Presence Of Biological Material Research Articles

Capillary-Electrophoresis-Based Species Barcoding of Big Cats: CR-mtDNA-Length Polymorphism.

This study aimed to provide an overview of the methodological approach used for the species determination of big cats. The molecular system described herein employs mitochondrial DNA control region (CR-mtDNA)-length polymorphism in combination with highly sensitive and precise capillary electrophoresis. We demonstrated that the described CR-mtDNA barcoding system can be utilized for species determination where the presence of biological material from big cats is expected or used as a confirmatory test alongside Sanger or massive parallel sequencing (MPS). We have also addressed the fact that species barcoding, when based on the analysis of mtDNA targets, can be biased by nuclear inserts of the mitochondrial genome (NUMTs). The CR-mtDNA barcoding system is suitable even for problematic and challenging samples, such as hair. CR-mtDNA-length polymorphisms can also distinguish hybrids from pure breeds.

The production of OH in a nanosecond pulsed helium plasma jet impinging on water, saline, or pigskin

Applications of plasma-induced biological effects via reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) make the non-thermal atmospheric-pressure plasma jets an appealing tool in biomedical fields. The presence of biological materials, especially as part of the electrode circuit, may change the plasma properties and impact on the production of RONS at the plasma–biomaterial interface. Effects of biomaterials on the production of hydroxyl radicals (OH) in a nanosecond pulsed, atmospheric-pressure plasma jet were investigated using a needle-to-plate electrode configuration with water, phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), or pigskin covering the ground plate. Driven by 200 ns, 7 kV pulses at 1 kHz, a helium plasma jet was generated between the hollow needle electrode and the biomaterial. Temporally resolved UV-visible imaging showed that the use of pigskin slowed down the streamer head propagation, whereas a more pronounced surface ionization wave was developed on the surface when water was used. The highest OH(A-X) emission above the biomaterial surface was observed using the PBS-covered electrode plate comparing to water or pigskin. Spatiotemporally resolved laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) showed that more OH was produced in the region near the needle electrode for both water and PBS, and the use of pigskin resulted in least OH production overall. In addition, measurements of H2O2 production in the liquid were used to determine the OH concentration in the vicinity of the biomaterial and agreed well with the relative OH-LIF measurements obtained at the gas–liquid interface for water and PBS.

Pilot study: Post-surgical infections could be related with lack of sharpness in surgical tools.

Despite rigorous sterilization protocols placed in surgical procedures, there is demonstrated evidence that show patients contract infections while hospitalized. This study aims to investigate the presence of biological materials in osteotome surgical tools after sterilization processes, determine the relationship between lack of sharpness and cross-contamination, and evaluate the influence of materials surface coating as a potential contamination preventive. Three commercially available osteotomes with different surface coatings were studied and submitted to a procedure of bone-cutting cycles. After use, each was sterilized and examined under SEM and EDS. Bone contaminants were detected in each osteotome although the PVD coated osteotome demonstrated significantly less contamination than either the as-supplied or electroless nickel coated one. According to the results, there is an association between blade sharpness and post-sterilization bone contamination. These findings suggest either disposable osteotomes should be used in surgical procedures, or an effective sharpen process should both be established and monitored to minimise post-operative infections.

Infrastructure for Long-term Preservation and OCR Analysis of Herbarium Images

Herbaria hold large numbers of specimens: approximately 22 million herbarium specimens exist as botanical reference objects in Germany, 20 million in France and about 500 million worldwide. High resolution digital images of these specimens take up substantial bandwidth and disk space. New methods of extracting information from the specimen labels have been developed using OCR (Optical character recognition) techniques, but the exploitation of this technology for biological specimens is particularly complex due to the presence of biological material in the image with the text, the non-standard vocabularies, alongside the variation and age of the fonts. Much of the information is handwritten and natural handwriting pattern recognition is a less mature technology than OCR. Today, our system (eTDR-European Trusted digital Repository) provides the OCR technology (using Tesseract software) adapted to the requirements of herbarium specimen images and requires minimal installation in each institution. This is what we propose to make available to botanists with our portal. The goal for a museum is to be able to submit a large number of scanned images easily to a long-term archiving system in order to automatically obtain OCR texts and retrieve them by a full text search on an open data portal. Most of the images are provided for reuse through CC-BY licenses. In each case, the rights of reuse associated with the data are specified in associated metadata. This pilot was an opportunity to test the long-term storage service eTDR provided by CINES. The services (B2SAFE, B2Handle) developed by EUDAT were used to facilitate the transfer of data to the storage repository and to provide indexing services for access to that repository. This workflow that has been tested for the european project ICEDIG is presented as a poster: See the document (Suppl. material 1).

Mathematical modeling of calcium phosphate precipitation in biologically relevant systems: scoping review.

Biologically guided precipitation of calcium phosphates is important for the formation of calcified human tissues, such as bone and teeth, and is of practical significance in numerous industrial and agricultural processes, such as wastewater treatment and dairy ultrafiltration. Mineral precipitation is physicochemically complex and becomes even more complex in the presence of biological materials. The theoretical foundation of phase transition in general has been developed and is vital for many applications, such as metallurgy and weather prediction. The goal of this scoping review was to identify and evaluate established mathematical approaches developed to describe the formation of calcium precipitates in biological systems. A scoping review was conducted using MathSciNet, Scopus, and Web of Science databases to retrieve eligible mathematical modeling papers on calcium precipitates in biological systems. From the 2096 studies screened, 115 studies were included. The major biological systems of interest were tissues of the human body (49/115), water research (38/115), and agricultural and earth sciences applications (17/115). The majority of studies described precipitation of calcium phosphate (79/115), followed by calcium carbonate (22/115). Mathematical modeling of calcium precipitation was dominated by classical nucleation (64/115) and kinetic (38/115) theories. Only a minority of studies explicitly modeled chemical reactions in the aqueous phase (33/115). Biological components were explicitly described in 45/115 studies and included as physicochemical limitations in 70/115 studies. The majority of the studies (91/115) attempted to quantitatively compare the model predictions to the experimental data, with 59/115 reporting good to reasonable fit. This scoping review suggests that broad theories, such as classical nucleation and kinetic theories, may be adapted for modeling calcium precipitation in biologically relevant systems; however, detailed mathematical descriptions of biological, chemical, and physicochemical aspects of calcium precipitation are required.

Chemiluminescent Diagnostics of Free-Radical Processes in an Abiotic System and in Liver Cells in the Presence of Nanoparticles Based on Rare-Earth Elements nReVO4:Eu3+ (Re = Gd, Y, La) and CeO2

We have used luminol-dependent chemiluminescence with Fenton’s reagent to study the effect of nanoparticles based on rare-earth elements of different sizes and shapes on free-radical processes in abiotic and biotic cell-free systems, and also in isolated cells in vitro. We have estimated the effects of rare-earth orthovanadate nanoparticles of spherical (GdYVO4:Eu3+, 1–2 nm), spindle-shaped (GdVO4:Eu3+, 25 ×8 nm), and rod-shaped (LaVO4:Eu3+, 57 × (6–8) nm) nanoparticles and spherical CeO2 nanoparticles (sizes 1–2 nm and 8–10 nm). We have shown that in contrast to the abiotic system, in which all types of nanoparticles exhibit antiradical activity, in the presence of biological material, extra-small spherical (1–2 nm) nanoparticles of both types exhibit pro-oxidant activity, and also enhance pro-oxidant induced oxidative stress (for the pro-oxidants hydrogen peroxide and tert-butyl hydroperoxide). The effect of rare-earth orthovanadate spindle and rod shaped nanoparticles in this system was neutral; a moderate antioxidant effect was exhibited by 8–10 nm CeO2 nanoparticles.

S4-3 Novel pharmacological tools for the H2S pathway

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) regulates smooth muscle tone, cell metabolism and growth, apoptosis and migration. It has, thus, been implicated in a plethora of physiological and pathophysiological processes including angiogenesis, cardioprotection, atherosclerosis, inflammation and cancer. H2S is produced by cystathionine beta synthase (CBS), cystathionine gamma lyase (CSE) and 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfur transferase (3-MST). Aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG), β-cyano- l -alanine (BCA) and propargylglycine (PAG) selectively inhibit CSE over CBS and 3-MST. All of them, exhibit limited potency and block other PLP-dependent enzymes, too. It should be emphasized that no selective CBS or 3-MST inhibitors are currently available. During this presentation data obtained from a screen of chemical libraries against H2S-synthesizing enzymes will be presented. The available donors can be divided based on their chemical nature and rate of release to inorganic vs organic compounds and fast vs slow releasers. The most widely used inorganic compounds to generate H2S are NaSH and Na2S. These compounds dissociate rapidly in solution leading to immediate H2S formation. The organic donors available can be divided according to their source of origin into naturally occurring and synthetic. Contrary to inorganic salts, the organic donors release H2S more slowly; the rate of H2S liberation may differ substantially depending on the absence or presence of biological material. Mitochondrial-targeted donors and hybrid molecules between known drugs and H2S-releasing moieties are special subclasses of H2S donors. During the second part of the presentation data on signalling, pharmacological profiles and biological activities in the context of cardiovascular disease of different classes of H2S-generating compounds will be analysed.

Analytical information on the composition of Roman Glass from Braga (Portugal)

Fifty-seven Roman Glass fragments coming from Braga (Portugal) were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, determining a total of 63 major, minor and trace elements including rare earth elements. Different faults were described in the glass samples such as mass irregularities, surface physical alterations and presence of biological material. Samples were classified in three groups according to their major elements. Several statistical analyses were applied to chemical composition. Supervised pattern recognition was used to group glasses based on their colour and date. Undated samples were classified into previously established dated glass groups.

Two-Photon Lithography in the Future of Cell-Based Therapeutics and Regenerative Medicine: A Review of Techniques for Hydrogel Patterning and Controlled Release

In recent decades, there has been considerable interest in using photochemistry to produce biomaterials, owing to their ability to be used in the presence of biological material. Two-photon-induced photoreactions have been used to produce materials for optical data storage and microfabrication and, recently, researchers have exploited two-photon-induced chemical processes to create biomaterials. Researchers have used two-photon-induced lithography to fabricate hydrogels with well-defined chemical and physical properties in 3D through network polymerization, functionalization, uncaging and degradation, as described in this article. Fabrication and modification of chemical and physical architecture of biomaterials in 3D with submicron resolution will allow the elucidation of more complex relationships in cell behavior and tissue development and introduce pathways to engineering complex tissues.

The influence of milk composition on the growth of Bacillus stearothermophilus

The contamination of milk by thermophilic bacteria is highly undesirable. However, the precise bacterial behaviour in milk is not been well quantified. In this study, Bacillus stearothermophilus was used as a representative thermophilic bacterium and the main milk components were used as substrates to study the growth behaviour of this species. The growth of B. stearothermophilus has been found to promote acidic conditions in both milk and lactose solution. It has been found that milk proteins sustain B. stearothermophilus in stationary phase for longer than other milk components during batch growth. Milk protein solution which contained B. stearothermophilus formed thick, dense porous lumps, more rapidly than that without bacteria. The presence of biological material on heat exchanger surfaces may promote other fouling mechanisms. Therefore, implications of the present study to the influence of the bacteria on milk fouling are also discussed.

Determination of thiobarbituric acid reactive products formed from deoxyribose in biological samples

Determination of thiobarbituric acid reactive products (TBAR) formed from deoxyribose by hydroxyl radicals is used to determine scavenging activity of various chemicals. A method for determination of TBAR was modified to allow determination of TBAR in presence of biological materials by addition of 1% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) to prevent chromogen adsorption by biological matrices. This method was tested using brain extracts from nine 7 - 28 year old rhesus monkeys. The inhibitory effect of the homogenates was expressed as mg of protein which inhibited TBAR formation to the same extent as 0.208 mmoles of sodium salicylate. The homogenates inhibited the formatin of TBAR in linear, concentration dependent fashion. The day-to-day reproducibility of the method was found to be 9.2% relative S.D. and the salicylate equivalent values ranged from 0.09±0.02 to 0.61±0.25 mg of protein among the six brain areas investigated. The age and sex were not related to the inhibitory activities of brain extracts.

Oxidation of nitric oxide by oxygen in biological systems monitored by porphyrinic sensor

A porphyrinic sensor was used to monitor the reaction of nitric oxide (NO) with oxygen. In the absence of biological material, the reaction rate is independent of the initial concentration of NO (zero order) and depends only on O 2 concentration (first order). At physiologic concentration of NO and O 2, the half-life of nitric oxide is in order of minutes and decreased to seconds only in the presence of biological material (intact cells).

THE EFFECT OF BIOLOGICAL CRYSTALS AND HUMAN SERUM ON THE RATE OF FORMATION OF CRYSTALS OF MONOSODIUM URATE MONOHYDRATE IN VITRO

A simple, reproducible method of measuring monosodium urate monohydrate (urate) crystal formation in the presence of biological materials in vitro is described. The method allows both seeded and unseeded crystal formation to be examined. Urate seed crystals markedly promoted urate crystal growth whereas the presence of hydroxyapatite or calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate crystals had a minimal effect on crystal formation. Serum promoted urate crystal formation in a concentration-dependent fashion, the effect probably being due to enhancement of nucleation.

Phosphopyridoxal cyclic compounds with histamine and histidine. 6: The formation of phosphopyridoxal cyclic compounds with histamine and histidine in the presence of biological material.

We have studied the dynamics of cyclic compound formation between histamine or histidine and pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (Hi-PLP or His-PLP) in incubates of rat gastric mucosa histidine decarboxylase (HD), rat intestinal diamine oxidase (DAO) or homogenates of either rat liver, intestine or gastric mucosa. For gastric mucosa HD, liver and gastric mucosa homogenates, the rate of cyclization was slightly decreased; however, the rate was significantly inhibited with intestinal DAO or intestinal homogenate. Binding of PLP by tissue components was measured; free PLP was bound abundantly by rat intestinal DAO and by rat intestinal homogenate. A possible mechanism by which intestinal tissues inhibit cyclic compound formation is discussed.

A physical description of freeze-pressing of biological material with the X-press

Abstract The present results show that during freeze-pressing with the X-press the phase transitions are initiated at the hole in the disk. Furthermore, the flow of material is preceded by a liquid state of the specimen in the vicinity of the hole, where the stress concentrations are greatest. When approximately 1 g of material is transformed, which requires energy, flow starts and the pressure decreases, which induces a reversed phase transition to ice I. If the crystal transformation is more rapid than the forward motion of the piston to produce a new transition, the flow occurs explosively in pulses. If the transformation is retarded e.g., by the presence of biological material, the flow becomes smoother. With respect to the disintegration of suspended yeast cells, Saccharomyces cerevisiae , the disruption is most significant at passage through the hole in the disk. Such a description of the freeze-pressing process has previously not been proved experimentally.

Separation of fluoride by rapid diffusion using hexamethyldisiloxane

The presence of hexamethyldisiloxane greatly accelerates the diffusion separation of fluoride, making it possible to recover > 97% of radioactive fluoride in one hour at room temperature. Agitation, and concentration of the acid and alkaline solutions, affect the rate of diffusion. The presence of biological material has little effect on the rate of diffusion. Sulphate and phosphate do not diffuse under these conditions.

Colorimetric determination of inorganic phosphate in the presence of biological material and adenosine triphosphate

Colorimetric determination of inorganic phosphate in the presence of biological material and adenosine triphosphate

Simultaneous determination of thiamine and pyrithiamine

1. (1) Alkaline potassium ferricyanide oxidation of thiamine and pyrithiamine yields two different products as judged by excitation and emission characteristics. The former oxidation produces thiochrome and the latter pyrichrome. 2. (2) The differences in spectral characteristics of thiochrome and pyrichrome have been utilized to determine quantitatively thiamine and pyrithiamine concentration in a mixture of the two. 3. (3) Two generalized equations were derived to determine the concentration of thiamine and pyrithiamine in the presence of biological material: T = d ad − bc E 435 385 − b ad − bc E 480 385 = mνmoles thiamine/asay P = a ad − bc E 480 385 − c ad − bc E 480 385 = mνmoles pyrithiamine/asay where E = emission, P = pyrithiamine, T = thiamine, the numerator of the subscripts the emission wavelength, and the denominator the excitation wavelength. Constants a and b represent the relative molar fluorescence of thiochrome and pyrichrome when excited at 385 mμ and emitting at 435 mμ. Constants c and d represent the relative molar fluorescence of the same two respective compounds with the emission measured at 480 mμ and excitation at 385 mμ. 4. (4) The limit of detection for both thiamine and pyrithiamine is determined both by their absolute amounts and by the molar ratio of the two. When the molar ratio of pyrithiamine to thiamine was between 40 and 8, 12 mμmoles of pyrithiamine could be detected with recoveries ranging from 90 to 115%. With a similar range of molar ratios, 1.5 mμmoles of thiamine per assay could be detected with recoveries ranging from 90 to 100%. The limitations of this approach have been considered.

Note on microestimation of ammonia using the Warburg manometric apparatus

A simple method is described for the microestimation of ammonia in the presence of biological material using the Warburg manometric apparatus Typical results obtained with this technique are given.