Adenovirus vector-based purging of multiple myeloma cells

Adenoviruses are efficient gene delivery agents for a variety of neoplasms. In the present study, we have investigated the use of adenoviruses for the delivery of the thymidine kinase (tk) gene into multiple myeloma (MM) cells. We first demonstrated that MM cell lines and MM patient cells express both adenovirus receptors as well as the DF3/MUC1 protein, thus providing a rationale for using adenoviruses to selectively deliver genes under the control of the DF3 promoter. By using an adenoviral construct containing beta-galactosidase (beta-gal) gene driven by the DF3 promoter (Ad. DF3-betagal), we demonstrate greater than 80% transduction efficiency in OCI-My5 and RPMI 8226 MM cell lines at a multiplicity of infection of 1 to 100. Importantly, transduction with the tk gene driven by the DF3 promoter (Ad.DF3-tk) followed by treatment with 50 micromol/L ganciclovir (GCV) purged >/=6 log of contaminating OCI-My5 and RPMI 8226 MM cells within bone marrow mononuclear cells. In contrast, normal human hematopoietic progenitor cell number was unaffected under these conditions. Selectivity of DF3/MUC1 promoter was further confirmed, because Ad.DF3-betagal or Ad.DF3-tk did not transduce MUC1-negative HeLa cervical carcinoma cells. In addition, GCV treatment of Ad.DF3-tk-transduced RPMI 8226 MM cells did not induce a significant bystander effect. These findings demonstrate that transduction with Ad vectors using a tumor-selective promoter provides a highly efficient and selective approach for the ex vivo purging of MM cells.     

Gene therapy--how close to a therapeutic reality

Patients with purulent inflammatory diseases were treated by parenteral administration of terrydecaza (polyglucin-immobilised terrylythin). It was noted that injections of terrydecaza facilitated the penetration of antibiotics to the purulent focus. The terms of cleansing the purulent wounds and transition of the inflammatory process to the second stage were 2-3 days shorter. The microcirculation was improved by the daily thermographic monitoring method. The increased penetration through the biological membranes was confirmed by higher concentration of middle weight molecules in plasma of the venous blood flowing off from the purulent focus.     

Ultrasonic Velocity Studies of Drug Parvon-spas in Mixed Alcohol–Water Solvent Systems at 25°C

Ultrasonic velocities and densities of the drug Parvon-spas in binary mixtures of water with methanol (MeOH), ethanol (EtOH), and propan-1-ol (1-PrOH) have been measured over the complete solvent composition range at 10 mol% intervals at 25°C. Various acoustic parameters such as the acoustic impedance (Z), adiabatic compressibility (β), intermolecular free length (L_f), relative association (R.A.), molar volume (V_m), and molar sound velocity (R_m) have been calculated. In addition, excess functions, i.e., excess adiabatic compressibility (β^E), excess intermolecular free length (L_f^E), excess molar volume (V^E), excess ultrasonic velocity (U^E), and excess acoustic impedance (Z^E) for these three solvent mixtures in the absence and presence of the drug have been calculated. A different behavior of these parameters in these alcohol systems has been discussed in terms of the length of the alcohol molecule, the molecular volume, as well as inter/intramolecular interactions of these molecules.     

Biodeterioration of sandstone under the influence of different humidity levels in laboratory conditions

Excessive moisture in building materials supports microbial growth. It has been referred that relative humidity more than 55% promotes the microbial growth. To test the effect of different relative humidity tropical chamber test was set up at 52%, 76%, 85% and 96% RH and maximum diversity of fungi was found at 85% and 96% RH. Two fungi Aspergillus sydowi and Aspergillus flavipes were present throughout the course of study from moderate to highly abundant form. It was observed that Fusarium moniliforme, Cephalosporium acremonium, Papulospora sp. proliferated at higher relative humidity (i.e. at 85% and 96.6% RH) and Fusarium roseum, Fusarium oxysporum only at 96% RH level. The relative humidity level lower than 62%, i.e. at 52% level exhibited no fungal growth on sandstone surface during two-year observations. During the study pattern it was noticed that diversity decreased gradually and dominance of particular species increased with the time factor. Analysis of sandstone after fungal colonization by X-ray diffraction and SEM showed the formation of newly formed biomineral.     

ZnO–SnO2 nanocubes for fluorescence sensing and dye degradation applications

ZnO–SnO₂ nanocubes were used as promising material for efficient sensing of p-nitrophenol and faster photocatalytic degradations of dyes like methyl orange (MO), methylene Blue (MB) and acid orange 74 (AO74). ZnO–SnO₂ nanocubes were prepared by the facile solution process at 50 °C using Zn(NO₃)₂·6H₂O and SnCl₂·2H₂O as a precursor in the presence of ethylenediammine. The synthesized material was examined for its morphological, structural, crystalline, optical, vibrational, and compositional studies by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and photoluminescence spectroscopy. FESEM studies revealed the formation of well-defined ZnO–SnO₂ nanocubes where the structural examinations revealed the formation of a crystalline tetragonal rutile phase for SnO₂ with some crystal sites doped with Zn. The as-synthesized nanocubes were explored for their photocatalytic activities towards three different dye viz. MO, MB, and AO74. Practically, complete degradation of AO74 was seen within 4 minutes of photo-irradiation in the presence of 0.05 g ZnO–SnO₂ nanocubes. However, 97.17% and 41.63% degradations were observed for MB and MO within 15 and 60 minutes, respectively. All the dye degradation processes followed the pseudo-first-order kinetic model. Moreover, the as-synthesized nanocubes were utilized to fabricate highly sensitive and selective fluorescent chemical sensor for the detection of p-nitrophenol (PNP). ZnO–SnO₂ nanocubes showed a very low detection limit of 4.09 μM for the detection of PNP as calculated according to the 3σ IUPAC criteria. Further, the as-synthesized ZnO–SnO₂ nanotubes were found to be highly selective for p-nitrophenol as compared to the other two isomers.     

Effect of functionalized silicon carbide nano-particles as additive in cross-linked PVA based composites for vibration damping application

In this research study, a comprehensive effort has been made to functionalize silicon carbide particles using the acidic oxidation with nitric acid to obtain homogeneous stabilized distribution of activated SiC particles within a polymer matrix, and develop functionalized silicon carbide (f-SiC) particle reinforced polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) based cross-linked composite. After fabrication of functionalized silicon carbide (f-SiC) particle reinforced polyvinyl alcohol based cross-linked composite with varying f-SiC weight percentages of PVA (0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, and 4%) were placed to various investigations. Processed samples are initially examined based by the physical tests (water absorption tests), followed by mechanical test (tensile test) and then micro-structural tests (scanning electron microscopy). Lastly, thermal tests were also concluded which involved the dynamic mechanical, differential thermal and thermo gravimetric analysis. The cross-linked polyvinyl alcohol-based composite with 2 weight % of f-SiC content is observed to be the superlative of all the compositions under this research study that was confirmed by the mechanical and micro-structural tests. This composite material shows high storage modulus with visco-elastic behavior, therefore, the material can be utilized to diminish the transmission of noise, as a shock absorber and vibration isolator.     

Facile synthesis,characterization, and ab-initio DFT simulations of energy efficient NN′ dialkyl 1,4 benzene dicarboxamide monomers recovered from PET bottle waste

Aminolytic chemical recycling is performed for obtaining NN′ diethyl 1,4 benzene dicarboxamide, NN′ dibutyl 1,4 benzene dicarboxamide, and NN′ dihexyl 1,4 benzene dicarboxamide from Polyethylene terephthalate bottle waste. The compounds were characterized through Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, UV–Visible spectroscopy, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, mass spectrometry, and elemental analysis. Thermal properties were also analyzed with the help of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Density Functional Theory (DFT) study has been performed at GGA-BLYP (Becke's and Lee–Yang–Parr) functional using SZ basis set to investigate the vibrational frequencies and physical parameters. Experimental vibrational frequencies were found in good accord with the experimental values. Calorific values of the products have been determined using bomb calorimeter as per standard ASTM D240. The values have been correlated with increment of methylene units from NN′ diethyl BdCA to NN′ dihexyl BdCA using standard molar enthalpies of carbon and hydrogen. SEM and EDX analysis of the char residues after combustion has also been carried out to insight the effect of N-alkyl chain length on calorific values. The calorific values of the recovered compounds are comparable to commercial solid fuels and the compounds may find potential applications in aerospace industry.     

Development of a virtual linearizer for correcting transducer static nonlinearity

This paper reports the development of an artificial neural network based virtual linearizer for correcting nonlinearity associated with transducers connected to the data-acquisition system of a computer-based measurement system. In analog processing techniques, nonlinearity is considered to be a very serious problem that at one time was solved frequently by the piecewise linear segment approach modeled by linear electronic circuits. Since the cost of microcomputers has been reduced drastically, they are currently used in most applications of measurement, including data-acquisition subsystems. Therefore, the hardware-based analog techniques of linearization are often replaced by the software-based numerical ones. In this context, it has been found that a multilayer feed-forward back-propagation network trained with the Levenberg-Marquardt learning rule provides an optimal solution to implement an efficient soft compensator to correct transducer static-nonlinearity.     

A dynamic threshold based approach for mitigating black-hole attack in MANET

Mobile ad-hoc network is an infrastructure less type of network which does not require any kind of fixed infrastructure. It provides multi-hop communication between the source and destination nodes which are not within the direct range of each other through the intermediate nodes. These intermediate nodes cooperate with other nodes in finding an optimum and shortest route toward the destination. However, in holistic environments, some nodes do not cooperate with other nodes in finding the optimal route towards the destination and intentionally give the false route information of having the shortest path toward the destination with a high destination sequence number in order to attract the traffic toward itself and start dropping of the data packets instead of forwarding it. This type of routing misbehaviour is generally called as black hole attack or full packet dropping attack which is one of the most severe destructive attacks that lead to the network degradation. In this paper, we have proposed a protocol called as Mitigating Black Hole effects through Detection and Prevention (MBDP-AODV) based on a dynamic threshold value of the destination sequence number. In order to validate the efficiency of proposed protocol, the NS-2.35 simulator is used. The simulation results show that proposed protocol performs better as compared with existing one under black hole attack.