In the article are presented the results of a comparative study of the effect of the scion age, insulating material and timing of grafting on the survival of representatives of the genus Abies Mill. It is established that representatives of the genus Abies Mill. have a high regenerative capacity, which allows the use of 2–4 years cuttings as a scion. The optimal stocks are species of Korean fir and Manchurian fir plants. Sleeping buds, as well as the buds covered with insulating material, should not be removed, as they subsequently start to grow and form the scion crown. The use of photodegradable Buddy Tape as an insulating material significantly increases the survival rate of grafts, and when grafting in open ground conditions, protect grafted plants with a shade tissue.

The data have been presented on physiological and biochemical properties (growth, acidogenic, proteolytic and antagonistic аctivity, resistance to NaCl) of lactic acid bacterial strains of Lactococcus lactis isolated from Belarus natural sources. These strains are promising for use as starter cultures for fermented dairy products, cheese.

An annual catch of 45 % of the commercial stock is recommended on the basis of productivity and mortality of mature individuals. Commercial stock is made up of individuals with a total length of ≥ 10.5 cm (from the tip of the rostrum to the end of the telson, TL). Female individuals of narrow-clawed crayfish participate in 1–2 reproduction periods before they reach the commercial stock value of 10.5 cm. Crayfish individuals of 12 cm TL at the age of 5 years have the maximum observed growth rate. At the age of 3 years, crayfish individuals have the maximum observed cohort biomass (a group of evenaged individuals).

Using real-time PCR analysis, the constitutive expression of PR-protein genes encoding thaumatin-like protein (TLP), peroxidase III (TaPero), chitinase (Chitin), glucanase (Glucan), protease inhibitor (PrInh), oxalate oxidase (OxOxid) and lipid transfer protein (Ltp) was studied in collection varieties of winter wheat. It has been shown that plants of varieties with increased resistance to a complex of leaf pathogens have higher constitutive expression levels of Chitin and PrInh genes, and, to a greater extent, of TLP, TaPero and Glucan genes, compared with non-resistant varieties. It is proposed to use constitutive levels of expression of TLP, TaPero and Glucan genes for the selection of winter wheat varietal samples with increased resistance to the complex of leaf diseases.

In current study plasmids (size from 6.2 to 8.5 kb) copied with the “rolling circle” mechanism (RCR type) of the pC194 family have been identified in environmental bacteria Bacillus pumilus. It is shown that these extrachromosomal elements are widely distributed in B. pumilus bacteria circulating on the territory of Belarus (19 strains from 41 contain RCRplasmids) and they are characterized by genetic polymorphism. The most common extrachromosomal genetic elements (7.7 kb size) are identical to the plasmid pBp15.1S from the entomopathogenic strain B. pumilus 15.1. The remaining 6 type of plasmids differ from each other and from the known extrachromosomal genetic elements of genus Bacillus. In the investigated bacteria no replicons similar to pLS20 were detected.

. The need to study the current state of cenotic populations of rare plant species in nature is not in doubt for the conservation of floristic and phytocenotic diversity at the regional and world levels. The purpose of our study is to study the current state of the cenotic populations of Rare in the Middle Volga basin Hedysarum grandiflorum Pall. To characterize the ontogenetic structure of the cenopopulations, generally accepted demographic indicators were used: the recovery index (the ratio of growth to the generative fraction is calculated), the replacement index (the ratio of growth and the sum of generative and post-regenerative fractions), and the aging index (post-generative to the adult part of the cenotic populations). The population estimation was carried out by the criterion “delta-omega”.

A relatively narrow range of ecological and phytocoenotic growth conditions is characteristic of the species, for the most part a patient type of life strategy. Among the limiting factors for the development of populations of environmental factors are their location at the border of the area, uncontrolled grazing in areas, excessive recreation of territories and steppe fires (natural origin and pala) in phytocenoses with the participation of a penny, career development of limestone and Cretaceous slopes, and construction debris, the appearance of dirt roads and the construction of various objects in the points of growth of the model species.

The main ways of ontogenesis of the species are identified – normal, accelerated and delayed, breaks in the development of individuals, their rejuvenation and the manifestation of quasisenity were noted. The majority of H. grandiflorum develop at a normal and accelerated rate. The main indicator for determining the current state of populations and their loci is the ontogenetic structure. As an example, information on the ontogenetic composition of some cenopopulations of H. grandiflorum at the Chubovskaya Krasnaya Gorka (High Samara Zavolzhye, Russia) is given. Populations are characterized by the predominance of generative individuals. Of the registered cenopopulations, 11 is characterized as mature, 9 – transitional, 2 – ripening, 1 – young. Aggregation is characteristic of the spatial structure of H. grandiflorum.

The main morphological features that make it possible to identify the majority of the creeping juniper ornamental forms (Juniperus horizontalis Moench.), are the needle color and the habit of the plants. When identifying cultivars similar in these features, one should take into account the type of needles, the position of the first-order branchlets and the density of their placement on branches, the length of the penultimate and last order branchlets, the color of growing and lignified sprays, the aroma of needles during trituration.

An assessment of the regenerative capacity was made for 20 highbush blueberry cultivars and 3 half-highbush blueberry cultivars introduced in Belarus, based on 9-year research results. Has been established that the regeneration ability of the green cuttings of blueberry is genetically determined with varying degrees of severity in one or another cultivar. The results obtained allowed to classify blueberry cultivars according to their root-forming ability into three groups: easily rooted ((‘Elizabeth’, ‘Hardyblue’, ‘Northland’), medium rooted ((‘Blueray’, ‘Coville’, ‘Croatan’, ‘Darrow’, ‘Denise Blue’, ‘Herbert’, ‘Jersey’, ‘Northcountry’, ‘Reka’, ‘Rubel’) and difficult to resist (‘Bluecrop’, ‘Bluetta’, ‘Bluerose’, ‘Carolinablue’, ‘Duke’, ‘Earliblue’, ‘Nelson’, ‘Northblue’, ‘Patriot’, ‘Weymouth’). It is reliably shown that one hundred varieties of this crop, possessing a higher rootforming ability, produce plants with large biometric parameters of the above-ground sphere. The blue cuttings of highbush and half-highbush blueberries have a satisfactory regenerative capacity, which makes it possible to use this method of vegetative propagation for replication and to obtain planting material of this culture in Belarus.

It was studied the features of amino acid content of protein regions of “alpha + beta” and “alpha/beta” classes, that are prone to structural transitions. The data have been obtained by the way of the comparison of different threedimensional structures of proteins with absolutely identical amino acid sequence. In this study we ignored fragments of proteins in which positions of atoms cannot be determined with the help of X-ray crystallography. Proteins of “alpha + beta” class are less stable than proteins of “alpha/beta” class, since the percent of structurally instable residues in them is higher. Most frequent type of structural transitions is the decrease of length of N-terminal and C-terminal parts of alpha helices and beta strands. Alpha helices and beta strands that can completely disappear (turn to coil) have also been found. The data of their amino acid content is important for the development of the method able to detect fragments of proteins prone to transitions from alpha helix to beta strand. Those fragments should combine characteristic features of amino acid content of both completely disappearing alpha helices and completely disappearing beta strands. The amino acid composition of alpha-helices capable to complete disappearance is significantly different from that for beta-strands capable to complete disappearance: frequencies of alanine, glutamine and glutamic acid usage are increased, frequencies of isoleucine, threonine and glycine usage are reduced.

In a field experiment, the dying off of sanitary-indicative bacteria in grasses when irrigating them with wastewater of a pig breeding complex was assessed. Watering was carried out with norms of 270, 180 and 90 m3/ha. Bacterial contamination of herbs was directly dependent on the rate of irrigation with wastewater. E. coli 10 days after watering with a wastewater norm of 270 m³/ha was preserved in plants, while at a rate of 180 and 90 m³/ha it was absent. After 21 days, this microorganism was absent in plants with all types of irrigation wastewater. For indicators of E. coli, the total microbial count (TBC), enterococci is adequate model of the exponential dying of bacteria in plants, depending on the time after watering wastewater. Microorganisms were distributed according to the rate of dying down as follows (in decreasing direction): E. coli (k = 0.48 day–1), TBC (k = 0.089–0.17 day–1), enterococci (k = 0.086–0.10 day–1). The time of a 10-fold reduction in the number of bacteria was smaller for E. coli – 4.76 days, for enterococci it varied from 22.91 to 26.69, for TBC – from 13.37 to 25.77 days. The obtained equations of multiple regression allowed to identify the most significant factors influencing the number of bacteria, as well as to predict it within the framework of the models created.

Binding of interleukin-6 (IL-6) is the perspective target for the anti-inflammatory therapy in many pathological conditions (sepsis, autoimmune pathology, allergic diseases). The aim of this work was to develop and study the binding IL-6 oligopeptides. To achieve the goal, were set and successfully solved the following tasks: studying three-dimensional models of molecular structures of IL-6 incombination with the R-IL-6 and gp130, prediction and virtual synthesis low molecular weight oligopeptides; evaluating the free energy of IL-6 binding for identity the most effective oligopeptide; studying the changing the concentration of IL-6 inthe model solution after contact with experimental oligopeptides. In the article presents the binding IL-6 energy of 62 peptides, designed using the PyMol. Energy was calculated in the Chimera program using the AutodockVina application. There are also presented results of in vitro experiments interacting 7 sextapeptides, 2 tetrapeptides, and 3 tripeptides with recombinant IL-6. The effectiveness of the peptides was calculated by reducing the concentration of cytokine in solution as a percentage of the initial concentration.

The free binding energy has shown that the efficiency of binding increases with an increase in the total number of amino acids and, in particular, of aromatic amino acids in the oligopeptide. Correlation analysis showed that the molecular modeling method is not absolutely effective for predicting the structure of an oligopeptide, however, it can be used as one of the preliminary steps for analyzing the interaction between molecules and studying the optimal interaction points. Two oligopeptides were identified as the most promising for further synthesis as the ligands for binding and evaluating IL-6 inhuman blood plasma.

Creation of allotetraploid cowberry-blueberry hybrids is a promising direction in Vacciniaceae breeding. However, obtaining such hybrids is difficult because of biological features of tetraploid cowberry. In this regard the aim of research was study of pollen viability of tetraploid cowberry, its crossing ability with different species and interspesific blueberry hybrid in various years, as well as based on the results obtained, selection of promising methods of growth stimulation of pollen tubes, hybrid seed setting and cultivation of hybrid seedlings.

As a result of research it has been established that tetraploid cowberry is characterized by low productivity and pollen viability, although its viability may reach 10.7 % in some years. Hybrid seedlings gradually died off with growth. On the base of the data obtained it is proposed that a special technique be used to increase hybrid fruit setting (pollination of flowers by a mixture of pollen, pollination in different life spans of a flower, castration of flowers without removing a corolla, reciprocal crosses, spraying pollinated flowers by solutions of growth regulators and microelements) and cultivation of hybrid seedlings (in vitro culture).

The ecological status of the technologically transformed and natural territories of Belarushas been ranked by changing the morphometric and cytogenetic indices of separate vegetative organs (lamina and root) in three model species of phytoindicators. Based on the results of multidimensional scaling (bootstrap (1000)), 3 clusters have been identified: the first combines the territories of large urban cenoses (Gomel+ Minsk), the second includes part of the republic territory most exposed to radiation pollution (Khoyniki + PSRER exclusion zone), and the third acts as a standard of the state of the environment (Berezinsky Biosphere Reserve). The suitability of plants of various taxonomic groups (Betula pendula Roth., Trifolium repens L., Allium cepa L.) as bioindicators for assessing the state of the natural environment has been shown.

Among the variety of modern nanomaterials a special class – nanoflowers can be distinguished. These new nanostructures have induced the interest of scientists due to the topographic features of nanolayers, the special location of which allows a higher surface-to-volume ratio compared to classical spherical nanoparticles. Such topographic structure significantly increases the efficiency of surface reactions for nanoflowers. The main purpose of this type of nanomaterials is their use as enzyme stabilizers. Enzymes are biosystems with high activity and substrate specificity, but their use is limited by certain disadvantages, such as high sensitivity to the environment, low reproducibility of experimental results and requirements for complex purification of the components. To facilitate the functioning of enzymes in various conditions, organicinorganic hybrid nanomaterials have been developed, the name of which indicates that all components of inorganic nanoparticles are associated with organic materials. These nanoparticles have numerous promising applications in catalysis, as biosensors, and for drug delivery. Organic-inorganic hybrid nanoflowers have led to the development of a new branch of chemistry – the chemistry of hybrid nanomaterials, whose research is currently undergoing rapid development. Thus, the study of organic-inorganic hybrid nanocrystals can lead to new creative solutions in the field of chemistry of enzyme systems and the rapid development of bionanomaterials and new branches of biotechnology.