Search

Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) analysis, specifically circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis, provides enormous opportunities for noninvasive early assessment of cancers. To date, PCR-based methods have led this field. However, the limited sensitivity/specificity of PCR-based methods necessitates the search for new methods. Here, we describe a direct approach to detect KRAS G12D mutated genes in clinical ctDNA samples with the utmost LOD and sensitivity/specificity. In this study, MutS protein was immobilized on the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM), and the protein sensed the mismatched sites of the duplex formed between the capture probe on the surface and mutated DNA. A noteworthy LOD (3 copies, 0.006% allele frequency) was achieved, along with superb sensitivity/specificity (100%/100%). These observations demonstrate that force-based AFM, in combination with the protein found in nature and properly designed capture probes/blockers, represents an exciting new avenue for ctDNA analysis.

BACKGROUND: Relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is an aggressive cancer with a median overall survival of less than 6 months. We aimed to assess the response to single-agent selinexor, an oral selective inhibitor of nuclear export, in patients with relapsed or refractory DLBCL who had no therapeutic options of potential clinical benefit. METHODS: SADAL was a multicentre, multinational, open-label, phase 2b study done in 59 sites in 19 countries. Patients aged 18 years or older with pathologically confirmed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 2 or less, who had received two to five lines of previous therapies, and progressed after or were not candidates for autologous stem-cell transplantation were enrolled. Germinal centre B-cell or non-germinal centre B-cell tumour subtype and double or triple expressor status were determined by immunohistochemistry and double or triple hit status was determined by cytogenetics. Patients received 60 mg selinexor orally on days 1 and 3 weekly until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. The study was initially designed to evaluate both 60 mg and 100 mg twice-weekly doses of selinexor; however, the 100 mg dose was discontinued in the protocol (version 7.0) on March 29, 2017, when an improved therapeutic window was observed at 60 mg. Primary outcome was overall response rate. The primary outcome and safety were assessed in all patients who received 60 mg selinexor under protocol version 6.0, or enrolled under protocol versions 7.0 or higher and received at least one dose of selinexor. This trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02227251 (active but not enrolling). FINDINGS: Between Oct 21, 2015, and Nov 2, 2019, 267 patients were randomly assigned, with 175 allocated to the 60 mg group and 92 to the discontinued 100 mg group. 48 patients assigned to the 60 mg group were excluded due to enrolment before version 6.0 of the protocol; the remaining 127 patients received selinexor 60 mg and were included in analyses of primary outcome and safety. The overall response rate was 28% (36/127; 95% CI 20·7-37·0); 15 (12%) achieved a complete response and 21 (17%) a partial response. The most common grade 3-4 adverse events were thrombocytopenia (n=58), neutropenia (n=31), anaemia (n=28), fatigue (n=14), hyponatraemia (n=10), and nausea (n=8). The most common serious adverse events were pyrexia (n=9), pneumonia (n=6), and sepsis (n=6). There were no deaths judged as related to treatment with selinexor. INTERPRETATION: Single-drug oral selinexor induced durable responses and had a manageable adverse events profile in patients with relapsed or refractory DLBCL who received at least two lines of previous chemoimmunotherapy. Selinexor could be considered a new oral, non-cytotoxic treatment option in this setting. FUNDING: Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc.

Low-grade oncocytic tumour (LOT) of the kidney has recently emerged as a potential novel tumour type. Despite similarity to oncocytoma or eosinophilic chromophobe renal cell carcinoma, it shows diffuse keratin 7 immunohistochemistry (IHC) and negative KIT (CD117), which differs from both. We aimed to identify the molecular characteristics of these tumours. Seventeen tumours (one male, 16 female, nine previously published) fitting the original description of this entity (solid eosinophilic cell morphology, often with areas of tumour cells loosely stretched in oedematous stroma, and the above IHC features) were analysed with a next- generation sequencing panel of 324 cancer- associated genes from formalin-fixed, paraffin- embedded tissue. All tumours harboured at least one alteration in either TSC1 (n = 7, 41%), TSC2 (n = 2, 12%), MTOR (n = 5, 29%) or PIK3CA (n = 4, 24%). Four tumours harboured a second alteration, including two NF2, one each in conjunction with MTOR and TSC2 alterations, one PTEN with TSC1 alteration and one tumour with both MTOR and TSC1 alterations. No other renal cancer-related or recurring gene alterations were identified. In addition to the previously described IHC findings, 16 of 16 were positive for GATA3. Eleven patients with follow-up had no metastases or recurrent tumours. Recurrent tuberous sclerosis/MTOR pathway gene alterations in LOT support its consideration as a distinct morphological, immunohistochemical and genetic entity. PIK3CA is another pathway member that may be altered in these tumours. Further study will be necessary to determine whether tumour behaviour or syndromic associations differ from those of oncocytoma and chromophobe carcinoma, warranting different clinical consideration.

Significance: Screening and early detection of oral potentially malignant lesions (OPMLs) are of great significance in reducing the mortality rates associated with head and neck malignancies. Intra-oral multispectral optical imaging of tissues in conjunction with cloud-based machine learning (CBML) can be used to detect oral precancers at the point-of-care (POC) and guide the clinician to the most malignant site for biopsy. Aim: Develop a bimodal multispectral imaging system (BMIS) combining tissue autofluorescence and diffuse reflectance (DR) for mapping changes in oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO2) absorption in the oral mucosa, quantifying tissue abnormalities, and guiding biopsies. Approach: The hand-held widefield BMIS consisting of LEDs emitting at 405, 545, 575, and 610 nm, 5MPx monochrome camera, and proprietary Windows-based software was developed for image capture, processing, and analytics. The DR image ratio (R610/R545) was compared with pathologic classification to develop a CBML algorithm for real-time assessment of tissue status at the POC. Results: Sensitivity of 97.5% and specificity of 92.5% were achieved for discrimination of OPML from patient normal in 40 sites, whereas 82% sensitivity and 96.6% specificity were obtained for discrimination of abnormal (OPML + SCC) in 89 sites. Site-specific algorithms derived for buccal mucosa (27 sites) showed improved sensitivity and specificity of 96.3% for discrimination of OPML from normal. Conclusions: Assessment of oral cancer risk is possible by mapping of HbO2 absorption in tissues, and the BMIS system developed appears to be suitable for biopsy guidance and early detection of oral cancers.

Based on the cell penetrating ability of tryptophan-containing peptides, eight linear hexapeptides have been designed, synthesized and explored their efficiency toward the synthesis of gold nanoparticles under sunlight. The peptide generated gold nanoparticles (LP-GNPs) have been characterized by UV-visible spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) techniques. The binding ability of LP-GNPs toward siRNA, evaluated by gel electrophoresis indicates that sequence-selective-GNPs without any surface modifications exhibit strong affinity toward negatively charged biomolecules. Cellular uptake studies suggest that LP-GNPs exhibit significant uptake of fluorescence-labeled siRNA inside the cells as evidenced from Fluorescence Microscopy. In vitro gene silencing efficiency using newly generated GNPs revealed that above mentioned LP-GNPs efficiently down-regulate the level of GAPGH gene in colon cancer cells. Comparative gene silencing efficiency results indicate that anisotropic LP7-GNPs exhibit comparable efficacy to other existing carrier systems, such as Lipofectamine 2000 in presence of serum, mimicking in-vivo system. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that peptide-GNPs based delivery system for siRNA emerges to be effective to deliver RNAi therapeutics, uncovering new avenue in oncotherapy.

Reliable quantification of binding affinity is important in biotechnology and pharmacology and increasingly coupled with a demand for ultrasensitivity, nanoscale resolution, and minute sample amounts. Standard techniques are not able to meet these criteria. This study provides a new platform based on atomic force microscopy (AFM)-derived recognition imaging to determine affinity by visualizing single molecular bindings on nanosize dendrons. Using DNA hybridization as a demonstrator, an AFM sensor adorned with a cognate binding strand senses and localizes target DNAs at nanometer resolution. To overcome the limitations of speed and resolution, the AFM cantilever is sinusoidally oscillated close to resonance conditions at small amplitudes. The equilibrium dissociation constant of capturing DNA duplexes was obtained, yielding 2.4 × 10–10 M. Our label-free single-molecular biochemical analysis approach evidences the utility of recognition imaging and analysis in quantifying biomolecular interactions of just a...

A real-time multi-bot system consists of a group of robots working together to accomplish a common task. Each robot in the environment is provided with its own set of sensors, communication modules, vision systems, and control systems. A robot in the multi-bot environment is given complete autonomy or partial autonomy or teleoperated based on the task. For a robot to navigate autonomously, they should be capable of knowing their own position and pose in the environment, I.e., localization [1]. Localization is achieved by the process of Data Fusion. Data fusion is the process of combining the data from sensors that sense motion and sensors that represent the environment. For a robot, the data collected from its sensors are available only to itself. In a multi-bot system, the data collected from a single robot should be made available to all the other robots in the environment. Each robot collects the sensor data of its own and shares this information among all the other robots in the environment. The connectivity and exchange of data between individual robots is a key issue in a multi-bot environment. The multi-bot system performance and safety can be increased by high speed, low latency exchange of data between individual robots. Moreover, keeping a robot informed about others in their surrounding increases the knowledge and makes each robot take a global decision in the environment rather than local decisions [2]. This experiment demonstrates the high-speed exchange of information between robots and quantifies the delay elapsed in it. This also proves ROS2 has good performance over ROS and best suited for the multi-bot system [3].

Today in this competitive world, people mostly tend to focus on students who are very focused with their career and have their ideologies and goals set but in that long run the students who have no aim in their lives and are without any ideologies or goals set but have a great potential to perform well in certain aspects are forgotten. Our paper is entirely for them. The research has been conducted in such a way so that a platform can be provided for students to interact with and set up their goals thereby exploring their pros and cons in such a way that they achieve their own goals in their respective fields and not feel left out. Here a decision tree model has been proposed to efficiently help in determining career goals of students. Later performance evaluation has been carried out to compute the effectiveness of classification.

Personality is the most important feature of life. It is the base for collecting information about a person. In different parts of the world, many research works were already predicted different results for different traits. Big five personality prediction is a vast field that attracted many researchers. Still, a lot of work is going on with personality theories to get the best outcome. Basically, personality can be predicted by two approaches. One is automatic personality recognition (APR) and the other one is automatic personality perception (APP). The main difference between APR and APP approach is that APR first evaluates big five traits and then assign a personal profile to author, whereas APP does the opposite. Different techniques have been evolved to find the best possible outcome. One such approach is the AI-based approach used for accessing video interviews, which is showing better accuracy (above 90%) than others to predict personality. In this review, we presented an overview of different techniques to predict the big five traits.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is considered as one of the vital growth factors for angiogenesis, which is primarily responsible for the progress and maintenance of new vascular network in tumor. Numerous studies report that inhibition of VEGF-induced angiogenesis is a potent technique for cancer suppression. Recently, RNA interference, especially small interfering RNA (siRNA) signified a promising approach to suppress the gene expression. However, the clinical implementation of biological macromolecules such as siRNA is significantly limited because of stability and bioavailability issues. Herein, self-assembled peptide nanospheres have been generated from L,L-cyclic peptides using hydrophobic (Trp), positively charged (Arg) and cysteine (Cys) amino acid residues and demonstrated as vehicles for intracellular delivery of VEGF siRNA and VEGF antisense oligonucleotide. Formation of peptide nanostructures is confirmed by HR-TEM, AFM, SEM and DLS analysis. Possible mechanism of self-assembly of the cyclic peptides and their binding with macromolecules are demonstrated by in-silico analysis. Gel electrophoresis reveals that the newly generated peptide based organic materials exhibit strong binding affinity toward siRNAs / antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) at optimum concentration. Flow cytometry and confocal microscopy results confirm the efficiency of the new biomaterials toward the intracellular delivery of fluorescent labeled siRNA / ASOs. Furthermore, VEGF expression evaluated by western blot and RT-PCR upon the delivery of functional VEGF siRNA/ASOs suggests that very low concentrations of VEGF siRNA/ASOs cause significant gene knockdown at protein and mRNA levels, respectively.

Background: Thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO) or Buerger’s disease is a form of peripheral vascular disease in young male smokers. The involvement of the intestine occurs only about 2% of the cases. Symptoms of peripheral vascular disease usually precede intestinal manifestations, although the latter can sometimes be the index presentation. The cessation of smoking usually, though not necessarily, prevents the progression of the disease and visceral involvement.Case presentation: Our patient presented with diffuse abdominal pain along with bouts of vomiting and loose motions. He was a known smoker with a prior history of amputation of the right foot, four years before. Physical examination revealed abdominal distension and diffuse tenderness and guarding. An omental band attached to the tip of the appendix was discovered at the initial exploration along with dilated proximal bowel loops, for which a release of the omental band along with appendectomy was done. He developed an enterocutaneous fistula on the sixth postoperative day for which the abdomen was re-explored which revealed multiple segmental perforation in the jejunum and two subcentimetric perforation adjacent to each other in the distal ileum. Resection of the affected jejunal segment was performed followed by Roux-en-Y gastrojejunosotomy and distal ileostomy. A feeding jejunostomy was also performed. The bleeding from the cut ends was unsatisfactory. The patient however had persistent feculent discharge from the wound for which a third exploration was done which revealed a leak from the gastrojejunostomy and feeding jejunosotomy sites, both of which were repaired primarily. However, the patient developed septicemia with persistently elevated serum lactate levels which progressed to refractory septic shock and ultimately succumbed to the illness on 23rd postoperative day of the index surgery.Conclusion: Acute abdomen in a young man, who is a chronic smoker and having an antecedent history of amputation of some part of an extremity for a nontraumatic cause should raise the suspicion of Buerger’s disease of the intestine. Although it is a progressive disease and things are already late by the time intestinal symptoms manifest, early detection may give some scope of salvage and decreasing morbidity and mortality.

In this work, a strategy for enhancing sensitivity in a label-free DNA detection assay, where the basic operational principle involves detection of the net surface stress induced bending motion of a piezoresistive microcantilever, upon target-binding, has been presented. A microcantilever array that allows experiments using sensor–reference configuration has been employed, where the cantilevers have been functionalized by inkjet printing technology, using short nucleic acid sequences of similar length (here, 12-mer), on both the sensor and the reference cantilevers. It is shown that application of the single stranded peptide nucleic acids (PNA), having non-ionic peptidic backbone, as the sensor probes improves the assay sensitivity about twenty times, even to the level of single base mismatch discrimination, compared to the DNA counterparts. We propose that the significantly improved performance of the PNA-based assay could be due to the orientational advantage of PNA probes as offered when a self-assembled ordered PNA structure is formed. Since the piezoresistive cantilever based method offers a practical means for target detection by rapid monitoring of the recognition events in fluid in real time, and importantly, since PNA is nuclease-resistant, this step of advancement may motivate future endeavours for detection of nucleic acid sequences in complex body fluid mimics.

Background: Relapsed or refractory diffuse large B‑cell lymphoma (RR DLBCL) is an aggressive cancer with a median survival of less than 6 months. The SADAL trial aims to assess the response to the oral selective inhibitor of nuclear export (SINE) selinexor in patients with RR DLBCL who have no therapeutic options of demonstrated clinical benefit. Methods: SADAL was a multicenter, open-label Phase 2b study conducted at 59 sites globally. Patients 18 years with previously treated, pathologically confirmed de novo DLBCL, or DLBCL transformed from previously diagnosed indolent lymphoma, and having received at least two prior therapies were enrolled. Germinal center B-cell (GCB) or non-GCB tumor subtype and double/triple expressor status were determined by immunohistochemistry and double/triple hit status was determined by cytogenetic assays. Patients received 60 mg selinexor orally on days 1 and 3 weekly until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. The primary outcome was overall response rate (ORR) by central radiologic review. A modified intent-to-treat population was used for all efficacy endpoints. Findings: 127 patients were enrolled from October 21, 2015 through November 2, 2019. The ORR was 28.3% (95% CI: 20.7%, 37.0%), including complete response in 15 (11.8%) and partial response in 21 (16.5%) patients. Median overall survival (OS) was 9.1 months (95% CI: 6.6, 15.1) with longer OS observed in responding patients. Responses were observed across different subgroups regardless of age, gender, prior therapy, DLBCL subtype, refractory status or prior ASCT therapy. Adverse events were generally reversible and managed with dose modifications and/or standard supportive care. Interpretation: In both GCB- and non-GCB DLBCL subtypes, single agent oral selinexor induced durable responses which were associated with longer survival. Selinexor may be a new oral, non-cytotoxic treatment option for patients with RR DLBCL after two lines of chemo-immunotherapy. Trial Registration: This trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02227251. Funding Statement: This study (NCT02227251) was funded by Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc, Newton, Massachusetts, USA, which provided all study materials. Declaration of Interests: NK reports research support from Verastem, Gilead, Celgene, and Roche, as well as honoraria from Gilead, Janssen, and Karyopharm. FC reports personal fees from Takeda, Gilead, and Janssen, outside the submitted work. MC reports personal fees from Celgene, Gilead, Janssen, Karyopharm, Novartis, Roche, Sandoz, and Servier outside the submitted work. GF reports personal fees from Karyopharm and Roche, outside the submitted work. AG reports personal fees and honoraria from AstraZeneca, personal fees and board membership from Cota and Kite/Gilead, personal fees from Janssen, Celgene, Acerta, and research funding from Constellation, Bayer, CALBG, Genentech, Hoffman-La Roche, MD Anderson, Morphosys, Pharmacyclics, and the University of Nebraska, outside the submitted work. OC reports grants, personal fees, and non-financial support from Roche, personal fees and non-financial support from Takeda, BMS, Amgen, Janssen, Abbvie, grants and personal fees from Gilead, and personal fees from Merck, outside the submitted work. BH reports grants and personal fees from Karyopharm, outside the submitted work. UJ reports personal fees from Karyopharm, during the conduct of the study; grants and personal fees from AbbVie, Celgene, Gilead, Janssen, Novartis, Roche, Takeda, Amgen, Miltenyi, and BMS, outside the submitted work. JMS reports honoraria from Roche, Janssen, Gilead, Celgene, Novartis outside the submitted work. MS reports personal fees from Karyopharm during the conduct of the study, and personal fees from Amgen, Abbvie, Gilead, Takeda, Celgene, Pharmacyclics, Astellas, Verastem, Merck, Novartis, Genentech, and Seattle Genetics, outside the submitted work. TPV reports honoraria from WinMedica, Astellas, and Gilead, honoraria, advisory board membership and research support from Takeda, honoraria and advisory board membership from Roche, Bristol, Genesis, and Novartis, advisory board membership at Janssen, honoraria and research support from Merck and Amgen, and research support from Pfizer and Karyopharm. AJ reports personal fees from Karyopharm Therapeutics during the conduct of the study. YL reports personal fees from Karyopharm Therapeutics, outside the submitted work. HC, YL, XM, KC, DM, HW, JS, JRS, SS, and MK are employees of Karyopharm. AJ is a consultant for Karyopharm. MK and SS are stockholders of Karyopharm. SS holds patents (8999996, 9079865, 9714226, PCT/US12/048319, and I574957) on hydrazide containing nuclear transport modulators and uses, and pending patents (PCT/US12/048319, 499/2012, PI20102724, and 2012000928) on hydrazide-containing nuclear transport modulators and uses. All other authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: The institutional review board or independent ethics committee at each study center approved the protocol, and the study was performed in accordance with the International Conference on Harmonisation Good Clinical Practice guidelines and the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

The interaction among the biologically synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and industrially useful antibiotic kanamycin or environmentally hazardous sulfide ions led to the development of a possible colorimetric sensor for the selective detection of kanamycin and sulfide ions. In this study, a facile green protocol toward the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) was established while Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) was used as reducing and stabilizing agents, for the first time. The as-synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by UV–visible spectroscopy, high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) techniques. Detection of kanamycin and sulfide ions was established based on the SPR technique. The yellow color of the AgNPs solution turned to reddish pink in the presence of kanamycin, accompanying the decrease in intensity of SPR band. In contrast, AgNPs solution turned to colorless upon the addition of sulfide ions. The sensitivity and selectivity of AgNPs toward other interference antibiotics/anions were studied. Moreover, the effect of the concentration of kanamycin and sulfide ions in the nanoparticle solution was investigated and the LOD (limit of detection) for kanamycin and sulfide ions were found to be 0.96 μM and 1.62 μM, respectively. The results indicate that the proposed technique is very efficient for the colorimetric detection of kanamycin and sulfide ions.

RNA interference shows a great strategy for biological studies; however, delivering of small interfering RNA (siRNA) remains challenging. Although several delivery vehicles, including cell-penetrating peptides, have been developed, their implementation is often restricted because of their endosomal entrapment. Herein, we report the formation of self-assembled nanostructures from rationally designed cyclic peptides and explore them for efficient delivery of functional biomacromolecules such as siRNA into mammalian cells. The newly obtained soft materials make stable complexes with siRNAs, thereby increasing their stability and deliver fluorescent labelled siRNA inside the cells as evident from confocal microscopy analysis. Flow cytometry analysis reveals that significant uptake of FAM-siRNA occurs in the presence of peptide nanostructures compared with siRNA alone. Peptide nanostructure-mediated delivery of very low concentration of siRNA causes significant knockdown of the target gene as observed at protein level by Western blot analysis, which is comparable to lipofectamine, commercially available transfection agent.

Polyphenol functionalized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been developed and demonstrated as colorimetric sensors for the selective detection of gadolinium. The newly obtained AgNP-Gd3+ conjugates exhibit high aqueous dispersibility and excitation dependent fluorescence emission. The conjugates offer multicolor bioimaging potential owing to their excellent luminescence properties.

Gas-tungsten-arc-welded (GTAW) Al0.5CoCrFeNi high-entropy alloy (HEA) was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), microhardness, and tensile testing. The weld metal having refined equiaxed and elongated columnar dendritic microstructure experienced 6.38 pct reduction in strength and marginally reduced hardness compared to the base metal (BM). Lower work hardening with enhanced relative slip distance, which was observed through the Kocks–Mecking plot and slip distance–true strain plots, was attributed to the reduced bcc fraction in the weld.

This paper analyzes a deep learning based classification process for common East Asian dermatological conditions. We have chosen ten common categories based on prevalence. With more than 85% accuracy in our experiments, we have tried to investigate why current models are yet to reach accuracy benchmarks seen in object identification tasks. Our current attempt sheds light on how deep learning based dermoscopic identification and dataset creation could be improved.

Our paper introduces an efficient combination of established techniques to improve classifier performance, in terms of accuracy and training time. We achieve two-fold to ten-fold speedup in nearing state of the art accuracy, over different model architectures, by dynamically tuning the learning rate. We find it especially beneficial in the case of a small dataset, where reliability of machine reasoning is lower. We validate our approach by comparing our method versus vanilla training on CIFAR-10. We also demonstrate its practical viability by implementing on an unbalanced corpus of diagnostic images.

So far, there has been no report on molecularly resolved discrimination of single nucleobase mismatches using surface-confined single stranded locked nucleic acid (ssLNA) probes. Herein, it is exemplified using a label-independent force-sensing approach that an optimal coverage of 12-mer ssLNA sensor probes formed onto gold(111) surface allows recognition of ssDNA targets with twice stronger force sensitivity than 12-mer ssDNA sensor probes. The force distributions are reproducible and the molecule-by-molecule force measurements are largely in agreement with ensemble on-surface melting temperature data. Importantly, the molecularly resolved detection is responsive to the presence of single nucleobase mismatches in target sequences. Since the labelling steps can be eliminated from protocol, and each force-based detection event occurs within milliseconds' time scale, the force-sensing assay is potentially capable of rapid detection. The LNA probe performance is indicative of versatility in terms of substrate choice - be it gold (for basic research and array-based applications) or silicon (for 'lab-on-a-chip' type devices). The nucleic acid microarray technologies could therefore be generally benefited by adopting the LNA films, in place of DNA. Since LNA is nuclease-resistant, unlike DNA, and the LNA-based assay is sensitive to single nucleobase mismatches, the possibilities for label-free in vitro rapid diagnostics based on the LNA probes may be explored.

Herein, polyphenol stabilized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been synthesized for selective removal of cationic dyes from aqueous solution. Gold nanoparticles have been synthesized using Cassytha filiformis plant extract and characterized by UV–vis spectroscopy (UV–vis), High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HR-TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The size of AuNPs was found to be in the range of 8–20 nm with an average size of 12 nm. The newly generated AuNPs demonstrate excellent potential in removing cationic dye such as methylene blue (MB) via photocatalytic degradation under sunlight. The adsorption/degradation behaviour of cationic MB on AuNPs adsorbent from the aqueous solution was studied by varying parameters such as pH and different light sources. Alkaline pH and sunlight were found to be crucial in dye degradation. The adoption of the ultrasonic waves (UW) leads to reduce sorption time significantly with an increase in the sorption ability and at the optimum condition. The AuNPs appear to be promising with a maximum dye loading capacity of 595.23 mg/g and dye degradation efficiency was found to be 87 % after 20 min. Additionally, the antimicrobial studies confirm the significant inhibition (zone of inhibition: 20 mm) of growth of Mycobacterium smegmatis, a model organism for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, suggesting the advancement of a novel new generation eco-friendly and cost-effective ‘green’ AuNPs.

Challenges in reliable nucleic acid detection are manifold. The major ones are related to false positive or negative signals due to a lack of target specificity in detection and to low sensitivity, especially when a plethora of background sequences are present that can mask the specific recognition signal. Utilizing designed synthetic nucleic acids that are commonly called xeno nucleic acids could offer potential routes to meeting such challenges. In this article, we present the general framework of nucleic acid detection, especially for nanoscale applications, and discuss how and why the xeno nucleic acids could be truly an alternative to the DNA probes. Two specific cases, locked nucleic acid (LNA) and peptide nucleic acid (PNA), which are nuclease-resistant and can form thermally stable duplexes with DNA, are addressed. It is shown that the relative ease of the conformationally rigid LNA probe to be oriented upright on the substrate surface and of the nonionic PNA probe to result into high probe density assists in their use in nanoscale nucleic acid recognition. It is anticipated that success with these probes may lead to important developments such as PCR-independent approaches where the major aim is to detect a small number of target sequences present in the analyte medium.

Cervical Cancer is the fourth leading cause of death due to cancer among women worldwide. Pap Smear Test is the commonly used method for Cervical Cancer screening. But Pap Smear pathology screening is very time consuming process. Therefore, an automatic detection method of nucleus of cervical cell is proposed in this paper which mainly focuses on time consumption which is an important parameter when it comes the automatic segmentation. The pre-processing is achieved using edge map with double threshold for de-noising of edges, and then segmentation of the nucleus of cervical cancer cell is achieved using Gradient Force Model and Balloon force Model. The two parametric deformable models are used to check the trade-off between the number of iterations and accuracy. Further, geometrical features like perimeter, area, eccentricity, mean intensity etc. are calculated followed by segmentation using both methods to detect whether cell is cancerous or normal. The calculated features are contrasted with each method. The experimental results shows time consumption is reduced using gradient force model in terms of number of iterations used for segmentation with the accuracy of 0.92 which is significant for clinical interpretation.