Fermentation of glycerol and production of valuable chemical and biofuel molecules

Glycerol has attracted the attention of scientific and industrial communities due to its generation in bulk quantities as a byproduct of biofuel industries. With the rapid growth of these industries in recent years, glycerol is frequently treated as a very low-value byproduct or even a waste product with a disposal cost associated to it. Glycerol is not only abundant and inexpensive but also can generate more reducing equivalents than glucose or xylose. This unique characteristic of glycerol offers a tremendous opportunity for its biological conversion to valuable products at higher yield. This review focuses on research efforts to utilize glycerol as a carbon source for the production of a variety of fuels and chemicals by both native and metabolically engineered microorganisms.     

Cytological studies of Brassicaceae Burn. (Cruciferae Juss.) from Western Himalayas

Cytological studies have been carried out on 12 species of Brassicaceae Burn. on population basis from different geographical areas of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh in the Western Himalayas. Variable chromosome reports for Barbaraea intermedia (n = 16), Cardamine loxostemonoides (n = 8), Nasturtium officinale (n = 8), Sisymbrium orientale (n = 14) on world-wide basis have been added to the previous reports of these species. The chromosome numbers in seven species as Barbaraea intermedia (n = 8), B. vulgaris (n = 8), Capsella bursa-pastoris (n = 8), Descuriania Sophia (n = 10), Rorippa islandica (n = 8), Sisymbrium strictum (n = 7) and Thlaspi alpestre (n = 7) have been worked out for the first time from India. The meiotic course in the populations of seven species such as Barbaraea intermedia, Capsella bursa-pastoris, Coronopus didymus, Descuriania sophia, Nasturtium officinale, Sisymbrium orientale and S. strictum varies from normal to abnormal while all the populations of two species Barbaraea vulgaris and Sisymbrium irio show abnormal meiotic course. Meiotic abnormalities are in the form of cytomixis, chromosomal stickiness, unoriented bivalents, inter-bivalent connections, formation of laggards and bridges, all resulting into abnormal microsporogenesis. Heterogenous sized fertile pollen grains and reduced reproductive potentialities have invariably been observed in all the meiotically abnormal populations. However, the meiotic course in all the populations of Cardamine loxostemonoides, Rorippa islandica and Thalspi alpestre is found to be normal with high pollen fertility.     

Tandem mass spectrometry approach for the investigation of the steroidal metabolism: Structure–fragmentation relationship (SFR) in anabolic steroids and their metabolites by ESI-MS/MS analysis

Electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) was used to investigate the effect of different substitutions introduced during metabolism on fragmentation patterns of four anabolic steroids including methyltestosterone, methandrostenolone, cis-androsterone and adrenosterone, along with their metabolites. Collision-induced dissociation (CID) analysis was performed to correlate the major product ions of 19 steroids with structural features. The analysis is done to portray metabolic alteration, such as incorporation or reduction of double bonds, hydroxylations, and/or oxidation of hydroxyl moieties to keto functional group on steroidal skeleton which leads to drastically changed product ion spectra from the respective classes of steroids, therefore, making them difficult to identify. The comparative ESI-MS/MS study also revealed some characteristic peaks to differentiate different steroidal metabolites and can be useful for the unambiguous identification of anabolic steroids in biological fluid. Moreover, LC–ESI-MS/MS analysis of fermented extract of methyltestosterone, obtained by Macrophomina phaseolina was also investigated.     

A case of primary amenorrhea with 46+XY genotype from Kashmir Valley

Primary amenorrhea is one of the common reproductive disorder affecting females. It leads to the absence of menarche in the reproductive age group in females and/or complete absence of reproductive organs. There are many causes which lead to PA, including genetic aberrations which are the leading factors.     

Aquaporins in developing rice grains

During rice grain filling, grain moisture content and weight show dynamic changes. We focused on the expression of all 33 rice aquaporins in developing grains. Only two aquaporin genes, OsPIP2;1 and OsTIP3;1, were highly expressed in the period 10–25 days after heading (DAH). High-temperature treatment from 7 to 21 DAH abolished the dynamic up-regulation of OsPIP2;1 in the period 15–20 DAH, whereas OsTIP3;1 expression was not affected. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that OsPIP2;1 was present in the starchy endosperm, nucellar projection, nucellar epidermis, and dorsal vascular bundles, but not in the aleurone layer. OsTIP3;1 was present in the aleurone layer and starchy endosperm. Water transport activity of recombinant OsTIP3;1 was low, in contrast to the high activity of recombinant OsPIP2;1 we reported previously. Our data suggest that OsPIP2;1 and OsTIP3;1 have distinct roles in developing grains.     

Study of PKRBD in HCV genotype 3a infected patients in response to interferon therapy in Pakistani population

Background

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma and infects about 3% world population. Response to interferon therapy depends upon the genotype of the virus and factors associated with the host. Despite a good response to interferon therapy, a considerable number of genotype 3a infected patients remains unalleviated.

Results

In total forty-nine patients including twenty-five non-responders (non-SVR) and twenty-four responders (SVR) were recruited. Patients were tested for viral status at different intervals and the isolated RNA was sequenced for the NS5A region in both groups. The comparison of PKRBD of HCV between the SVR and non-SVR patients did not confirm any significant difference in the number of mutations. However, when the sequence downstream to the PKRBD of NS5A was compared, two important statistically significant mutations were observed; at positions 2309 (Ala to Ser) and 2326 (Gly to Ala). These mutations were then analysed for tertiary protein structure and important structural changes were observed. Statistically significant difference was also observed when age groups of patients were compared; younger patients showed better response than the older ones.

Conclusions

The region between PKRBD and IRRDR may be important for prediction of response to IFN therapy for genotype 3a. ISDR and PKRBD have not shown any involvement in treatment response. Further functional analyses of these findings can help in understanding the involvement of the NS5A region in interferon treatment of HCV-3a infected patients.

     

Mechanomyogram for Muscle Function Assessment: A Review

Background

Mechanomyography (MMG) has been extensively applied in clinical and experimental practice to examine muscle characteristics including muscle function (MF), prosthesis and/or switch control, signal processing, physiological exercise, and medical rehabilitation. Despite several existing MMG studies of MF, there has not yet been a review of these. This study aimed to determine the current status on the use of MMG in measuring the conditions of MFs.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Five electronic databases were extensively searched for potentially eligible studies published between 2003 and 2012. Two authors independently assessed selected articles using an MS-Word based form created for this review. Several domains (name of muscle, study type, sensor type, subject''s types, muscle contraction, measured parameters, frequency range, hardware and software, signal processing and statistical analysis, results, applications, authors'' conclusions and recommendations for future work) were extracted for further analysis. From a total of 2184 citations 119 were selected for full-text evaluation and 36 studies of MFs were identified. The systematic results find sufficient evidence that MMG may be used for assessing muscle fatigue, strength, and balance. This review also provides reason to believe that MMG may be used to examine muscle actions during movements and for monitoring muscle activities under various types of exercise paradigms.

Conclusions/Significance

Overall judging from the increasing number of articles in recent years, this review reports sufficient evidence that MMG is increasingly being used in different aspects of MF. Thus, MMG may be applied as a useful tool to examine diverse conditions of muscle activity. However, the existing studies which examined MMG for MFs were confined to a small sample size of healthy population. Therefore, future work is needed to investigate MMG, in examining MFs between a sufficient number of healthy subjects and neuromuscular patients.     

Clinical Characteristics,Etiology and Antimicrobial Susceptibility among Overweight and Obese Individuals with Diarrhea: Observed at a Large Diarrheal Disease Hospital,Bangladesh

Background

The present study aimed to determine the clinical characteristics and etiology of overweight and obese (OO) individuals with diarrhea attending an urban Dhaka Hospital, International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research (icddr,b), Bangladesh.

Methods

Total of 508 under-5 children, 96 individuals of 5–19 years and 1331 of >19 years were identified as OO from the Diarrheal Disease Surveillance System (DDSS) between 1993–2011. Two comparison groups such as well-nourished and malnourished individuals from respective age stratums were selected.

Results

Isolation rate of rotavirus was higher among OO under-5 children compared to malnourished group (46% vs. 28%). Rotavirus infection among OO individuals aged 5–19 years (9% vs. 3%) (9% vs. 3%) and >19 years (6% vs. 4%) (6% vs. 3%) was higher compared to well-nourished and malnourished children. Conversely, Vibrio cholerae was lower among all OO age groups compared to well-nourished and malnourished ones. Shigella (4% vs. 6%) (4% vs. 8%), and Campylobacter (3% vs. 5%) (3% vs. 5%) were lower only among OO in >19 years individuals compared to their counterparts of the same age stratum. Salmonella was similarly isolated in all age strata and nutritional groups. In multinomial logistic regression among under-5 children, significant association was observed only with use of antimicrobials at home [OR-1.97] and duration of hospital stay [OR-0.68]. For individuals aged 5–19 years, use of antimicrobials at home (OR-1.83), some or severe dehydration (OR-3.12), having received intravenous saline (OR-0.46) and rotavirus diarrhea (OR-2.96) were found to be associated with OO respectively. Moreover, significant associations were also found for duration of diarrhea before coming to hospital (>24 hours) (OR-1.24), Shigella (OR-0.46), and Campylobacter (OR-0.58) among >19 years OO individuals along with other associated co-variates in 5–19 years group (all p<0.05).

Conclusion and significance

Higher proportion of OO were infected with rotavirus and a greater proportion of them used antimicrobials before coming to the hospital.