Survivin Inhibition by Piperine Sensitizes Glioblastoma Cancer Stem Cells and Leads to Better Drug Response

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) cancer stem cells (GSCs) are one of the strongest contributing factors to treatment resistance in GBM. Identification of biomarkers capable of directly affecting these cells within the bulk tumor is a major challenge associated with the development of new targeting strategies. In this study, we focus on understanding the potential of the multifunctional extraordinaire survivin as a biomarker for GSCs. We analyzed the expression profiles of this gene using various publicly available datasets to understand its importance in stemness and other cancer processes. The findings from these studies were further validated using human GSCs isolated from a GBM cell line. In these GSCs, survivin was inhibited using the dietary phytochemical piperine (PIP) and the subsequent effects on stemness, cancer processes and Temozolomide were investigated. In silico analysis identified survivin to be one of the most significant differentially regulated gene in GSCs, in comparison to common stemness markers. Further validation studies on the isolated GSCs showed the importance of survivin in stemness, cancer progression and therapy resistance. Taken together, our study identifies survivin as a more consistent GSC marker and also suggests the possibility of using survivin inhibitors along with standard of care drugs for better therapeutic outcomes.     

A Novel Computationally Efficient Approach to Identify Visually Interpretable Medical Conditions from 2D Skeletal Data

Timely identification and treatment of medical conditions could facilitate faster recovery and better health. Existing systems address this issue using custom-built sensors, which are invasive and difficult to generalize. A low-complexity scalable process is proposed to detect and identify medical conditions from 2D skeletal movements on video feed data. Minimal set of features relevant to distinguish medical conditions: AMF, PVF and GDF are derived from skeletal data on sampled frames across the entire action. The AMF (angular motion features) are derived to capture the angular motion of limbs during a specific action. The relative position of joints is represented by PVF (positional variation features). GDF (global displacement features) identifies the direction of overall skeletal movement. The discriminative capability of these features is illustrated by their variance across time for different actions. The classification of medical conditions is approached in two stages. In the first stage, a low-complexity binary LSTM classifier is trained to distinguish visual medical conditions from general human actions. As part of stage 2, a multi-class LSTM classifier is trained to identify the exact medical condition from a given set of visually interpretable medical conditions. The proposed features are extracted from the 2D skeletal data of NTU RGB + D and then used to train the binary and multi-class LSTM classifiers. The binary and multi-class classifiers observed average F1 scores of 77% and 73%, respectively, while the overall system produced an average F1 score of 69% and a weighted average F1 score of 80%. The multi-class classifier is found to utilize 10 to 100 times fewer parameters than existing 2D CNN-based models while producing similar levels of accuracy.     

Evaluation of the protective nature of GO–BCP nanocomposite coatings on 316L SS in artificial body fluid

This work reports on a novel approach to deposit composite coatings based on biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) incorporating graphene oxide (GO) on 316L stainless steel (316L SS) and on its protective nature against corrosion in the simulated body fluid (SBF). For this purpose, 2-dimensional GO was successfully incorporated in 1% and 3% weight ratios as mechanical strength enhancer and pore size reducer for the prepared coatings. It was observed that upon increasing the GO content, the corrosion rate was drastically decreased when compared to pristine BCP coating. The corrosion resistance polarization results are in good agreement with the test results obtained for SBF immersion study. The size of the particles has significantly decreased, as shown by transmission electron microscopy (from 190 to 27 nm). The experimental results indicate that the composite hydroxyapatite–β-tricalcium phosphate–GO (HAp–β-TCP–GO) coatings enhanced the corrosion resistance of the surgical grade 316L SS, turning it a better implanting option for orthopedic applications.     

Crucial Role of the Chaperonin GroES/EL for Heterologous Production of the Soluble Methane Monooxygenase from Methylomonas methanica MC09

Methane is a widespread energy source and can serve as an attractive C1 building block for a future bioeconomy. The soluble methane monooxygenase (sMMO) is able to break the strong C−H bond of methane and convert it to methanol. The high structural complexity, multiplex cofactors, and unfamiliar folding or maturation procedures of sMMO have hampered the heterologous production and thus biotechnological applications. Here, we demonstrate the heterologous production of active sMMO from the marine Methylomonas methanica MC09 in Escherichia coli by co-synthesizing the GroES/EL chaperonin. Iron determination, electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, and native gel immunoblots revealed the incorporation of the non-heme diiron centre and homodimer formation of active sMMO. The production of recombinant sMMO will enable the expansion of the possibilities of detailed studies, allowing for a variety of novel biotechnological applications.     

Compaction and relaxation characteristics of single compacts produced from distiller’s spent grain

Compaction and relaxation characteristics of densified distiller’s spent grain compacts produced at different levels of compressive pressure (60.3–135.7 MPa), initial moisture content (15%, 20% and 25% wb) and soluble content (15% and 30%) were analyzed during the study. The compaction levels used in this study caused up to a 4% wb reduction in the moisture of compacts in comparison to their initial moisture. The density of compacts was analyzed to determine the compaction characteristics of distiller’s spent grain using Jones model. Analysis of the Jones model showed that there was a significant (P = 0.004) decrease in compressibility with an increase in soluble content from 0% to 30%. The distiller’s spent grain compacts were subjected to relaxation tests and the relaxation data obtained were normalized and analyzed to determine the asymptotic modulus (E_A) of the compacts. The asymptotic modulus was used as a measure of rigidity of the compacts. Distiller’s spent grain compact produced with a compressive force of 135.7 MPa and initial moisture of 25% wb possessed the highest E_A value.     

Thermal modeling of a dual-purposed snap biopsy acquisition procedure in a suspected cancerous lesion

The needle-based biopsy procedure is common in cancer detection and patient-specific targeted therapy, wherein a tissue sample from the potential diseased site is acquired and frozen instantly with the help of a coolant medium. While liquid nitrogen (LN₂) is the most widely used coolant for preserving the acquired sample and performing biopsy tests on the same at a later time, cold ischemia leads to inevitable cell degradation beyond a threshold time. In an effort to circumvent this challenge, here we aim to put forward the concept of an integrated biopsy sample acquisition and cryotherapy procedure, by incorporating an exclusively designed cooling circuit in a conventional biopsy-needle for freezing the sample in vivo as soon as it is acquired, while causing cryoablation in the surrounding tissues simultaneously. An enthalpy-based approach is employed to develop a bioheat transfer model for the cryotherapy design, with illustrative simulation data presented for breast cancer. Our model is demonstrated by considering a constant LN₂ cooling temperature of 77.15 K, and cooling powers ranging from 2 to 10 W. The model results elucidate procedure-specific insights such as the thermal penetration depth and the cooling time on being subjected to the cryoablation. The cooling rates thus obtained are further assessed from the simultaneous considerations of cryopreservation and cryosurgery, deriving critical insights on tissue survival and damage for acting as a precursor to patient-specific treatment planning.     

Design and Performance Evaluation of a Novel Dual Tunneling based TFET Considering Trap Charges for Reliability Improvement

Silicon - Interface trap charges originate in the semiconductor while, fabricating the device, which occur due to the process, radiation stimulated impairments, leading to serious reliability...     

Fly Ash Based Geopolymer Concrete: a Comprehensive Review

Silicon - Manufacturing of ordinary Portland cement is an energy intensive process that emits harmful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which pollutes the environment. With the surge in...     

Synthesis of bio-based materials from agricultural residues for treatment of petrochemical wastewater

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - 4-Carboxybenzaldehyde (4-CBA), a major component of purified terephthalic acid wastewater, is toxic to living organisms and required to be removed...