Effectiveness of Biosorption-Assisted Microfiltration Process for Treatment of Domestic Wastewater

The efficiency of a biosorbent prepared from Eichhornia crassipes roots (ECR) was explored for the treatment of domestic sewage water in combination with low-cost ceramic microfiltration membrane. Batch sorption studies were conducted as a function of biosorbent dose, initial chemical oxygen demand (COD) loading, and temperature. Sorption equilibrium data of varying initial COD values (116–800 mg/L) indicated high potential of ECR for COD removal. Using 0.25 g/L of biosorbent dose, the equilibrium adsorption capacity was obtained as 2480 mg/g at 20°C for an initial COD loading of 800 mg/L. Microfiltration study was performed using ceramic membrane made from composition of α-alumina and clay. The effect of operating parameters on filtration characteristics was observed in terms of permeate flux. Permeate samples were characterized in terms of various parameters both for the direct filtration, as well as biosorbent-assisted filtration. The filtration behavior of wastewater at varying transmembrane pressure was explained using various membrane fouling models. The results suggested that microfiltration of domestic wastewater with incorporation of biosorbent (0.25 g/L) was highly effective for removal of organic load (>90%), turbidity (>99%), and total suspended solids (TSS) (93–95%) and the treated water quality was suitable for reuse in various purposes, such as gardening, floor and car washing, etc.     

Iron-Induced Apoptotic Cell Death and Autophagy Dysfunction in Human Neuroblastoma Cell Line SH-SY5Y

Biological Trace Element Research - Iron accumulation plays a major role in neuronal cell death which has severe effects on mental health like neurodegenerative disorders. The present work aims to...     

Bayesian regression analysis of skewed tensor responses

Tensor regression analysis is finding vast emerging applications in a variety of clinical settings, including neuroimaging, genomics, and dental medicine. The motivation for this paper is a study of periodontal disease (PD) with an order-3 tensor response: multiple biomarkers measured at prespecified tooth–sites within each tooth, for each participant. A careful investigation would reveal considerable skewness in the responses, in addition to response missingness. To mitigate the shortcomings of existing analysis tools, we propose a new Bayesian tensor response regression method that facilitates interpretation of covariate effects on both marginal and joint distributions of highly skewed tensor responses, and accommodates missing-at-random responses under a closure property of our tensor model. Furthermore, we present a prudent evaluation of the overall covariate effects while identifying their possible variations on only a sparse subset of the tensor components. Our method promises Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) tools that are readily implementable. We illustrate substantial advantages of our proposal over existing methods via simulation studies and application to a real data set derived from a clinical study of PD. The R package BSTN available in GitHub implements our model.     

Cadmium removal from water environment by a fungus Volveriella volvacea

Biosorption technique was used for removal of cadmium under different conditions from water environment using a biosorbent, Volveriella volvaceas, locally growing fruit bodies of mushroom. Effects of different parameters like pH, sorbent concentration, ionic strength on the removal efficiency of cadmium by V. volvacea were carried out in continuation with adsorption kinetics and equilibrium isotherm experiments. From the kinetics studies it was found that nearly 95% of the total cadmium removal was achieved from cadmium spiked distilled water within first 15 minutes. Isotherm data was best fitted to linearised Langmuir equation and the sorption capacity was found to be varying from 9.13 to 9.33 mg/g for different sizes of sorbent. The uptake of cadmium(II) is a function of pH of the solution and increases with the increasing pH. Increasing ionic strength and the presence of soluble complexing agents such as ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) decrease the sorption of cadmium (II). The presence of other diavalent cations like calcium and magnesium impedes the uptake of cadmium (II). The presence of chloride ion has no significant effect on cadmium (II) removal. The spent biosorbent can effectively be regenerated with acid and can then be reused.The present work was carried out by the financial support in terms of fellowship under the cultural exchange programme of the Indo-Bangladesh government. Special thanks to the Director, Bangladesh Institute of Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, for providing leave, which enabled the author in carrying out the research work.     

Advancement in bioprocess technology: parallels between microbial natural products and cell culture biologics

Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology - The emergence of natural products and industrial microbiology nearly eight decades ago propelled an era of bioprocess innovation. Half a...     

Phospholipids from the hepatopancreas of Indian horseshoe crab Carcinoscropius rotundicauda

Total phospholipids were extracted from the heart, hepatopancreas, and hemolymph of the Indian horseshoe crab Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda by the conventional method. Characteristic group reaction and 2-dimensional thin-layer chromatography on silica gel were used for identification of different phospholipids. The phospholipid profile obtained from hemolymph and 2 major organs are comparable and show phosphatidyl choline (PC) and phosphatidyl ethanolamine to be the major phospholipids. A phospholipid has been consistently detected migrating immediately below the PC in the thin-layer chromatogram of lipids extracted from the hepatopancreas. When mixed methyl esters of this slower moving PC are resolved on a silica gel plate ran in hexane ether:acetic acid 80:20:1, with appropriate controls, an additional spot is seen just below the normal methyl ester, indicating a difference between the fatty acid compositions of 2 PC (e.g., regular and slower). The slower mixed methyl esters were found to comprise mainly the 4 saturated fatty acids: lauric, myristic, palmitic, and stearic. The slow moving PC seems to consist mainly of molecular species with the above-mentioned saturated fatty acids at both Sn 1 and Sn 2 positions.     

Kinetics of phenol degradation using Pseudomonas putida MTCC 1194

Pseudomonas putida (MTCC 1194) has been used to degrade phenol in water in the concentration range 100–1000?ppm. The inhibition effects of phenol as substrate have become predominant above the concentration of 500?ppm (5.31?mmoles/dm³). The optimum temperature and initial pH required for maximum phenol biodegradation were 30?°C and 7.00 respectively. From the degradation data the activation energy (E _a ) was found to be equal to 13.8?kcal/g mole substrate reacted. The most suitable inoculum age and volume for highest phenol degradation were 12?hrs and 7% v/v respectively. Surfactants had negligible effect on phenol biodegradation process for this microorganism. Monod model has been used to interpret the free cell data on phenol biodegradation. The kinetic parameters have been estimated upto initial concentration of 5.31?mmoles/dm³. μ _max and K _S gradually increased with higher concentration of phenol. However, beyond the phenol concentration of 5.31?mmoles/dm³, the inhibition became prominant. The μ _max has been to be a strong function of initial phenol concentration. The simulated and the experimental phenol degradation profiles have good correspondence with each other.     

Elucidation of trophic interactions in an unusual single-cell nitrogen-fixing symbiosis using metabolic modeling

Marine nitrogen-fixing microorganisms are an important source of fixed nitrogen in oceanic ecosystems. The colonial cyanobacterium Trichodesmium and diatom symbionts were thought to be the primary contributors to oceanic N₂ fixation until the discovery of the unusual uncultivated symbiotic cyanobacterium UCYN-A (Candidatus Atelocyanobacterium thalassa). UCYN-A has atypical metabolic characteristics lacking the oxygen-evolving photosystem II, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, the carbon-fixation enzyme RuBisCo and de novo biosynthetic pathways for a number of amino acids and nucleotides. Therefore, it is obligately symbiotic with its single-celled haptophyte algal host. UCYN-A receives fixed carbon from its host and returns fixed nitrogen, but further insights into this symbiosis are precluded by both UCYN-A and its host being uncultured. In order to investigate how this syntrophy is coordinated, we reconstructed bottom-up genome-scale metabolic models of UCYN-A and its algal partner to explore possible trophic scenarios, focusing on nitrogen fixation and biomass synthesis. Since both partners are uncultivated and only the genome sequence of UCYN-A is available, we used the phylogenetically related Chrysochromulina tobin as a proxy for the host. Through the use of flux balance analysis (FBA), we determined the minimal set of metabolites and biochemical functions that must be shared between the two organisms to ensure viability and growth. We quantitatively investigated the metabolic characteristics that facilitate daytime N₂ fixation in UCYN-A and possible oxygen-scavenging mechanisms needed to create an anaerobic environment to allow nitrogenase to function. This is the first application of an FBA framework to examine the tight metabolic coupling between uncultivated microbes in marine symbiotic communities and provides a roadmap for future efforts focusing on such specialized systems.     

Antitumor activity with nontoxic doses of protein A

Summary This report confirms our previous observation that IV inoculation of purified protein A causes regression of rat mammary adenocarcinomas. In treated tumors, we have obtained histological evidence of changes indicating tumor cell destruction. Protein A treatment does not cause reduction in the body weight or organ weights of rats; nor does it cause any decrease in activity of the enzymes of the microsomal mixed function oxidase system in the liver. Protein A stimulates peripheral white cell counts in normal rats, but not in tumor-bearing rats. We found that protein A infusion reduced (P<0.0005) the level of circulating plasma immune complex concentration. A homing study with ¹²⁵I-labeled protein A indicated that liver, spleen, and kidney tissues are the major sites of protein A accumulation. Therefore, protein A seemed to exert its antitumor effects without causing any generalized toxicity to the system. It is postulated that the action of protein A may be related to its ability to cause a drastic reduction in circulating plasma immune complex concentration, thus potentiating the immune reactivity of the host observed earlier.