Mahendra Kumar Trivedi, Shrikant Patil, Harish Shettigar, Khemraj Bairwa and Snehasis Jana
Serratia marcescens (S. marcescens) is Gram-negative bacterium, associated with hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), especially urinary tract and wound infections. The present study was aimed to evaluate the impact of biofield treatment on phenotyping and genotyping characteristics such as antimicrobial susceptibility, biochemical reactions, biotype, DNA polymorphism, and phylogenetic relationship of S. marcescens (ATCC 13880). The lyophilized cells of S. marcescens were divided into three groups (G1, G2, and G3). Control group (G1) and treated groups (G2 and G3) of S. marcescens cells essayed with respect to antimicrobial susceptibility, and biochemical reactions. In addition to that, samples from different groups of S. marcescens were evaluated for DNA polymorphism by Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), and 16S rDNA sequencing in order to establish the phylogenetic relationship of S. marcescens with different bacterial species. The treated cells of S. marcescens showed an alteration of 10.34% and 34.48% antimicrobials in G2 and G3 on 10th day, respectively as compared to control. The significant changes of biochemical reactions were also observed in treated groups of S. marcescens. The RAPD data showed an average range of 16-49.2% of polymorphism in treated samples as compared to control. Based on nucleotide homology sequences and phylogenetic analysis, the nearest homolog genus-species was found to be Pseudomonas fluorescence. These findings suggest that biofield treatment can prevent the emergence of absolute resistance to the useful antimicrobials against S. marcescens.
Munusamy Thirumavalavan and Jiunn-Fwu Lee
Chitosan is an important natural polymer that occurs in the world. Chitosan is soluble in acidic aqueous media and it can be obtained in various forms. It is widely used for many applications. Hence, we briefly describe the role of chitosan in membrane form, an important area of research in which a variety of synthetic methods has been proposed and their significance is explained. Thus, this review emphasizes the papers on the high value-added applications of these chitosan membranes in diverse fields such as medicine, biological, cosmetics and nanotechnology.
Jiufang Duan, Yudong Liua, Liujun Liua, Jianxin Jianga and Jianzhang Lia
Double-network hydrogels with high mechanical strength have been synthesized using the carboxymethyl chitosan, alginate, and acrylamide. Separate gel of chitosan, alginate, and acrylamide is brittle and is easily broken into fragments under a modest stretching. The hydrogels were composed of three kinds of polymer, alginate is composed of a combination of ionically first network, and carboxymethyl chitosan grafting alginate is composed of a ductile covalently second network, forming a double-network structure, which, despite containing 86% water, can stretched to 11.5 times their initial length. This ionically and covalently crosslinked structure may expand the scope of hydrogel applications.
Elena V Fuior, Violeta G Trusca, Corina Roman and Anca V Gafencu
Atherosclerosis, a prime cause of mortality across the developed societies, was targeted by diverse therapeutic strategies. These evolved in response to the complex etiology and evolution of the disease. Many enzymes are associated with atherosclerosis, either in the main stream of lipid biosynthesis and transport or in the collateral and intertwined pathways of oxidative stress, inflammation, vascular remodeling or chromatin stability and are therefore revised herein. Enzyme exploration led to important developments. At the beginning, there were the statins, derived as inhibitors of hydroxy-methyl-glutaryl CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase, currently used widely to decrease lipid levels. At the other end, the inhibitors of the recently discovered proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) are awaiting the validation in clinical trials with great hopes for the future. In between, one can find some palliatives, as aspirin, an inhibitor of cyclooxygenase (COX), but also many invalidated candidates. Classical pharmacological data and newer approaches, like genetic knockouts in murine atherosclerosis models, are reviewed in order to appreciate the involvement of a particular enzyme in atherogenesis. However, the pursuit of an efficacious drug has been long and, in many cases, disappointing. Conclusions can be drawn from the overview of both successes and failures, in a quest for the best.
Danny Javier Balanta Silva, Fabio Zuluaga and Carlos H
Chitosan was extracted from Aspergillus niger mycelium and characterized by several techniques (FTIR, 1HNMR y 13C-CP-MAS-NMR, TGA, DSC and XRD) with a reaction yield of 5.02%, and its average viscosity molecular weight was 1.52 x 105 g/mol. Deacetylation degree was determined by elemental analysis and 1H-NMR, being around 75%. Chitosan films were obtained by film casting, using glycerol and oleic acid as plasticizers, the chitosan films were characterized by SEM and XRD. Degradability in vitro tests under physiological conditions, mechanical tests, and biocompatibility tests on Rattus norvegicus were run, followed by histological studies of connective tissue samples from the site where the films were implanted finding complete absorption of the material and no damage to nearby tissues.
Heri Septya Kusuma, Hendarta Agasi and Handoko Darmokoesoemo
Legen is one of the traditional drink that has been widely known among the people of Indonesia. Beside from being a refreshing drink, legen also has many properties, such as the prevention of stomach ulcers, increase vitality, shed the pain of kidney stones, prevent hemorrhoids disease, and natural doping to maintain stamina. Legen could be alcoholic beverages if the storage period exceeds two days. So it takes a substance that can inhibit the fermentation process of the legen. One material that has potential as inhibitors of fermentation is chitosan. For the effectiveness of inhibitory fermentation process of the legen, then in this study used chitosan nanoparticles. Based on the results of the solubility test and characterization by FT-IR and PSA, it is known that chitosan nanoparticles have been synthesized. The addition of chitosan nanoparticles influence on the inhibition fermentation process of the legen. It can be seen from the testing alcohol levels and the quality of the samples which include aroma and flavor. After being left for 5 days, the alcohol content in the sample legen with treatment (addition of chitosan nanoparticles) was (1.414 ± 0.046)% v/v, while the alcohol content in the sample legen without treatment (control) was (4.243 ± 0.026)% v/v. Based on the quality of the sample test legen that have added a solution of chitosan nanoparticles, it can be seen that the addition of chitosan nanoparticles did not affect the aroma and flavor of legen.
Kelly A. Turner and Francis YM Choy
Premature termination codons result when a mutation within a protein coding sequence causes an amino acidencoding sense codon to be interpreted as a stop codon. Often, this results in truncation and destruction of the mRNA transcript or a non-functional protein. Nonsense mutations account for approximately 11% of all described mutations that contribute to disease. A number of therapeutics, including suppressor tRNAs, gentamicin, and PTC124, have been developed that purport to promote the “read-through” of these premature termination codons so that they are interpreted as sense codons. This, theoretically, would reconstitute the full-length transcript and restore protein/enzyme function and ameliorate disease symptoms. Currently, the implementation of such therapeutics in a clinical setting has been slow due to factors such as toxicity and inefficiency. We will discuss these hurdles as well as the difficulties associated with determination of the required protein/enzyme level to reduce symptoms as well as breakthroughs in genome editing to create nonsense mutation animal models using the clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats-CRISPR-associated protein 9 system.
Ponizovskiy MR
Interactions nuclear processes and mitochondrial processes determine stabile basophilic chemical potential in cytoplasm, i.e. stability cellular chemical potential. Interactions between all cells occur due to remote reactions across distance as the results of cellular capacitors operations via production of resonance waves. Interactions cellular capacitors of cells maintain common stability of Internal Energy both in cells and in an organism. Study of interactions between nuclear processes and mitochondrial processes reveals processes of mutual influences between catabolic pathways in mitochondria and anabolic pathways in nucleus creating stable chemical potential of cytoplasm. The biochemical processes defining stable cellular chemical potential is stimulated by biophysical processes of cell’s capacitors operations. Excessive shifts balance catabolic and anabolic processes into either catabolic processes or into anabolic processes lead to pathologic development of an organism. Results of some experiments were explained eliminating doubts which were expressed by the authors of these experiments. Moreover there were substantiated the benefits using Prolonged medical Starvation with considerably decreased dosage of cytotoxic drug of the new approach to cancer therapy.