Anaerobic bacterial degradation of kitchen waste - a review.

Kitchen (food waste) was collected from hostels of Cancer Hospital & Research Institute (CHRI), Gwalior’s Mess as feedstock for bio-reactor which works as anaerobic digester system to produce biogas energy. Production of biogas ,used as energy source, will be more cost effective, eco-friendly, cut down on landfill waste, generate a high-quality renewable fuel, and reduce CH4 and CO2 emissions, and also bio-fertilizer which contains beneficial bacterial community. This bacterial community plays a major role in the regulation of soil properties on the basis of their biological activity. The absence of oxygen leads to controlled conversion of complex organic pollutions, mainly CH4 and CO2. Anaerobic treatment has favourable effects like removal of higher organic concentration, low sludge production, high pathogen removal, high biogas gas production and low energy consumption. The continuously fed digester requires addition of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to maintain the alkalinity and pH at 7.0. For this purpose, we have prepared an excellent bacterial community which is applied into mixture of cow dung slurry along with the kitchen waste in bioreactor for CH4 production in large quantity. A combination of these, an excellent bacterial community, was used for biogas production at 37°C in small scale laboratory reactor of 10L capacity.

Comparison of a dipstick enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with commercial assays for detection of Japanese encephalitis virus-specific IgM antibodies.

BACKGROUND: Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a major public health concern in Asia including India. Objectives: To evaluate an in-house developed dipstick enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test vis-à-vis two commercial kits for detection of JE virus-specific IgM antibodies. SETTING AND DESIGN: Comparative study carried out in Research and Development centre. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 136 specimens comprising 84 serum and 52 CSF samples were tested by in-house dipstick ELISA, Pan-Bio IgM capture ELISA (Pan-Bio, Australia) and JEV CheX IgM capture ELISA (XCyton, India). RESULTS: The overall agreement among all three tests was found to be 92% with both serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples. The sensitivity of the dipstick ELISA was found to be 91% with serum and 89% with CSF samples respectively. The specificity of the dipstick ELISA with reference to both commercial assays was found to be 100% in serum and CSF samples in this study. CONCLUSIONS: The in-house dipstick ELISA with its comparable sensitivity and specificity can be used as a promising test in field conditions since it is simple, rapid and requires no specialized equipment.

Serological & virological investigation of an outbreak of dengue fever in Gwalior, India.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: An outbreak of febrile illness occurred between September to November 2001 in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh affecting individuals mostly in the age group < 30 yr. A total of 312 febrile indoor patients suspected to have dengue infection were investigated. METHODS: The investigation included examination of blood samples from patients for dengue specific IgM and IgG antibodies, isolation of virus in suckling mouse pups and in C(6/36) cell line followed by confirmation and typing through reverse transcriptase-PCR and nested PCR. RESULTS: The serological analysis of the 312 samples indicated 65 per cent positivity of which 21 per cent are of recent infection as indicated by the presence of IgM antibody and 78 per cent are found to be secondary in nature by showing the presence of IgG and/or IgM antibodies. The RT-PCR analysis of patients' sera employing dengue virus group specific conserved amplimer confirmed the etiological agent as dengue complex by showing the characteristic 511 bp amplicons. None of the antibody positive samples were found to be positive by RT-PCR. A total of 13 (6%) samples positive by RT-PCR, were processed for virus isolation in mouse pups and in C(6/36) cells. Of these 9 samples (80%) were confirmed positive for virus isolation as identified by RT-PCR. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION: The typing of isolates by nested PCR employing serotype specific amplimer revealed 119 bp amplicon characteristic of dengue virus type-2 and thus confirming the outbreak attributed to dengue virus type-2.

Comparison of two colorimetric assays to determine viral infectivity in micro culture virus titration.

Efficacy of two colorimetric assays, viz. MTT (3-4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-(yl-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) and neutral red (NR) assays, performed by integrating them to micro culture virus titration (MCVT), was compared with the conventional MCVT method in terms of percentages of infectivity and 50% infectivity end points by employing Polio virus type-3 and Dengue virus type 4 as the candidate viruses. The results suggested that MTT assay has an edge over NR assay as well as conventional MCVT method. For the first time, NR assay has been successfully employed for the determination of virus infectivity titre.

Relative efficacy of egg albumin as blocking agent in dot immunobinding assay for detection of group B coxsackieviruses.

Non specific binding (NSB) is an important factor affecting sensitivity and specificity in dot immunobinding assay (DIA). Several blocking agents e.g. egg albumin, casein, gelatin, milk powder and goat serum were evaluated for their relative efficacy vis-a-vis bovine serum albumin (BSA) for DIA system purported for detection of group B coxsackieviruses (CVB). The results suggest that egg albumin (5%) which is economical and readily available may act as an effective blocking agent in DIA system.