Genotoxic effect of Physalis angulata L. (Solanaceae) extract on human lymphocytes treated in vitro

Physalis angulata L (Solanaceae) is a medicinal plant from North of Brazil, whose different extracts and infusions are commonly used in the popular medicine for the treatment of malaria, asthma, hepatitis, dermatitis and rheumatism. However, the genotoxic effects of P. angulata on human cells is not well known. The main purpose of the present study was to evaluate the in vitro genotoxic effects of aqueous extract of P. angulata using the comet assay and the micronucleus assay in human lymphocytes provided from 6 healthy donors. Treatments with P. angulata extracts were performed in vitro in order to access the extent of DNA damage. The comet assay has shown that treatments with P. angulata at 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 6.0 microg/mL in culture medium were genotoxic. Lymphocytes treated with P. angulata at the concentrations of 3.0 and 6.0 microg/mL in culture medium showed a statistically significant increase in the frequency of micronucleus (p<0.05), however, the cytokinesis blocked proliferation index (CBPI) was not decreased after P. angulata treatment. In conclusion, the present work demonstrated the genotoxic effects of P. angulata extract on human lymphocytes in vitro.     

Nisin expression production from Lactococcus lactis in milk whey medium

BACKGROUND: Nisin is a commercially available bacteriocin produced by Lactococcus lactis ATCC 11454 and used as a natural agent in the biopreservation of food. In the current investigation, milk whey, a byproduct from dairy industries was used as a fermentation substrate for the production of nisin. Lactococcus lactis ATCC 11454 was developed in a rotary shaker (30 °C/36 h/100 rpm) using two different media with milk whey (i) without filtration, pH 6.8, adjusted with NaOH 2 mol L^?1 and without pH adjustment, both autoclaved at 121 °C for 30 min, and (ii) filtrated (1.20 µm and 0.22 µm membrane filter). These cultures were transferred five times using 5 mL aliquots of broth culture for every new volume of the respective media. RESULTS: The results showed that culture media composed of milk whey without filtration supplied L. lactis its adaptation needs better than filtrated milk whey. Nisin titers, in milk whey without filtration (pH adjusted), was 11120.13 mg L^?1 in the second transfer, and up to 1628‐fold higher than the filtrated milk whey, 6.83 mg.L^?1 obtained in the first^t transfer. CONCLUSIONS: Biological processing of milk byproducts (milk whey) can be considered a profitable alternative, generating high‐value bioproducts and contributing to decreasing river disposals by dairy industries. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

A new ZVS-PWM unity power factor rectifier with reduced conductionlosses

This paper introduces a new single-phase high power factor rectifier, which features regulation by conventional PWM, soft commutation and instantaneous average line current control. Furthermore, thanks to the use of a single converter, instead of the conventional configuration composed of a four-diode front-end rectifier followed by a boost converter, a significant reduction in the conduction losses is achieved. A prototype rated at 1.6 kW, operating at 70 kHz, with an input AC voltage of 220 Vrms and an output voltage of 400 V_DC has been implemented in the laboratory. An efficiency of 97.8 % at 1.6 kW has been measured. Analysis, design, and the control circuitry are also presented in the paper     

Principal axes and surface fitting methods for three-dimensional image registration

We evaluated the effect of the image acquisition parameters on the accuracy of the principal axes and surface-fitting techniques for three-dimensional image registration. Using two types of phantom objects, MR brain image and a mathematically defined ellipsoid, we simulated pairs of scans with known acquisition parameters, including longitudinal coverage, magnitude of mis-registration, number of sections and section thickness. Both methods are sensitive to the systematic deformation of contours. The principal axes method is also sensitive to incomplete scan coverage and to the x-axis and y-axis misangulation. Both methods are insensitive to the number of sections, section thickness and the number of points per section. Surface fitting performed well without user supervision. There is no need for routine inclusion of the scaling factors as search parameters. The results confirm the feasibility of three-dimensional multimodality registration of brain scans with accuracy 1-2 mm, with surface fitting being the method of choice.     

In situ13C NMR study of tert-butanol interaction with moderately concentrated sulfuric acid

An in situ NMR study of tert-butanol dehydration in 95 and 85% sulfuric acid did not indicate the formation of tert-butyl cations as active reaction intermediates. Instead, only NMR lines from oxonium ions under the condition of fast exchange with water and the acid were observed. It is most likely that, in the concentrated acid, the active intermediates of this reaction are represented by tert-butyl sulfuric ester which probably is a precursor of invisible tert-butyl carbenium ions representing short-lived excited or transition states.