Halophiles and Their Biomolecules: Recent Advances and Future Applications in Biomedicine

The organisms thriving under extreme conditions better than any other organism living on Earth, fascinate by their hostile growing parameters, physiological features, and their production of valuable bioactive metabolites. This is the case of microorganisms (bacteria, archaea, and fungi) that grow optimally at high salinities and are able to produce biomolecules of pharmaceutical interest for therapeutic applications. As along as the microbiota is being approached by massive sequencing, novel insights are revealing the environmental conditions on which the compounds are produced in the microbial community without more stress than sharing the same substratum with their peers, the salt. In this review are reported the molecules described and produced by halophilic microorganisms with a spectrum of action in vitro: antimicrobial and anticancer. The action mechanisms of these molecules, the urgent need to introduce alternative lead compounds and the current aspects on the exploitation and its limitations are discussed.España, MINECO CGL2017-83385-

Rizatriptan for the acute treatment of migraine: Consistency, preference, satisfaction, and quality of life

Rizatriptan is a 5HT (IB/ID) agonist with proven efficacy in the acute treatment of migraine headache. We performed a systematic review of the literature for clinical trials of rizatriptan incorporating important patient outcomes including consistency of response, preference, satisfaction, and quality of life. We found evidence that rizatriptan provides consistent relief of migraine attacks and that patients prefer rizatriptan over other treatments because of its speed of relief. Patient satisfaction with rizatriptan is significantly higher than placebo, but appears equivalent to most other triptans. Migraine-specific quality of life at 24 hours is significantly better in patients treated with rizatriptan compared to placebo, while overall long-term quality of life is less affected. The published clinical trials included in this systematic review are subject to bias due to the open-label nature of preference trials and the doses chosen for comparison in head-to-head trials

KEY FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISIONS IN TAOBAO LIVE STREAMING COMMERCE IN CHINA

Abstract Live e-commerce is an emerging shopping model in recent years. With the continuous development of live broadcast commerce around the world, live broadcast commerce has become an indispensable part of online shopping for many consumers. Social interaction is a common activity in live broadcast commerce. When there is social interaction between the anchor and consumers or between consumers and consumers, it may have an impact on consumers' purchasing decisions. This study explores how social interactions and consumer reviews of live-streaming commerce influence consumers' purchasing decisions. Based on the current development status of live broadcasting, this article sorts out and summarizes the literature that affects consumers' purchase decisions in live broadcast e-commerce from the two key factors of social interaction and consumer comments. To this end, this study draws on social influence theory and use-gratification theory and uses quantitative research methods to investigate Chinese Taobao live broadcast business users. The findings show that social interaction and consumer reviews have a positive impact on consumer purchasing decisions, and secondly, the study reveals the importance of gender as a moderating factor. Overall, this research reveals the key factors influencing Taobao live commerce purchase decision and provides useful insights to measure live commerce development strategies to provide effective advice on Taobao live commerce. Finally, the paper provides possible enlightenment for the improvement of live e-commerce

COVID-19 and online behaviors in higher education: A comparative study of an Iranian, Omani and Malaysian Universities

The outbreak of the COVID-19 in early 2020 caused most of higher learning institutions to close the campuses and forced them to initiate online teaching and learning. Since, regular classrooms are temporarily empty, this paper focuses on the online education experiences of three Asian universities during the COID-19 pandemic. For the purpose of the current study from each case, Up to Six (6) specific instructional strategies are presented in each case. The strategies summarized current online teaching experiences which can be used by other faculty members in similar circumstances

The potential of halophilic and halotolerant bacteria for the production of antineoplastic enzymes: L-asparaginase and L-glutaminase

L-asparaginase and L-glutaminase can be effectively used for the treatment of patients who suffer from accute lymphoblastic leukemia and tumor cells. Microbial sources are the best source for the bulk production of these enzymes. However, their long-term administration may cause immunological responses, so screening for new enzymes with novel properties is required. Halophilic and halotolerant bacteria with novel enzymatic characteristics can be considered as a potential source for production of enzymes with different immunological properties. In this study, L-asparaginase and L-glutaminase production by halophilic bacteria isolated from Urmia salt lake was studied. Out of the 85 isolated halophilic and halotolerant bacterial strains, 16 (19 %) showed L-asparaginase activity and 3 strains (3.5 %) showed L-glutaminase activity. Strains with the highest activities were selected for further studies. Based on 16S rDNA sequence analysis, it was shown that the selected isolates for L-asparaginase and L-glutaminase production belong to the genus Bacillus and Salicola, respectively. Both enzymes were produced extracellularly. The strain with the most L-asparaginase production did not show L-glutaminase production which is medically important. The effects of key parameters including temperature, initial pH of the solution, and concentrations of glucose, asparagine or glutamine, and sodium chloride were evaluated by means of response surface methodology (RSM) to optimize enzymes production. Under the obtained optimal conditions, L-asparaginase and L-glutaminase production was increased up to 1.5 (61.7 unit/mL) and 2.6 fold (46.4 unit/mL), respectively

On the Role of the Chief Risk Officer and the Risk Committee in Insuring Financial Institutions against Litigation

Can Chief Risk Officers (CROs) act as insurance against litigation risks in financial institutions? In most financial institutions, CROs and their risk management staff fulfill a key role in managing risk exposures, yet their lack of involvement in the governance of banks has been cited as an influential factor that contributed to management team failure and the financial crisis of 2007-2008. A variety of legislative and regulatory bodies have pressured financial firms to improve their risk governance structures to better weather any potential future crises. Assuming that CROs are indeed given sufficient power to influence the corporate governance of financial institutions, can they provide these firms with the promised benefits? To partially answer this question, we consider one of the final outcomes of risky behavior: shareholder litigation. By comparing the risk governance characteristics of sued firms with their non-sued peers, we show that proper risk governance reduces a firm’s litigation probability. We accomplish this by using principal component analysis and by constructing a single measure that captures various aspects of risk management in a firm. In addition, we show that the addition of our risk management factor to models that have been previously proposed in the literature improves the accuracy of those models in identifying companies that are most susceptible to class action lawsuits

Pectinase enzyme from Streptomyces coelicoflavus GIAL86 isolated from Meyghan Salt Lake, Arak, Iran

Aquatic saline ecosystems are suitable environments for isolation of microorganisms with high diversity and widely used biotechnology features. The pectinase enzyme is one of the most important commercial enzymes with high potential in food and pharmaceutical industries. Therefore, the discovery of microorganisms with new characteristics has always been a focus of research. As such, a pectinase producing actinomycete Streptomyces coelicoflavus GIAL86 was isolated from Meyghan Salt Lake of Arak located in Markazi Province of Iran. This strain was screened among 35 isolates of halotolerant actinomycetes with the highest production of pectinase enzymes. It was also found that production of pectate lyase, pectin esterase and polygalacturonase increased simultaneously with the logarithmic growth of the strain and its maximum production is at the time of stationary phase beginning. Also, some actinomycete strains with more pectinase activity were identified by molecular identification and their phylogenic relationships were investigated

Prokaryotic Diversity in Aran-Bidgol Salt Lake, the Largest Hypersaline Playa in Iran

Prokaryotic diversity in Aran-Bidgol salt lake, a thalasohaline lake in Iran, was studied by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), cultivation techniques, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of PCR-amplified fragments of 16S rRNA genes and 16S rRNA gene clone library analysis. Viable counts obtained (2.5–4 × 106 cells mL−1) were similar to total cell abundance in the lake determined by DAPI direct count (3–4×107 cells mL−1). The proportion of Bacteria to Archaea in the community detectable by FISH was unexpectedly high and ranged between 1:3 and 1:2. We analyzed 101 archaeal isolates and found that most belonged to the genera Halorubrum (55%) and Haloarcula (18%). Eleven bacterial isolates obtained in pure culture were affiliated with the genera Salinibacter (18.7%), Salicola (18.7%) and Rhodovibrio (35.3%). Analysis of inserts of 100 clones from the eight 16S rRNA clone libraries constructed revealed 37 OTUs. The majority (63%) of these sequences were not related to any previously identified taxa. Within this sampling effort we most frequently retrieved phylotypes related to Halorhabdus (16% of archaeal sequences obtained) and Salinibacter (36% of bacterial sequences obtained). Other prokaryotic groups that were abundant included representatives of Haloquadratum, the anaerobic genera Halanaerobium and Halocella, purple sulfur bacteria of the genus Halorhodospira and Cyanobacteria

Hypersaline Lake Urmia: a potential hotspot for microbial genomic variation

Lake Urmia located in Iran is a hypersaline environment with a salinity of about 27% (w/v). Metagenomic analyses of water samples collected from six locations in the lake exhibited a microbial community dominated by representatives of the family Haloferacaceae (69.8%), mainly those affiliated to only two genera, Haloquadratum (59.3%) and Halonotius (9.1%). Similar to other hypersaline lakes, the bacterial community was dominated by Salinibacter ruber (23.3%). Genomic variation analysis by inspecting single nucleotide variations (SNVs) and insertions/deletions (INDELs) exhibited a high level of SNVs and insertions, most likely through transformation for abundant taxa in the Lake Urmia community. We suggest that the extreme conditions of Lake Urmia and specifically its high ionic concentrations could potentially increase the SNVs and insertions, which can consequently hamper the assembly and genome reconstruction from metagenomic reads of Lake Urmia

Quantifying nonisothermal subsurface soil water evaporation

Accurate quantification of energy and mass transfer during soil water evaporation is critical for improving understanding of the hydrologic cycle and for many environmental, agricultural, and engineering applications. Drying of soil under radiation boundary conditions results in formation of a dry surface layer (DSL), which is accompanied by a shift in the position of the latent heat sink from the surface to the subsurface. Detailed investigation of evaporative dynamics within this active near-surface zone has mostly been limited to modeling, with few measurements available to test models. Soil column studies were conducted to quantify nonisothermal subsurface evaporation profiles using a sensible heat balance (SHB) approach. Eleven-needle heat pulse probes were used to measure soil temperature and thermal property distributions at the millimeter scale in the near-surface soil. Depth-integrated SHB evaporation rates were compared with mass balance evaporation estimates under controlled laboratory conditions. The results show that the SHB method effectively measured total subsurface evaporation rates with only 0.01–0.03 mm h−1difference from mass balance estimates. The SHB approach also quantified millimeter-scale nonisothermal subsurface evaporation profiles over a drying event, which has not been previously possible. Thickness of the DSL was also examined using measured soil thermal conductivity distributions near the drying surface. Estimates of the DSL thickness were consistent with observed evaporation profile distributions from SHB. Estimated thickness of the DSL was further used to compute diffusive vapor flux. The diffusive vapor flux also closely matched both mass balance evaporation rates and subsurface evaporation rates estimated from SHB