Antibiotic resistance in wastewater: Indian scenario.

The surge of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (ARB) in the environment is poised to be the next health threat. World Health Organisation's (WHO's) Global Antimicrobial Surveillance System (GLASS) report indicates that developing countries may be at a greater risk. Among various factors, the major driver here could be untreated wastewater and poor sanitation. Bacteria are extremely adaptable to their surroundings and develop Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) when exposed to antibiotics and other pollutants that cause microbial stress. Thus, untreated domestic wastewater drains could easily become hotspots for the occurrence of ARBs. This study reports surveillance of sewage-carrying drains across four urban cities in India and demonstrated the presence of ARBs in the bacterial community against 7 classes of antibiotics, namely, ß-Lactams, Chloramphenicol, Glycopeptides, Macrolides, Tetracycline, Third Generation Cephalosporin, and Quinolones. Untreated domestic wastewater flowing in target drains was collected twice a month, for a period of six months and the microbial community was subjected to Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing (AST) by plate assays. The zone of inhibition was recorded and interpreted as per the interpretive chart of The Clinical & Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) & The European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST). The total number of samples showing resistance against antibiotics was used to define an Antibiotic Resistance Index (ARI), calculated for all 20 sampling sites (drains). Results demonstrated that the highest ARI was observed in Delhi and Mumbai, ranging from 0.81 to 0.92 in Delhi and 0.49-0.56 in Mumbai. This surveillance study reveals the antibiotic resistance pattern of the representative bacterial community in the drains and goes beyond few targeted bacterial species. The alarming presence of antibiotic resistant bacterial community highlights the concern of ARBs being the next looming health threat. This report aims to demonstrates the importance of considering sewage surveillance on routine basis by state authorities.

Immobilization-Based Bio-formulation of Aspergillus awamori S29 and Evaluation of Its Shelf Life and Re-usability in the Soil-Plant Experiment.

The present study was an attempt to evaluate the bio-formulations of phosphate-solubilizing fungus Aspergillus awamori S29 using two economically viable carriers (calcium alginate and agar) in repeated batch fermentation. Further, the viable cell count under storage and response of these stored bio-formulations on the growth of wheat plants were studied at the end of 2, 4, and 6 months of incubation. Also, the response of these formulations in next season on pearl millet (bajra) was studied without further inoculation. In repeated batch fermentation assay, immobilized form performed significantly better than free form. The viability of fungal inoculant was 88.2% in calcium alginate-based bio-formulation after six months of storage. These bio-formulations showed not only a statistically significant increase in the growth of wheat crop in first season but also of pearl millet in next season. This work strengthens the re-usability potential of immobilized bio-formulations for next season crop.

Effect of phosphate-solubilizing fungi Aspergillus awamori S29 on mungbean (Vigna radiata cv. RMG 492) growth.

A phosphate solubilizing fungus, Aspergillus awamori S29 was isolated from rhizoshpere of mungbean. The phosphate solubilizing activity of A. awamori S29 in liquid was 1,110 mg/L for tricalcium phosphate (TCP). The organism was able to solubilize various inorganic forms of phosphate at a wide range of temperatures. Among various insoluble phosphate sources tested, di-calcium phosphate was solubilized the most, followed by TCP. A. awamori S29 had significant effect (p < 0.05) on mungbean growth, total P and plant biomass under pot conditions, although no obvious difference in available P in soil and number of leaves was found compared to the control.

Kolmogorov-Smirnov scores and intrinsic mass tolerances for peptide mass fingerprinting.

Peptide Mass Fingerprinting (PMF) uses proteolytic peptide masses and a prespecified search database to identify proteins. At the core of a PMF database search algorithm lies a quality statistic that gauges the level to which an experimentally obtained peak list agrees with a list of theoretically observable mass-to-charge ratios for a protein in a database. In this paper, we propose, implement and evaluate using a statistical (Kolmogorov-Smirnov-based) test computed for a large mass error threshold to avoid the choice of appropriate mass tolerance by the user. We use the mass tolerance identified by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for computing other quality measures. The results from our careful and extensive benchmarks using publicly available gold-standard data sets suggest that the new method of computing the quality statistics without requiring the end-user to select a mass tolerance is competitive. We investigate the similarity measures in terms of their information content and conclude that the similarity measures are complementary and can be combined into a scoring function to possibly improve upon the over all accuracy of PMF based identification methods.

Anticarcinogenic effects of Solanum lycopersicum fruit extract on Swiss albino and C57 Bl mice.

In the present studies, the effect of Solanum lycopersicum extract on DMBA induced skin papillomas and B6 F10 melanomas was studied. Topical single application of DMBA at the dose of 4 mg/kg b.wt. followed by 1 % croton oil for 16 weeks produced a 100% incidence of skin papillomas which started appearing from the 6th week onwards. The mice which additionally received S. lycopersicum extract at 0.6 g/kg 2 day/week for 16 weeks showed a significant decrease in the number and incidence of tumors (p<0.05), with a delay in their appearance to week 10. Histopathological examination showed well and poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinomas in the group which received DMBA + Croton oil treatment whereas hyperkeratosis and hyperplasia were more prevalent in DMBA + Croton oil + Lycopersicum extract treated animals. In a second experiment the effect of cyclophosphamide alone and in combination with S. lycopersicum extract was studied in B16F10 melanoma tumour bearing mice. The inhibition rate was 25.9% in the cyclophosphamide treated group but this increased to 37.7% with S. lycopersicum. The life span of tumour bearing animals was also increased. Thus in two models, S. lycopersicum extract exerted protective potential against skin tumors.