Mobilization of Stem Cells Using G-CSF for Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Randomized Controlled, Pilot Study

Background. There is emerging evidence to support the use of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) therapy in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Aims. To explore feasibility, safety, and preliminary efficacy of G-CSF therapy in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Patients and Method. In randomized study, 10 patients with acute ischemic stroke were recruited in 1 : 1 ratio to receive 10 μg/kg G-CSF treatment subcutaneously daily for five days with conventional care or conventional treatment alone. Efficacy outcome measures were assessed at baseline, one month, and after six months of treatment included Barthel Index (BI), National Institute of Health Stroke Scale, and modified Rankin Scale. Results. One patient in G-CSF therapy arm died due to raised intracranial pressure. No severe adverse effects were seen in rest of patients receiving G-CSF therapy arm or control arm. No statistically significant difference between intervention and control was observed in any of the scores though a trend of higher improvement of BI score is seen in the intervention group. Conclusion. Although this study did not have power to examine efficacy, it provides preliminary evidence of potential safety, feasibility, and tolerability of G-CSF therapy. Further studies need to be done on a large sample to confirm the results

MtSNPscore: a combined evidence approach for assessing cumulative impact of mitochondrial variations in disease

Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variations have been implicated in a broad spectrum of diseases. With over 3000 mtDNA variations reported across databases, establishing pathogenicity of variations in mtDNA is a major challenge. We have designed and developed a comprehensive weighted scoring system (MtSNPscore) for identification of mtDNA variations that can impact pathogenicity and would likely be associated with disease. The criteria for pathogenicity include information available in the literature, predictions made by various in silico tools and frequency of variation in normal and patient datasets. The scoring scheme also assigns scores to patients and normal individuals to estimate the cumulative impact of variations. The method has been implemented in an automated pipeline and has been tested on Indian ataxia dataset (92 individuals), sequenced in this study, and other publicly available mtSNP dataset comprising of 576 mitochondrial genomes of Japanese individuals from six different groups, namely, patients with Parkinson's disease, patients with Alzheimer's disease, young obese males, young non-obese males, and type-2 diabetes patients with or without severe vascular involvement. MtSNPscore, for analysis can extract information from variation data or from mitochondrial DNA sequences. It has a web-interface http://bioinformatics.ccmb.res.in/cgi-bin/snpscore/Mtsnpscore.pl webcite that provides flexibility to update/modify the parameters for estimating pathogenicity

Aggregation tests identify new gene associations with breast cancer in populations with diverse ancestry

Low-frequency variants play an important role in breast cancer (BC) susceptibility. Gene-based methods can increase power by combining multiple variants in the same gene and help identify target genes. We evaluated the potential of gene-based aggregation in the Breast Cancer Association Consortium cohorts including 83,471 cases and 59,199 controls. Low-frequency variants were aggregated for individual genes' coding and regulatory regions. Association results in European ancestry samples were compared to single-marker association results in the same cohort. Gene-based associations were also combined in meta-analysis across individuals with European, Asian, African, and Latin American and Hispanic ancestry. In European ancestry samples, 14 genes were significantly associated (q < 0.05) with BC. Of those, two genes, FMNL3 (P = 6.11 × 10 ) and AC058822.1 (P = 1.47 × 10 ), represent new associations. High FMNL3 expression has previously been linked to poor prognosis in several other cancers. Meta-analysis of samples with diverse ancestry discovered further associations including established candidate genes ESR1 and CBLB. Furthermore, literature review and database query found further support for a biologically plausible link with cancer for genes CBLB, FMNL3, FGFR2, LSP1, MAP3K1, and SRGAP2C. Using extended gene-based aggregation tests including coding and regulatory variation, we report identification of plausible target genes for previously identified single-marker associations with BC as well as the discovery of novel genes implicated in BC development. Including multi ancestral cohorts in this study enabled the identification of otherwise missed disease associations as ESR1 (P = 1.31 × 10 ), demonstrating the importance of diversifying study cohorts. [Abstract copyright: © 2023. The Author(s).

Biocalcification by Sporosarcina pasteurii using corn steep liquor as the nutrient source

Corn steep liquor (CSL), an industrial by-product, was used as a nutrient source to grow Sporosarcina pasteurii, a bacterium used to remediate cracks and fissures in building materials and structures. Urease activity and calcite production by S. pasteurii was higher in CSL-urea medium compared to nutrient and yeast extract media. CSL can thus be used as low-cost nutrient medium for the production of urease and calcite by S. pasteurii

Characterization of Two Urease-Producing and Calcifying Bacillus spp. Isolated from Cement

Two bacterial strains designated as CT2 and CT5 were isolated from highly alkaline cement samples using the enrichment culture technique. On the basis of various physiological tests and 16S rRNA sequence analysis, the bacteria were identified as Bacillus species. The urease production was 575.87 U/ml and 670.71 U/ml for CT2 and CT5 respectively. Calcite constituted 27.6% and 31% of the total weight of sand samples plugged by CT2 and CT5, respectively. Scanning electron micrography (SEM) analysis revealed the direct involvement of these isolates in calcite precipitation. This is the first report of the isolation and identification of Bacillus species from cement. Based on the ability of these bacteria to tolerate extreme environment of cement, they have potential to be used in remediating the cracks and fissures in various building or concrete structures

Microbiological Risk Assessment and Bioprocess Engineering

The Europe 2020 strategy (European Commission, 2010) calls a bioeconomy as a key element for smart and green growth in Europe. The development of a greener and more resource-efficient economy gives rise to new technologies and materials, which in turn may result in increased exposure to biological agents or combinations of different potentially harmful factors. For example, the expanding recycling industry employs an increasing number of workers which have to face various health problems (pulmonary, gastrointestinal and skin problems) as a result of exposure to biological agents such as airborne microorganisms. However, specific numbers for occupational diseases in this sector are still lacking. There are various workplaces and professional activities especially from the green industry for which exposure to microbiological agents occur unexpectedly and in an uncontrolled way. The issue of uncontrolled microbial exposure there is for example in waste treatment and for retrofitting activities, both growing sectors of employment in a greening society. As a result of the problem in the green industrial sector, there is a need to develop tools for risk assessment and prevention measures. In order to be able to develop suitable risk management strategies, a further development of detection and identification methods for biological agents is needed to cover the whole spectrum of microorganisms. the present paper focuses on the microbiological risk assessment in the context of the development of new and safe industrial products and processes of green industry (bioindustry and bioprocessing)

Microbial Concrete, a Wonder Metabolic Product That Remediates the Defects in Building Structures

Microbes play key geoactive roles in the biosphere, particularly in the areas of element biotransformations, biogeochemical cycling and mineral transformations and formations. Recently, the ability of bacteria to produce minerals such as carbonates has been studied in detail with various uses in civil engineering. Natural processes, such as weathering, faults, land subsidence, earthquakes, andhuman activities create fractures and fi ssures in concrete structures, which can reduce the service life of the structures. ‘Microbial Concrete’ a novel metabolic byproduct of microbially induced calcite precipitation by way of urease (urea hydrolyzing enzyme) presents a promising novel biotechnology for the enhancement of durability of building materials and structures. The ubiquity and importance ofmicrobes in inducing calcite precipitation make “microbial concrete” a most important metabolic product of biomineralization that can remediate and restore such structures. Urease producing bacteria when added to cement, helps in the improvement of compressive strength, reduction of permeability and reduced corrosion rate of reinforced structure. The promising results using this metabolic product encouraged different research groups world wide and in-depth studies of these different approaches have been discussed in this chapter. The methodologies to such approach have also been discussed. The present chapter suggests a potential use of the microbially induced calcite precipitation process with environmental signifi cance as a safe consolidation tool in remediation of defects in building structures and towards enhancement in its service life