Enzymes as industrial biocatalysts offer numerous advantages over traditional chemical processes with respect to sustainability and process efficiency. Enzyme catalysis has been scaled up for ...commercial processes in the pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries, although further enhancements in stability and biocatalyst functionality are required for optimal biocatalytic processes in the energy sector for biofuel production and in natural gas conversion. The technical barriers associated with the implementation of immobilized enzymes suggest that a multidisciplinary approach is necessary for the development of immobilized biocatalysts applicable in such industrial-scale processes. Specifically, the overlap of technical expertise in enzyme immobilization, protein and process engineering will define the next generation of immobilized biocatalysts and the successful scale-up of their induced processes. This review discusses how biocatalysis has been successfully deployed, how enzyme immobilization can improve industrial processes, as well as focuses on the analysis tools critical for the multi-scale implementation of enzyme immobilization for increased product yield at maximum market profitability and minimum logistical burden on the environment and user.
Abstract
Motivation
While deep-learning algorithms have demonstrated outstanding performance in semantic image segmentation tasks, large annotation datasets are needed to create accurate models. ...Annotation of histology images is challenging due to the effort and experience required to carefully delineate tissue structures, and difficulties related to sharing and markup of whole-slide images.
Results
We recruited 25 participants, ranging in experience from senior pathologists to medical students, to delineate tissue regions in 151 breast cancer slides using the Digital Slide Archive. Inter-participant discordance was systematically evaluated, revealing low discordance for tumor and stroma, and higher discordance for more subjectively defined or rare tissue classes. Feedback provided by senior participants enabled the generation and curation of 20 000+ annotated tissue regions. Fully convolutional networks trained using these annotations were highly accurate (mean AUC=0.945), and the scale of annotation data provided notable improvements in image classification accuracy.
Availability and Implementation
Dataset is freely available at: https://goo.gl/cNM4EL.
Supplementary information
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
The Fermilab short-baseline neutrino (SBN) experiments, MicroBooNE, ICARUS, and SBND, are expected to have significant sensitivity to light weakly coupled hidden sector particles. Here we study the ...capability of the SBN experiments to probe dark scalars interacting through the Higgs portal. We investigate production of dark scalars using both the Fermilab booster 8 GeV and NuMI 120 GeV proton beams, simulating kaons decaying to dark scalars and taking into account the beam line geometry. We also investigate strategies to mitigate backgrounds from beam-related neutrino scattering events. We find that SBND, with its comparatively short O(100 m) baseline, will have the best sensitivity to scalars produced from the booster, while ICARUS, with its large detector volume, will provide the best limits on off-axis dark scalar production from NuMI. The SBN experiments can provide leading tests of dark scalars with masses in the 50–350 MeV range in the near term. Our results motivate dedicated experimental searches for dark scalars and other long-lived hidden sector states at these experiments.
Background In pandemic COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the prognosis of patients has been determined using clinical data and CT (computed tomography) scans, but it is still unclear whether chest ...CT characteristics are correlated to COVID-19 severity. Aim To explore the potential association between clinical data and 25-point CT score and investigate their predictive significance in COVID-19-positive patients at Fayoum University Hospital in Egypt. Methods This study was conducted on 252 Egyptian COVID-19 patients at Fayoum University Hospital in Egypt. The patients were classified into two groups: a mild group (174 patients) and a severe group (78 patients). The results of clinical laboratory data, and CT scans of severe and mild patients, were collected, analyzed, and compared. Results The severe group show high significance levels of CRP, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), creatinine, urea, ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), neutrophil percent, and heart rate (HR) than the mild group. Lymphopenia, hypoalbuminemia, hypocalcemia, and decreased oxygen saturation (SpO2) were the most observed abnormalities in severe COVID-19 patients. Lymphopenia, low SpO2 and albumin levels, elevated serum LDH, ferritin, urea, and CRP levels were found to be significantly correlated with severity CT score (P<0.0001). Conclusion The clinical severity of COVID-19 and the CT score are highly correlated. Our findings indicate that the CT scoring system can help to predict COVID-19 disease outcomes and has a strong correlation with clinical laboratory testing.
We study the dynamics of the formation of multiple hydrogen bonds between ionic liquid anions and cellulose using molecular dynamics simulations. We examine fifteen different ionic liquids composed ...of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium cations (Cnmim, n = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) paired with either chloride, acetate or dimethylphosphate. We map the transitions of anions hydrogen bonded to cellulose into different bonding states. We find that increased tail length in the ionic liquids has only a very minor effect on these transitions, tending to slow the dynamics of the transitions and increasing the hydrogen bond lifetimes. Each anion can form up to four hydrogen bonds with cellulose. We find that this hydrogen bond "redundancy" leads to multiply bonded anions having lifetimes three to four times that of singly bound anions. Such redundant hydrogen bonds account for roughly half of all anion-cellulose hydrogen bonds. Additional simulations for C2mimCl, C2mimAc and C2mimDMP were performed at different water concentrations between 70 mol% and 90 mol%. It was found that water crowds the hydrogen bond-accepting sites of the anions, preventing interactions with cellulose. The more water that is present in the system, the more crowded these sites become. Thus, if a hydrogen bond between an anion and cellulose breaks, the likelihood that it will be replaced by a nearby water molecule increases as well. We show that the formation of these "redundant" hydrogen bonding states is greatly affected by the presence of water, leading to steep drops in hydrogen bonding between the anions and cellulose.
Molecular dynamics simulations play an essential role in understanding biomolecular processes such as protein aggregation at temporal and spatial resolutions which are not attainable by experimental ...methods. For a correct modeling of protein aggregation, force fields must accurately represent molecular interactions. Here, we study the effect of five different force fields on the oligomer formation of Alzheimer’s Aβ16–22 peptide and two of its mutants: Aβ16–22(F19V,F20V), which does not form fibrils, and Aβ16–22(F19L) which forms fibrils faster than the wild type. We observe that while oligomer formation kinetics depends strongly on the force field, structural properties, such as the most relevant protein–protein contacts, are similar between them. The oligomer formation kinetics obtained with different force fields differ more from each other than the kinetics between aggregating and nonaggregating peptides simulated with a single force field. We discuss the difficulties in comparing atomistic simulations of amyloid oligomer formation with experimental observables.
Plantar warts are common skin lesions that continue to represent a therapeutic challenge. They are still resistant to therapy and are highly recurrent, despite the diverse number of treatments ...available. Therapies targeting vasculature, such as pulsed dye laser, have been used successfully in the treatment of plantar warts. Polidocanol, a detergent sclerosant approved for the sclerotherapy of incompetent and dilated saphenous veins, has also been used as an off-label therapy for a wide range of skin conditions with vascular components such as hemangiomas and pyogenic granuloma. The current, open-label, prospective, pilot study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the intralesional polidocanol 3% in the treatment of plantar warts. Twenty patients (11 females and 9 males), with plantar warts, aged 12–50 years received biweekly sessions of intralesional polidocanol 3% until complete clearance or for a maximum of 6 sessions. Response to treatment was graded as complete (100% clearance), partial (50–99%), and no response (< 50%). At the end of the study, 12 (60%) patients achieved complete clearance of their warts after 1–5 sessions, 5 (25%) patients had only partial response, and 3 (15%) patients did not achieve any clearance of their warts. The procedure was largely tolerable by patients. Pain at the injection site and bruises were reported by 9 (45%) and 2 (10%) patients, respectively. Both side effects resolved spontaneously and completely within a few days. The findings of the current study suggest that intralesional injection of 3% polidocanol in biweekly sessions may be a safe, effective, and tolerable method for the treatment of plantar warts.
The Sudanese Government launched the National SDG-6 Plan and commences its implementation to achieve and sustain universal and equitable access to basic WASH services by 2030. It is critical to ...understand the geographical heterogeneity of Sudan and patterns in the inequality of access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Through such research, the disease control strategy can be optimized, and resource allocation can be prioritized. We explored spatial heterogeneity and inequality in access to improved water and sanitation across Sudan by mapping the coverage at both the state and district levels. We decomposed the inequality across Sudan into within-state, between-state, within-district, and between-state inequalities using the Theil L and Theil T indices. We calculated the Gini coefficient to assess the inequality of access to improved water and sanitation, based on the deviation of the Lorenz curve from the line of perfect equality. The study population was 105,167 students aged 8-13 at 1,776 primary schools across the country. Geographical heterogeneity was prominent in the Central Darfur, South Darfur, East Darfur, Kassala, West Kordofan, and Blue Nile States, all of which showed severe inequality in access to an improved latrine at the household level in terms of the Theil T or Theil L index. The overall inequality in the coverage of improved sanitation went beyond the warning limit of 0.4 for the Gini coefficient. The inequality in terms of the Theil L and Theil T indices, as well as the Gini coefficient, was always higher for improved sanitation than for improved water at the household level. Within-state inequality accounted for 66% or more of national inequalities in the distribution of improved sanitation and drinking water for both the Theil L and Theil T indices. This is the first study to measure geographical heterogeneity and inequalities in improved water and sanitation coverage across Sudan. The study may help to prioritize resource allocation to areas with the greatest water and sanitation needs.
The use of nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize the detection and treatment of cancer. Developments in protein engineering and materials science have led to the emergence of new ...nanoscale targeting techniques, which offer renewed hope for cancer patients. While several nanocarriers for medicinal purposes have been approved for human trials, only a few have been authorized for clinical use in targeting cancer cells. In this review, we analyze some of the authorized formulations and discuss the challenges of translating findings from the lab to the clinic. This study highlights the various nanocarriers and compounds that can be used for selective tumor targeting and the inherent difficulties in cancer therapy. Nanotechnology provides a promising platform for improving cancer detection and treatment in the future, but further research is needed to overcome the current limitations in clinical translation.
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