Polyester degradation by soil bacteria: identification of conserved BHETase enzymes in Streptomyces.

The rising use of plastic results in an appalling amount of waste which is scattered into the environment. One of these plastics is PET which is mainly used for bottles. We have identified and characterized an esterase from Streptomyces, annotated as LipA, which can efficiently degrade the PET-derived oligomer BHET.

Immunogenicity of adjuvanted plant-produced SARS-CoV-2 Beta spike VLP vaccine in New Zealand white rabbits.

The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic heightened the pace of vaccine development with various vaccines being approved for human use in a span of 24 months. The SARS-CoV-2 trimeric spike (S) surface glycoprotein, which mediates viral entry by binding to ACE2, is a key target for vaccines and therapeutic antibodies. Plant biopharming is recognized for its scalability, speed, versatility, and low production costs and is an increasingly promising molecular pharming vaccine platform for human health.

Comparative analysis reveals the modular functional structure of conjugative megaplasmid pTTS12 of S12: A paradigm for transferable traits, plasmid stability, and inheritance?

Originating from various environmental niches, large numbers of bacterial plasmids have been found carrying heavy metal and antibiotic resistance genes, degradation pathways and specific transporter genes for organic solvents or aromatic compounds. Such genes may constitute promising candidates for novel synthetic biology applications. Our systematic analysis of gene clusters encoded on megaplasmid pTTS12 from S12 underscores that a large portion of its genes is involved in stress response to increase survival under harsh conditions like the presence of heavy metal and organic solvent.

Protective immunity of plant-produced African horse sickness virus serotype 5 chimaeric virus-like particles (VLPs) and viral protein 2 (VP2) vaccines in IFNAR mice.

Next generation vaccines have the capability to contribute to and revolutionise the veterinary vaccine industry. African horse sickness (AHS) is caused by an arbovirus infection and is characterised by respiratory distress and/or cardiovascular failure and is lethal to horses. Mandatory annual vaccination in endemic areas curtails disease occurrence and severity.

Development of a dynamic myocardial perfusion phantom model for tracer kinetic measurements.

Background: Absolute myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) is beneficial in the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with suspected or known coronary artery disease. However, validation and standardization of perfusion estimates across centers is needed to ensure safe and adequate integration into the clinical workflow. Physical myocardial perfusion models can contribute to this clinical need as these can provide ground-truth validation of perfusion estimates in a simplified, though controlled setup.

Toward Microbial Recycling and Upcycling of Plastics: Prospects and Challenges.

Annually, 400 Mt of plastics are produced of which roughly 40% is discarded within a year. Current plastic waste management approaches focus on applying physical, thermal, and chemical treatments of plastic polymers. However, these methods have severe limitations leading to the loss of valuable materials and resources.

Development of a dedicated 3D printed myocardial perfusion phantom: proof-of-concept in dynamic SPECT.

We aim to facilitate phantom-based (ground truth) evaluation of dynamic, quantitative myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) applications. Current MPI phantoms are static representations or lack clinical hard- and software evaluation capabilities. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates the design, realisation and testing of a dedicated cardiac flow phantom.

Low Oxygen Storage Improves Tomato Postharvest Cold Tolerance, Especially for Tomatoes Cultivated with Far-Red LED Light.

We investigated the effects of low oxygen storage on chilling injury development, colour development, respiration and HO levels of 'Merlice' tomatoes cultivated with and without far red (FR) LED lighting during 20 days of shelf-life. Mature green (MG) and red (R) tomatoes were stored at 2 °C in combination with 0.5, 2.

Distinct Waves from the Hemogenic Endothelium Give Rise to Layered Lymphoid Tissue Inducer Cell Ontogeny.

During embryogenesis, lymphoid tissue inducer (LTi) cells are essential for lymph node organogenesis. These cells are part of the innate lymphoid cell (ILC) family. Although their earliest embryonic hematopoietic origin is unclear, other innate immune cells have been shown to be derived from early hemogenic endothelium in the yolk sac as well as the aorta-gonad-mesonephros.

Spray-Dried, Nanoencapsulated, Multi-Drug Anti-Tuberculosis Therapy Aimed at Once Weekly Administration for the Duration of Treatment.

Aiming to improve the treatment outcomes of current daily tuberculosis (TB) chemotherapy over several months, we investigated whether nanoencapsulation of existing drugs would allow decreasing the treatment frequency to weekly, thereby ultimately improving patient compliance. Nanoencapsulation of three first-line anti-TB drugs was achieved by a unique, scalable spray-drying technology forming free-flowing powders in the nanometer range with encapsulation efficiencies of 82, 75, and 62% respectively for rifampicin, pyrazinamide, and isoniazid. In a pre-clinical study on TB infected mice, we demonstrate that the encapsulated drugs, administered once weekly for nine weeks, showed comparable efficacy to daily treatment with free drugs over the same experimental period.

Mycolates of modulate the flow of cholesterol for bacillary proliferation in murine macrophages.

The differentiation of macrophages into lipid-filled foam cells is a hallmark of the lung granuloma that forms in patients with active tuberculosis (TB). Mycolic acids (MAs), the abundant lipid virulence factors in the cell wall of (Mtb), can induce this foam phenotype possibly as a way to perturb host cell lipid homeostasis to support the infection. It is not exactly clear how MAs allow differentiation of foam cells during Mtb infection.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis-associated synthetic mycolates differentially exert immune stimulatory adjuvant activity.

Mycolic acids (MAs) are highly hydrophobic long-chain α-alkyl β-hydroxy fatty acids present in the cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) as a complex mixture of molecules with a common general structure but with variable functional groups in the meromycolate chain. In this study, we addressed the relationship between the MA molecular structure and their contribution to the development of T-cell immune responses. Hereto, we used the model antigen ovalbumin and single synthetic MAs, differing in oxygenation class and cis versus trans proximal cyclopropane configuration, as immune stimulatory agents.

Standardization of natural mycolic acid antigen composition and production for use in biomarker antibody detection to diagnose active tuberculosis.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, is characterized by the abundance of species specific, antigenic cell wall lipids called mycolic acids. These wax-like molecules all share an identical, amphiphilic mycolic motif, but have different functional groups in a long hydrophobic hydrocarbon mero-chain that divide them into three main classes: alpha-, keto- and methoxy-mycolic acids. Whereas alpha-mycolic acids constitutively maintain an abundance of around 50%, the ratio of methoxy- to keto-mycolic acid types may vary depending on, among other things, the growth stage of M.

The co-immobilization of P450-type nitric oxide reductase and glucose dehydrogenase for the continuous reduction of nitric oxide via cofactor recycling.

The co-immobilization of enzymes on target surfaces facilitates the development of self-contained, multi-enzyme biocatalytic platforms. This generally entails the co-immobilization of an enzyme with catalytic value in combination with another enzyme that performs a complementary function, such as the recycling of a critical cofactor. In this study, we co-immobilized two enzymes from different biological sources for the continuous reduction of nitric oxide, using epoxide- and carboxyl-functionalized hyper-porous microspheres.

Mycolic acids, a promising mycobacterial ligand for targeting of nanoencapsulated drugs in tuberculosis.

The appearance of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) poses a great challenge to the development of novel treatment programmes to combat tuberculosis. Since innovative nanotechnologies might alleviate the limitations of current therapies, we have designed a new nanoformulation for use as an anti-TB drug delivery system. It consists of incorporating mycobacterial cell wall mycolic acids (MA) as targeting ligands into a drug-encapsulating Poly dl-lactic-co-glycolic acid polymer (PLGA), via a double emulsion solvent evaporation technique.

Differential spontaneous folding of mycolic acids from Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Mycolic acids are structural components of the mycobacterial cell wall that have been implicated in the pathogenicity and drug resistance of certain mycobacterial species. They also offer potential in areas such as rapid serodiagnosis of human and animal tuberculosis. It is increasingly recognized that conformational behavior of mycolic acids is very important in understanding all aspects of their function.

Spectrophotometric activity microassay for pure and recombinant cytochrome P450-type nitric oxide reductase.

Nitric oxide reductase (NOR) of the P450 oxidoreductase family accepts electrons directly from its cofactor, NADH, to reduce two nitric oxide (NO) molecules to one nitrous oxide molecule and water. The enzyme plays a key role in the removal of radical NO produced during respiratory metabolism, and applications in bioremediation and biocatalysis have been identified. However, a rapid, accurate, and sensitive enzyme assay has not yet been developed for this enzyme family.

Thiol modified mycolic acids.

Patient serum antibodies to mycolic acids have the potential to be surrogate markers of active tuberculosis (TB) when they can be distinguished from the ubiquitously present cross-reactive antibodies to cholesterol. Mycolic acids are known to interact more strongly with antibodies present in the serum of patients with active TB than in patients with latent TB or no TB. Examples of single stereoisomers of mycolic acids with chain lengths corresponding to major homologues of those present in Mycobacterium tuberculosis have now been synthesised with a sulfur substituent on the terminal position of the α-chain; initial studies have established that one of these binds to a gold electrode surface, offering the potential to develop second generation sensors for diagnostic patient antibody detection.

Towards understanding the functional diversity of cell wall mycolic acids of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Mycolic acids constitute the waxy layer of the outer cell wall of Mycobacterium spp. and a few other genera. They are diverse in structure, providing a unique chromatographic foot-print for almost each of the more than 70 Mycobacterium species.

Structure-function relationships of the antigenicity of mycolic acids in tuberculosis patients.

Cell wall mycolic acids (MA) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) are CD1b presented antigens that can be used to detect antibodies as surrogate markers of active TB, even in HIV coinfected patients. The use of the complex mixtures of natural MA is complicated by an apparent antibody cross-reactivity with cholesterol.

In vivo uptake and acute immune response to orally administered chitosan and PEG coated PLGA nanoparticles.

Nanoparticulate drug delivery systems offer great promise in addressing challenges of drug toxicity, poor bioavailability and non-specificity for a number of drugs. Much progress has been reported for nano drug delivery systems for intravenous administration, however very little is known about the effects of orally administered nanoparticles. Furthermore, the development of nanoparticulate systems necessitates a thorough understanding of the biological response post exposure.