Bio-hydrogen and bio-methane potential analysis for production of bio-hythane using various agricultural residues.

The present study targeted towards the feasibility of various agricultural residues for bio-hythane production by anaerobic digestion (AD) process without pre-treatment. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) analysis was carried out for mixed fruit waste (MFW), mixed vegetable waste (MVW), sugarcane bagasse (SB), rice husk (RH), and wheat straw (WS). The analysis of gas was carried out in gas chromatography with a thermal conductivity detector (GC-TCD). The BMP test results in the study for SB, MFW, and MVW reveal that the average percentage value of bio-hythane production was 53.64%, 43.54%, and 40.92% and that of RH and WS was 16.74% and 29.75%, respectively. The result also shows that agricultural biomass, such as WS and RH produces less % of bio-hythane due to the presence of lignocellulosic components. The main contribution of this study is to highlight the bio-hythane potential with reference to the bio-methane and bio-hydrogen productions from the agricultural residues.

Targeting sirtuin-1 alleviates experimental autoimmune colitis by induction of Foxp3+ T-regulatory cells.

Induced Forkhead box P3-positive (Foxp3(+)) T-regulatory cells (iTregs) are essential to gastrointestinal immune homeostasis, and loss of the ability to develop iTregs may lead to autoimmune colitis. We previously showed a role for sirtuin-1 (Sirt1) in control of Treg function and hypothesized that targeting of Sirt1 might enhance iTreg development and thereby represent a potential therapy for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We adoptively transferred CD4(+)CD25(-)Foxp3(-) T effector (TE) cells from wild-type (WT) (C57BL/6) or fl-Sirt1/CD4cre mice into B6/Rag1(-/-) mice and monitored the mice until they lost 10-15% of their weight. Adoptive transfer of TE cells lacking Sirt1 to B6/Rag1(-/-) mice resulted in a 2.8-fold increase in iTreg formation compared with mice receiving WT TE cells and correlated with attenuated colitis and reduced weight loss (1.04±1.4% vs. 13.97±2.2%, respectively, P<0.001). In a second model of IBD, we used pharmacologic Sirt1 targeting of mice receiving multiple cycles of dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) in their drinking water, alternated with fresh water. Likewise, WT mice receiving cyclic DSS and a Sirt1 inhibitor, EX-527, had reduced weight loss (5.8±5.9% vs. 13.2±6.9%, respectively, P=0.03) and increased iTreg formation compared with controls. Sirt1 appears a promising target for pharmacologic therapy of IBD as a result of promoting iTreg development.