The effects of RT-qPCR standards on reproducibility and comparability in monitoring SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater.

Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) is widely used for monitoring viruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), in wastewater. Various materials, including plasmid DNA, synthetic nucleic acids, PCR amplicons, genomic DNA, and cDNA, are currently used for SARS-CoV-2 quantification by generating standard curves. We assessed three common standards on quantifying SARS-CoV-2 RNA across nine wastewater treatment plants in Finland, as part of the national wastewater surveillance effort.

Detection of SARS-COV-2 variants and their proportions in wastewater samples using next-generation sequencing in Finland.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants may have different characteristics, e.g., in transmission, mortality, and the effectiveness of vaccines, indicating the importance of variant detection at the population level.

Strong, self-standing oxygen barrier films from nanocelluloses modified with regioselective oxidative treatments.

In this work, three self-standing nanocellulose films were produced from birch pulp using regioselective oxidation and further derivatization treatments. The modified celluloses were synthesized using periodate oxidation, followed by chlorite oxidation, bisulfite addition, or reductive amination with amino acid taurine, which resulted in dicarboxylic acid cellulose (DCC), α-hydroxy sulfonic acid cellulose (HSAC), and taurine-modified cellulose (TC), respectively. The nanocelluloses were fabricated by mechanical disintegration using high-pressure homogenization.

Biocomposite cellulose-alginate films: promising packaging materials.

Biocomposite films based on cellulose and alginate were produced using unmodified birch pulp, microfibrillated cellulose (MFC), nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) and birch pulp derivate, nanofibrillated anionic dicarboxylic acid cellulose (DCC), having widths of fibres ranging from 19.0 μm to 25 nm as cellulose fibre materials. Ionically cross-linked biocomposites were produced using Ca(2+) cross-linking.