Current Strategies for Combating Biofilm-Forming Pathogens in Clinical Healthcare-Associated Infections.

The biofilm formation by various pathogens causes chronic infections and poses severe threats to industry, healthcare, and society. They can form biofilm on surfaces of medical implants, heart valves, pacemakers, contact lenses, vascular grafts, urinary catheters, dialysis catheters, etc. These biofilms play a central role in bacterial persistence and antibiotic tolerance.

Exploring the role of miRNA in diabetic neuropathy: from diagnostics to therapeutics.

Diabetic neuropathy (DN) is one of the major microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus affecting 50% of the diabetic population marred by various unmet clinical needs. There is a need to explore newer pathological mechanisms for designing futuristic regimens for the management of DN. There is a need for post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression by non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) to finetune different cellular mechanisms with significant biological relevance.

Design, synthesis, and evaluation of 1,4-benzothiazine-3-one containing bisamide derivatives as dual inhibitors of with plausible application in a urinary catheter.

In this study, 1,4-benzothiazine-based bisamide derivatives, a new class of antibacterial agents targeting bacterial peptide deformylase (PDF), were designed and synthesized to combat infection. Molecular modeling of the designed molecules showed better docking scores compared to the natural product actinonin. Bioactivity assessment identified two derivatives with promising antibacterial activity .

Identification of Genes Encoded Toxin-Antitoxin System in Strains from Clinical Sample.

Background: The toxin-antitoxin system is a genetic element that is highly present in (MTB), the causative agent of tuberculosis. The toxin-antitoxin system comprises toxin protein and antitoxin protein or non-encoded RNA interacting with each other and inhibiting toxin activity. has more classes of TA loci than non-tubercle bacilli and other microbes, including chaperone system, and hypothetical proteins.

Harnessing the combined effect of antivirulence agent trans-chalcone with bactericidal curcumin against sortase A enzyme to tackle Gram-positive bacterial infections.

Gram-positive bacteria are responsible for a wide range of infections in humans. In most Gram-positive bacteria, sortase A plays a significant role in attaching virulence factors to the bacteria's cell wall. These cell surface proteins play a significant role in virulence and pathogenesis.

Targeting Staphylococcal Cell-Wall Biosynthesis Protein FemX Through Steered Molecular Dynamics and Drug-Repurposing Approach.

-mediated infection is a serious threat in this antimicrobial-resistant world. has become a "superbug" by challenging conventional as well as modern treatment strategies. Nowadays, drug repurposing has become a new trend for the discovery of new drug molecules.

"Toehold Switches; a foothold for Synthetic Biology".

Toehold switches are de novo designed riboregulators that contain two RNA components interacting through linear-linear RNA interactions, regulating the gene expression. These are highly versatile, exhibit excellent orthogonality, wide dynamic range, and are highly programmable, so can be used for various applications in synthetic biology. In this review, we summarized and discussed the design characteristics and benefits of toehold switch riboregulators over conventional riboregulators.

Sortase A: A chemoenzymatic approach for the labeling of cell surfaces.

Sortase A, a transpeptidase enzyme is present in many Gram-positive bacteria and helps in the recruitment of the cell surface proteins. Over the last two decades, Sortase A has become an attractive tool for performing in vivo and in vitro ligations. Sortase A-mediated ligation has continuously been used for its specificity, robustness, and highly efficient nature.

Sortase A Mediated Bioconjugation of Common Epitopes Decreases Biofilm Formation in .

is one of the most notorious pathogens and is frequently associated with nosocomial infections imposing serious risk to immune-compromised patients. This is in part due to its ability to colonize at the surface of indwelling medical devices and biofilm formation. Combating the biofilm formation with antibiotics has its own challenges like higher values of minimum inhibitory concentrations.

Studies on the production of shikimic acid using the aroK knockout strain of Bacillus megaterium.

Shikimic acid has various pharmaceutical and industrial applications. It is the sole chemical building block for the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu(®)) and one of the potent pharmaceutical intermediates with three chiral centres. Here we report a modified strain of Bacillus megaterium with aroK (shikimate kinase) knock out to block the aromatic biosynthetic pathway downstream of shikimic acid.

A protein transduction domain with cell uptake and selectivity profiles that are controlled by multivalency effects.

Protein transduction domains (PTDs) are reagents that facilitate the delivery of diverse cargo to the interior of mammalian cells. We identified a PTD called "Ypep" (N-YTFGLKTSFNVQ-C), with cell penetration selectivity and potency profiles that are tightly controlled by multivalency effects. Pentavalent display of Ypep on M13 bacteriophage enables selective uptake of this phage in PC-3 human prostate cancer cells at low picomolar concentration and in the presence of human blood.

In vitro evolution of a Friedel-Crafts deoxyribozyme.

We report the in vitro selection of a single-stranded 72-nucleotide DNA enzyme (deoxyribozyme) that catalyzes a Friedel-Crafts reaction between an indole and acyl imidazole in good yield and in aqueous solvent. Appreciable Friedel-Crafts product requires addition of copper nitrate and the deoxyribozyme. We observe deoxyribozyme-mediated bond formation for both in cis and in trans Friedel-Crafts reactions.

Exploring residues crucial for nitrilase function by site directed mutagenesis to gain better insight into sequence-function relationships.

Nitrilases represent a very important class of enzymes having an array of applications. In the present scenario, where the indepth information about nitrilases is limited, the present work is an attempt to shed light on the residues crucial for the nitrilase activity. The nitrilase sequences demonstrating varying degree of identity with P.

Cross-linked enzyme aggregates of recombinant Pseudomonas putida nitrilase for enantioselective nitrile hydrolysis.

The cross-linked enzyme aggregate (CLEA) method is used for the dual purpose of combining both the purification and immobilization of enzyme in one step. The present work involved the preparation of a carrier-free, highly active reusable biocatalyst (nitrilase) which encounters least mass-transfer limitations with higher thermal and storage stability. The effect of type of aggregating agent, its concentration as well as that of cross-linking agent was studied.

Molecular evolution of a defined DNA sequence with accumulation of mutations in a single round by a dual approach to random chemical mutagenesis (DuARCheM).

Directed evolution has paved the way to a new era of protein and nucleic acid molecules with improved and enhanced properties. The utmost important component of directed evolution is random mutations in a defined DNA sequence. The utility of random chemical mutagenesis in directed evolution studies is dwindling due to the inherent flaws with whole-organism mutagenesis and the in vitro approach.

Development and validation of HPLC method for the resolution of drug intermediates: DL-3-Phenyllactic acid, DL-O-acetyl-3-phenyllactic acid and (+/-)-mexiletine acetamide enantiomers.

Sensitive and specific, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods have been developed and validated for linearity, accuracy and precision for the quantification of dl-3-phenyllactic acid, dl-O-acetyl-3-phenyllactic acid and (+/-)-mexiletine acetamide enantiomers. Chromatographic separations were performed on a Chiralcel OJ-H column (0.46 mm x 250 mm, 5 microm, Daicel Chemical Industries, Japan) based on cellulose tris-(4-methyl benzoate) chiral stationary phase.