The effect of carbon sources on the expression level of thermostable L2 lipase in Pichia pastoris

Thermostable lipases are enzymes that are particularly pleasing for industrial purposes such as in the production of detergents, animal skin-based industry and food processing endeavours. Thermostable L2 lipase gene fished out from Bacillus sp. L2 was cloned into Pichia pastoris strain GS115 under constitutive expression system of pGAPZαA. Study performed on various carbon sources revealed that glucose and glycerol support the growth of Pichia pastoris and expression of L2 lipase. In addition, the by-product of sugar refinery processes (molasses) was found to be a potential carbon source for the growth of P. pastoris and L2 lipase expression. Since the thermostable L2 lipase will be extracellularly secreted into the medium, the use of P. pastoris expression system is seen as an alternative to the conventional expression system of Escherichia coli that applies intracellular expression of the L2 lipase gene encoded.Key words: Thermostable lipase, Pichia pastoris, constitutive expression, carbon source

Micropropagation and production of eurycomanone, 9- methoxycanthin-6-one and canthin-6-one in roots of Eurycoma longifolia plantlets

Eurycoma longifolia or Tongkat Ali is a well known medicinal plant in Malaysia. The plants are used as main portion in herbal preparation, and have been extensively harvested. Generally, most of the raw materials required by the industries are heavily collected from the natural forests, thereby resulting in the uncontrolled exploitation of the plant in the wild. Hence, there is a need to ensure adequate supply of quality E. longifolia for the use of the related industries and for conservation purposes. Micropropagation has proved to be an alternative for the multiplication of medicinal and aromatic plants and it can allow the future commercial use of E. longifolia in the herbal industries. In this study, E. longifolia plantlets were successfully mass-produced using axillary shoot multiplication techniques, and the production of eurycomanone, 9-methoxycanthin-6-one and canthin-6-one compounds of E. longifolia were detected in roots of tissue culture plantlets.Key words: E. longifolia, Tongkat Ali, micropropagation, eurycomanone, 9-methoxycanthin-6-one, canthin-6- one

Consecutive bites on two persons by the same cobra: a case report

In tropical countries like Bangladesh, persons are bitten by snakes every day and a considerable number of patients die en route to the hospital. An event of consecutive neurotoxic bites on two men by a single snake was observed in the Snake Bite Study Clinic (SBSC) of the Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH). Two brothers, working in their semi-pucca restaurant, were successively bitten by the same cobra on their lower limbs. Within an hour, they were taken to the CMCH. Few minutes after admission, both developed symptoms of neurotoxicity: ptosis, nasal voice, dysphagia, broken neck sign, etc. They received polyvalent antivenom (Haffkine Bio-Pharmaceuticals Company, India) and other auxiliary treatment immediately. Within few hours, neurotoxic features were completely absent. Later, the snake was captured in the restaurant kitchen and identified as monocellate cobra (Naja kauthia) by the SBSC. The elder brother developed significant antivenom reactions and both presented necrosis and ulceration at the bite sites. In these cases, immediate arrival to the hospital and early administration of antivenom resulted in successful recoveries

Cyber security incident handling, warning and response system for the european critical information infrastructures (cyberSANE)

This paper aims to enhance the security and resilience of Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs) by providing a dynamic collaborative, warning and response system (CyberSANE system) supporting and guiding security officers and operators (e.g. Incident Response professionals) to recognize, identify, dynamically analyse, forecast, treat and respond to their threats and risks and handle their daily cyber incidents. The proposed solution provides a first of a kind approach for handling cyber security incidents in the digital environments with highly interconnected, complex and diverse nature

Toward Human-Carnivore Coexistence: Understanding Tolerance for Tigers in Bangladesh

Fostering local community tolerance for endangered carnivores, such as tigers (Panthera tigris), is a core component of many conservation strategies. Identification of antecedents of tolerance will facilitate the development of effective tolerance-building conservation action and secure local community support for, and involvement in, conservation initiatives. We use a stated preference approach for measuring tolerance, based on the ‘Wildlife Stakeholder Acceptance Capacity’ concept, to explore villagers’ tolerance levels for tigers in the Bangladesh Sundarbans, an area where, at the time of the research, human-tiger conflict was severe. We apply structural equation modeling to test an a priori defined theoretical model of tolerance and identify the experiential and psychological basis of tolerance in this community. Our results indicate that beliefs about tigers and about the perceived current tiger population trend are predictors of tolerance for tigers. Positive beliefs about tigers and a belief that the tiger population is not currently increasing are both associated with greater stated tolerance for the species. Contrary to commonly-held notions, negative experiences with tigers do not directly affect tolerance levels; instead, their effect is mediated by villagers’ beliefs about tigers and risk perceptions concerning human-tiger conflict incidents. These findings highlight a need to explore and understand the socio-psychological factors that encourage tolerance towards endangered species. Our research also demonstrates the applicability of this approach to tolerance research to a wide range of socio-economic and cultural contexts and reveals its capacity to enhance carnivore conservation efforts worldwide

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Female Sexual Orientation, Childhood Gender Typicality and Adult Gender Identity

Background: Human sexual orientation is influenced by genetic and non-shared environmental factors as are two important psychological correlates – childhood gender typicality (CGT) and adult gender identity (AGI). However, researchers have been unable to resolve the genetic and non-genetic components that contribute to the covariation between these traits, particularly in women. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we performed a multivariate genetic analysis in a large sample of British female twins (N = 4,426) who completed a questionnaire assessing sexual attraction, CGT and AGI. Univariate genetic models indicated modest genetic influences on sexual attraction (25%), AGI (11%) and CGT (31%). For the multivariate analyses, a common pathway model best fitted the data. Conclusions/Significance: This indicated that a single latent variable influenced by a genetic component and common nonshared environmental component explained the association between the three traits but there was substantial measurement error. These findings highlight common developmental factors affecting differences in sexual orientation

Rainwater harvesting systems reduce detergent use

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Purpose: Due to population growth, urban water demand is expected to increase significantly, as well as the environmental and economic costs required to supply it. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems can play a key role in helping cities meet part of their water demand as an alternative to conventional water abstraction and treatment. This paper presents an environmental and economic analysis of RWH systems providing households with water for laundry purposes in a life cycle thinking perspective. Conclusions: LCA and LCC present better results for high-density scenarios. Overall, avoided environmental and economic impacts from detergent reduction clearly surpass environmental impacts (in all categories except terrestrial acidification) and economic cost of the RWHsystem in most cases (except two scenarios). Another important finding is that 80%of the savings are achieved by minimizing detergent and fabric softener by using soft rainwater; and the remaining 20% comes from replacing the use of tap water

LPS-induced NF??B enhanceosome requires TonEBP/NFAT5 without DNA binding

NF??B is a central mediator of inflammation. Present inhibitors of NF??B are mostly based on inhibition of essential machinery such as proteasome and protein kinases, or activation of nuclear receptors; as such, they are of limited therapeutic use due to severe toxicity. Here we report an LPS-induced NF??B enhanceosome in which TonEBP is required for the recruitment of p300. Increased expression of TonEBP enhances the NF??B activity and reduced TonEBP expression lowers it. Recombinant TonEBP molecules incapable of recruiting p300 do not stimulate NF??B. Myeloid-specific deletion of TonEBP results in milder inflammation and sepsis. We discover that a natural small molecule cerulenin specifically disrupts the enhanceosome without affecting the activation of NF??B itself. Cerulenin suppresses the pro-inflammatory activation of macrophages and sepsis without detectable toxicity. Thus, the NF??B enhanceosome offers a promising target for useful anti-inflammatory agents.ope

Inhibition of HCV 3a core gene through Silymarin and its fractions

Hepatitis C is a major health problem affecting 270 million individuals in world including Pakistan. Current treatment regimen, interferon alpha and ribavirin only cure half of patients due to side effects and high cost. In the present study Silybum marianum (Milk thistle) seeds were collected, extracted and analyzed against HCV 3a core gene by transiently transfecting the liver cells with HCV core plasmid. Our results demonstrated that Silymarin (SM) dose dependently inhibit the expression or function of HCV core gene at a non toxic concentration while the GAPDH remained constant. To identify the active ingredient, SM was fractioned by thin layer chromatography (TLC), column chromatography and HPLC. Purified fractions were tested for HCV core gene and western blotting results showed that two factions of SM (S1 and S2) inhibit HCV 3a core expression or function in liver cells Our results suggest SM and its fractions (S1 and S2) inhibit HCV core gene of 3a genotype and combination of SM and its fractions with interferon will be a better option to treat HCV infection