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The polysaccharides were isolated from apple pomace by hot-water extraction, and their anti-fatigue activity was evaluated in C2C12 muscle myoblasts and male Kunming mice. The purified polysaccharides from apple pomace (PAP) have a molecular weight of 1.74 × 10

Dr Ramasamy Rajesh Kumar Brief Biodata

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd., The current Russian war against Ukraine is of global concern. It builds on the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and subsequently the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and has become a large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine from three directions, Crimea in the south, Russia in the east, and Belarus in the north. Despite the geopolitical background that, in the eyes of Russia, justifes its annexation of regions in and around Ukraine, we cannot turn a blind eye towards the untold miseries of the citizens of the invaded country. Although it is unclear as to how the situation will unfold, what is clear is that lives are being lost, many civilians are being injured, traumatized, and valuable assets destroyed. Taking into consideration that the population of the countries involved in this conflict totals nearly 200 million citizens, many lives on both sides will be sacrifced, millions of people displaced, Europe will be overrun with new refugees, and global world economics will be disrupted by the war itself and by the sanctions imposed on Russia.

A simple and facile method for fabricating the cotton fabric with flame retardancy is adopted in the present work. This study deals with crosslinking of cotton fabric using different polycarboxylic acids such as citric acid and 1,2,3,4-butane tetracarboxylic acid and using different catalysts such as sodium hypophosphite and sodium propionate through conventional pad-dry-cure method for flame-retardant application. The results exhibited moderate waterproofing durability and flame retardancy of the cotton fabric after treatment, offering a good opportunity to accelerate the large-scale production textile materials for new industrial applications.

In this study, pot-culture experiments were conducted to investigate the single effect of Cd, PCBs, and the combined effect of Cd-PCBs with Tagetes patula L. The study highlights that the minimum concentration of PCBs (100 µg kg−1) could enable the growth of the plant with an increase in biomass by 27.76% when compared with the control. In all the experiments performed, the Cd concentrations over the surface parts were found to be above 100 mg kg−1. Significant positive correlations were observed between the Cd and PCBs concentrations accumulated in tissues of the soil and plants (p

Mitigating membrane fouling extensively occurred in membrane-based water treatment techniques in an efficient and durable way is a pressing challenge. The novel electro-assisted membrane coupling technology showed great potentials for tackling the problem. Foulants like charged natural organic matter, colloids and bacteria can be successfully repelled from membrane surface in the presence of electric field, contributing to less adoption, accumulation, and blocking. More importantly, the inactivation of microorganisms induced by electric field played a significant role in inhibiting the formation of the stubborn biofilm, which showed distinct and excellent advantages over other membrane fouling control approaches like surface hydrophilic modification, chemical cleaning, and pretreatment optimization. This thorough and long-term effective coupling means will actually open a new sight for membrane fouling mitigation fields. Herein, we reviewed the configuration of direct current (DC) membrane coupling technology to control membrane fouling, fouling alleviating mechanisms, and membrane filtration performances of DC electric field membrane coupling process. Additionally, some potential drawbacks and corresponding strategies were also discussed; hopefully to supply some viewpoints for prospective developments in membrane fouling mitigation fields.

Previous studies have shown that co-catalysts play a pivotal role for improving both the activity and reliability of semiconductors in photocatalytic hydrogen production, however, designing highly efficient and cost-effective co-catalysts to replace expensive and rare metals is still a big challenge. In this work, DFT (density functional theory) is utilized to guide the application of CoP NWs (nanowires) as an earth-abundant co-catalyst for photocatalytic hydrogen production. Metallic 1D CoP NWs is rationally integrated with Zn0.5Cd0.5S solid solution semiconductor for the first time, to induce a remarkably improved photocatalytic hydrogen production activity of 12,175.8 μmol h−1 g−1, which is 22 times higher than that of the pristine Zn0.5Cd0.5S. This outstanding activity benefits from the collaborative advantages of excellent metallic conductivity and the rigid 1D nanostructure of CoP NWs. Moreover, the mechanism investigations demonstrate that this excellent activity arises from the strong electronic coupling, favourable band structure, highly efficient charge separation and migration based on the powerful characterizations, such as time-resolved PL decay spectra and photoelectrochemical methodology. This work brings new opportunities to employ 1D co-catalysts on photocatalysts for improving the catalytic activities in hydrogen production from water.

The differences of PBDE absorption, accumulation, and metabolism in different cultivars of the same crop are rarely explored. This study used C tracing to fully demonstrate the uptake and transformation of soil-borne BDE209 in three rice cultivars, including two indica (HHZ and YD1) and one japonica cultivars (NJ3). Results showed that about 6.9, 17.2, and 17.4% of the applied C-BDE209 were transformed to C-metabolites in soils planted with HHZ, YD1, and NJ3, respectively. The C-BDE209 and its C-metabolites in soil could be absorbed by the rice and gradually transported to its root, stem, leaf, and grain, with the total whole-plant uptake of 8.52, 4.55 and 3.43 nmol for HHZ, YD1, and NJ3, respectively. The cultivar of HHZ had the greatest whole-plant C absorption but the lowest ΣPBDEs residues in its grain, with the ΣPBDEs of 421.8, 454.2 and 967.0 ng g for HHZ, YD1, and NJ3, respectively. BDE-209 accounted for 90%, 31% and 50% of the ΣPBDEs in the grain from HHZ, YD1, and NJ3, respectively. The estimated daily intake (EDI) amounts of ΣPBDEs were 928, 1056, and 2675 ng kg bw d via consuming rice grains from HHZ, YD1, and NJ3, respectively, which were below the safe threshold limits for human consumption. This study proved the different BDE-209 absorption, accumulation and transformation in different rice cultivars, which potentially suggests the need of considering cultivar differences in assessing the dietary risks of PBDEs., This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Plan, China (2018YFD0200101 & 2016YFD0800207) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21577120 & 21207113). We also thank the China Scholarship Council for funding support to PF Zhao for her visit at McGill University, Canada.

Attaining sustainable agriculture is a key goal in many parts of the world. The increased environmental awareness and the ongoing attempts to execute agricultural practices that are economically feasible and environmentally safe promote the use of hydroponic cultivation. Hydroponics is a technology for growing plants in nutrient solutions with or without the use of artificial medium to provide mechanical support. Major problems for hydroponic cultivation are higher operational cost and the causing of pollution due to discharge of waste nutrient solution. The nutrient effluent released into the environment can have negative impacts on the surrounding ecosystems as well as the potential to contaminate the groundwater utilized by humans for drinking purposes. The reuse of non-recycled, nutrient-rich hydroponic waste solution for growing plants in greenhouses is the possible way to control environmental pollution. Many researchers have successfully grown several plant species in hydroponic waste solution with high yield. Hence, this review addresses the problems associated with the release of hydroponic waste solution into the environment and possible reuse of hydroponic waste solution as an alternative resource for agriculture development and to control environmental pollution.

Over the past few decades, livestock production has undergone an industrial revolution, resulting in the large-scale generation of livestock manure. Livestock manure has many beneficial nutrients, which can improve agricultural crop production, and is an organic alternative to chemical fertilizers. Livestock manure requires proper treatment before application to agricultural land, because it contains toxic heavy metals and pathogenic microorganisms. When improperly treated, stored or used, livestock manure can pollute rivers, soil ecosystems, and underground drinking water, thereby affecting all living organisms nearby. In this article, we illustrate the land applications and environmental risks associated with the use of livestock manure.

Extracellular synthesis of nanoparticles has received attention due to its more advantageous form of synthesis in large quantities and also easy for downstream processing. In the present investigation, we report in vitro extracellular synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using Saccharomyces cerevisiae with silver nitrate solution. The AgNPs were produced in 72 h of incubation time. The AgNPs formed were further characterized by means of UV-Vis spectrophotometry, Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The synthesized AgNPs had maximum absorbance at ∼420 nm in the UV-visible region. FTIR bands were observed at 3353.40, 2075.09, 1637.71 and 1397.30 cm−1. XRD patterns of the AgNPs confirmed the formation of face centered cubic (fcc) lattice crystal silver particles. The SEM analysis revealed that the size of the AgNPs were of 30–60 nm. The synthesized AgNPs inhibited the growth of the test microorganisms at the concentration of 100 μL. The present study highlights the possibility of using the common baker’s yeast S. cerevisiae to synthesize AgNPs and as a microbicidal agent.

The increasing worldwide usages of Veterinary Antibiotics (VAs) for therapeutic and nontherapeutic are becoming serious issue due to its adverse effects on all living organisms. Release of VAs into the aquatic and terrestrial environments results in antibiotic resistance in bacteria and toxicity to humans, animals, and plants. This review covers the present scenario on VA usage, occurrence, toxicity, and removal techniques.

Antibiotic resistance and the mode of transmission were investigated in bacteria isolated from poultry litter. Total aerobic heterotrophic bacteria were screened and identified for their resistance to different antibiotics such as ampicillin, streptomycin, erythromycin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol, kanamycin, tobramycin, and rifampicin. The distribution of bacteria found in the litter was Staphylococcus (29.1%), which was the predominant group, followed by Streptococcus (25%), Micrococcus (20.8%), Escherichia coli (12.5%), Salmonella (8.3%), and Aeromonas (4.1%). Fifty percent of these isolates were susceptible to ampicillin, 57% to erythromycin, 25% to tetracycline, 4% to chloramphenicol, 40% to kanamycin, 75% to streptomycin, 54% to tobramycin, and 4% to rifampicin. Three randomly selected isolates representing Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, and Micrococcus were examined for plasmids, and plasmid-curing and plasmid-induced transformation studies were conducted. Streptococcus and Micrococcus harbored a plasmid of 4.2 and 5.1 kb, respectively, whereas Staphylococcus did not harbor any plasmids. Plasmids were cured in Streptococcus and Micrococcus at a concentration of 75 and 100 microg/ mL of acridine orange, respectively, and transformation of 4.2- and 5.1-kb plasmids isolated from the Streptococcus and Micrococcus to plasmid-free E. coli DH5alpha strain was possible. In conjugation experiments, the antibiotic resistance profiles of transconjugant cells were found to be the same as the donors with the exception of Staphylococcus. The results of this study suggest that transformation and conjugation could be an important mechanism for horizontal gene transfer between bacteria in poultry litter. An understanding of the mechanism and magnitude of resistance gene transfer may provide a strategy to reduce the potential for dissemination of these genes.

Marine biotechnology explores marine organisms as a prolific source for attractive biomolecules with broad biotechnological applications. This review dictates the potentials from natural products of both free-living and associated forms of marine bacteria, actinobacteria, cyanobacteria, fungi, and algae towards pharmacological and industrial importance. In accordance with the pharmacological perspectives, secondary metabolites, explored during the recent decade of 2003–2013, with significant cytotoxicity on human and murine cancer cells, antimicrobial and antiprotozoal properties, inhibition of metabolic key enzymes/proteins, and anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities were emphasized here. Recent studies (2010–2014) towards biofuel and antifouling in the deal of industrial applications were highlighted. Undoubtedly, marine animals, viz., sponges, corals, mollusks, prochordates, etc., are the potential source of bioactive natural products with wider applications, but extensive exploration for their valuable chemicals left them in the dangerous zone. In order to save the bioresources and extend the research in marine microbes and macroalgae, this review is confined within marine bacterial, fungal, and algal applications. But the tool of metagenomics is devoid of such limitations; metagenome sample from marine source is sufficient to construct metagenome library so as to investigate the potentials by employing either activity-based screening or sequence-based screening approaches. Furthermore, many of marine microbes and algae are actively engaged in genetic engineering studies in applied aspects.

In this study, an environmental friendly process for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using a fungus Aspergillus tamarii has been investigated. The process of silver ion reduction by the fungal extracellular filtrate was spontaneous which lead to the development of an easy process for synthesis of silver nanoparticles. The AgNPs formed were characterized using UV–Visible spectrum, FTIR, and SEM. The results revealed that silver ions reduction by the fungal extracellular filtrate started at 420 nm after 0.5 h of incubation time. The FTIR peaks were observed at 1393, 1820, 2727, and 3545 cm−1. The SEM result showed the distribution of spherical AgNPs ranging from 25 to 50 nm.