In this study, flavohemoproteins from protist, bacterial and fungal sources as well those available in metagenome data have been characterized using standard bioinformatics tools in order to study ...their phylogenetic relationships, three-dimensional structure and functional parameters. 5 clusters of metagenomic proteins were identified which showed the closest neighbors with known genera. The average length of flavohemoprotein in the data set was found to be 414 residues. The average pI and molecular weight (MW) was 6.72 and 47.28 kDa respectively in all strains including metagenome sequences. Flavohemoproteins showed similar amino acid composition among different organisms including proteins from metagenomic data and from known genera, with relative higher abundance of amino acids Ala and Leu. The secondary structure prediction results revealed that the enzymes are dominated by α-helices and random coils. Tertiary structure analysis revealed the presence of three ligand binding sites for Heme, FAD and NAD. The computational analysis of flavohemoproteins from metagenomic data done in this study can provide useful sequence and structural information which can be further used for metaproteomic analysis in search for novel flavohemoprotein enzymes from the environment.
Green, simple and quick melamine sensing assays for highly efficient detection of melamine down to nM level have been reported. Biopolyphenols (rutin & curcumin) were used as reducing and stabilizing ...agents for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The synthesis of AgNPs was confirmed by FTIR, UV–Visible, XRD and HRTEM-EDS analysis. The biopolyphenols reduced AgNPs were well dispersed and spherical in shape. However, the presence of melamine in the reaction medium disrupted their synthesis. This may be attributed to interaction of melamine with Ag+ ions and biopolyphenols. At low concentration of melamine, pale red colored solution was obtained owing to formation of aggregated mass of AgNPs, whereas, at high concentration of melamine, colorless solution was obtained indicating disruption in synthesis of AgNPs. The presented protocol was proposed in light of optical responses, UV–Visible plots and HRTEM-EDS analysis. Using the sensor assays, good limit of detection, 0.01 ppm (79 nM) and 0.24 ppm (1900 nM) by Ag-Rutin and Ag-Curcumin respectively, were obtained. The detection limits offered by both sensing assays were quite lower than safety level recommended by regulatory bodies (20 μM in the USA and EU, 8 μM for infant formula in China). The sensing assays displayed good selectivity as well as sensitivity. The proposed sensor was successfully deployed for detection of melamine in raw milk samples.
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•One-pot colorimetric melamine sensing assays.•Green, simple and quick melamine detection down to nM level.•The proposed sensing assays offer highly sensitive and selective detection of melamine.•The so developed sensing assay require no expensive and complicated instruments.
Antimicrobial peptides in recent years have gained increased interest among scientists, health professionals and the pharmaceutical companies owing to their therapeutic potential. These are low ...molecular weight proteins with broad range antimicrobial and immuno modulatory activities against infectious bacteria (Gram positive and Gram negative), viruses and fungi. Inability of micro-organisms to develop resistance against most of the antimicrobial peptide has made them as an efficient product which can greatly impact the new era of antimicrobials. In addition to this these peptides also demonstrates increased efficacy, high specificity, decreased drug interaction, low toxicity, biological diversity and direct attacking properties. Pharmaceutical industries are therefore conducting appropriate clinical trials to develop these peptides as potential therapeutic drugs. More than 60 peptide drugs have already reached the market and several hundreds of novel therapeutic peptides are in preclinical and clinical development. Rational designing can be used further to modify the chemical and physical properties of existing peptides. This mini review will discuss the sources, mechanism and recent therapeutic applications of antimicrobial peptides in treatment of infectious diseases.
The students who study biology often develop fear from mathematical concepts and tend to avoid the pages of biology textbook where mathematical details are included. The students often perceive ...Mathematics and Biology as two separate disciplines of study. One of the main reasons for this perception is that biology textbooks do not include relevant mathematical details in biological concepts. Moreover, biology teachers often have little or no mathematical academic background while mathematics is taught by teachers with least or no interest in biology. This often leads to the lack of understanding among students that both subjects are actually linked to each other. So, the students study them in parallel and there are hardly any cross talks between these two subjects. But, the myth is debunked later when biology students reach the undergraduate and postgraduate level wherein they are expected to apply the mathematical skills to understand the biological concepts. So, if the realization is sparked at an early stage during schooling years that both Mathematics and Biology are related to each other, then the ‘Maths phobia’ among Biology students can be easily overcome. In this article, illustrative examples have been presented with detailed explanation wherein the biology students can appreciate mathematical concepts efficiently in a teaching-learning environment at the senior secondary level.
Robotic process automation (RPA), a revolutionary technology that is currently being developed to relieve users’ daily duties of laborious and mundane duties. A number of research studies are ...currently being undertaken on this subject as a result of the completely novel field of study that the technology itself offers to the academic community. This pertains to a wholly distinct field of technology and is not robotics. The field of robotic technology known as robotic process automation is very contemporary and is growing quickly. The research presented here emphasises the key aspects of robotic process automation (RPA) and how it is used in the health care industry.
Interaction with orchid mycorrhizal fungi (OMF) is essential to all members of the Orchidaceae, yet we know little about whether or how OMF abundances in substrates shape orchid populations. While ...root-associated OMF diversity is catalogued frequently, technological constraints have impeded the assessments of OMF communities in substrates until recently, thereby limiting the ability to link OMF communities in a habitat to population responses. Furthermore, there is some evidence that edaphic and microclimatic conditions impact OMF in soil, yet we lack an understanding of the coupled influences of abiotic environment and OMF structure on orchid population dynamics. To discover the linkages between abiotic environment, OMF community structure, and population size, we characterized the microclimatic conditions, soil physicochemistry, and OMF communities hosted by roots and soil across large and small populations of a terrestrial orchid endemic to California Floristic Province in North America. By using high-throughput sequencing of the ITS2 region of nrDNA amplified from root and soil DNAs, we determined that both roots and soil of larger populations, which were high in phosphorus but low in zinc, organic matter, and silt, were dominated by Tulasnellaceae OTUs. In comparison, roots and soil from smaller populations of the orchid hosted higher relative abundances of the Ceratobasidiaceae. In this multiyear, range-wide study that simultaneously measured habitat environmental conditions, and soil and root OMF communities, our results suggest that soil chemistry is clearly linked to soil and root OMF communities, which then likely alter and shape orchid populations.
Heat shock proteins (HSPs) have a significant role in protein folding and are considered as prominent candidates for development of heat-tolerant crops. Understanding of wheat HSPs has great ...importance since wheat is severely affected by heat stress, particularly during the grain filling stage. In the present study, efforts were made to identify HSPs in wheat and to understand their role during plant development and under different stress conditions. HSPs in wheat genome were first identified by using Position-Specific Scoring Matrix (PSSMs) of known HSP domains and then also confirmed by sequence homology with already known HSPs. Collectively, 753 TaHSPs including 169 TaSHSP, 273 TaHSP40, 95 TaHSP60, 114 TaHSP70, 18 TaHSP90 and 84 TaHSP100 were identified in the wheat genome. Compared with other grass species, number of HSPs in wheat was relatively high probably due to the higher ploidy level. Large number of tandem duplication was identified in TaHSPs, especially TaSHSPs. The TaHSP genes showed random distribution on chromosomes, however, there were more TaHSPs in B and D sub-genomes as compared to the A sub-genome. Extensive computational analysis was performed using the available genomic resources to understand gene structure, gene expression and phylogentic relationship of TaHSPs. Interestingly, apart from high expression under heat stress, high expression of TaSHSP was also observed during seed development. The study provided a list of candidate HSP genes for improving thermo tolerance during developmental stages and also for understanding the seed development process in bread wheat.
Targeting specific subtypes of interneurons in the spinal cord is primarily restricted to a small group of genetic model animals. Since the development of new transgenic model animals can be ...expensive and labor intensive, it is often difficult to generalize these findings and verify them in other model organisms, such as the rat, ferret or monkey, that may be more beneficial in certain experimental investigations. Nevertheless, endogenous enhancers and promoters delivered using an adeno-associated virus (AAV) have been successful in providing expression in specific subtypes of neurons in the forebrain of wildtype animals, and therefore may introduce a shortcut. GABAergic interneurons, for instance, have successfully been targeted using the mDlx promoter, which has recently been developed and is now widely used in wild type animals. Here, we test the specificity and efficiency of the mDlx enhancer for robust targeting of inhibitory interneurons in the lumbar spinal cord of wild-type rats using AAV serotype 2 (AAV2). Since this has rarely been done in the spinal cord, we also test the expression and specificity of the CamKIIa and hSynapsin promoters using serotype 9. We found that AAV2-mDlx does in fact target many neurons that contain an enzyme for catalyzing GABA, the GAD-65, with high specificity and a small fraction of neurons containing an isoform, GAD-67. Expression was also seen in some motor neurons although with low correlation. Viral injections using the CamKIIa enhancer via AAV9 infected in some glutamatergic neurons, but also GABAergic neurons, whereas hSynapsin via AAV9 targets almost all the neurons in the lumbar spinal cord.
Perovskite-structured Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO
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) nanoparticles as a novel heterogeneous catalyst were designed by an auto combustion route using a different chelating agent and calcination ...temperature. The effect of different chelating agents like disaccharide (sucrose), α-hydroxy acid (citric acid, tartaric acid), amide (urea) and calcination (150–750 °C) temperature on structure and the catalytic performance of BiFeO
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have been analyzed. The catalytic performance of BiFeO
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has been increased by modifying its synthesis with the addition of suitable organic compound and calcination. BiFeO
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synthesized without the use of chelating agent gave very poor yield, i.e., 36.89%. The augmented effect of the chelating agent on the catalytic performance of BiFeO
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was obtained in the order of blank < tartaric acid < sucrose < urea < citric acid, whereas the enhancing effect of calcination temperature in the order 150 °C < 450 °C < 550 °C < 650 °C > 750 °C. The calcination temperature results in augmentation in yield of approximately 30% with model reaction on increasing temperature from 150 to 650 °C. Different calcination temperatures (150–750 °C) have been employed to obtain single phase BiFeO
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nanoparticles. All synthesized BiFeO
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nanoparticles were fully characterized by FT-IR; XRD; VSM; BET; TGA; XPS and Raman spectroscopy. For the very first time ever we have used them as a recyclable magnetic nanocatalyst in the formation of highly substituted dihydro-2-oxypyrrole by using one-pot, three-component reaction of DMAD, aniline and formaldehyde in methanol at room temperature with 63–88% yield. All the synthesized oxypyrroles have been characterized by various spectroscopic techniques.
Synthetic photoelectrochemistry (PEC) is receiving increasing attention as a new frontier for the generation and handling of reactive intermediates. PEC permits selective single‐electron transfer ...(SET) reactions in a much greener way and broadens the redox window of possible transformations. Herein, the most recent contributions are reviewed, demonstrating exciting new opportunities, namely, the combination of PEC with other reactivity paradigms (hydrogen‐atom transfer, radical polar crossover, energy transfer sensitization), scalability up to multigram scale, novel selectivities in SET super‐oxidations/reductions and the importance of precomplexation to temporally enable excited radical ion catalysis.
Synthetic photoelectrochemistry (PEC) offers new prospects for the generation and handling of reactive intermediates. PEC permits selective single‐electron transfer (SET) reactions in a much greener way and broadens the redox window of possible transformations. This Review discusses the combination of PEC with other reactivity paradigms, scalability up to multigram scale, novel selectivities in SET super‐oxidations/reductions and the importance of precomplexation.
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