3'Nucleotidase/nuclease is required for Leishmania infantum clinical isolate susceptibility to miltefosine.

Background: Miltefosine treatment failure in visceral leishmaniasis in Brazil has been associated with deletion of the miltefosine susceptibility locus (MSL) in Leishmania infantum. The MSL comprises four genes, 3'-nucleotidase/nucleases (NUC1 and NUC2); helicase-like protein (HLP); and 3,2-trans-enoyl-CoA isomerase (TEI).

Methods: In this study CRISPR-Cas9 was used to either epitope tag or delete NUC1, NUC2, HLP and TEI, to investigate their role in miltefosine resistance mechanisms.

A New Exergy Disaggregation Approach for Complexity Reduction and Dissipative Equipment Isolation in Thermoeconomics.

Thermoeconomics connects thermodynamic and economic concepts in order to provide information not available in conventional energy and economic analysis. Most thermoeconomicists agree that exergy is the most appropriate thermodynamic magnitude to associate with cost. In some applications, exergy disaggregation is required.