arrhenius plot was applied to predict the stability behaviour of the two drugs at room temperature. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.