Prediction of antimicrobial peptides toxicity based on their physico-chemical properties using machine learning techniques.

Background: Antimicrobial peptides are promising tools to fight against ever-growing antibiotic resistance. However, despite many advantages, their toxicity to mammalian cells is a critical obstacle in clinical application and needs to be addressed.

Results: In this study, by using an up-to-date dataset, a machine learning model has been trained successfully to predict the toxicity of antimicrobial peptides.

Study on the Interaction of the CpG Alternating DNA with CdTe Quantum Dots.

A novel sensitive method for detection of DNA methylation was developed with thioglycollic acid (TGA)-capped CdTe quantum dots (QDs) as fluorescence probes. Recognition of methylated DNA sites would be useful strategy due to the important roles of methylation in disease occurrence and developmental processes. DNA methylation occurs most often at cytosine-guanine sites (CpG dinucleotides) of gene promoters.

FRET-based aptamer biosensor for selective and sensitive detection of aflatoxin B1 in peanut and rice.

Aflatoxins are potential food pollutants produced by fungi. Among them, Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is the most toxic. Therefore, a great deal of concern is associated with AFB1 toxicity.

Aptamer-based Colorimetric and Chemiluminescence Detection of Aflatoxin B1 in Foods Samples.

We developed a new biosensor for the detection of aflatoxin B1(AFB1) based on the interaction of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with the aptamer. Aggregation of AuNPs was induced by desorption of the AFB1 binding aptamer from the surface of AuNPs as a result of the aptamer target interaction leading to the color change of AuNPs from red to purple. The linear range of the colorimetric aptasensor covered a large variation of AFB1 concentrations from 80 to 270 nM and the detection limit of 7 nM was obtained.

Selective recognition of Glutamate based on fluorescence enhancement of graphene quantum dot.

Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) have successfully been utilized as an efficient nano-sized fluorescence chemosensor to detect selectively Glutamate (Glu) in Tris-HCl buffer solution (pH=9). The fluorescence emission spectrum of graphene quantum dots was at about 430nm. The study showed that fluorescence intensity of the quantum dot gradually enhanced with increase in concentration of Glutamate and any change in fluorescence intensity was directly proportional to the concentration of Glutamate.