Activation of galactose utilization by the addition of glucose for the fermentation of agar hydrolysate using Lactobacillus brevis ATCC 14869.

Objective: To investigate the application of carbon catabolite repression (CCR) relaxed Lactobacillus brevis ATCC 14869 in the utilization of agar hydrolysate to produce bioethanol and lactic acid through fermentation.

Results: As a single carbon source, galactose was not metabolized by L. brevis.

Conversion of L-arabinose to L-ribose by genetically engineered Candida tropicalis.

L-Ribose, a starting material for the synthesis of L-nucleoside, has attracted lots of attention since L-nucleoside is responsible for the antiviral activities of the racemic mixtures of nucleoside enantiomers. In this study, the L-ribulose-producing Candida tropicalis strain was engineered for the conversion of L-arabinose to L-ribose. For the construction of a uracil auxotroph, the URA3 gene was excised by homologous recombination.

Construction of genetically engineered Candida tropicalis for conversion of l-arabinose to l-ribulose.

For the biological production of l-ribulose, conversion by enzymes or resting cells has been investigated. However, expensive or concentrated substrates, an additional purification step to remove borate and the requirement for cell cultivation and harvest steps before utilization of resting cells make the production process complex and unfavorable. Microbial fermentation may help overcome these limitations.

Direct analysis of aberrant glycosylation on haptoglobin in patients with gastric cancer.

Based on our previous studies, differential analysis of N-glycan expression bound on serum haptoglobin reveals the quantitative variation on gastric cancer patients. In this prospective case-control study, we explore the clinically relevant glycan markers for gastric cancer diagnosis. Serum samples were collected from patients with gastric cancer (n = 44) and healthy control (n = 44).

Glycomic profiling of targeted serum haptoglobin for gastric cancer using nano LC/MS and LC/MS/MS.

Gastric cancer has one of the highest cancer mortality rates worldwide, largely because of difficulties in early-stage detection. Aberrant glycosylation in serum proteins is associated with many human diseases including inflammation and various types of cancer. Serum-based global glycan profiling using mass spectrometry has been explored and has already led to several potential glycan markers for several disease states.

Fabrication and device characterization of omega-shaped-gate ZnO nanowire field-effect transistors.

Omega-shaped-gate (OSG) nanowire-based field effect transistors (FETs) have attracted a great deal of attention recently, because theoretical simulations predicted that they should have a higher device performance than nanowire-based FETs with other gate geometries. OSG FETs with channels composed of ZnO nanowires were successfully fabricated in this study using photolithographic processes. In the OSG FETs fabricated on oxidized Si substrates, the channels composed of ZnO nanowires with diameters of about 110 nm are coated with Al(2)O(3) using atomic layer deposition, which surrounds the channels and acts as a gate dielectric.