Normalization of tumor vasculature by imiquimod: proposal for a new anticancer therapeutic indication for a TLR7 agonist.

Imiquimod (IMQ), a drug from aminoquinoline group, is the toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) agonist. It acts as an immunostimulant and radio-sensitizing agent. IMQ stimulates both innate and adaptive immune response.

Conversion of wine lees and waste activated sludge into caproate and heptanoate: Thermodynamic and microbiological insights.

In this study, wine lees and waste activated sludge (WAS) were co-fermented for the first time in a 4:1 ratio (COD basis) at 20, 40, 70 and 100 gCOD/L, in batch at 37 °C and pH 7.0. The substrates were successfully converted to caproate (C6) and heptanoate (C7) with a high selectivity (40.

Microbial co-cultures for biochemicals production from lignocellulosic biomass: A review.

Global reliance on fossil oil should shift to cleaner alternatives to get a decarbonized society. One option to achieve this ambitious goal is the use of biochemicals produced from lignocellulosic biomass (LCB). The inherent low biodegradability of LCB and the inhibitory compounds that might be released during pretreatment are two main challenges for LCB valorization.

Lactic acid fermentation of food waste as storage method prior to biohydrogen production: Effect of storage temperature on biohydrogen potential and microbial communities.

This study aims to investigate the impact of utilizing lactic acid fermentation (LAF) as storage method of food waste (FW) prior to dark fermentation (DF). LAF of FW was carried out in batches at six temperatures (4 °C, 10 °C, 23 °C, 35 °C, 45 °C, and 55 °C) for 15 days followed by biological hydrogen potential (BHP) tests. Different storage temperatures resulted in different metabolites distribution, with either lactate or ethanol being dominant (159.

Sequential dark fermentation and microbial electrolysis cells for hydrogen production: Volatile fatty acids influence and energy considerations.

Hydrogen production from food waste by coupling dark fermentation (DF) and microbial electrolysis cells (MEC) was studied. Metabolic patterns in DF, their effects on MECs efficiency, and the energy output of the coupling were investigated. Mesophilic temperature and acidic pH 5.

Valorisation of bioethanol production residues through anaerobic digestion: Methane production and microbial communities.

The organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) is an appealing feedstock for bioethanol production due to its richness in cellulosic materials. After fermentation and distillation, the remaining residue constitutes a source of unconsumed carbohydrates, proteins and lipids. These macromolecules can be further used via anaerobic digestion (AD) for bioenergy purposes to offset bioethanol production costs.

Life cycle assessment of volatile fatty acids production from protein- and carbohydrate-rich organic wastes.

Volatile fatty acids (VFAs) are platform molecules with numerous applications. They can be obtained by adjusting the operational conditions of anaerobic digestion to avoid methanogenesis while focusing on fermentative stages. There are gaps in the knowledge of how, from a life-cycle perspective, the fermentative process performs in VFAs production from waste, including environmental consequences of substituting common commodities in the current market.

Insights on the microbial communities developed during the anaerobic fermentation of raw and pretreated microalgae biomass.

Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) are considered building blocks for bioproducts in the so-called carboxylate platform. These compounds can be sustainably produced via anaerobic fermentation (AF) of organic substrates, such as microalgae. However, SCFAs bioconversion efficiency is hampered by the hard cell wall of some microalgae.

Anaerobic degradation of protein-rich biomass in an UASB reactor: Organic loading rate effect on product output and microbial communities dynamics.

Anaerobic degradation of enzymatically pretreated Chlorella vulgaris was aimed in an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB) to evaluate the organic loading rate (OLR) effect on biomass valorization. Low OLRs resulted in high methane yields (171 mL CH/g CODin) at low hydraulic retention time (HRT of 6 days). Firmicutes (35-43%), Bacteroidetes (17-18%) and Euryarchaeota (11%) dominated at low OLRs, promoting methanogenic activity.

Volatile Fatty Acids Production from Microalgae Biomass: Anaerobic Digester Performance and Population Dynamics during Stable Conditions, Starvation, and Process Recovery.

Disturbances in anaerobic digestion (AD) negatively impact the overall reactor performance. These adverse effects have been widely investigated for methane generation. However, AD recently appeared as a potential technology to obtain volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and thus, the impact of process disturbances must be evaluated.

Hyperammonemia alters the mismatch negativity in the auditory evoked potential by altering functional connectivity and neurotransmission.

Minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) is a neuropsychiatric syndrome produced by central nervous system dysfunction subsequent to liver disease. Hyperammonemia and inflammation act synergistically to alter neurotransmission, leading to the cognitive and motor alterations in MHE, which are reproduced in rat models of chronic hyperammonemia. Patients with MHE show altered functional connectivity in different neural networks and a reduced response in the cognitive potential mismatch negativity (MMN), which correlates with attention deficits.

Microalgae Biomass as a Potential Feedstock for the Carboxylate Platform.

Volatile fatty acids (VFAs) are chemical building blocks for industries, and are mainly produced via the petrochemical pathway. However, the anaerobic fermentation (AF) process gives a potential alternative to produce these organic acids using renewable resources. For this purpose, waste streams, such as microalgae biomass, might constitute a cost-effective feedstock to obtain VFAs.

Impact of Organic Loading Rate in Volatile Fatty Acids Production and Population Dynamics Using Microalgae Biomass as Substrate.

Volatile fatty acids (VFAs) are regarded as building blocks with a wide range of applications, including biofuel production. The traditional anaerobic digestion used for biogas production can be alternatively employed for VFAs production. The present study aimed at maximizing VFAs productions from Chlorella vulgaris through anaerobic digestion by assessing the effect of stepwise organic loading rates (OLR) increases (3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 g COD L d).

Volatile fatty acids as novel building blocks for oil-based chemistry via oleaginous yeast fermentation.

Microbial oils are proposed as a suitable alternative to petroleum-based chemistry in terms of environmental preservation. These oils have traditionally been studied using sugar-based feedstock, which implies high costs, substrate limitation, and high contamination risks. In this sense, low-cost carbon sources such as volatile fatty acids (VFAs) are envisaged as promising building blocks for lipid biosynthesis to produce oil-based bioproducts.

Volatile fatty acids production from protease pretreated Chlorella biomass via anaerobic digestion.

Volatile fatty acids (VFAs) produced via anaerobic digestion (AD) are regarded as a low cost production process of building blocks of interest for the chemical industry. In this study, VFAs and methane production were assessed in batch reactors at different temperature ranges (psychrophilic 25°C, mesophilic 35°C, thermophilic 50°C) and different pH values (5.5 and 7.

BELM: Bayesian extreme learning machine.

The theory of extreme learning machine (ELM) has become very popular on the last few years. ELM is a new approach for learning the parameters of the hidden layers of a multilayer neural network (as the multilayer perceptron or the radial basis function neural network). Its main advantage is the lower computational cost, which is especially relevant when dealing with many patterns defined in a high-dimensional space.

Methyl DNA immunoprecipitation.

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and methylation status analysis of genes have been applied to the study of epigenetic modifications, often perturbed in human cancer. ChIP is a technique allowing the analysis of the protein association with specific genomic regions in the context of intact cells.

Characterization and quality control of antibodies used in ChIP assays.

We present here the very robust characterization and quality control (QC) process that we have established for our polyclonal antibodies, which are mainly directed against targets relevant to the epigenetics field such as modified histones, modifying enzymes, and chromatin-interacting proteins. The final purpose of the characterization and QC is to label antibodies as chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) grade. Indeed, the ChIP method is extensively used in epigenetics to study gene regulation and relies on the use of antibodies to select the protein of interest and then precipitate and identify the DNA associated to it.

A meta-analysis of the efficacy of fibromyalgia treatment according to level of care.

Introduction: The aim of this paper was to compare the efficacy of the treatments for fibromyalgia currently available in both primary care and specialised settings.

Methods: Published reports of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) researching pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments in patients with fibromyalgia were found in the MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and PsychInfo databases. The most recent electronic search was undertaken in June 2006.

Remote interactions explain the unusual regioselectivity of lipase from Pseudomonas cepacia toward the secondary hydroxyl of 2'-deoxynucleosides.

Lipase from Pseudomonas cepacia (PCL) surprisingly favors acylation of the secondary hydroxyl at the 3'-position over the primary hydroxyl at the 5'-position in 2'-deoxynucleosides by up to >98:1. Catalytically productive tetrahedral intermediate analogues for both orientations were found by molecular modeling. However, acylation of the 3'-hydroxyl places the thymine base in the alternate hydrophobic pocket of PCL's substrate-binding site where it can hydrogen bond to the side-chain hydroxyls of Tyr23 and Tyr29 and the main chain carbonyl of Leu17.