The main objective of this research was to diversify the utilization of corn as commercial commodity by a corn-based new product development in the form of yoghurt. The first step was carried out to make corn yoghurt with the addition of fresh milk into heated corn extract using mixture starter of Lactobacillus delbruekii, Streptococcus salivarus, and Lactobacillus casei and the best formulation was determined through hedonic evaluation along with weighing method. The selected formulation from this step was corn extract with the addition of 50% fresh milk. The corn extract was produced from corn kernels that were blended and mixed with water in ratio of 3:1, the mixture was further heated and concentrated until the total volume remained 2/3. Afterwards, this selected formulation was added with sugar and full cream milk powder. The hedonic evaluation results showed that the mixture with 10% sugar and 5% full cream milk powder addition possessed the highest score. Lastly, the selected formulation was observed for physical, microbiological, and chemical assay during 4 weeks period. The ultimate observation concluded that the product could be classified as probiotics with total lactic acid bacteria reached 1.5 x 109 CFU/ml with medium fat content (1.8%).

Musa balbisiana Colla, known as Pisang Klutuk/Pisang Batu, is important for banana breeding program due to its B genome and often considered  to be resistant to pest, disease and drought.  Banana is a big and tall herb up to 7-9 m in height.The study was conducted to assess genetic diversity of 21 accessions of M. balbisiana cultivars/varieties from Indonesia based on Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) markers in order to provide basic information to support banana breeding program. Analyses of similarity index of Nei and Li and clustering based on UPGMA was conducted using NTSYS program. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted by MINITAB 14. Twenty two primer pairs of AFLP markers produced 485 AFLP bands varying from 51-3206 bp in size and 46.18% of the AFLP bands were polymorphic. Genetic diversity among the 21 accessions of M. balbisiana was 13.8%. The genetic diversity of wild M. balbisiana was 12.9%, higher than the genetic diversity of cultivated M. balbisiana which was 11.5%. Cluster analysis based on UPGMA suggested that wild M. balbisiana and cultivated M. balbisiana could not be separated into different clusters. Both cluster analysis and PCA produced the same three groups of the accessions. The PCA analyses showed that 17 AFLP bands were responsible for the grouping.

Captive breeding of endangered species is often difficult, and may be hampered by many factors. Sexual monomorphism, in which males and females are not easily distinguishable, is one such factor and is a common problem in captive breeding of many avian and reptile species. Species-specific nuclear DNA markers, recently developed to identify portions of sex chromosomes, were employed in this study for sex determination of Komodo dragons (Varanus Komodoensis). Each animal was uniquely tagged using a passive integrated micro-transponder (TROVAN 100A type transponders of 13 mm in length and 2 mm in diameter). The sex of a total of 81 individual Komodo dragons (44 samples from Ragunan zoo, 26 samples from Surabaya zoo, and 11 samples from Gembira Loka zoo) were determined using primers Ksex 1for and Ksex 3rev. A series of preliminary PCR amplifications were conducted using DNA from individuals of known sex. During these preliminary tests, researchers varied the annealing temperatures, number of cycles, and concentrations of reagents, in order to identify the best protocol for sex determination using our sample set. We thus developed our own PCR protocol for this study, which resulted in the amplification of band A in females and band C in males. Results from band B, however, turned out to be non-determinative in our study because, for females, band B was not always visible, and for males sometimes a similar, but lighter band was also amplified, making interpretation difficult. In this study, sex determination was based mainly on the difference in size between the female-specific 812 bp fragment and the homologous, longer fragment amplified for males.

Endophytic fungi have been known to produce a broad range of biologically active secondary metabolites. One endophytic filamentous fungus, Coelomycetes AFKR-18, isolated from the young stems of a yellow moonsheed plant, Arcangelisia flava, has been found to produce pachybasin when placed in a liquid medium. The chemical structure of pachybasin was deduced from MS, 1D-, 2D-NMR spectrum analysis, and from reference data. On a micro-dilution test, pachybasin showed antimicrobial activities against E. coli, B. subtilis, M. luteus, S. cerevisiae, C. albicans, A. niger, and A. flavus, with MIC values of 64.0 µg/mL, and against S. aureus and F. oxysporum with MIC values of 32.0 and 16.0 µg/mL respectively.

The genus Macaca, member of sub-family Cercopithecinae, is the most widely distributed non-human primates in Asian countries. The habitats are strongly influence the dietary variation of the populations. The dietary variation of the macaques reflect ecological plasticity in coping with differences both in availability and abundance of food. The macaques are plastic in taking any kind of food that available in their home range and adjust their behaviour according to its abundance. Here, we present the dietary variation of long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in the high altitude rain forest of Telaga Warna, West Java, Indonesia. The proportion of their food from natural sources is greater than those from visitors. The natural food consisted of plants, small animals (insects and earthworm), fungi and water from lake. The plant food comprised of 29 species plus a few mosses. The frequency of eating artificial food was influenced by visitors who come for picnic. In this site, the macaques learned that the visiting of tourists is identical with food.

Heat stress is a major environmental factor limiting wheat productivity in tropical regions such as Indonesia. The objective of this  study was to investigate the adaptability of introduced wheat genotypes in tropical agro-ecosystems. Sixteen spring wheat genotypes were grown at two different altitudes i.e. low altitude (176 m asl) with an average temperature of 29.8 oC located at Leuwikopo Field Experimental Station, Bogor Agricultural University, Darmaga Bogor and high altitude  (1100 m asl) with an average temperature  of 20.6 oC at Cipanas Field Experimental Station (Ornamental Crop Research Station), Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia from July to November 2012. Plant height, number of tillers, flag leaf area, leaf angle, days to flowering, spike number per plant, empty spikelet number, grain weight per plant and 100 grain weight were observed following the standard methods. Heat susceptibility index was calculated based on grain weight per plant. The results showed that cultivation at a low altitude, hotter environment remarkably affected wheat growth and yield, as reflected in overall reduction of plant height, reduced number of tillers and leaf area, and ultimately reduced yield and yield components for most genotypes compared to the same measures taken at high altitude in lower temperatures. Plant growth  before  heading was similar in both locations, but the days to flowering  was longer in high altitude  than that in low altitude. High temperature stress in low altitude reduced the spike number/plant, grain weight/plant, 100 grain weight and increase number of empty spikelet/spike. Based on our results for heat susceptibility index, six genotypes, namely Sbr, Ymh, Astreb/Cbrd, Astreb/Ningma, H-20 and Nias, were characterized as heat tolerant genotypes.

A study on biotransformation of acetonitrile using Gram-positive bacteria has been conducted. Two isolates of nitrile-degrading bacteria (strain 100A and 100D) were screened from sediments of a contaminated river in Cibinong, West Java. The bacterial isolates were identified as Rhodococcus aff. qingshengii based on molecular phylogenetic analyses of 16S rRNA sequence. These bacteria were capable to grow on medium containing 100 mM acetonitrile, but unable to grow on medium amended with 25 mM benzonitrile. Analyses using Gas Chromatography (GC) indicated that R. aff. qingshengii strain 100A and 100D has the ability to produce nitrile hidratase and amidase. The highest enzyme activity on mineral medium with the addition of 100 mM acetonitrile was 73.49 mmol/min/mL by strain 100A, and 70.52 mmol/min/mL by strain 100D.  In addition, the ammonia concentration produced by strain 100A and  100D were 180.20 and 54.10 mM, respectively. These results were supported by molecular characterization using specific primers, where strain 100A and 100D positively contain genes encoding α-nitrile hydratase (α-NHase) and amidase. There was a difference at the first position of amino acid composition of the gene encoding α-NHase between strain 100A (Methionine1) and strain 100D (Glycine1), but the amino acids composition of amidase of both strain were identical. This is the first report of R. aff. qingshengii as nitrile-degrading bacterium in Indonesia.

Physicochemical properties determine the palatability and cooking quality of rice, which must be determined efficiently in order to satisfy consumer demand. To date, little information exists on the use of molecular markers to predict physicochemical properties of the “indica” rice varieties found in Indonesia. The objective of this study was to investigate physicochemical properties and genetic variation of Indonesian rice varieties, and to formulate regression equations to analyze sets of DNA markers which could predict  amylose content (AC), protein content (PC) and pasting properties of the varieties. A total of 24 Indonesian indica rice varieties were chosen based on their genetic background and agricultural characteristics. We then measured selected physicochemical properties, and genotyped the varieties using 30 DNA markers. The chosen varieties showed favorable values for PC, AC, and six rapid viscosity analyzer (RVA) pasting properties, which was supported by molecular data. As demonstrated by principal component analysis (PCA), markers could provide a complementary method for differentiating rice varieties, as an alternative to measuring physicochemical properties. PCA analysis also allowed us to establish marker sets using multiple regression analysis. We formulated eight model regression equations comprising data regarding 15 to 19 markers with high coefficients (R2=0.98-0.99). The formulas provided results that consistently correlated and therefore predicted the physicochemical properties of indica rice. Further validation of these marker sets may provide rapid and efficient means for predicting the physicochemical properties of Indonesian-bred indica rice in the future.

Trypsin is an enzyme that has a unique mechanism of cutting peptide bonds specifically at the carboxyl side of lysine or arginine amino acids, with another amino acid. This study aims to analyze a trypsin-like protease (TLP) found in Lactobacillus plantarum FNCC 0270,  by performing partial proteomic tests, i.e. MALDI-TOF/TOF, and standard bioinformatics tools. SDS-PAGE analysis showed 4 protein bands. Two bands of the (P1 and P2) showed molecular weights equivalent to 47.35 and 38.42 kD, each generating 8 and 11 peptide fragments respectively. According to information in www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/structures, the structure  of serine protease HtrA (subs. plantarum L. plantarum ST–III) consists of three domains. Using Clone Manager® software by aligning two sequences we obtained eleven. The Lactobacillus produces of the trypsin-like serine protease has 40-90% similarity. Using the Clustal W2 software we passed the 11 sequences through multiple alignments, and found that the isolate L. plantarum is closely related to L. buchneri, L. brevis, and L. malefermentans on the phylogenetic tree. Alignment analysis results showed that all 8 peptide fragments of band 1 and 11 peptide fragments of band 2,  of the SDS-PAGE, were located in the active domain region of  the fourth trypsin-like serine protease producing Lactobacilli.

Javan deer that exist in Panaitan Island was reintroduced from Peucang Island during 1978-1982. We observed behavior of the reintroduced Javan deer inhabiting Panaitan Island. Javan deer in this island spent most of their diurnal time for feeding. There were no significant differences between all age-sex variation for all activities pattern. The behavior of Javan deer was influenced by age, sex, social group, temperature, and food availability.