Approaches in biotechnological applications of natural polymers

Natural polymers, such as gums and mucilage, are biocompatible, cheap, easily available and non-toxic materials of native origin. These polymers are increasingly preferred over synthetic materials for industrial applications due to their intrinsic properties, as well as they are considered alternative sources of raw materials since they present characteristics of sustainability, biodegradability and biosafety. As definition, gums and mucilages are polysaccharides or complex carbohydrates consisting of one or more monosaccharides or their derivatives linked in bewildering variety of linkages and structures. Natural gums are considered polysaccharides naturally occurring in varieties of plant seeds and exudates, tree or shrub exudates, seaweed extracts, fungi, bacteria, and animal sources. Water-soluble gums, also known as hydrocolloids, are considered exudates and are pathological products; therefore, they do not form a part of cell wall. On the other hand, mucilages are part of cell and physiological products. It is important to highlight that gums represent the largest amounts of polymer materials derived from plants. Gums have enormously large and broad applications in both food and non-food industries, being commonly used as thickening, binding, emulsifying, suspending, stabilizing agents and matrices for drug release in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the food industry, their gelling properties and the ability to mold edible films and coatings are extensively studied. The use of gums depends on the intrinsic properties that they provide, often at costs below those of synthetic polymers. For upgrading the value of gums, they are being processed into various forms, including the most recent nanomaterials, for various biotechnological applications. Thus, the main natural polymers including galactomannans, cellulose, chitin, agar, carrageenan, alginate, cashew gum, pectin and starch, in addition to the current researches about them are reviewed in this article.. }To the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfíico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for fellowships (LCBBC and MGCC) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nvíel Superior (CAPES) (PBSA). This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) (JAT)

Can Ultrasound or pH Influence Pd Distribution on the Surface of HAP to Improve Its Catalytic Properties in the Dry Reforming of Methane?

The influence of ultrasound and different pH pre-treatments during the metal doping/modification of a hydroxyapatite (HAP) support is investigated. HAP is first synthesised via a hard-template synthetic route using carbon nanorods followed by their full physiochemical characterisation. The HAP was found to be crystalline and comprised a mesoporous structure as observed via XRD and nitrogen adsorption with a BET surface area of 97.57 (±1.16) m2 g−1. Ultrasound-assisted ion exchange (IE) and incipient wetness impregnation (IW) methodologies were employed to decorate the surface of HAP with Pd0 and are compared to previous procedures. The influence of pH upon the distribution of Pd0 throughout the samples during the doping process is also studied. All the prepared samples were evaluated for their catalytic activity towards dry reforming of methane (DRM) and the reaction was monitored via a thermal conductivity detector, coupled with gas chromatography (GC-TCD). It was found that ultrasound-assisted IE significantly accelerated the process from 3 days to 3 h and with the Pd0 metal remaining highly distributed upon the HAP with minor changes in catalytic conversions. Moreover, the ultrasound-assisted IW method successfully improved the Pd0 distribution and catalytic performance. On the other hand, the dispersion of the metal was unaffected after pH treatments in IE with no catalytic improvements observed, in contrast to IW, where considerable increase in metal distribution and subsequently catalytic performance was observed

Identification and rejection of pile-up jets at high pseudorapidity with the ATLAS detector

The rejection of forward jets originating from additional proton–proton interactions (pile-up) is crucial for a variety of physics analyses at the LHC, including Standard Model measurements and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. The identification of such jets is challenging due to the lack of track and vertex information in the pseudorapidity range |η| > 2.5. This paper presents a novel strategy for forward pile-up jet tagging that exploits jet shapes and topological jet correlations in pile-up interactions. Measurements of the per-jet tagging efficiency are presented using a data set of 3.2 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector. The fraction of pile-up jets rejected in the range 2.5 < |η| < 4.5 is estimated in simulated events with an average of 22 interactions per bunch-crossing. It increases with jet transverse momentum and, for jets with transverse momentum between 20 and 50 GeV, it ranges between 49% and 67% with an efficiency of 85% for selecting hard-scatter jets. A case study is performed in Higgs boson production via the vector-boson fusion process, showing that these techniques mitigate the background growth due to additional proton–proton interactions, thus enhancing the reach for such signatures

Associations between telomere attrition, genetic variants in telomere maintenance genes, and non-small cell lung cancer risk in the Jammu and Kashmir population of North India

Abstract Background Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences located at the ends of chromosomes, playing a vital role in maintaining chromosomal integrity and stability. Dysregulation of telomeres has been implicated in the development of various cancers, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which is the most common type of lung cancer. Genetic variations within telomere maintenance genes may influence the risk of developing NSCLC. The present study aimed to evaluate the genetic associations of select variants within telomere maintenance genes in a population from Jammu and Kashmir, North India, and to investigate the relationship between telomere length and NSCLC risk. Methods We employed the cost-effective and high-throughput MassARRAY MALDI-TOF platform to assess the genetic associations of select variants within telomere maintenance genes in a population from Jammu and Kashmir, North India. Additionally, we used TaqMan genotyping to validate our results. Furthermore, we investigated telomere length variation and its relation to NSCLC risk in the same population using dual-labeled fluorescence-based qPCR. Results Our findings revealed significant associations of TERT rs10069690 and POT1 rs10228682 with NSCLC risk (adjusted p-values = 0.019 and 0.002, respectively), while TERF2 rs251796 and rs2975843 showed no significant associations. The TaqMan genotyping validation further substantiated the associations of TERT rs10069690 and rs2242652 with NSCLC risk (adjusted p-values = 0.02 and 0.003, respectively). Our results also demonstrated significantly shorter telomere lengths in NSCLC patients compared to controls (p = 0.0004). Conclusion This study highlights the crucial interplay between genetic variation in telomere maintenance genes, telomere attrition, and NSCLC risk in the Jammu and Kashmir population of North India. Our findings suggest that TERT and POT1 gene variants, along with telomere length, may serve as potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets for NSCLC in this population. Further research is warranted to elucidate the underlying mechanisms and to explore the potential clinical applications of these findings

Lipoatrophy in GH deficient patients treated with a long-acting pegylated GH.

OBJECTIVE: Changes observed during adult GH deficiency (GHD) are most often reversed with the administration of recombinant human GH (rhGH). To avoid daily injections, a long-acting GH molecule has been obtained by covalent binding of polyethylene glycol (PEG) with rhGH (PEG-GH), allowing weekly s.c. injections. This study was designed to assess its efficacy and safety, in adult GHD subjects. DESIGN AND METHODS: This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multiple-dose, parallel group study. Subjects were recruited from 34 centers. A total of 105 subjects with GHD were assigned a treatment. They received 6 weekly injections of either PEG-GH or placebo. Subjects were randomized into one out of four treatment groups (Groups A-D) or placebo (Group E). Groups A, B, and C received 1, 3, and 4 mg PEG-GH respectively, for the first 3 weeks followed by 2, 6, and 8 mg PEG-GH respectively, for the remaining 3 weeks. Group D received 4 mg PEG-GH for 6 weeks. Group E received placebo. The study was suspended because of the development of lipoatrophy in certain subjects and restarted with an injection rotation plan, before being terminated due to further subjects developing lipoatrophy. RESULTS: A total of 13 cases of injection-site lipoatrophy were reported, of which ten were in females and three occurred after the first injection; all cases were independent of PEG-GH dose or IGF1 levels, either basal or under treatment. CONCLUSION: The unpredictable occurrence of injection-site lipoatrophy with weekly long-acting pegylated GH molecules may be a limiting factor for their development