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The rapidly growing electronic and plastic waste has become a global environmental concern. Developing advanced and environmentally safe agro-based materials is an emerging field with an enormous potential for applications in sensors and devices. Here, an agro-based material as membrane has been developed by incorporating tapioca starch and banana peel powder in polylactic acid, with uniform dispersibility and amorphous nature. The material was used for the development of electrochemical sensor for S-gene of SARS-CoV-2. Further, the membrane was used for the development of a non-invasive, colorimetric skin patch for the detection of glucose and a sensor for the assessment of fruit juice quality. Using OECD-recommended model systems, the developed membrane was found to be non-toxic towards aquatic and terrestrial non-target organisms. The developed conductive material opens new avenues in various electrochemical, analytical, and biological applications.

Microplastic (MP) pollution has pressing concerns regarding environmental health and the availability of safe food for humans. Information on the occurrence of MP in freshwater biota in the Indian scenario is currently lacking. The present study examined MP contamination in edible and non-edible tissues of widely consumed freshwater fishes. All the fish species (n = 35/species) analyzed had microplastic contamination with the highest MP abundance of 7.86 ± 2.0 items/individual in Channa punctatus followed by Labeo rohita (4.17 ± 0.6 items/individual) and Labeo bata (3.03 ± 0.4 items/individual); whereas MP abundance in small indigenous fishes (SIF) such as Salmostoma bacaila and Puntius amphibius accounts for 0.83 ± 0.13 and 0.77 ± 0.2 items/individual respectively. The principal component analysis results showed a 77.434% variance from two components identified for MP distribution. Fibre type MP was the most dominant type besides fragments and pellets that opined the type of MP required for ecotoxicity assessment, the need of the hour. Raman spectroscopy analysis confirms high-density and low-density polyethylene-type polymers. Evidence of MP in edible tissue indicates the translocation phenomenon resulting in human exposure through the consumption of biota contaminated with MP. Risk assessment revealed a low risk of MP based on its abundance while polymer type indicates a high risk for the fish species investigated. A thorough investigation of the level of adsorbed organic contaminants in the MP is warranted to address the interactive effects on biota. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first detailed report on MP contamination and its risk assessment in Indian freshwater fishes.

Aditya K Kar,1,2 Amrita Singh,1,2 Nitesh Dhiman,1,2 Mahaveer P Purohit,1,2 Pankaj Jagdale,3 Mohan Kamthan,4 Dhirendra Singh,3 Mahadeo Kumar,3 Debabrata Ghosh,2,5 Satyakam Patnaik1,2 1Water Analysis Laboratory, Nanomaterial Toxicology Group, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR), Lucknow 226001, Uttar Pradesh, India; 2Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR), Lucknow 226001, Uttar Pradesh, India; 3Regulatory Toxicology, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR), Lucknow 226001, Uttar Pradesh, India; 4CITAR, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR), Lucknow 226001, Uttar Pradesh, India; 5Immunotoxicology Laboratory, Food Drug and Chemical Toxicology Group, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR), Lucknow 226001, Uttar Pradesh, IndiaCorrespondence: Satyakam PatnaikWater Analysis Laboratory, Nanomaterial Toxicology Group, CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR), Vishvigyan Bhawan, 31, Mahatma Gandhi Marg, Lucknow 226001, Uttar Pradesh, IndiaTel +91 5222627586, Ext. 205Fax +91 5222628227Email satyakampatnaik@yahoo.comIntroduction: An ideal wound dressing material needs to be predisposed with desirable attributes like anti-infective effect, skin hydration balance, adequate porosity and elasticity, high mechanical strength, low wound surface adherence, and enhanced tissue regeneration capability. In this work, we have synthesized hydrogel-based wound patches having antibacterial silver nanoparticles and antioxidant epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and showed fast wound closure through their synergistic interaction without any inherent toxicity.Methods and results: Wound patches were synthesized from modified guar gum polymer and assessed to determine accelerated wound healing. The modified polymer beget chemical-free in-situ synthesis of monodispersed silver NPs (∼12 nm), an antimicrobial agent, besides lending ionic surface charges. EGCG impregnated during ionotropic gelation process amplified the efficacy of wound patches that possess apt tensile strength, porosity, and swellability for absorbing wound exudates. Further, in vitro studies endorsed them as non-cytotoxic and the post agent effect following exposure to the patch showed an unbiased response to E coli K12 and B. subtilis. In vivo study using sub-cutaneous wounds in Wistar rats validated its accelerated healing properties when compared toa commercially available wound dressing material (skin graft;Neuskin-F®) through better wound contraction, promoted collagen deposition and enhanced vascularization of wound region by modulating growth factors and inflammatory cytokines.Conclusion: Synthesized wound patches showed all the desired attributes of a clinically effective dressing material and the results were validated in various in vitro and in vivo assays.Keywords: aminated guar gum, hydrogels, silver nanoparticles, epigallocatechin gallate, wound healing

Background Fatigue Avoidance Scheduling Tool (FAST) is a computerized fatigue prevention tool, which was developed based on a Bio-mathematical model called SAPTE (Sleep, Activity, Performance and Task Effectiveness). Similarly, actigraphy technology is used as a tool for sleep evaluation. This study was an attempt to assess the employability of FAST (both independently and integrated with actigraphy) for detecting operational fatigue by determining the ‘Measures for diagnostic accuracy’. Methods 103 pre-flight medical checks from 51 aircrew were evaluated to detect fatigue both clinically and by using objective measures (FAST and actigraphy integrated FAST). The ‘measures of diagnostic accuracy’ namely sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), likelihood ratio positive (LR +ve), likelihood ratio negative (LR -ve) and Youden’s Index were determined and compared. Results The diagnostic measures for FAST were: sensitivity (68.4%), specificity (92.8%), PPV (68.4%), NPV (92.8%), LR+ve (9.5), LR-ve (0.34) and Youden’s Index (0.61). For actigraphy integrated FAST these values were: sensitivity (84.2%), specificity (96.4%), PPV (94.2%), NPV (94.4%), LR+ve (23.5), LR-ve (0.16) and Youden’s Index (0.80). Conclusion The increase in sensitivity (from 68.4% to 84.2%), specificity (from 92.8% to 96.4%), PPV (from 68.4% to 94.2%), NPV (92.8% to 94.4%), LR+ve (9.5 to 23.5) and Youden’s Index (0.61 to 0.80) indicated that actigraphy integrated FAST is a better screening tool in comparison to the independently employed FAST.

Clostridium thermocellum is a promising candidate for consolidated bioprocessing because it can directly ferment cellulose to ethanol. Despite significant efforts, achieved yields and titers fall below industrially relevant targets. This implies that there still exist unknown enzymatic, regulatory, and/or possibly thermodynamic bottlenecks that can throttle back metabolic flow. By (i) elucidating internal metabolic fluxes in wild-type C. thermocellum grown on cellobiose via

Plant diseases caused by pathogenic entities pose severe issues to global food security. Effective sensory applications and tools for the effective determination of plant diseases become crucial to the assurance of food supply and agricultural sustainability. Antibody-mediated molecular assays and nucleic acid are gold-standard approaches for plant disease diagnosis, but the evaluating methodologies are liable, complex, and laborious. With the rise in global food demand, escalating the food production in threats of diverse pathogen ranges, and climate change is a major challenge. Engineered nanoparticles (NPs) have been inserted into conventional laboratory sequence technologies or molecular assays that provide a remarkable increment in selectivity and sensitivity. In the present scenario, they are useful in plant disease management as well as in plant health monitoring. The use of NPs could sustainably mitigate numerous food security issues and or threats in disease management by decreasing the risk of chemical inputs and alleviating supra detection of pathogens. Overall, this review paper discusses the role of NPs in plant diseases management, available commercial products. Additionally, the future directions and their regulatory laws in the usage of the nano-diagnostic approach for plant health monitoring have been explained.

The regeneration of critical-sized bone defects with biomimetic scaffolds remains clinically challenging due to avascular necrosis, chronic inflammation, and altered osteogenic activity. Two confounding mechanisms, efficacy manipulation, and temporal regulation dictate the scaffold's bone regenerative ability. Equally critical is the priming of the mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) toward lineage-specific differentiation into bone-forming osteoblast, which particularly depends on varied mechanochemical and biological cues during bone tissue regeneration. This study sought to design and develop an optimized osteogenic scaffold, adenosine/epigallocatechin gallate

Clostridium thermocellum is a candidate for consolidated bioprocessing by carrying out both cellulose solubilization and fermentation. However, despite significant efforts the maximum ethanol titer achieved to date remains below industrially required targets. Several studies have analyzed the impact of increasing ethanol concentration on C. thermocellum’s membrane properties, cofactor pool ratios, and altered enzyme regulation. In this study, we explore the extent to which thermodynamic equilibrium limits maximum ethanol titer. We used the max-min driving force (MDF) algorithm (Noor et al., 2014) to identify the range of allowable metabolite concentrations that maintain a negative free energy change for all reaction steps in the pathway from cellobiose to ethanol. To this end, we used a time-series metabolite concentration dataset to flag five reactions (phosphofructokinase (PFK), fructose bisphosphate aldolase (FBA), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) and alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH)) which become thermodynamic bottlenecks under high external ethanol concentrations. Thermodynamic analysis was also deployed in a prospective mode to evaluate genetic interventions which can improve pathway thermodynamics by generating minimal set of reactions or elementary flux modes (EFMs) which possess unique genetic variations while ensuring mass and redox balance with ethanol production. MDF evaluation of all generated (336) EFMs indicated that, i) pyruvate phosphate dikinase (PPDK) has a higher pathway MDF than the malate shunt alternative due to limiting CO2 concentrations under physiological conditions, and ii) NADPH-dependent glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPN) can alleviate thermodynamic bottlenecks at high ethanol concentrations due to cofactor modification and reduction in ATP generation. The combination of ATP linked phosphofructokinase (PFK-ATP) and NADPH linked alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH-NADPH) with NADPH linked aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH-NADPH) or ferredoxin: NADP ​+ ​oxidoreductase (NADPH-FNOR) emerges as the best intervention strategy for ethanol production that balances MDF improvements with ATP generation, and appears to functionally reproduce the pathway employed by the ethanologen Thermoanaerobacterium saccharolyticum. Expanding the list of measured intracellular metabolites and improving the quantification accuracy of measurements was found to improve the fidelity of pathway thermodynamics analysis in C. thermocellum. This study demonstrates even before addressing an organism’s enzyme kinetics and allosteric regulations, pathway thermodynamics can flag pathway bottlenecks and identify testable strategies for enhancing pathway thermodynamic feasibility and function.

Insulin resistance is thought to be a common link between obesity and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). NAFLD has now reached epidemic status worldwide and identification of molecules or pathways as newer therapeutic strategies either to prevent or overcome insulin resistance seems critical. Dysregulated hepatic lipogenesis (DNL) is a hallmark of NAFLD in humans and rodents. Therefore, reducing DNL accretion may be critical in the development of therapeutics of NAFLD. In our in vivo model (high-fat-diet fed [HFD] obese mice) we found Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) significantly decreased HFD-induced hepatic steatosis and peripheral insulin resistance. This protective mechanism of ZnO NPs was signaled through hepatic SIRT1-LKB1-AMPK which restricted SREBP-1c within the cytosol limiting its transcriptional ability and thereby ameliorating HFD mediated DNL. These observations indicate that ZnO NP can serve as a therapeutic strategy to improve the physiological homeostasis during obesity and its associated metabolic abnormalities.

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) are one of the most widely used nanomaterials. Following oral exposure, these NPs can accumulate in various organs and induce the toxicity due to their physiochemical characteristics. In present study to reduce the toxicity, surface engineered ZnO NPs (c-ZnO NPs) were in-situ synthesized by using polyacrylamide grafted guar gum (PAm-g-GG) polymer in alkaline media. Further, the comparative effect of bared ZnO NPs (b-ZnO NPs) and c-ZnO NPs were assessed on secondary target organ liver and kidneys of Swiss mice at doses of 10, 50 and 300 mg/kg following 28 days repeated oral treatment. The b-ZnO NPs were incited severe damages in liver and kidney tissue than c-ZnO NPs as seen by transmission electron microscopy and histopathology. The increased levels of serum biomarkers (AST, ALT, ALP, creatinine, uric acid, and urea) were also observed, that remarking a disturbance in the function of liver and kidney. After sub-acute oral treatment of b-ZnO NPs, the hepatic pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α, and MMP-9) were up-regulated that causes the activation of acute phase response (APR). We also observed significantly increased in expression of hepatic acute phase proteins (hepcidin and haptoglobin) and altered interlinked iron (Fe) signaling biomarkers (hephaestin, TF, TFR-1, LDH, and ferroportin). This study emphasizes that exposure to ZnO NPs may cause inflammation mediated APR through ultra-structural damage of tissue that could escort the progression of anemia. Nevertheless, the capping with PAm-g-GG in c- ZnO NPs has reduced the toxicity by altering the surface reactive property of ZnO NPs.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of noncoding RNA molecules formed by the back splicing process. Compared to linear mRNA molecules they are more stable. CircRNA acts as miRNA sponges, regulates translation, epigenetic alterations, etc. However, the most significant aspect of circRNAs has been its role in regulating the hallmark of cancer and diabetes mellitus. Several circRNAs are extensively expressed in individuals with cancer and diabetics. Dysregulated expression of various circRNAs plays a crucial part in the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus. In the present review, we present the current understanding of cricRNAs biogenesis, regulatory mechanisms, reviews of recent findings and circRNA as potential biomarker.

Social phobia is one of the most common psychological disorders seen in children and adolescents. The paucity of literature and lack of training in the behavioural treatment of  children with social phobia among health care professionals has made their treatment  difficult. The purpose of the present case report was to demonstrate the utility of behavioral treatment (graded exposure therapy) for social phobia in children.

Fluoride (F