Journal of Applied Biotechnology Reports
Volume:6 Issue: 3, Summer 2019

Burns are one the most common skin damages which require medical intervention to be fully-recovered. In this light, tissue engineering field presents a vide verity of strategies including both scaffold-based and cell-based approaches to recover the damaged site.

In this study, the effects of granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) administration on mobilization of the bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into defect area and treatment of the skin burn wound was examined in vivo. The G-CSF was injected intravenously into rats subjected to third degree burn wound. At days 3, 5, 7, 15 and 30 post-injections, the defect site was removed and investigated by H&E and Malory’s trichrome staining. The number of MSCs in blood samples was also determined by flow cytometry assay.

According to the results, intravenously administration of G-CSF significantly increased collagenesis and number of fibroblast cells infiltrated into the burned site, while decreased the severity of acute inflammatory response and amount of inflammatory cells comparing to control. The number of MSCs in bloodstream, representing the rate of MSCs migration, showed a 4-fold increase in the experimental group compared to control.

The current study suggests the potential of intravenously administration of G-CSF as an effective strategy for treatment of severe burn injuries.

Nowadays, enzyme-based removal of hazardous dyes that pollute the environment has been considered as a substitute and eco-friendly method compared to the physical and chemical method. The present study was conceived in order to obtain the optimal condition for laccase-mediated (purified from the Pleurotus ostreatus PKN04) decolorization of Remazol Brilliant Violet 5R dye; a mono-azo dye, using the central composite design of response surface methodology (RSM).

The design of experiment was suggested with 6 variables including pH, temperature, incubation time, agitation, dye concentration, and enzyme concentration, which were applied in order to optimize the decolorization process. The kinetic and energetic factors of laccases for the enzymatic removal of Remazol Brilliant Violet 5R dye was investigated.

Decolorization of Remazol Brilliant Violet 5R was maximally 95.72%, which had occurred at 6.0 pH, 40°C temperature, 60 minutes incubation time, 50 rpm agitation, 50 ppm dye concentration, and 100 IU/mL enzyme concentration. The obtained results of kinetic introduced the laccase-catalyzed decolorization of Remazol Brilliant Violet 5R as an endothermic reaction with Km and Vmax values of 0.801 mM and 387 mM/mg/min, respectively. In addition to the above results, the toxicity study against bacteria revealed that the toxicity of laccase-treated dye drastically reduced to the untreated dye.

The results of the present analysis reveal that the Pleurotus ostreatus laccase is an efficient biocatalyst for decolorization of synthetic dye Remazol Brilliant Violet 5R dye.

Busulfan is one of the common cancer treatment drugs with infertility side effects. Fennel and cinnamon are two medicinal plants with fertility enhancement properties. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of fennel and cinnamon on busulfan induced infertile rats. Forty male Wistar rats were divided into four groups including: sham group: healthy rats without intervention, control group: Busulfan treated rats, fennel group: busulfan and fennel extract treated, fennel and cinnamon group: busulfan, fennel and cinnamon extract treatment. Testicular tissues were sampled and the testicular physical parameters and spermatogenesis level were evaluated by H & E staining and optical microscopy imaging. The biggest and the smallest testis lengths were observed in cinnamon + fennel and fennel groups respectively (P < 0.05). The highest and lowest sperm levels were observed in the cinnamon + fennel group and fennel group respectively (P < 0.001). The total average of reproductive cells was the most in the cinnamon + fennel group (104.17) and had the least level in the control group (26.29). The combined extract of fennel and cinnamon significantly protect the testicular tissues against infertility effect of busulfan. However, the fennel extract alone increased the effect of busulfan in rats.

African trypanosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by protozoa Trypanosoma brucei and transmitted via the bite of tsetse fly. The target protein of T. brucei is L-threonine-3-dehydrogenase, which has been selected for this study due to its metabolic importance for the parasite’s survival. The protein was docked with those phytochemicals having in vitro anti trypanosomal activity after passing in silico drug-likeness filters along with standard drug eflornithine and pentamidine available against the disease. A 3D structure of L-threonine-3-dehydrogenasewas downloaded from Protein Data Bank (PDB) with Id: 5K4Y) and Pictorial database of 3D structures in the Protein Data Bank (PDBsum) was used to retrieve the active sites of the protein. The reviewed ligands were screened using SwissADME, Lipinski’s rule of 5, and Molinspiration servers along with standard drugs and docked using AutoDock Vina and AutoDock 4.2.6. The 2D and 3D interacting residues were observed using Discovery Studio. Ligand Camptothecin which inhibited T. brucei during in vitro cytotoxic assays gave better binding affinity scores than the standard drugs (eflornithine and pentamidine) selected for this study. Camptothecin showed interaction with those active site residues where ligand NAD (nicotinamide-adenine-dinucleotide) binds to the target protein, which is a significant restricting pocket for the hindrance of the parasite. Camptothecin derived from Camptotheca acuminata trees has the potential to be used as a better alternative than the standard drugs because of its less toxicity, better binding affinity, and specificity towards the inhibition of target protein.

Tacrolimus is a medication mainly used as immunosuppressant, but also plays as an important role in the treatment of dermathoses and eye diseases. It is a secondary metabolite produced during fermentation from Streptomyces tsukubaensis. Investigations have been conducted in order to enhance the tacrolimus production, since it is the greatest industrial bottleneck related to this process. Some strategies have been adopted in order to solve this problem, such as the usage of a genetically modified bacteria and changes in the exogeneous feeding, and providing vegetable oils as nutrient sources. The present study has investigated the influence of the Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa) oil as a carbon source in the fermentation.

The fermentative process was conducted in an orbital shaker at 28oC and 130 rpm during 168 hours. The amount of produced tacrolimus was quantified using HPLC. The sugars and proteins in the medium were measured using the Somogyi-Nelson and Bradford methods, respectively.

According to the results of the present study, a linearity was observed between the amount of consumed sugars and the produced proteins. The highest tacrolimus production was achieved at 96 hours (41.67 mg.L-1), and the biomass production along the fermentation was low.

The use of Brazil nut oil as a carbon source in the fermentation using Streptomyces tsukubaensis was successful, since it increased the tacrolimus production. This point is an advantage of using this vegetable oil compared to traditional sugars.

Citrullus colocynthis is considered as a precious herb due to its medicinal and nutritional values and also for its ability to produce valuable bioactive compounds such as cucurbitacin E and quercetin. The hairy root systems are valuable tools for scaling-up secondary metabolites and for introducing new beneficial traits into herbs. The present research has aimed to develop a protocol for hairy root culture of C. colocynthis using Agrobacterium rhizogenes. After the establishment of the hairy root system, factors such as explant type, bacterial strain, pre-culture period, co-cultivation period, and the use of acetosyringone that affect the efficient transformation of the herb were optimized. Four A. rhizogenes strains (MSU440, A4, A13 and ATCC 15834) and three types of explant (leaf, excised shoot and hypocotyl) were tested. Furthermore, the insertion of transgene into the genome of C. colocynthis was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction analysis. The highest transformation frequency was obtained after the infection of excised shoots by MSU440. Co-cultivation for 48 hours resulted in enhanced transformation frequency, while the results of this research showed that the protocol is better not to include the pre-culturing step. In addition, the presence of acetosyringone in bacterial culture and co-cultivation medium significantly increased the success of C. colocynthis transformation. This study describes an efficient protocol for hairy roots culture of C. colocynthis which can be used for scaling-up the plant active phytochemicals or for genetic manipulations of the plant.

Serum uric acid (UA) level is reported to be associated with a variety of cardiometabolic risk factors. Although various studies have reported elevated levels of UA in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS), its clinical interpretation is still controversial and challenging. Thus, we examined the association between hyperuricemia (HUA) and UA levels with MetS, its components and number of components. This population-based cross-sectional study included 1561 older people who participated in Amirkola Health and Aging Project (AHAP) in North of Iran. MetS was defined based on the Iranian National Committee of Obesity criteria. Blood pressure, fasting blood glucose (FBG), lipid profiles, UA and anthropometric measures were determined. The diagnosis of the MetS was not associated with UA levels and HUA. The results of this study showed that the only FBG is a component which increases the risk of HUA. Our findings from a community elderly population suggest that the UA levels and HUA were not associated with the diagnosis of the MetS by the stepwise logistic regression approach. However, in spite of various confounding factors, including metabolic and non-metabolic components in the association with MetS and UA, the whole relationship remains to be determined. A large prospective study is needed to reveal the clinical significance of UA in MetS.

Estrogens are of the most dangerous micro/nanopollutants that have shown severe influences on the ecosystems and micro-organisms. There is an ever-increasing demand to reliably detect and practically remove these estrogens from effluents. In a recently proposed method, estrogens can be detected and removed from effluents using a sampler (lignin). In this study it has been shown that ionic liquids are a potential choice to separate the adsorbed estrogens from the surface of “dirty” lignin so that the sampler could be reused. More than 300 ionic liquids were screened for removing estrogens from the lignin surface by employing a quantum chemistry method, COnductor-like Screening MOdel (COSMO), to determine the interaction quality between the ionic liquid and eight estrogens of interest. The results revealed that there are at least 24 solvents that can remove adsorbed estrogens from the surface of lignin. This prediction completes the cycle of reusing lignin as an efficient polymeric sampler to remove estrogens from effluents and provokes experimental justifications.