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Recent surveys conducted in 2016–2018 from the Palair Reservoir of the Indian state of Telangana resulted in the collection of 153 specimens of freshwater decapods. These specimens are assigned to 10 species: seven prawns in three genera and three families; three crabs in two genera of one family. Among these, four species are recorded here as new records to Telangana: Penaeus semisulcatus De Haan, 1844, Caridina gracilipes De Man, 1892, Barytelphusa guerini (H. Milne Edwards, 1853), and Oziotelphusa sp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ganga River, which is one of the largest river systems of India with great ecological and social values, is under strong influence of multiple anthropogenic perturbations. Although a large number of monitoring and assessment programs has been initiated by the Government of India and other agencies, there is still a lack of studies explicitly considering ecosystem responses towards human-induced alterations in rivers. The present study was targeted to measure ecosystem responses towards metal pollution in the Ganga River. This study was conducted during summer low flow of the year 2019 at four study sites along 518 km middle segment of the Ganga River. The study shows that fluorescein diacetate hydrolytic activity (FDAase) in the bed sediment can be used as an ecosystem 'response' to carbon, nutrients and metal pollution in humanimpacted rivers. The FDAase activity showed dependence on substrates (carbon and nutrients) when the heavy metal concentrations were below the toxic threshold. We found a decrease in FDAase activity at Wpdr Site despite the presence of sufficient amount of carbon. This site is characterized by high concentration of total heavy metal (THM) and total bioavailable fraction (TBF) exceeding 360 μg g-1 and 174 μg g-1 respectively and able to induce negative response. The results of this study will help understanding the ecosystem responses towards human perturbations and planning management strategies for the Ganga River rejuvenation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Twin CX9C proteins constitute a large protein family among all eukaryotes; are putative substrates of the mitochondrial Mia40-dependent import machinery; contain a coiled coil-helix-coiled coil-helix (CHCH) fold stabilized by two disulfide bonds as exemplified by three structures available for this family. However, they considerably differ at the primary sequence level and this prevents an accurate prediction of their structural models. With the aim of expanding structural information on CHCH proteins, here we structurally characterized human CHCHD5 and CHCHD7. While CHCHD5 has two weakly interacting CHCH domains which sample a range of limited conformations as a consequence of hydrophobic interactions, CHCHD7 has a third helix hydrophobically interacting with an extension of helix α2, which is part of the CHCH domain. Upon reduction of the disulfide bonds both proteins become unstructured exposing hydrophobic patches, with the result of protein aggregation/precipitation. These results suggest a model where the molecular interactions guiding the protein recognition between Mia40 and the disulfide-reduced CHCHD5 and CHCHD7 substrates occurs in vivo when the latter proteins are partially embedded in the protein import pore of the outer membrane of mitochondria. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This catalogue lists 286 valid species included in 49 genera and six families of the superfamily Hydrophiloidea (Coleoptera), recorded from India. The family Helophoridae accommodates eight species (one genus), Epimetopidae five species (one genus), Georissidae seven species (one genus), Hydrochidae four species (one genus), Spercheidae two species (one genus), and Hydrophilidae 260 species (44 genera). Of these, 113 species are apparently endemic to India. We include synonyms, type localities, and distribution of the species in Indian states and biogeographic zones including localities where known. The Himalayan region supports the maximum diversity of hydrophiloids (140 species), followed by the Deccan Peninsula (96 species), Western Ghats (84 species), Gangetic Plains (84 species), Northeast (74 species), Semi-Arid (34 species), Islands (26 species), and Desert (10 species).

Pseudophilautus regius is a bush frog originally described from the dry zones of Sri Lanka. In the present study, P. regius is being reported from the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, India as a new record for the country. The Indian population of P. regius being polytypic, identity confirmation was aided by genetic data. Earlier data for the genus Pseudophilautus indicated that three endemic species were known from the Western Ghats, India and 75 endemic species occurred in Sri Lanka. This report forms the first report of a bush frog exhibiting distribution in both India and Sri Lanka across the saltwater barrier of the Palk Strait in the Indian ocean. Discussions are made regarding other lineages which have distributions across both India and Sri Lanka.