Whey filtration: a review of products,application, and pretreatment with transglutaminase enzyme

In the cheese industry, whey, which is rich in lactose and proteins, is underutilized, causing adverse environmental impacts. The fractionation of its components, typically carried out through filtration membranes, faces operational challenges such as membrane fouling, significant protein loss during the process, and extended operating times. These challenges require attention and specific methods for optimization and to increase efficiency. A promising strategy to enhance industry efficiency and sustainability is the use of enzymatic pre-treatment with the enzyme transglutaminase (TGase). This enzyme plays a crucial role in protein modification, catalyzing covalent cross-links between lysine and glutamine residues, increasing the molecular weight of proteins, facilitating their retention on membranes, and contributing to the improvement of the quality of the final products. The aim of this study is to review the application of the enzyme TGase as a pretreatment in whey protein filtration. The scope involves assessing the enzyme's impact on whey protein properties and its relationship with process performance. It also aims to identify both the optimization of operational parameters and the enhancement of product characteristics. This study demonstrates that the application of TGase leads to improved performance in protein concentration, lactose permeation, and permeate flux rate during the filtration process. It also has the capacity to enhance protein solubility, viscosity, thermal stability, and protein gelation in whey. In this context, it is relevant for enhancing the characteristics of whey, thereby contributing to the production of higher quality final products in the food industry. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.     

Nanocomposites of ultrahigh molar mass polyethylene and modified carbon nanotubes

In this work, the use of a laboratory twin-screw extruder was evaluated to process ultrahigh molar mass polyethylene and composites with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Commercial polymer samples with lubricant (1%) and different percentages (0.01%, 0.05%, and 0.1%) of pure, oxidized, and chemically surface treated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were evaluated. The results showed that polymer melting and crystallization temperatures were not affected by CNTs, although an increase in the degree of crystallinity in all nanocomposites was observed along with a decrease in crystal size. Therefore, CNTs behaved as nucleating agents. All ultrahigh molar mass polyethylene (UHMWPE)/CNT samples showed increased initial degradation temperature, although this was not very great when introducing acetylated and stearic acid modified CNTs. Both oxidized CNTs and stearic acid CNTs did not markedly improve the composites' mechanical properties. Therefore, the nanocomposites containing pure CNTs and most of those with acetylated CNTs resulted in higher reinforcement for UHMWPE. The addition of the lubricant allowed the polymer matrix to be processed in the extruder, whereas the increase in CNT content in UHMWPE improved the stiffness of the material. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47459     

Consistency,availability, and partition tolerance in blockchain: a survey on the consensus mechanism over peer-to-peer networking

Annals of Telecommunications - Blockchain is a disruptive technology that relies on the distributed nature of the peer-to-peer network while performing an agreement, or consensus, a mechanism to...     

Removal of Cr(VI) from Wastewater of the Tannery Industry by Functionalized Mesoporous Material

Silicon - A previously synthesized PABA-MCM-41 mesoporous material was used to remove Cr(VI) in leather samples. The optimization step was performed using univariate method for the following...     

Hypergravity of 10<Emphasis Type="Italic">g</Emphasis> Changes Plant Growth,Anatomy, Chloroplast Size,and Photosynthesis in the Moss <Emphasis Type="Italic">Physcomitrella patens</Emphasis>

The photosynthetic and anatomical responses of bryophytes to changes in gravity will provide crucial information for estimating how these plant traits evolved to adapt to changes in gravity in land plant history. We performed long-term hypergravity experiments at 10g for 4 and 8 weeks using the moss Physcomitrella patens with two centrifuges equipped with lighting systems that enable long-term plant growth under hypergravity with irradiance. The aims of this study are (1) to quantify changes in the anatomy and morphology of P. patens, and (2) to analyze the post-effects of hypergravity on photosynthesis by P. patens in relation to these changes. We measured photosynthesis by P. patens for a population of gametophores (e.g., canopy) in Petri dishes and plant culture boxes. Gametophore numbers increased by 9% for a canopy of P. patens, with 24–27% increases in chloroplast sizes (diameter and thickness) in leaf cells. In a canopy of P. patens, the area-based photosynthesis rate (A _canopy) was increased by 57% at 10g. The increase observed in A _canopy was associated with greater plant numbers and chloroplast sizes, both of which involved enhanced CO₂ diffusion from the atmosphere to chloroplasts in the canopies of P. patens. These results suggest that changes in gravity are important environmental stimuli to induce changes in plant growth and photosynthesis by P. patens, in which an alteration in chloroplast size is one of the key traits. We are now planning an ISS experiment to investigate the responses of P. patens to microgravity.     

VISCOM: A robust video summarization approach using color co-occurrence matrices

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Video summarization techniques have allowed the content analysis of large volumes of digital video sequences of different categories, such as movies,...     

Preparation of Nanocomposites of Polypropylene/Alkylaluminum-modified Clay: Effect of Polymer Grade,Amount of Clay,and Screw Speed

Bentonite was modified with trialkylaluminum to prepare polypropylene/clay nanocomposites. Treated clay, commercial polypropylene, and a coupling agent were mixed in miniextruder. To obtain the masterbatches and dilutions, two polypropylene grades were used to analyze the influence of molar mass on clay dispersion. The screw rotation varied from 30 to 200?rpm, and the clay content was 1, 2, and 5?wt%. For samples prepared with higher molar mass, increasing speed from 30 to 200?rpm improved the clay dispersion. For processing with lower molar mass, decreasing speed from 60 to 30?rpm caused an increase in viscosity, resulting in better dispersion.     

Structure–Activity Relationships of Benzenesulfonamide‐Based Inhibitors towards Carbonic Anhydrase Isoform Specificity

Carbonic anhydrases (CAs) are implicated in a wide range of diseases, including the upregulation of isoforms CA IX and XII in many aggressive cancers. However, effective inhibition of disease‐implicated CAs should minimally affect the ubiquitously expressed isoforms, including CA I and II, to improve directed distribution of the inhibitors to the cancer‐associated isoforms and reduce side effects. Four benzenesulfonamide‐based inhibitors were synthesized by using the tail approach and displayed nanomolar affinities for several CA isoforms. The crystal structures of the inhibitors bound to a CA IX mimic and CA II are presented. Further in silico modeling was performed with the inhibitors docked into CA I and XII to identify residues that contributed to or hindered their binding interactions. These structural studies demonstrated that active‐site residues lining the hydrophobic pocket, especially positions 92 and 131, dictate the positional binding and affinity of inhibitors, whereas the tail groups modulate CA isoform specificity. Geometry optimizations were performed on each ligand in the crystal structures and showed that the energetic penalties of the inhibitor conformations were negligible compared to the gains from active‐site interactions. These studies further our understanding of obtaining isoform specificity when designing small molecule CA inhibitors.