A new and more aggressive strain of coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, which is highly contagious, has rapidly spread across the planet within a short period of time. Due to its high transmission rate ...and the significant time-space between infection and manifestation of symptoms, the WHO recently declared this a pandemic. Because of the exponentially growing number of new cases of both infections and deaths, development of new therapeutic options to help fight this pandemic is urgently needed. The target molecules of this study were the nitro derivatives of quinoline and quinoline N-oxide. Computational design at the DFT level, docking studies, and molecular dynamics methods as a well-reasoned strategy will aid in elucidating the fundamental physicochemical properties and molecular functions of a diversity of compounds, directly accelerating the process of discovering new drugs. In this study, we discovered isomers based on the nitro derivatives of quinoline and quinoline N-oxide, which are biologically active compounds and may be low-cost alternatives for the treatment of infections induced by SARS-CoV-2.
An algorithm is presented, that provides a fast and robust reconstruction of neutrino induced upward-going muons and a discrimination of these events from downward-going atmospheric muon background ...in data collected by the ANTARES neutrino telescope. The algorithm consists of a hit merging and hit selection procedure followed by fitting steps for a track hypothesis and a point-like light source. It is particularly well-suited for real time applications such as online monitoring and fast triggering of optical follow-up observations for multi-messenger studies. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated with Monte Carlo simulations and various distributions are compared with that obtained in ANTARES data.
The ANTARES high-energy neutrino telescope is a three-dimensional array of about 900 photomultipliers distributed over 12 mooring lines installed in the Mediterranean Sea. Between February and ...November 2007 it acquired data in a 5-line configuration. The zenith angular distribution of the atmospheric muon flux and the associated depth–intensity relation are measured and compared with previous measurements and Monte Carlo expectations. An evaluation of the systematic effects due to uncertainties on environmental and detector parameters is presented.
Xanthomonas citri subsp. citri (Xac) is the causal agent of citrus canker. A proteomic analysis under in planta infectious and non-infectious conditions was conducted in order to increase our ...knowledge about the adaptive process of Xac during infection.
For that, a 2D-based proteomic analysis of Xac at 1, 3 and 5 days after inoculation, in comparison to Xac growth in NB media was carried out and followed by MALDI-TOF-TOF identification of 124 unique differentially abundant proteins. Among them, 79 correspond to up-regulated proteins in at least one of the three stages of infection. Our results indicate an important role of proteins related to biofilm synthesis, lipopolysaccharides biosynthesis, and iron uptake and metabolism as possible modulators of plant innate immunity, and revealed an intricate network of proteins involved in reactive oxygen species adaptation during Plants` Oxidative Burst response. We also identified proteins previously unknown to be involved in Xac-Citrus interaction, including the hypothetical protein XAC3981. A mutant strain for this gene has proved to be non-pathogenic in respect to classical symptoms of citrus canker induced in compatible plants.
This is the first time that a protein repertoire is shown to be active and working in an integrated manner during the infection process in a compatible host, pointing to an elaborate mechanism for adaptation of Xac once inside the plant.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In
cultures, three species of
are known to cause distinct diseases.
subsp.
patothype A,
subsp.
pathotypes B and C, and
subsp.
, are the causative agents of cancrosis A, B, C, and citrus bacterial ...spots, respectively. Although these species exhibit different levels of virulence and aggressiveness, only limited alternatives are currently available for proper and early detection of these diseases in the fields. The present study aimed to develop a new molecular diagnostic method based on genomic sequences derived from the four species of
.
Using comparative genomics approaches, primers were synthesized for the identification of the four causative agents of citrus diseases. These primers were validated for their specificity to their target DNA by both conventional and multiplex PCR. Upon evaluation, their sensitivity was found to be 0.02 ng/µl
and 1.5 × 10
CFU ml
in infected leaves. Additionally, none of the primers were able to generate amplicons in 19 other genomes of
not associated with
and one species of
, the causal agent of citrus variegated chlorosis (CVC). This denotes strong specificity of the primers for the different species of
investigated in this study.
We demonstrated that these markers can be used as potential candidates for performing
molecular diagnosis exclusively for citrus-associated
. The bioinformatics pipeline developed in this study to design specific genomic regions is capable of generating specific primers. It is freely available and can be utilized for any other model organism.
Performance of the front-end electronics of the ANTARES neutrino telescope Al Samarai, I.; Albert, A.; Anghinolfi, M. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
10/2010, Letnik:
622, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
ANTARES is a high-energy neutrino telescope installed in the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 2475m. It consists of a three-dimensional array of optical modules, each containing a large ...photomultiplier tube. A total of 2700 front-end ASICs named analogue ring samplers (ARS) process the phototube signals, measure their arrival time, amplitude and shape as well as perform monitoring and calibration tasks. The ARS chip processes the analogue signals from the optical modules and converts information into digital data. All the information is transmitted to shore through further multiplexing electronics and an optical link. This paper describes the performance of the ARS chip; results from the functionality and characterization tests in the laboratory are summarized and the long-term performance in the apparatus is illustrated.
We carried out theoretical and experimental analyses of ZnO and ZnS nanoparticles as smart semiconductor materials in light-activated antimicrobial coating for application in masks. We used low-cost ...hydrothermally processable precursors to direct the growth of the coatings on cotton fabric. Both ZnO and ZnS coatings had high reactivities as disinfection agents in photocatalysis reactions for the degradation of a methylene blue dye solution. Also, these coatings showed excellent UV protection properties. For understanding at the molecular level, the broad-spectrum biological activities of the ZnO and ZnS coatings against Fusarium Oxysporum fungi, Escherichia coli bacteria, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus and their variants, were investigated computationally. Hexagonal Zn6O6 and Zn6S6 clusters were used as models for the simulations through excited- and ground-state calculations. The theoretical findings show that changes in the local chemical environment in these excited systems have a profound impact on their physical and chemical properties and thus, can provide a better understanding to engineer new functional materials in light-activated antimicrobial coatings for the mitigation of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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Biochemical, serological, and molecular methods have been developed for the laboratory diagnosis of diseases caused by C. pseudotuberculosis (CP), but the identification of the pathogen and biovars ...differentiation may be time-consuming, expensive, and confusing compared with other bacteria. This study aimed to evaluate MALDI Biotyper and Overall Genome Relatedness Index (OGRI) analysis to optimize the identification and differentiation of biovars of C. pseudotuberculosis. Out of 230 strains isolated from several hosts and countries, 202 (87.8%) were precisely classified using MALDI Biotyper and the BioNumerics platform. The classification accuracies for the Ovis and Equi biovars were 80 (88.75%) and 82 (92.68%), respectively. When analyzing a sampling of these strains by Average Nucleotide Identity based on BLAST and TETRA analyses using genomic sequence data, it was possible to differentiate 100% of the strains in Equi and Ovis. Our data show that MALDI Biotyper and OGRI analysis help identify C. pseudotuberculosis at the species and biovar levels.