Encapsulation of Silver Nanoparticles in Polylactic Acid or Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) and Their Antimicrobial and Cytotoxic Activities.

Encapsulation with biodegradable polymers is an alternative to reduce adverse effects and improve the physicochemical properties of metallic nanoparticles. In this study, spherical polymeric nanoparticles with an average size of 200 nm loaded with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were obtained. The antimicrobial activity against O157:H7, methicillin-resistant (MRSA), and yeasts as and was determined.

Comparison and analysis of objective functions in flux balance analysis.

Flux balance analysis (FBA) is currently one of the most important and used techniques for estimation of metabolic reaction rates (fluxes). This mathematical approach utilizes an optimization criterion in order to select a distribution of fluxes from the feasible space delimited by the metabolic reactions and some restrictions imposed over them, assuming that cellular metabolism is in steady state. Therefore, the obtained flux distribution depends on the specific objective function used.

Predictive potential of flux balance analysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae using as optimization function combinations of cell compartmental objectives.

Background: The main objective of flux balance analysis (FBA) is to obtain quantitative predictions of metabolic fluxes of an organism, and it is necessary to use an appropriate objective function to guarantee a good estimation of those fluxes.

Methodology: In this study, the predictive performance of FBA was evaluated, using objective functions arising from the linear combination of different cellular objectives. This approach is most suitable for eukaryotic cells, owing to their multiplicity of cellular compartments.