Bacterial biofilm inhibitors: An overview.

Bacteria that cause infectious diseases adopt biofilms as one of their most prevalent lifestyles. Biofilms enable bacteria to tolerate environmental stress and evade antibacterial agents. This bacterial defense mechanism has rendered the use of antibiotics ineffective for the treatment of infectious diseases.

Exploiting Polyhydroxyalkanoates for Biomedical Applications.

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are biodegradable plastic. Numerous bacteria produce PHAs under environmental stress conditions, such as excess carbon-rich organic matter and limitations of other nutritional elements such as potassium, magnesium, oxygen, phosphorus, and nitrogen. In addition to having physicochemical properties similar to fossil-fuel-based plastics, PHAs have unique features that make them ideal for medical devices, such as easy sterilization without damaging the material itself and easy dissolution following use.

Prospecting Microbial Genomes for Biomolecules and Their Applications.

Bioactive molecules of microbial origin are finding increasing biotechnological applications. Their sources range from the terrestrial, marine, and endophytic to the human microbiome. These biomolecules have unique chemical structures and related groups, which enable them to improve the efficiency of the bioprocesses.

Microbial Journey: Mount Everest to Mars.

A rigorous exploration of microbial diversity has revealed its presence on Earth, deep oceans, and vast space. The presence of microbial life in diverse environmental conditions, ranging from moderate to extreme temperature, pH, salinity, oxygen, radiations, and altitudes, has provided the necessary impetus to search for them by extending the limits of their habitats. Microbiology started as a distinct science in the mid-nineteenth century and has provided inputs for the betterment of mankind during the last 150 years.

Recent developments in antimicrobial growth promoters in chicken health: Opportunities and challenges.

With a continuously increasing human population is an increasing global demand for food. People in countries with a higher socioeconomic status tend to switch their preferences from grains to meat and high-value foods. Their preference for chicken as a source of protein has grown by 70% over the last three decades.

Green Synthesis of Silver-Decorated Magnetic Particles for Efficient and Reusable Antimicrobial Activity.

Metal and metal hybrid nanostructures have shown tremendous application in the biomedical and catalytic fields because of their plasmonic and catalytic properties. Here, a green and clean method was employed for the synthesis of silver nanoparticle (Ag NP)-SiO-FeO hybrid microstructures, and biomolecules from green tea extracts were used for constructing the hybrid structures. The SiO-FeO structures were synthesized using an ethanolic green tea leaf extract to form Bio-SiO-FeO (BSiO-FeO) structures.

The Emerging Biotherapeutic Agent: .

The human gastrointestinal tract (GIT) is a well-recognized hub of microbial activities. The microbiota harboring the mucus layer of the GIT act as a defense against noxious substances, and pathogens including , , , Typhimurium. Toxins, pathogens, and antibiotics perturb the commensal floral composition within the GIT.

Correction to: Biomethanol Production from Methane by Immobilized Co-cultures of Methanotrophs.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s12088-020-00883-6.].

Biotin and Zn Increase Xylitol Production by .

In this study, the medium requirements to increase the production of xylitol by using (CT) have been investigated. The technique of single addition or omission of medium components was applied to determine the nutritional requirements. The addition of amino acids such as Asp, Glu, Gln, Asn, Thr, and Gly had no significant effect on CT growth.

Emerging applications of bacteria as antitumor agents.

Bacteria are associated with the human body and colonize the gut, skin, and mucous membranes. These associations can be either symbiotic or pathogenic. In either case, bacteria derive more benefit from their host.

Regulation of Plant Mineral Nutrition by Signal Molecules.

Microbes operate their metabolic activities at a unicellular level. However, it has been revealed that a few metabolic activities only prove beneficial to microbes if operated at high cell densities. These cell density-dependent activities termed quorum sensing (QS) operate through specific chemical signals.

Site-directed lysine modification of xylanase for oriented immobilization onto silicon dioxide nanoparticles.

Enhanced covalent immobilization of xylanase from Chaetomium globosum (XylCg) onto SiO nanoparticles was achieved by the modification of surface residues. The mutation of surface residues to lysine by site-directed mutagenesis increased the immobilization efficiency (IE) and immobilization yield (IY). The immobilized mutant XylCg (N172K-H173K-S176K-K133A-K148A) exhibited an IY of 99.

Polyhydroxyalkanoates: Trends and advances toward biotechnological applications.

Plastics are an integral part of most of the daily requirements. Indiscriminate usage and disposal have led to the accumulation of massive quantities of waste. Their non-biodegradable nature makes it increasingly difficult to manage and dispose them.

Integrating anaerobic digestion of potato peels to methanol production by methanotrophs immobilized on banana leaves.

In the present study, potato peels were subjected to anaerobic digestion (AD) to produce biogas (methane [CH] and carbon dioxide), which was subsequently used as a substrate for methanol production by methanotrophs. AD resulted in high yields of up to 170 L CH/kg total solids (TS) from 250 mL substrate (2% TS, w/v). Under optimized conditions, maximum methanol production of 4.

Phe-140 Determines the Catalytic Efficiency of Arylacetonitrilase from .

Arylacetonitrilase from ATCC8750 (NitAF) hydrolyzes various arylacetonitriles to the corresponding carboxylic acids. A systematic strategy of amino acid residue screening through sequence alignment, followed by homology modeling and biochemical confirmation was employed to elucidate the determinant of NitAF catalytic efficiency. Substituting Phe-140 in NitAF (wild-type) to Trp did not change the catalytic efficiency toward phenylacetonitrile, an arylacetonitrile.

Biomethanol Production from Methane by Immobilized Co-cultures of Methanotrophs.

Methanol production by co-culture of methanotrophs and was examined from methane, a greenhouse gas. Co-culture exhibited higher methanol yield of 4.72 mM at optimum ratio of and (3:2) compared to individual cultures.

Characterization of Cellobiohydrolases from KMJ820.

A novel cellobiohydrolase (CBH)-generating fungi have been isolated and categorized as KMJ820 based on morphology and rDNA gene sequence. Cellulose powder was used as carbon source, the total enzyme activity was 11.51 U/ml is noted; which is among the highest amounts of CBH-generating microbes studied.

as Inhibitor of Quorum Sensing System and Biofilm Forming Ability of .

Endophytic fungi provide rich reservoir for novel antimicrobial compounds. An endophytic fungus, from plant identified as , was investigated for attenuating the quorum sensing mediated pathogenicity of PAO1. Crude extract of was found to reduce the production of redox-active pigments-pyocyanin and pyoverdine in PAO1 by 92.

Mapping Microbial Capacities for Bioremediation: Genes to Genomics.

Bioremediation is a process wherein the decontamination strategies are designed so that a site could achieve the environmental abiotic and biotic parameters close to its baseline. In the process, the driving force is the available microbial genetic degradative capabilities, which are supported by required nutrients so that the desired expression of these capabilities could be exploited in favour of removal of pollutants. With genomics tools not only the available abilities could be estimated but their dynamic performance could also be established.

Methanol production by polymer-encapsulated methanotrophs from simulated biogas in the presence of methane vector.

Type I (Methylomicrobium album) and II (Methyloferula stellata) methanotrophs were encapsulated by alginate and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to improve methanol production from simulated biogas [methane (CH) and carbon dioxide (CO)] in the presence of CH vector. Polymeric matrix alginate (2%) and PVA (10%) were found to be optimum for the immobilization of both the methanotrophs, with a relative efficiency of methanol production up to 80.6 and 88.