Application of phycoremediation technology in the treatment of wastewater from a leather-processing chemical manufacturing facility

Phycoremediation is the use of algae for the removal or biotransformation of pollutants from wastewater. Employing this technology in the treatment of industrial effluents presents an alternative to the current practice of using conventional methods, including physical and chemical methods. In the present study, the effluent from a leather-processing chemical manufacturing facility, situated at Ranipet, Tamil Nadu, India, was treated using the microalga, Chlorella vulgaris, which was isolated from the effluent itself. The objective of this study was to treat the effluent as well as ETP (effluent treatment plant) solid waste by phycoremediation (pilot-scale field study as well as laboratory study) and to analyse the physico-chemical parameters before and after treatment. The results obtained showed that Chlorella  vulgaris exhibited appreciable nutrient scavenging properties under both laboratory and field conditions, although phycoremediation carried out in sunlight (field study) gave better results. Moreover, the growth of Chlorella vulgaris was faster under field conditions.Keywords: Phycoremediation, microalgae, Chlorella vulgaris, effluent, ETP soli

New Symmetries in Crystals and Handed Structures

For over a century, the structure of materials has been described by a combination of rotations, rotation-inversions and translational symmetries. By recognizing the reversal of static structural rotations between clockwise and counterclockwise directions as a distinct symmetry operation, here we show that there are many more structural symmetries than are currently recognized in right- or left-handed handed helices, spirals, and in antidistorted structures composed equally of rotations of both handedness. For example, though a helix or spiral cannot possess conventional mirror or inversion symmetries, they can possess them in combination with the rotation reversal symmetry. Similarly, we show that many antidistorted perovskites possess twice the number of symmetry elements as conventionally identified. These new symmetries predict new forms for "roto" properties that relate to static rotations, such as rotoelectricity, piezorotation, and rotomagnetism. They also enable symmetry-based search for new phenomena, such as multiferroicity involving a coupling of spins, electric polarization and static rotations. This work is relevant to structure-property relationships in all material structures with static rotations such as minerals, polymers, proteins, and engineered structures.Comment: 15 Pages, 4 figures, 3 Tables; Fig. 2b has error

A volumetric display for visual, tactile and audio presentation using acoustic trapping

Science-fiction movies such as Star Wars portray volumetric systems that not only provide visual but also tactile and audible 3D content. Displays, based on swept volume surfaces, holography, optophoretics, plasmonics, or lenticular lenslets, can create 3D visual content without the need for glasses or additional instrumentation. However, they are slow, have limited persistence of vision (POV) capabilities, and, most critically, rely on operating principles that cannot also produce tactile and auditive content. Here, we present for the first time a Multimodal Acoustic Trap Display (MATD): a mid-air volumetric display that can simultaneously deliver visual, auditory, and tactile content, using acoustophoresis as the single operating principle. Our system acoustically traps a particle and illuminates it with red, green, and blue light to control its colour as it quickly scans through our display volume. Using time multiplexing with a secondary trap, amplitude modulation and phase minimization, the MATD delivers simultaneous auditive and tactile content. The system demonstrates particle speeds of up to 8.75m/s and 3.75m/s in the vertical and horizontal directions respectively, offering particle manipulation capabilities superior to other optical or acoustic approaches demonstrated to date. Beyond enabling simultaneous visual, tactile and auditive content, our approach and techniques offer opportunities for non-contact, high-speed manipulation of matter, with applications in computational fabrication and biomedicine

Identifying Tightly Regulated and Variably Expressed Networks by Differential Rank Conservation (DIRAC)

A powerful way to separate signal from noise in biology is to convert the molecular data from individual genes or proteins into an analysis of comparative biological network behaviors. One of the limitations of previous network analyses is that they do not take into account the combinatorial nature of gene interactions within the network. We report here a new technique, Differential Rank Conservation (DIRAC), which permits one to assess these combinatorial interactions to quantify various biological pathways or networks in a comparative sense, and to determine how they change in different individuals experiencing the same disease process. This approach is based on the relative expression values of participating genes—i.e., the ordering of expression within network profiles. DIRAC provides quantitative measures of how network rankings differ either among networks for a selected phenotype or among phenotypes for a selected network. We examined disease phenotypes including cancer subtypes and neurological disorders and identified networks that are tightly regulated, as defined by high conservation of transcript ordering. Interestingly, we observed a strong trend to looser network regulation in more malignant phenotypes and later stages of disease. At a sample level, DIRAC can detect a change in ranking between phenotypes for any selected network. Variably expressed networks represent statistically robust differences between disease states and serve as signatures for accurate molecular classification, validating the information about expression patterns captured by DIRAC. Importantly, DIRAC can be applied not only to transcriptomic data, but to any ordinal data type

Does Social Capital Promote Physical Activity? A Population-Based Study in Japan

To examine the association between individual-level social capital and physical activity.In February 2009, data were collected in a population-based cross-sectional survey in Okayama city, Japan. A cluster-sampling approach was used to randomly select 4,000 residents from 20 school districts. A total of 2260 questionnaires were returned (response rate: 57.4%). Individual-level social capital was assessed by an item inquiring about perceived trust of others in the community (cognitive dimension of social capital) categorized as low trust (43.0%), mid trust (38.6%), and high trust (17.3%), as well as participation in voluntary groups (structural dimension of social capital), which further distinguished between bonding (8.9%) and bridging (27.1%) social capital. Using logistic regression, we calculated the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for physical inactivity associated with each domain of social capital. Multiple imputation method was employed for missing data. Among total participants, 68.8% were physically active and 28.9% were inactive. Higher trust was associated with a significantly lower odds of physical inactivity (OR = 0.58, 95% CI = 0.42-0.79) compared with low trust. Both bridging and bonding social capital were marginally significantly associated with lower odds of physical inactivity (bridging, OR = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.62-1.00; bonding, OR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.48-1.03) compared with lack of structural social capital.Low individual-level social capital, especially lower trust of others in the community, was associated with physical inactivity among Japanese adults

TLR7 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the 3' untranslated region and intron 2 independently contribute to systemic lupus erythematosus in Japanese women: a case-control association study

IntroductionThe Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) gene, encoded on human chromosome Xp22.3, is crucial for type I interferon production. A recent multicenter study in East Asian populations, comprising Chinese, Korean and Japanese participants, identified an association of a TLR7 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) located in the 3\u27 untranslated region (3\u27 UTR), rs3853839, with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), especially in males, although some difference was observed among the tested populations. To test whether additional polymorphisms contribute to SLE in Japanese, we systematically analyzed the association of TLR7 with SLE in a Japanese female population.MethodsA case-control association study was conducted on eight tag SNPs in the TLR7 region, including rs3853839, in 344 Japanese females with SLE and 274 healthy female controls.ResultsIn addition to rs3853839, two SNPs in intron 2, rs179019 and rs179010, which were in moderate linkage disequilibrium with each other (r2 = 0.53), showed an association with SLE (rs179019: P = 0.016, odds ratio (OR) 2.02, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.15 to 3.54; rs179010: P = 0.018, OR 1.75, 95% CI 1.10 to 2.80 (both under the recessive model)). Conditional logistic regression analysis revealed that the association of the intronic SNPs and the 3\u27 UTR SNP remained significant after we adjusted them for each other. When only the patients and controls carrying the risk genotypes at the 3\u27 UTR SNPpositionwere analyzed, the risk of SLE was significantly increased when the individuals also carried the risk genotypes at both of the intronic SNPs (P = 0.0043, OR 2.45, 95% CI 1.31 to 4.60). Furthermore, the haplotype containing the intronic risk alleles in addition to the 3\u27 UTR risk allele was associated with SLE under the recessive model (P = 0.016, OR 2.37, 95% CI 1.17 to 4.80), but other haplotypes were not associated with SLE.ConclusionsThe TLR7 intronic SNPs rs179019 and rs179010 are associated with SLE independently of the 3\u27 UTR SNP rs3853839 in Japanese women. Our findings support a role of TLR7 in predisposition for SLE in Asian populations

CpG site degeneration triggered by the loss of functional constraint created a highly polymorphic macaque drug-metabolizing gene, CYP1A2

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Elucidating the pattern of evolutionary changes in drug-metabolizing genes is an important subject not only for evolutionary but for biomedical research. We investigated the pattern of divergence and polymorphisms of macaque <it>CYP1A1 </it>and <it>CYP1A2 </it>genes, which are major drug-metabolizing genes in humans. In humans, <it>CYP1A2 </it>is specifically expressed in livers while <it>CYP1A1 </it>has a wider gene expression pattern in extrahepatic tissues. In contrast, macaque <it>CYP1A2 </it>is expressed at a much lower level than <it>CYP1A1 </it>in livers. Interestingly, a previous study has shown that <it>Macaca fascicularis CYP1A2 </it>harbored unusually high genetic diversity within species. Genomic regions showing high genetic diversity within species is occasionally interpreted as a result of balancing selection, where natural selection maintains highly diverged alleles with different functions. Nevertheless many other forces could create such signatures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that the <it>CYP1A1/2 </it>gene copy number and orientation has been highly conserved among mammalian genomes. The signature of gene conversion between <it>CYP1A1 </it>and <it>CYP1A2 </it>was detected, but the last gene conversion event in the simian primate lineage occurred before the <it>Catarrhini-Platyrrhini </it>divergence. The high genetic diversity of macaque <it>CYP1A2 </it>therefore cannot be explained by gene conversion between <it>CYP1A1 </it>and <it>CYP1A2</it>. By surveying <it>CYP1A2 </it>polymorphisms in total 91 <it>M. fascicularis </it>and <it>M. mulatta</it>, we found several null alleles segregating in these species, indicating functional constraint on <it>CYP1A2 </it>in macaques may have weakened after the divergence between humans and macaques. We propose that the high genetic diversity in macaque <it>CYP1A2 </it>is partly due to the degeneration of CpG sites, which had been maintained at a high level by purifying selection, and the rapid degeneration process was initiated by the loss of functional constraint on macaque <it>CYP1A2</it>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings show that the highly polymorphic <it>CYP1A2 </it>gene in macaques has not been created by balancing selection but by the burst of CpG site degeneration after loss of functional constraint. Because the functional importance of <it>CYP1A1/2 </it>genes is different between humans and macaques, we have to be cautious in extrapolating a drug-testing data using substrates metabolized by <it>CYP1A </it>genes from macaques to humans, despite of their somewhat overlapping substrate specificity.</p

Angiogenin protects motoneurons against hypoxic injury.

Cells can adapt to hypoxia through the activation of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1), which in turn regulates the expression of hypoxia-responsive genes. Defects in hypoxic signaling have been suggested to underlie the degeneration of motoneurons in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We have recently identified mutations in the hypoxia-responsive gene, angiogenin (ANG), in ALS patients, and have shown that ANG is constitutively expressed in motoneurons. Here, we show that HIF-1alpha is sufficient and required to activate ANG in cultured motoneurons exposed to hypoxia, although ANG expression does not change in a transgenic ALS mouse model or in sporadic ALS patients. Administration of recombinant ANG or expression of wild-type ANG protected motoneurons against hypoxic injury, whereas gene silencing of ang1 significantly increased hypoxia-induced cell death. The previously reported ALS-associated ANG mutations (Q12L, K17I, R31K, C39W, K40I, I46V) all showed a reduced neuroprotective activity against hypoxic injury. Our data show that ANG plays an important role in endogenous protective pathways of motoneurons exposed to hypoxia, and suggest that loss of function rather than loss of expression of ANG is associated with ALS

Molecular analysis of the vaginal response to estrogens in the ovariectomized rat and postmenopausal woman

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Vaginal atrophy (VA) is the thinning of the vaginal epithelial lining, typically the result of lowered estrogen levels during menopause. Some of the consequences of VA include increased susceptibility to bacterial infection, pain during sexual intercourse, and vaginal burning or itching. Although estrogen treatment is highly effective, alternative therapies are also desired for women who are not candidates for post-menopausal hormone therapy (HT). The ovariectomized (OVX) rat is widely accepted as an appropriate animal model for many estrogen-dependent responses in humans; however, since reproductive biology can vary significantly between mammalian systems, this study examined how well the OVX rat recapitulates human biology.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyzed 19 vaginal biopsies from human subjects pre and post 3-month 17β-estradiol treated by expression profiling. Data were compared to transcriptional profiling generated from vaginal samples obtained from ovariectomized rats treated with 17β-estradiol for 6 hrs, 3 days or 5 days. The level of differential expression between pre- vs. post- estrogen treatment was calculated for each of the human and OVX rat datasets. Probe sets corresponding to orthologous rat and human genes were mapped to each other using NCBI Homologene.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A positive correlation was observed between the rat and human responses to estrogen. Genes belonging to several biological pathways and GO categories were similarly differentially expressed in rat and human. A large number of the coordinately regulated biological processes are already known to be involved in human VA, such as inflammation, epithelial development, and EGF pathway activation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>At the transcriptional level, there is evidence of significant overlap of the effects of estrogen treatment between the OVX rat and human VA samples.</p