Expression of Four Methionine Sulfoxide Reductases in Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus possesses three MsrA enzymes (MsrA1, MsrA2, MsrA3) that reduce the S-epimer of methionine sulfoxide (MetO) and an MsrB enzyme that reduces R-MetO. The four msr genes are expressed from three different promoters. The msrA1/msrB genes are coexpressed. To determine the expression pattern of msr genes, three independent reporter strains were constructed where msr promoter was cloned in front of a promoterless lacZ and the resulting construct was integrated in the chromosome. Using these strains, it was determined that the msrA1/B expression is significantly higher in S. aureus compared to msrA2 or msrA3. Expression of msrA1/B was highest during stationary phase growth, but the expression of msrA2 and msrA3 was highest during the early to midexponential growth phase. Expression of msrA1/B was induced by oxacillin and the expression of msrA3 was upregulated by salt. Expression of msrA2 remained unchanged under all tested conditions

Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase Signaling Pathway in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Progression, Pathogenesis, and Therapeutics

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly aggressive malignancy characterized by its sudden manifestation, rapid progression, poor prognosis, and limited therapeutic options. Genetic alterations in key signaling pathways found in early pancreatic lesions are pivotal for the development and progression of pancreatic intraepithelial neoplastic lesions into invasive carcinomas. More than 90% of PDAC tumors harbor driver mutations in K-Ras that activate various downstream effector-signaling pathways, including the phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) pathway. The PI3K pathway also responds to stimuli from various growth factor receptors present on the cancer cell surface that, in turn, modulate downstream signaling cascades. Thus, the inositide signaling acts as a central node in the complex cellular signaling networks to impact cancer cell growth, motility, metabolism, and survival. Also, recent publications highlight the importance of PI3K signaling in stromal cells, whereby PI3K signaling modifies the tumor microenvironment to dictate disease outcome. The high incidence of mutations in the PI3K signaling cascade, accompanied by activation of parallel signaling pathways, makes PI3K a promising candidate for drug therapy. In this review, we describe the role of PI3K signaling in pancreatic cancer development and progression. We also discuss the crosstalk between PI3K and other major cellular signaling cascades, and potential therapeutic opportunities for targeting pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Effect of humic acid and nutrients mixture on quality parameter of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) under polyhouse condition

An experiment was conducted on Effect of humic acid and nutrients mixture on growth and yield parameter of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) under polyhouse condition at Rajasthan College of Agriculture, Udaipur (Raj.). The data was analyzed statistically following completely randomized design. The results revealed that treatment T7 [(RDF + humic acid 10 kg/ha soil application + humic acid 0.1% foliar spray + nutrient mixture foliar spray (0.2% Ca + 0.5% Mg + 0.2% B + 0.5% Zn)] was recorded superior to enhance leaf nutrients analysis Ca (1.656%), Mg (0.763%), Zn (25.07ppm) and B (61.94ppm), fruit nutrient analysisCa (1.904%), Mg (0.877%), Zn (58.98ppm) and B (61.84ppm), total Soluble Solids (TSS) (6.020%), ascorbic acid content (39.85mg/100g), lycopene content (3.75 mg/100g) and cost benefit ratio (4.81)

Microscale Gene Expression Analysis of Tumor-Associated Macrophages

Macrophages, apart from being the key effector cells of the innate immune system, also play critical roles during the development and progression of various complex diseases, including cancer. Tumor-associated macrophages, infiltrate tumors during different stages of cancer progression to regulate motility, invasion, and intravasation to metastatic sites. Macrophages can exist in different polarization states associated with unique function in tumors. Since tumor-associated macrophages constitute a very small proportion of tumor cells, analysis of gene expression pattern using normal extraction buffer-based methods remains a challenging task. Therefore, it is imperative to develop low-throughput strategies to investigate transcriptional regulations from a small number of immune cells. Here, we describe an efficient, sensitive, and cost-effective approach for gene expression analysis of a small number of fluorescence-activated sorted tumor-associated macrophages. Our analyses from the different number of stable, primary, and sorted macrophages suggest 5,000 cells is an optimal number for performing quantitative, real-time PCR analysis of multiple genes. Our studies could detect expression of macrophage-specific genes from cultured primary macrophages, and FACS-sorted macrophages from different biological tissues without introducing biases in comparative gene expression ratios. In conclusion, our kit-based method for quantitative gene expression analysis from a small number of cells found in biological tissues will provide an opportunity to study cell-specific, transcriptional changes

Ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity in highly resistive Pb(0.7)Sr(0.3)(Fe(0.012)Ti(0.988))O(3) nanoparticles and its conduction by variable-range-hopping mechanism

The enhancement in ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity at room temperature for Pb0.7Sr0.3�Fe0.012Ti0.988�O3 �PSFT� nanoparticles is proved by magnetization and polarization hysteresis loop. The x-ray diffraction and micrograph show that the PSFT nanoparticles have distorted tetragonal single phase, and their average particle’s size is 8 nm. The effect of Sr content reduces the particle size, and hence the multiferroic system becomes more resistive, which dominates the superparamagnetic/paraelectric relaxation. The variable-range-hopping conduction mechanism explained the high resistivity of PSFT nanoparticles, which suggests that the room temperature movement of electrons involves short-range order through defect states

Origin of depressed fill factor in organic solar cells due to S-shape current-voltage characteristics

Often, a depressed fill factor is observed in organic solar cells (OSCs), which is usually known as S-shaped current-voltage (J-V) characteristics. To investigate the origin of the depressed fill factor further, a poly[N-9-heptadecanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4,7-di-2-thienyl-2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)]:[6,6]-phenyl C71 butyric acid methyl ester based OSC has been characterized through impedance spectroscopy. In addition, the photocurrent vs the applied effective bias plot reveals that the S-shaped J-V characteristics primarily reduce the diffusion current of the device. The present study shows that the diffusion current dominated section of photocurrent reduces with a slope of 2 in the depressed fill factor section given that the slope may further increase as per the impact of the S-shape. The reduction in the diffusion constant (D-n) in the S-shaped region supports the decrease in the diffusion current, which is observed through the photocurrent analysis. It is observed that, in the S-shaped section of the current-voltage characteristics, the transport time for free carriers increases up to 443 mu s. The larger Urbach energy for the active layer of an S-shaped device demonstrates higher subbandgap disorder. Therefore, it is concluded that the accumulation of the charge carriers within the device and disorder in the active layer leads to the S-shaped current-voltage characteristics as well as poor carrier extraction

Mayfly Optimization Algorithm for MPPT of PV System under Partial Shading Conditions

Maximum power point tracking (MPPT)methods are most popular to harvest maximum energy from renewable energy sources for generating electric power. Among many renewable energy sources, solar energy is a primary and mostly available on the earth. Generally photovoltaic (PV) panel are arranging in a proper sequence to produce required electric power. Many conventional MPPT algorithms are available on PV system but working on uniform irradiances. Partial shading is a common phenomenon on PV systems. During partial shading conditions, conventional MPPT algorithms will fail to exhibits its best performance due to occurrence of many local peak powers. Hence, an efficient optimization method must be incorporated to identify global maximum power point among all possible points. Mayfly optimization is one of the best in existing optimization methods. However, perturb and observe (P&O) method must be incorporate with Mayfly technique to produce the best performance under both uniform irradiances and partial shading condition. A boost converter is used as a MPPT device in this paper due to its merits over other converters. Extensive results are carried out on OPAL-RT platform by establishing Hardware – in the – Loop (HIL) to validate the proposed method

Zika Virus- Emergence, Evolution, Pathology, Diagnosis, and Control: Current Global Scenario and Future Perspectives- A Comprehensive Review

This review converses the Zika virus which has attained global concern due to its rapid pandemic potential and impact on humans. Though Zika virus was first isolated in 1947, till the recent large-scale outbreak which occurred in Micronesia, in 2007, the virus was placed into the innocuous pathogen category. The World Health Organization on 1 February 2016 declared it as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.\u27 Of the note, American as well as Pacific Island strains/isolates is relatively closer to Asian lineage strains. The African and American strains share more than 87.5% and 95% homologies with Asian strains/isolates, respectively. Asian strains form independent clusters, except those isolated from China, suggesting relatively more diversity than African strains. Prevention and control are mainly aimed at the vector population (mosquitoes) with Aedes aegypti being the main species. Surveys in Africa and Asia indicated seropositivity in various animal species. However, so far its natural reservoir is unknown. There is an urgent need to understand why Zika virus has shifted from being a virus that caused mild illness to unforeseen birth defects as well as autoimmune-neurological problems. Unfortunately, an effective vaccine is not available yet. Availability of cryo-electron microscopy based on 3.8 angstrom resolution revealing mature Zika virus structure and the probable virus attachment site to host cell would provide critical insights into the development of antiviral treatments and vaccines