Purification and biochemical characterization of a serine alkaline protease TC4 from a new isolated Bacillus alcalophilus TCCC11004 in detergent formulations

An extracellular alkaline protease producing strain was isolated from alkaline soil and identified as Bacillus alcalophilus TCCC11004 on the basis of 16S rDNA gene sequencing and biochemical properties. The most appropriate medium for the protease production was composed of (g/l): maltodextrin 110, yeast extract 17.5, cotton seed meal 29.3, K2HPO4 18, trisodium citrate 3.3 and CaCl2 2.6. The alkaline protease TC4 was purified from the culture supernatant by ammonium sulfate precipitation, Sephadex G-75 gel filtration and SP-Sepharose HP ion exchange chromatography, with a 6.8 fold increase in specific activity and 15.2% recovery. The molecular weight was estimated to be 26 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The protease was highly active from pH 9.0-12.0 with an optimal at pH 11.0. It was active at 30 - 60°C and exhibited maximal activity at 50°C. The thermostability of the protease was increased by the addition of CaCl2. It retained 70 and 81% of its initial activity after heating for 2 h at 50°C, in the absence or presence of 2 mM CaCl2, respectively. The enzyme was inactivated by diisopropyl fluorophosphate and phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, suggesting that it is a serine protease. The protease was stable in 0.5% SDS and retained 70.3% of its initial activity after 1 h of incubation. It was active in the presence of 3% Triton X-100 with 100% activity and stable towards oxidizing agent with 69.2% activity in the presence of 1% H2O2. The enzyme showed excellent compatibility with commercial detergents such as TaiZi, BiLang, DiaoPai and TianQing, retaining more than 90% of its initial activity in the tested detergents after 1 h of preincubation at 40°C.Keywords: Serine alkaline protease, Bacillus alcalophilus, stability, detergent compatibility

Acupuncture in Treating Hepatic Fibrosis: A Review with Recommendation for Future Studies

Hepatic fibrosis, as a major medical problem, is characterized with significant morbidity and mortality. Acupuncture has potential advantages in treating hepatic fibrosis as acupuncture functions well to reduce Qi and Blood stagnation, resolve stasis and enhance body immunity, which are important factors in treating hepatic fibrosis. The aim of this review was to appraise the current limited evidence of acupuncture in treating hepatic fibrosis from both animal experiments and clinical trials by using both Chinese and western databases and to provide recommendations for future studies

Distribution and significance of interstitial fibrosis and stroma-infiltrating B cells in tongue squamous cell carcinoma

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Physiological response of natural C-taklimakanensis BRPan et GMShen to unconfined groundwater in the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert

Calligonum. taklimakanensis B.R.Pan et G.M.Shen is an indigenous species that grows in the Taklimakan Desert. This study shows the relationship between C. taklimakanensis B.R.Pan et G.M.Shen and water conditions in the hinterland of the desert. The results show that: (1) Depth of water table is an important factor that affects water potential (Psi(p), Psi(A)), osmotic potential (Psi(sat), Psi(tlp)), relative water content (RWCtlp, ROWCtlp), and transpiration rate. (2) The degree of mineralization has a significant impact on the water potential of plants. A high degree of mineralization can strongly reduce plant productivity. (3) C. taklimakanensis B.R.Pan et G.M.Shen reduces the temperature of assimilation sticks through a high transpiration rate and maintains relatively high water content to adapt to drought and hot weather conditions in the hinterland of the desert. In addition, C. taklimakanensis B.R.Pan et G.M.Shen adapts to the water status in the desert through self-regulation or even sacrificing productivity

Photosynthesis responses of endemic shrubs of Taklimakan Desert to adverse temperature, humidity and radiation

Under the native habitat conditions, the seasonal gas exchange characteristics of two natural endemic plant species, Calligonum taklimakanensis B.R. Pan & GM. Shen and Tamarix taklamakanensis M.T. Liu, which are located in the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert, are measured and compared by Li-6400 photosynthesis system. The results indicate that temperature (degrees C), solar radiation (PAR), soil water content (SWC), and other environmental factors have obvious seasonal variations and the gas exchange characteristics of two plants have different changes in different growing seasons. For C. taklimakanensis, both in July and September, its daily changes of net photosynthetic rate tend to be obvious double peak curve, but in July its peak appeared earlier. Besides its maximum net photosynthetic rate (P-max), apparent quantum efficiency (Phi), range of effective photosynthetic radiation significantly less than that in September. Moreover, its water use efficiency (WUE) in July was also lower than that in September due to the higher transpiration rate (T-r). For T. taklamakanensis, although its daily change of net photosynthetic rate is a single peak curve in September, its peak time has not changed, and except that its WUE is higher in September like C. taklimakanensis, the maximum net photosynthetic rate (P-max), apparent quantum efficiency (Phi), light saturation point, and range of effective photosynthetic radiation has not changed or slightly declined. That is to say C. taklimakanensis select a season that habitat was better (like September) to progress relative effectively photosynthesis accumulation, in contrast, T. taklamakanensis still keep a relatively stable photosynthesis rate in different growth seasons. The difference of gas exchange characteristics of the two plants in different seasons shows that adaptation strategies of the two plants to extreme conditions in desert are different. Besides, both the higher photosynthetic accumulation rate and the higher water use efficiency in September also indicate that these two endemic desert shrubs possess the abilities and strategies to make the best of limited natural resources

Proteomics: in pursuit of effective traumatic brain injury therapeutics

Effective traumatic brain injury (TBI) therapeutics remain stubbornly elusive. Efforts in the field have been challenged by the heterogeneity of clinical TBI, with greater complexity among underlying molecular phenotypes than initially conceived. Future research must confront the multitude of factors comprising this heterogeneity, representing a big data challenge befitting the coming informatics age. Proteomics is poised to serve a central role in prescriptive therapeutic development, as it offers an efficient endpoint within which to assess post-TBI biochemistry. We examine rationale for multifactor TBI proteomic studies and the particular importance of temporal profiling in defining biochemical sequences and guiding therapeutic development. Lastly, we offer perspective on repurposing biofluid proteomics to develop theragnostic assays with which to prescribe, monitor and assess pharmaceutics for improved translation and outcome for TBI patients

Effect of telephone intervention on stoma self-care of colostomy patients

2010-2011 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Accretion Disks Around Black Holes: Twenty Five Years Later

We study the progress of the theory of accretion disks around black holes in last twenty five years and explain why advective disks are the best bet in explaining varied stationary and non-stationary observations from black hole candidates. We show also that the recently proposed advection dominated flows are incorrect.Comment: 30 Latex pages including figures. Kluwer Style files included. Appearing in `Observational Evidence for Black Holes in the Universe', ed. Sandip K. Chakrabarti, Kluwer Academic Publishers (DORDRECHT: Holland

Accelerated search for biomolecular network models to interpret high-throughput experimental data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The functions of human cells are carried out by biomolecular networks, which include proteins, genes, and regulatory sites within DNA that encode and control protein expression. Models of biomolecular network structure and dynamics can be inferred from high-throughput measurements of gene and protein expression. We build on our previously developed fuzzy logic method for bridging quantitative and qualitative biological data to address the challenges of noisy, low resolution high-throughput measurements, i.e., from gene expression microarrays. We employ an evolutionary search algorithm to accelerate the search for hypothetical fuzzy biomolecular network models consistent with a biological data set. We also develop a method to estimate the probability of a potential network model fitting a set of data by chance. The resulting metric provides an estimate of both model quality and dataset quality, identifying data that are too noisy to identify meaningful correlations between the measured variables.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Optimal parameters for the evolutionary search were identified based on artificial data, and the algorithm showed scalable and consistent performance for as many as 150 variables. The method was tested on previously published human cell cycle gene expression microarray data sets. The evolutionary search method was found to converge to the results of exhaustive search. The randomized evolutionary search was able to converge on a set of similar best-fitting network models on different training data sets after 30 generations running 30 models per generation. Consistent results were found regardless of which of the published data sets were used to train or verify the quantitative predictions of the best-fitting models for cell cycle gene dynamics.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results demonstrate the capability of scalable evolutionary search for fuzzy network models to address the problem of inferring models based on complex, noisy biomolecular data sets. This approach yields multiple alternative models that are consistent with the data, yielding a constrained set of hypotheses that can be used to optimally design subsequent experiments.</p