Poultry meat and eggs are important foods for fulfilling the dietary needs of the ever-growing human population. Efficient poultry production, however, necessitates use of pharmaceutical products, such as antibiotics, as prophylactic and curatives to ensure rapid growth and health. Nevertheless, inappropriate and non-judicious use of these drugs results in an accumulation of toxic and harmful residues in meat and eggs of treated birds which affect consumer health by triggering allergic reactions and transmitting antibiotic-resistant microbial infections. Therefore, regulatory authorities must take rigorous steps to curtail inappropriate use of numerous drugs for animal use in order to provide safe animal origin food to humans.

External guide sequences (EGSs) are oligonucleotides that consist of a sequence complementary to a target mRNA and recruit intracellular RNase P for specific degradation of the target RNA. In this study, DNA-based EGS molecules were chemically synthesized to target the mRNA coding for the protease of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). The EGS molecules efficiently directed human RNase P to cleave the target mRNA sequence in vitro. When EGSs were exogenously administered into HCMV-infected human foreskin fibroblasts, a reduction of about 80 -90% in the expression level of the protease and a reduction of about 300-fold in HCMV growth were observed in the cells that were treated with a functional EGS, but not in cells that were not treated with the EGS or with a ''disabled'' EGS carrying nucleotide mutations that precluded RNase P recognition. Moreover, packaging of the viral DNA genome into the capsid was blocked in the cells treated with the functional EGS. These results indicate that HCMV protease is essential for viral DNA encapsidation. Moreover, our study provides direct evidence that exogenous administration of a DNAbased EGS can be used as a therapeutic approach for inhibiting gene expression and replication of a human virus.

Dumping of dye-laden effluents into different environmental compartments adversely affects equilibrium and integrity of ecological systems. Being genotoxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic these dyes are quite damaging to health of biota (either aquatic or terrestrial). Many of these dyes are resistant to degradation and remediation under natural conditions and through conventional treatment methods. This situation has necessitated the development of effective and efficient wastewater treatment strategies without further stressing the environment and endangering other life forms. To date many biological systems including microorganisms and plants have been assessed for metabolism of dyestuffs. Phytoremediation catalyzed by natural solar driven pumps (green plants) and their associated metabolic processes has emerged as a comparatively new approach and has proven to be one of the most effective environmental friendly strategies for removal, detoxification and decolorization of dyes. Hence, this review quotes the literature of applied aspects of various plant species and their inherent metabolic as well as extractive potentials which enable them to effectively deal with various coloring agents. ª 2015 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Dengue virus syndrome is an emerging global health challenge which is endemic in tropical countries like Pakistan. In recent years dengue incidences have increased considerably in different areas of Pakistan with more sever impacts on urban and peri-urban populations. This review is an effort to highlight the changing epidemiology of dengue fever, role of Government of Pakistan in disease management and control using preventive and community based approaches in the region. Moreover, there is an emphasis on application of Wolbachia as novel, inexpensive and environmentally benign candidate for control and eradication of dengue transmitting vectors.

Understanding the proteolytic processing of polyprotein mediated by NS2B-NS3 protease contributes to the exploration of the mechanisms underlying infection of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), a zoonotic flavivirus. In this study, eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell models were employed to identify the cleavage sites mediated by viral NS2B-NS3 protease in JEV polyprotein. Artificial green fluorescent protein (GFP) substrates that contained the predicted cleavage site sequences of JEV polyprotein were expressed in swine testicle (ST) cells in the presence and absence of JEV infection, or co-expressed in E. coli with the recombinant NS2B-NS3 protease that was generated by fusing the N-terminal protease domain of NS3 to the central hydrophilic domain of NS2B. The cleavage of GFP substrates was examined by western blot. Among twelve artificial GFP substrates containing the cleavage site sequences predictively processed by host cell and/or NS2B-NS3 proteases, all sites were found to be cleaved by host cell proteases with different efficiencies. The sites at internal C, NS2A/NS2B, NS2B/NS3 and NS3/NS4A junctions, but not the sites at internal NS3, internal NS4A and NS4B/NS5 junctions were identified to be cleaved by JEV NS2B-NS3 protease. These data provide insight into the proteolytic processing of polyprotein, which is useful for understanding JEV replication and pathogenesis.