Combined ANN/EVOP Factorial Design Approach for Media Screening for Cost-effective Production of Alkaline Proteases from Rhizopus oryzae (SN5)/NCIM-1447 under SSF.

In order to achieve high yield of fungal protease in a very cost effective way and to meet its increased market demand, current study deals with the screening of various agro-wastes as carbon source for the production of protease from Rhizopus oryzae (SN5)/NCIM-1447 under solid state fermentation. Substrates and culture parameters such as wheat bran, soybean meal, black-gram husk, rice husk, mixture of wheat bran, soybean meal, nitrogen sources, pH, temperature and incubation time were first optimized with one factor at time strategy and then EVOP factorial and yield of alkaline protease was achieved 412.8 U/gds at 28 °C and pH = 6 after 72 h of fermentation taking wheat bran and soybean as a substrate in 4:1 ratio. Further artificial neural networks (ANN), was trained with data of EVOP and yield of protease was enhanced up to 422.6 U/gds with wheat bran: soyabean in ratio of 70:30, pH 6.2 at 30 °C. The evolved process and Rhizopus oryzae (SN5)/NCIM-1447 strain would be promising for protease production at industrial scale at low cost.

Unveiling Taenia solium kinome profile and its potential for new therapeutic targets.

Background: Helminth infections cause widespread morbidity and are a significant global disease burden. One among them is Neurocysticercosis, a central nervous system infection caused by the larvae Taenia solium, leading to epilepsy. Helminths are strong immune modulators and can survive for a long time in adverse host environments. Kinases are molecular switches and are essential to initiate/propagate signaling cascades and are detrimental to the regulation of homeostasis. They have been implicated in the progression of many diseases and are potentially lucrative drug targets.Objective: To identify kinases in T. solium proteome and prioritize them as drug targets.Methodology: A Hidden Markov Model (HMM) was used to curate and classify kinases into families based on sequence homology to model organisms followed by phylogenetic analysis of each family. To predict potential drug targets, kinases were identified based on a homologically lethal relationship to C. elegans but non-lethal to humans. Kinases thus selected were searched for matching ligands in SARFkinase and DrugBank databases.Result and conclusion: T. solium kinases make up 1.8% of its proteome, CMGC is the largest kinase family and RGC is the smallest and catalytically inactive family. We predict 23-potential kinases to be drug targets for T. solium.[Figure: see text].

Lipoma of the floor of the mouth: report of an unusually large lesion.

Lipomas are among the most common benign tumors affecting the human body. However, they are relatively uncommon in the oral cavity. Oral lipomas are likely to affect cheek, tongue, lips, gingiva and rarely the floor of the mouth. We report a case of huge lipoma of the floor of the mouth, associated with difficulty in speech and mastication in a 72-year-old male. The tumor was completely excised and sent for histopathological examination, which confirmed the tumor to be a simple classical lipoma.

Analysis of localized immune responses reveals presence of Th17 and Treg cells in cutaneous leishmaniasis due to Leishmania tropica.

PURPOSE: The interaction between the Leishmania parasite and the host cell involves complex, multifaceted processes. The disease severity in cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is largely dependent on the causative species. Most of the information on immune responses in human CL is available with respect to L. major infection and is lacking for L. tropica species. In this study, we employed cytokine/chemokine/receptor membrane cDNA array to capture comprehensive picture of immuno-determinants in localized human tissue during L. tropica infection. Expression of selected molecules was evaluated by real time PCR in dermal lesion tissues at pre- and post treatment stages. Plasma IL-17 level was estimated by sandwich ELISA. RESULTS: The cDNA array analysis identified several immuno-determinants in tissue lesions of Indian CL including cytokines (IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-1ß, IL-10, IL-13), chemokines (IL-8, CCL2, CCL3, CCL4) and apoptotic molecules (Fas, TRAIL, IRF-1). Elevated mRNA levels of Th17 (IL-17, IL-23 and RORγt) and Treg (CD25, CTLA-4 and Foxp3) markers were observed in lesion tissues of CL patients compared to the control group, which subsided post treatment. Plasma IL-17 levels were found to be significantly higher in CL samples compared to controls. CONCLUSIONS: In addition to defining comprehensive immunological responses inside lesion tissues of CL patients, our study demonstrated the presence of Th17 and Treg cells in CL caused by L. tropica.

Host plant induced variation in gut bacteria of Helicoverpa armigera.

Helicoverpa are important polyphagous agricultural insect pests and they have a worldwide distribution. In this study, we report the bacterial community structure in the midgut of fifth instar larvae of Helicoverpa armigera, a species prevalent in the India, China, South Asia, South East Asia, Southern & Eastern Africa and Australia. Using culturable techniques, we isolated and identified members of Bacillus firmus, Bacillus niabense, Paenibacillus jamilae, Cellulomonas variformis, Acinetobacter schindleri, Micrococcus yunnanesis, Enterobacter sp., and Enterococcus cassiliflavus in insect samples collected from host plants grown in different parts of India. Besides these the presence of Sphingomonas, Ralstonia, Delftia, Paracoccus and Bacteriodetes was determined by culture independent molecular analysis. We found that Enterobacter and Enterococcus were universally present in all our Helicoverpa samples collected from different crops and in different parts of India. The bacterial diversity varied greatly among insects that were from different host plants than those from the same host plant of different locations. This result suggested that the type of host plant greatly influences the midgut bacterial diversity of H. armigera, more than the location of the host plant. On further analyzing the leaf from which the larva was collected, it was found that the H. armigera midgut bacterial community was similar to that of the leaf phyllosphere. This finding indicates that the bacterial flora of the larval midgut is influenced by the leaf surface bacterial community of the crop on which it feeds. Additionally, we found that laboratory made media or the artificial diet is a poor bacterial source for these insects compared to a natural diet of crop plant.