| 1. |
- Deralia, Parveen Kumar, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Side chains affect the melt processing and stretchability of arabinoxylan biomass-based thermoplastic films
- 2022
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Ingår i: Chemosphere. - : Elsevier BV. - 0045-6535 .- 1879-1298. ; 294
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hydrophobization of hemicellulose causes melt processing and makes them stretchable thermoplastics. Understanding how native and/or appended side chains in various hemicelluloses after chemical modification affect melt processing and material properties can help in the development of products for film packaging and substrates for stretchable electronics applications. Herein, we describe a one-step and two-step strategy for the fabrication of flexible and stretchable thermoplastics prepared by compression molding of two structurally different arabinoxylans (AX). For one-step synthesis, the n-butyl glycidyl ether epoxide ring was opened to the hydroxyl group, resulting in the introduction of alkoxide side chains. The first step in the two-step synthesis was periodate oxidation. Because the melt processability for AXs having low arabinose to xylose ratio (araf/xylp<0.5) have been limited, two structurally distinct AXs extracted from wheat bran (AXWB, araf/xylp = 3/4) and barley husk (AXBH, araf/xylp = 1/4) were used to investigate the effect of araf/xylp and hydrophobization on the melt processability and properties of the final material. Melt compression processability was achieved in AXBH derived samples. DSC and DMA confirmed that the thermoplastics derived from AXWB and AXBH had dual and single glass transition (Tg) characteristics, respectively, but the thermoplastics derived from AXBH had lower stretchability (maximum 160%) compared to the AXWB samples (maximum 300%). Higher araf/xylp values, and thus longer alkoxide side chains in AXWB-derived thermoplastics, explain the stretchability differences.
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| 2. |
- Rathi, Bhawna, et al.
(författare)
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Anti-biofilm activity of caffeine against uropathogenic E. coli is mediated by curli biogenesis
- 2022
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 12:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biofilms are assemblages of sessile microorganisms that form an extracellular matrix around themselves and mediate attachment to surfaces. The major component of the extracellular matrix of Uropathogenic E. coli and other Enterobacteriaceae are curli fibers, making biofilms robust and resistant to antimicrobials. It is therefore imperative to screen antibiofilm compounds that can impair biofilm formation. In the present study, we investigated the curli-dependent antibiofilm activity of caffeine against UPEC strain CFT073 and commensal strain E. coli K-12MG1655.Caffeine significantly reduced the biofilm formation of both UPEC and E. coli K-12 by 86.58% and 91.80% respectively at 48 mM caffeine as determined by Crystal Violet assay. These results were further confirmed by fluorescence microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Caffeine significantly reduced the cytotoxicity and survivability of UPEC. Molecular docking analysis revealed a strong interaction between caffeine and curli regulator protein (Csg D) of E. coli. The qRT-PCR data also showed significant downregulation in the expression of CsgBA and the CsgDEFG operon at both 24 mM and 48 mM caffeine. The findings revealed that caffeine could inhibit E. coli biofilm formation by regulating curli assembly and thus may be used as an alternative therapeutic strategy for the treatment of chronic E. coli biofilm-related infections.
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| 3. |
- Ajore, Ram, et al.
(författare)
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The leukemia associated nuclear corepressor ETO homologue genes MTG16 and MTGR1 are regulated differently in hematopoietic cells
- 2012
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Ingår i: BMC Molecular Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2199. ; 13:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: MTG16, MTGR1 and ETO are nuclear transcriptional corepressors of the human ETO protein family. MTG16 is implicated in hematopoietic development and in controlling erythropoiesis/megakaryopoiesis. Furthermore, ETO homologue genes are 3'participants in leukemia fusions generated by chromosomal translocations responsible of hematopoietic dysregulation. We tried to identify structural and functional promoter elements of MTG16 and MTGR1 genes in order to find associations between their regulation and hematopoiesis. Results: 5' deletion examinations and luciferase reporter gene studies indicated that a 492 bp sequence upstream of the transcription start site is essential for transcriptional activity by the MTG16 promoter. The TATA-and CCAAT-less promoter with a GC box close to the start site showed strong reporter activity when examined in erythroid/megakaryocytic cells. Mutation of an evolutionary conserved GATA -301 consensus binding site repressed promoter function. Furthermore, results from in vitro antibody-enhanced electrophoretic mobility shift assay and in vivo chromatin immunoprecipitation indicated binding of GATA-1 to the GATA -301 site. A role of GATA-1 was also supported by transfection of small interfering RNA, which diminished MTG16 expression. Furthermore, expression of the transcription factor HERP2, which represses GATA-1, produced strong inhibition of the MTG16 promoter reporter consistent with a role of GATA-1 in transcriptional activation. The TATA-less and CCAAT-less MTGR1 promoter retained most of the transcriptional activity within a -308 to -207 bp region with a GC-box-rich sequence containing multiple SP1 binding sites reminiscent of a housekeeping gene with constitutive expression. However, mutations of individual SP1 binding sites did not repress promoter function; multiple active SP1 binding sites may be required to safeguard constitutive MTGR1 transcriptional activity. The observed repression of MTG16/MTGR1 promoters by the leukemia associated AML1-ETO fusion gene may have a role in hematopoietic dysfunction of leukemia. Conclusions: An evolutionary conserved GATA binding site is critical in transcriptional regulation of the MTG16 promoter. In contrast, the MTGR1 gene depends on a GC-box-rich sequence for transcriptional regulation and possible ubiquitous expression. Our results demonstrate that the ETO homologue promoters are regulated differently consistent with hematopoietic cell-type-specific expression and function.
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| 4. |
- Alyaseen, Ahmad, et al.
(författare)
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High-performance self-compacting concrete with recycled coarse aggregate : Soft-computing analysis of compressive strength
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Building Engineering. - : Elsevier BV. - 2352-7102. ; 77
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The growth of cities and industrialization has led to an increase in demand for concrete, resulting in resource depletion and environmental issues. Sustainable alternatives such as using recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) and industrial waste have been proposed to meet construction material demands while adhering to building codes and promoting sustainability. However, compressive strength (CS) is a crucial property of concrete, and the design parameters have different effects on CS for various grades. Recently, researchers have focused on partially replacing natural coarse aggregate (NCA) with RCA in concrete to achieve sustainability goals. This study aims to examine the influence of design parameters (w/c: water-cement ratio, w/b: water-binder ratio, A/c: total aggregate-cement ratio, FA/CA: fine-coarse aggregate ratio, SP: superplasticizer, w/s: water-solid ratio and RCA%) on concrete CS and address controversies in the insights gained from pairwise comparisons using Pearson's correlation coefficient (PCC) analysis. Additionally, five techniques (M5P, RF, SVM, LR, and ANNs) were used to predict the CS of high-performance self-compacting concrete (HP-SCC) with RCA, and the results were compared with an ANNs-based model as was the commonly used one in literature. The approaches were assessed based on their accuracy measured using correlation coefficient (CC), mean absolute error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), Scatter index (SI), and comprehensive measure (COM) indicators. Accordingly, the analysis indicated that SVM-PUK-based model is the most appropriate and effective technique to predict the CS of HP-SCC for the given datasets, with CC = 0.894, 0.900, MAE = 1.721, 3.813, RMSE = 5.137, 6.306, and MAPE = 4.5%, 7.6% for the training and testing stages, respectively. The uncertainty analysis results were 21%, 20.7%, 19%, 22%, and 19% for M5P, RF, SVM, LR, and ANN-based models, respectively, whereby all of them were under threshold of 35%. Moreover, according to sensitivity analysis, w/c, w/b, and w/s variables influences the most on CS prediction, while the RCA(%) variable has the least impact.
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| 5. |
- Deralia, Parveen Kumar, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Hydrophobization of arabinoxylan with n-butyl glycidyl ether yields stretchable thermoplastic materials
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Journal of Biological Macromolecules. - : Elsevier BV. - 0141-8130 .- 1879-0003. ; 188, s. 491-500
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hemicelluloses are regarded as one of the first candidates for the development of value-added materials due to their renewability, abundance, and functionality. However, because most hemicelluloses are brittle, they can only be processed as a solution and cannot be processed using industrial melt-based polymer processing techniques. In this study, arabinoxylan (AX) was hydrophobized by incorporating butyl glycidyl ether (BuGE) into the hydroxyl groups through the opening of the BuGE epoxide ring, yielding alkoxy alcohols with terminal ethers. The formed BuGE derivatives were melt processable and can be manufactured into stretchable thermoplastic films through compression molding, which has never been done before with hemicellulose modified in a single step. The structural and thermomechanical properties of the one-step synthesis approach were compared to those of a two-step synthesis with a pre-activation step to demonstrate its robustness. The strain at break for the one-step synthesized AX thermoplastic with 3 mol of BuGE is ≈200%. These findings suggest that thermoplastic polymers can be composited with hemicelluloses or that thermoplastic polymers made entirely of hemicelluloses can be designed as packaging and stretchable electronics supports.
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| 6. |
- Deralia, Parveen Kumar, 1985, et al.
(författare)
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Oxidation Level and Glycidyl Ether Structure Determine Thermal Processability and Thermomechanical Properties of Arabinoxylan-Derived Thermoplastics
- 2021
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Ingår i: ACS Applied Bio Materials. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 2576-6422. ; 4:4, s. 3133-3144
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Developing flexible, stretchable, and thermally processable materials for packaging and stretchable electronic applications from polysaccharide-based polymers contributes to the smooth transition of the fossil-based economy to the circular bioeconomy. We present arabinoxylan (AX)-based thermoplastics obtained by ring-opening oxidation and subsequent reduction (dA-AX) combined with hydrophobization with three different glycidyl ethers [n-butyl (BuGE), isopropyl (iPrGE), and 2-ethyl hexyl (EtHGE) glycidyl ether]. We also investigate the relationship between structural composition, thermal processing, and thermomechanical properties. BuGE- A nd iPrGE-etherified dA-AXs showed glass-transition temperatures (Tg) far below their degradation temperatures and gave thermoplastic materials when compression-molded at 140 °C. The BuGE (3 mol)-etherified dA-AX films at 19 and 31% oxidation levels show 244% (±42) and 267% (±72) elongation, respectively. In contrast, iPrGE-dA-AX samples with shorter and branched terminals in the side chains had a maximum of 60% (±19) elongation. No studies have reported such superior elongation of AX thermoplastic films and its relationship with molar substitution and Tg. These findings have implications on the strategic development of chemical modification routes using commercial polymer processing technologies and on fine-tuning structures and properties when specific polysaccharide-based polymers are used to engineer bio-based products for film, packaging, and substrates for stretchable electronic applications.
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| 7. |
- Gupta, Surbhi, et al.
(författare)
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Targeting of Uropathogenic Escherichia coli papG gene using CRISPR-dot nanocomplex reduced virulence of UPEC
- 2021
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 11:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Urinary tract infections (UTI) are the most common infectious diseases in the world. It is becoming increasingly tough to treat because of emergence of antibiotic resistance. So, there is an exigency to develop novel anti-virulence therapeutics to combat multi-drug resistance pathogenic strains. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) discovery has revolutionized the gene editing technology for targeted approach. The greatest obstacle for CRISPR/Cas9 is cargo delivery systems and both viral and plasmid methods have disadvantages. Here, we report a highly efficient novel CRISPR based gene editing strategy, CRISPR-dots for targeting virulence factor Fimbrial Adhesion (papG gene), the bacterial adhesion molecule. Carbon quantum dots (CQD) were used as a delivery vehicle for Cas9 and gRNA into CFT073, a UPEC strain. CQDs were covalently conjugated to cas9 and papG-targeted guide RNA (gRNA) forming a nanocomplex CRISPR-dots (Cri-dots) as confirmed by DLS and transmission electron microscopy. Cri-dots-papG significantly targeted papG as demonstrated by decrease in the expression of papG.Further papG deficient UPEC had significantly reduced adherence ability and biofilm forming ability as demonstrated by fluorescence microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Also, papG deficient UPEC had reduced virulence as shown by significantly increased survival of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) worms compared to UPEC. Our findings suggest that targeting of papG gene using Cri-dots nanocomplexes significantly reduced the pathogenicity of UPEC. Thus, Cri-dots nanocomplex offer a novel anti-bacterial strategy against multi-drug resistant UPEC.
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| 8. |
- Jones, Benedict C, et al.
(författare)
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To which world regions does the valence-dominance model of social perception apply?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Human Behaviour. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-3374. ; 5:1, s. 159-169
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over the past 10 years, Oosterhof and Todorov's valence-dominance model has emerged as the most prominent account of how people evaluate faces on social dimensions. In this model, two dimensions (valence and dominance) underpin social judgements of faces. Because this model has primarily been developed and tested in Western regions, it is unclear whether these findings apply to other regions. We addressed this question by replicating Oosterhof and Todorov's methodology across 11 world regions, 41 countries and 11,570 participants. When we used Oosterhof and Todorov's original analysis strategy, the valence-dominance model generalized across regions. When we used an alternative methodology to allow for correlated dimensions, we observed much less generalization. Collectively, these results suggest that, while the valence-dominance model generalizes very well across regions when dimensions are forced to be orthogonal, regional differences are revealed when we use different extraction methods and correlate and rotate the dimension reduction solution. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 5 November 2018. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7611443.v1 .
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| 9. |
- Kumar, Parveen, et al.
(författare)
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Effect of Varying Glucose Concentrations during In Vitro Maturation and Embryo Culture on Efficiency of In Vitro Embryo Production in Buffalo.
- 2012
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Ingår i: Reproduction in domestic animals = Zuchthygiene. - : Wiley. - 1439-0531 .- 0936-6768. ; 47, s. 269-273
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study was aimed to optimize glucose level at different stages of buffalo in vitro embryo production procedure. Three glucose levels (1.5, 5.6 and 10 mm) along with a control (0 mm) were used at three phases of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedure viz. in vitro maturation (IVM), in vitro culture (IVC-I) (12-72 hpi) and IVC-II (72 hpi to 7 dpi). Maturation rate of oocytes was found different under different glucose concentrations, and significantly more number of oocytes reached to MII under 5.6 mm glucose. The glucose levels at each phase (IVM, IVC-I and IVC-II) individually had significant effect on blastocyst rate, and the level used at one phase had significant effect on the outcome of next phase. Complete withdrawal of glucose from any of these stages irrespective of concentrations used at subsequent stage/s resulted in significantly lower number of blastocysts. However, the changing levels of glucose had differential effects during different phases of IVF steps. The most prominent effect of glucose level was observed during IVM. The presence of 5.6 mm glucose at all stages was most effective to yield highest blastocyst rate in buffalo IVF system.
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| 10. |
- Kumar, Parveen, et al.
(författare)
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Myeloid translocation gene-16 co-repressor promotes degradation of hypoxia-inducible factor 1.
- 2015
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Ingår i: PLoS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 10:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The myeloid translocation gene 16 (MTG16) co-repressor down regulates expression of multiple glycolytic genes, which are targets of the hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF1) heterodimer transcription factor that is composed of oxygen-regulated labile HIF1α and stable HIF1β subunits. For this reason, we investigated whether MTG16 might regulate HIF1 negatively contributing to inhibition of glycolysis and stimulation of mitochondrial respiration. A doxycycline Tet-On system was used to control levels of MTG16 in B-lymphoblastic Raji cells. Results from co-association studies revealed MTG16 to interact with HIF1α. The co-association required intact N-terminal MTG16 residues including Nervy Homology Region 1 (NHR1). Furthermore, electrophoretic mobility shift assays demonstrated an association of MTG16 with hypoxia response elements (HREs) in PFKFB3, PFKFB4 and PDK1 promoters in-vitro. Results from chromatin immunoprecipitation assays revealed co-occupancy of these and other glycolytic gene promoters by HIF1α, HIF1β and MTG16 in agreement with possible involvement of these proteins in regulation of glycolytic target genes. In addition, MTG16 interacted with prolyl hydroxylase D2 and promoted ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of HIF1α. Our findings broaden the area of MTG co-repressor functions and reveal MTG16 to be part of a protein complex that controls the levels of HIF1α.
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