Journal of Applied Biotechnology Reports
Volume:1 Issue: 4, Autumn 2014

Vaccination has greatly improved human health. Despite of all improvements in this field, there is not an efficient vaccine for many diseases, and of the available ones, some could not produce a long-term immunity. Recently, there have been many researches on the applicability of nanostructures as an efficient system for vaccine delivery, and the initial results have been promising. Their potential adjuvanticity, capability of the stimulation of both humoral and cellular immunity responses, more stability in environmental conditions, possible targeted vaccine delivery, the need for low quantity of proteins (in the case of subunit vaccines), etc., are of the main reasons that this area has gained many interests. Here, we try to review the main nanostructures that could be act as a delivery vehicle in vaccine delivery.

The evolution of biota had been tightly linked with formation of atmospheric di-oxygen (O2).Since the shift from anaerobic to aerobic life results in reprogramming gene expression through the regulatory interactions between transcription factors and their target sequences, the anaerobic responsive elements (AREs). The purpose of this study is to consider AREs; the most frequent and divergent motif in comparison to eighty four plant cis-regulatory elements, in order to clarify their biological function in Arabidopsis thaliana. A genome wide survey revealed the frequency, occurrence number and positional state of each anaerobic element in Arabidopsis genome. The evidence was obtained that among all AREs, TTCCCTGTT, (A/C/G)AAAAACAAA and AGCAGC in silico discovered elements, are noteworthy responsive elements in Arabidopsis. In addition to, our data suggest that the evolutionary process of anaerobic responsive elements may have been directed toward gradual decrease in occurrence numbers of AREs and gradual increase of their ineffectiveness in Arabidopsis genome. We also classified Arabidopsis genes according to existence of ARE elements in promoter regions of them to seven main groups including expression, primary metabolism, secondary metabolism, signaling, growth and development, stress and misc.

Human cytomegalovirus is one of the most common pathogenic viruses all over the world. In congenital infection leads to neurologic severe disorders and even death of fetus and in individuals with immunosuppression may also cause severe clinical symptoms. Multiple evidence indicate that among several strategies, epitope-based vaccine (EVs) that can induce both humoral and cellular immunity responses, are the most important and have numerous potential profits. In this study, we select the viral surface glycoprotein B and phosphoprotein 65 and 150 with the highest antigenic and immunogenic properties, that have the most important role in induce cellular and humoral immune responses. Bioinformatics tools, as a standard and developed approaches use for epitope mapping. Epitope discovery greatly accelerate by in silico prediction methods with in vitro and in vivo verification. Bioinformatics methods and epitopes identification algorithms were used in order to selection of cytomegalovirus immunodominant epitopes, detection of each epitope antigenicity and design chimeric gene construct. The chimeric protein showed high antigenicity in vaxiJen analysis. Also further immunoinformatic analyses in order to predict the discontinuous and continuous B and T cell epitopes and MHC binding peptides affinity were used. The study results show that protein structures were suitable. Therefore it can be expected that construct is proper subject for practical experiments and stimulus for humoral and cellular immune responses.

Efficiency of enzymes which are used in industrial or environmental applications is highly dependent on their thermal stability. In this study, the stability of DFPase has been evaluated after introducing disulfide bonds to the structure. The results obtained from a series of protein design software were subjected to molecular dynamics simulation at different temperature to test the performance of such combinatorial procedure. Amount several designs, mutation M5 showed desirable thermostability via molecular dynamics simulation and normal mode analysis. As it clearly depicted, such in silico structural investigations would be resulted in reducing the numerous choices of experimental options as it was undergone a series of computational evaluation previously.

Textile effluents contain different kinds of chemical dyes and many mutagenic and carcinogenic substances. Discharge of these effluents into terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems causes harmful effects. In this research, decolorization of a textile effluent by nineteen different strains of fungi was investigated. Removal activity of dyes was in order of Aspergillus > Rhizopus > Fuzarium > Penicillium > Saccharomyces. The selected fungal strain was capable of decolorizing textile effluent at original pH of effluent (8.5- 9) by adding 0.6 and 0.2 g/L of sucrose and NH4Cl as additional carbon and nitrogen sources respectively at 30ᵒC. 98 % of dyes were absorbed from effluent during the exponential growth phase in the presence of a biodegradable substrate such as sucrose under shake flask conditions. Dyes strongly bound to the fungal biomass required extraction with methanol for their removal. The dyes pigment yellow (PY 74) and reactive blue (RB 38) were totally decolorized after 6 days at initial concentration of 250 ppm by terrestrial Aspergillus niger.

Taxus is an endangered plant which is the only commercial source of paclitaxel, which is used for treatment of ovary and breast cancer. As production of this valuable drug is a destructive process, other alternatives should be considered for its sustainable production. Plant tissue and cell culture is a promising method for production of secondary metabolites. In order to optimize yew callus culture effects of 16 combinations of two plant growth regulators, 2, 4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (0, 0.5, 1 and 1.5 mg/L) and Kinetin (0, 0.1, 0.5 and 1 mg/L) on callogenesis of Taxus brevifolia twig explants were studied. Considering growth criteria, fresh weight (33.5 mg), dry weight (3.88 mg) and callogenesis ratio (1.45), based on statistical analysis the best plant growth regulators combination for induction and growth of callus of twig explants was appeared to be 1.5 mg/L of 2, 4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 0.1 mg/L of Kinetin.

In present study we determine the Zinc and Lead levels in human blood samples by differential pulse polarography under optimum experimental conditions (pH=7.5, Scan rate=5mV/S and pulse amplitude=50mV) the polarographic reduction peaks of Zn and Pb were examinedin the -0.72 V and-0.15 respectively. The zinc and lead content can be determined by in comparison with their standard solutions. According to the obtained results differential pulse polarography is more reliable, rapid and sensitive method for determination of zinc and lead levels in the blood than atomic absorption spectroscopy.