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Topic Review
Fish Waste as Resource
Following the growth of the global population and the subsequent rapid increase in urbanization and industrialization, the fisheries and aquaculture production has seen a massive increase driven mainly by the development of fishing technologies. Accordingly, a remarkable increase in the amount of fish waste has been produced around the world; it has been estimated that about two-thirds of the total amount of fish is discarded as waste, creating huge economic and environmental concerns.
  • 1.3K
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
RNA Interference in Fungi
RNA interference (RNAi) was discovered at the end of last millennium, changing the way scientists understood regulation of gene expression. Within the following two decades, a variety of different RNAi mechanisms were found in eukaryotes, reflecting the evolutive diversity that RNAi entails. The essential silencing mechanism consists of an RNase III enzyme called Dicer that cleaves double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) generating small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), a hallmark of RNAi. These siRNAs are loaded into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) triggering the cleavage of complementary messenger RNAs by the Argonaute protein, the main component of the complex. Consequently, the expression of target genes is silenced. This mechanism has been thoroughly studied in fungi due to their proximity to the animal phylum and the conservation of the RNAi mechanism from lower to higher eukaryotes. However, the role and even the presence of RNAi differ across the fungal kingdom, as it has evolved adapting to the particularities and needs of each species. Fungi have exploited RNAi to regulate a variety of cell activities as different as defense against exogenous and potentially harmful DNA, genome integrity, development, drug tolerance, or virulence. This pathway has offered versatility to fungi through evolution, favoring the enormous diversity this kingdom comprises. 
  • 1.3K
  • 11 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Pathogenicity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Pseudomonas aeruginosa has the ability to infect not only humans, but also animals and plants. Given its role as an important human pathogen, several virulence factors have been studied, as well as their regulatory systems.
  • 1.3K
  • 10 Dec 2021
Topic Review
The Cytokine Storm Syndrome
The SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) is a high-risk viral agent involved in the recent pandemic stated worldwide by the World Health Organization. The infection is correlated to a severe systemic and respiratory disease in many cases, which is clinically treated with a multi-drug pharmacological approach. 
  • 1.3K
  • 16 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Rhizoremediation of Petroleum Hydrocarbon-Contaminated Soils
Rhizoremediation of PHCs is facilitated through a process known as the ‘rhizosphere effect’, in which plants exude a myriad of organic compounds into their root-surrounding zone (the rhizosphere), resulting in an increase in abundance and activity of certain rhizospheric microbes, which in turn can degrade or metabolize hydrocarbon contaminants. 
  • 1.3K
  • 23 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Microbial Mass Spectrometry Imaging
As an impressive mass spectrometry technology, mass spectrometric imaging (MSI) can provide mass spectra data and spatial distribution of analytes simultaneously. MSI has been widely used in diverse fields such as clinical diagnosis, the pharmaceutical industry and environmental study due to its accuracy, high resolution and developing reproducibility. Natural products (NPs) have been a critical source of leading drugs; almost half of marketed drugs are derived from NPs or their derivatives.
  • 1.3K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Trichoderma hamatum
Trichoderma hamatum (Bonord.) Bainier (T. hamatum) belongs to Hypocreaceae family, Trichoderma genus. Trichoderma spp. are prominently known for their biocontrol activities and plant growth promotion. Hence, T. hamatum also possess several beneficial activities, such as antimicrobial activity, antioxidant activity, insecticidal activity, herbicidal activity, and plant growth promotion; in addition, it holds several other beneficial properties, such as resistance to dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and degradation of DDT by certain enzymes and production of certain polysaccharide-degrading enzymes.
  • 1.3K
  • 13 Oct 2023
Topic Review
Antimicrobial Stewardship in Clinical Practice
“Antimicrobial stewardship” is a strategy that promotes the responsible use of antimicrobials. The objective of this paper is to focus on consolidated and more recent improvements in clinical strategies that should be adopted in hospitalized patients to ameliorate their infectious diseases’ outcome and to reduce the antibiotic resistance risk through judicious use of antibiotics. We present 13 common clinical scenarios, the respective suggested interventions and the explanations of the supporting evidence, in order to help clinicians in their decision-making process. Strategies including the choice of antibiotic and dose optimization, antibiotic spectrum narrowing (de-escalation), shortening of duration, shift to oral route or outpatient parenteral antibiotic (including elastomeric pumps), and biomarkers are described and discussed.
  • 1.3K
  • 22 Jul 2020
Topic Review
Venom-Derived Peptides
Peptides are potential therapeutic alternatives against global diseases, such as antimicrobial-resistant infections and cancer. Venoms are a rich source of bioactive peptides that have evolved over time to act on specific targets of the prey. Peptides are one of the main components responsible for the biological activity and toxicity of venoms. South American organisms such as scorpions, snakes, and spiders are important producers of a myriad of peptides with different biological activities.
  • 1.3K
  • 21 Feb 2023
Topic Review
Caveolin-3
The etiology of chicken muscular dystrophy is the synthesis of aberrant WWP1 protein made by a missense mutation of WWP1 gene. The β-dystroglycan that confers stability to sarcolemma was identified by Cho et al. as a substrate of WWP protein, which induces the next molecular collapse. The dystrophin-glycoprotein complex (DGC) is a core protein of costamere that is an essential part of force transduction and protects the muscle fibers from contraction-induced damage. Caveolin-3 (Cav-3) and dystrophin bind competitively to the same site of β-dystroglycan, and excessive Cav-3 on sarcolemma will block the interaction of dystrophin with β-dystroglycan, which is another reason for the disruption of the DGC. It is known that fast-twitch glycolytic fibers are more sensitive and vulnerable to contraction-induced small tears than slow-twitch oxidative fibers under a variety of diseased conditions. Accordingly, the fast glycolytic αW fibers must be easy with rapid damage of sarcolemma corruption seen in chicken muscular dystrophy, but the slow oxidative fibers are able to escape from these damages.
  • 1.3K
  • 27 Aug 2020
Topic Review
Phenolic Compounds in Fermented Quinoa
Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a pseudocereal crop, indigenous to the Andean region, increasingly singled out as a healthy food with an excellent nutritional profile. Fermentation can be used to increase phenolic compound content in quinoa seeds and flours. The use of fermented quinoa flours allows obtaining bread and pasta richer in phenolic compounds and with a greater antioxidant capacity. Fungi are the main starters used in quinoa seed fermentation, while Lactobacillus strains have been applied to produce sourdoughs. Quinoa has been also fermented to obtain yogurt-like beverages with a higher content in phenolic compounds and a greater antioxidant activity. Strains of Lactobacillus sp. and Bifidobacterium sp. have been used as starters.
  • 1.3K
  • 12 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Trap Formation in the Nematode-Trapping Fungi
Nematode-trapping (NT) fungi play a significant role in the biological control of plant- parasitic nematodes. NT fungi, as a predator, can differentiate into specialized structures called “traps” to capture, kill, and consume nematodes at a nutrient-deprived condition. Therefore, trap formation is also an important indicator that NT fungi transition from a saprophytic to a predacious lifestyle. With the development of gene knockout and multiple omics such as genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics, increasing studies have tried to investigate the regulation mechanism of trap formation in NT fungi. And elucidating the mechanism of trap formation will help to develop more effective anti-nematode agents by genetic modification.
  • 1.2K
  • 23 May 2022
Topic Review
MetS and Gut Microbiota Metabolites
Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a complex pathophysiological state with incidence similar to that of a global epidemic and represents a risk factor for the onset of chronic non-communicable degenerative diseases (NCDDs), including cardiovascular disease (CVD), type 2 diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, and some types of cancer. A plethora of literature data suggest the potential role of gut microbiota in interfering with the host metabolism, thus influencing several MetS risk factors. 
  • 1.2K
  • 07 May 2021
Topic Review
Functional Parasitic Worm Secretome
Nematodes constitute a very successful phylum, especially in terms of parasitism. Inside their mammalian hosts, parasitic nematodes mainly dwell in the digestive tract (geohelminths) or in the vascular system (filariae). One of their main characteristics is their long sojourn inside the body where they are accessible to the immune system. Several strategies are used by parasites in order to counteract the immune attacks. One of them is the expression of molecules interfering with the function of the immune system. Excretory-secretory products (ESPs) pertain to this category. This is, however, not their only biological function, as they seem also involved in other mechanisms such as pathogenicity or parasitic cycle (molting, for example).
  • 1.2K
  • 10 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Manipulating Microbiota to Treat Atopic Dermatitis
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a globally prevalent skin inflammation with a particular impact on children. Current therapies for AD are challenged by the limited armamentarium and the high heterogeneity of the disease. Thus, radically different approaches are needed to address a significant unmet need in AD patients. A novel promising therapeutic target for AD is the microbiota.
  • 1.2K
  • 13 Jun 2022
Topic Review
State-of the-Art Constraint-Based Modeling of Microbial Metabolism
Methanotrophy is the ability of an organism to capture and utilize the greenhouse gas, methane, as a source of energy-rich carbon. Over the years, significant progress has been made in understanding of mechanisms for methane utilization, mostly in bacterial systems, including the key metabolic pathways, regulation and the impact of various factors (iron, copper, calcium, lanthanum, and tungsten) on cell growth and methane bioconversion. The implementation of -omics approaches provided vast amount of heterogeneous data that require the adaptation or development of computational tools for a system-wide interrogative analysis of methanotrophy. The genome-scale mathematical modeling of its metabolism has been envisioned as one of the most productive strategies for the integration of muti-scale data to better understand methane metabolism and enable its biotechnological implementation. 
  • 1.2K
  • 03 Jan 2024
Topic Review
The FT-IR and Raman Spectroscopies
Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and Raman spectroscopy and mapping were applied tothe analysis of biofilms produced by bacteria of the genus Streptococcus. Bacterial biofilm, also calleddental plaque, is the main cause of periodontal disease and tooth decay. It consists of a complexmicrobial community embedded in an extracellular matrix composed of highly hydrated extracellularpolymeric substances and is a combination of salivary and bacterial proteins, lipids, polysaccharides,nucleic acids, and inorganic ions. This study confirms the value of Raman and FT-IR spectroscopiesin biology, medicine, and pharmacy as effective tools for bacterial product characterization.
  • 1.2K
  • 03 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Chronic rhinosinusitis
Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is the chronic inflammation of the sinus cavities of the upper respiratory tract, which can be caused by a disrupted microbiome. However, the role of the oral microbiome in CRS is not well understood. Polymicrobial and anaerobic infections of CRS frequently increased the difficulty of cultured and antibiotic therapy. This study aimed to elucidate the patterns and clinical feasibility of the oral microbiome in CRS diagnosis. Matched saliva and nasal swabs were collected from 18 CRS patients and 37 saliva specimens from normal volunteers were collected for 16S rRNA sequencing. The α-diversity of the saliva displayed no significant difference between control and CRS patients, whereas the β-diversity was significantly different (p = 0.004). Taxonomic indices demonstrated that Veillonella dispar, Rothia mucilaginosa, and Porphyromonas endodontalis were enriched, while Campylobacter and Cardiobacterium were reduced in the saliva of CRS patients. These microbial markers could significantly distinguish CRS patients from control (AUC = 0.939). It is noted that the 16S rRNA results of the nasal swab were consistent with the nasopharynx aerobic culture, and additionally detected multiple pathogens in CRS patients. In summary, these results indicated these oral microbiomes may provide a novel signal for CRS detection and that NGS may be an alternative approach for CRS diagnosis.
  • 1.2K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Bacillus cereus sensu lato
The potential presence of spore-forming bacteria related to the Bacillus cereus group in Mexican chili powder elaborated from Capsicum annuum L. is of commercial and clinical interest, because chili powder is an essential spice in the Mexican diet and in diets around the globe.
  • 1.2K
  • 16 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Biofilm Formation Based on Studies with Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Studies with the bacterium P. aeruginosa provide important information about the attachment process. One important consideration is how bacteria sense a surface. In P. aeruginosa, there are two distinct surface sensing mechanisms. The first one involves a WSP chemosensory system. In response to the surface contact, the WSP system stimulates the production of cyclic diguanylate. The initial event is uncertain; it probably involves distortion of the cell membrane, which then activates membrane proteins. A second surface sensing mechanism involves type 4 pili. Upon contact with the surface, the methyl-accepting chemotaxis protein Pil J transduces a signal to the protein CyaB, stimulating its activity. 
  • 1.2K
  • 30 Nov 2022
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