Inferring microRNA-Environmental Factor Interactions Based on Multiple Biological Information Fusion.

Accumulated studies have shown that environmental factors (EFs) can regulate the expression of microRNA (miRNA) which is closely associated with several diseases. Therefore, identifying miRNA-EF associations can facilitate the study of diseases. Recently, several computational methods have been proposed to explore miRNA-EF interactions. In this paper, a novel computational method, MEI-BRWMLL, is proposed to uncover the relationship between miRNA and EF. The similarities of miRNA-miRNA are calculated by using miRNA sequence, miRNA-EF interaction, and the similarities of EF-EF are calculated based on the anatomical therapeutic chemical information, chemical structure and miRNA-EF interaction. The similarity network fusion is used to fuse the similarity between miRNA and the similarity between EF, respectively. Further, the multiple-label learning and bi-random walk are employed to identify the association between miRNA and EF. The experimental results show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms.

Cobalt oxide loaded graphitic carbon nitride as adsorptive photocatalyst for tetracycline removal from aqueous solution.

The treatment of antibiotic-containing wastewater is of great importance due to the potential threats of antibiotics to human and the ecosystem. We reported the preparation of cobalt oxide loaded graphitic carbon nitride (CoO/g-C3N4) by an impregnation-calcination method for tetracycline (TC) removal from aqueous solution. The developed CoO/g-C3N4 exhibited high adsorption capacity and fast adsorption kinetic for TC due to the complexation of TC with surface loaded CoO. In particular, 7%CoO/gC3N43 sample presented a maximum TC adsorption capacity of 391.4 mg g-1. It was found that Langmuir and pseudo-second order kinetic models fitted TC adsorption process well. Further photocatalytic studies showed that CoO loaded g-C3N4 was active for TC photodegradation, although the photocatalytic reaction rate constant was lower than that of native g-C3N4. CoO nanoparticles loading on g-C3N4 played the major role of adsorption sites rather than cocatalyst for photocatalysis. We believe that the developed CoO/g-C3N4 could be a potential adsorptive photocatalyst for antibiotic pollutants removal from wastewater.

Iron-rich microorganism-enabled synthesis of magnetic biocarbon for efficient adsorption of diclofenac from aqueous solution.

Microorganisms in nature have been suggested as effective synthetic platform for functional materials construction. In this study, we cultured a typical white rot fungus of Phanerochaete chrysosporium in iron-containing medium to obtain iron-rich biomass, serving as sole precursor for magnetic biocarbon synthesis. The accumulated iron in biomass reached to 4.6 wt%. After carbonization and activation, microporous magnetic biocarbon (Fe/BC) with high specific surface area of 1986 m2 g-1 was obtained. When applied as adsorbent for a model pharmaceutical (diclofenac sodium, DCF) removal from aqueous solution, a high adsorption capacity of 361.25 mg g-1 was found for the developed Fe/BC. Systematic isotherm, kinetic, thermodynamic and recycle studies were conducted to investigate adsorption behaviors of DCF onto Fe/BC. This work not only provides a novel strategy for magnetic biocarbon construction, but also envisions new perspective on the utilization of a variety of microorganisms in nature for functional materials preparation.

Bioinformatics in protein kinases regulatory network and drug discovery.

Protein kinases have been implicated in a number of diseases, where kinases participate many aspects that control cell growth, movement and death. The deregulated kinase activities and the knowledge of these disorders are of great clinical interest of drug discovery. The most critical issue is the development of safe and efficient disease diagnosis and treatment for less cost and in less time. It is critical to develop innovative approaches that aim at the root cause of a disease, not just its symptoms. Bioinformatics including genetic, genomic, mathematics and computational technologies, has become the most promising option for effective drug discovery, and has showed its potential in early stage of drug-target identification and target validation. It is essential that these aspects are understood and integrated into new methods used in drug discovery for diseases arisen from deregulated kinase activity. This article reviews bioinformatics techniques for protein kinase data management and analysis, kinase pathways and drug targets and describes their potential application in pharma ceutical industry.