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Topic Review
Microfluidic Devices for Isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells
CTCs (circulating tumor cells) are well-known for their use in clinical trials for tumor diagnosis. Capturing and isolating these CTCs from whole blood samples has enormous benefits in cancer diagnosis and treatment. In general, various approaches are being used to separate malignant cells, including immunomagnets, macroscale filters, centrifuges, dielectrophoresis, and immunological approaches. These procedures, on the other hand, are time-consuming and necessitate multiple high-level operational protocols. In addition, considering their low efficiency and throughput, the processes of capturing and isolating CTCs face tremendous challenges. Meanwhile, recent advances in microfluidic devices promise unprecedented advantages for capturing and isolating CTCs with greater efficiency, sensitivity, selectivity and accuracy. In a very short span of time, microfluidics has emerged in several technological advancements. There are a variety of materials for microfluidic device fabrication, each with different properties according to the requirements. Based on the required specific characteristics of the fabrication material and product requirements, different techniques are used for the development of the device. Another major aspect is the cost of the involved material. In most cases, used devices are disposed of. Thus, the method involved should be economically feasible.
  • 836
  • 21 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Tackling Colorants Sustainability
Colors play a key role in our lives: our clothes, our cars, and the furniture in our houses come with a wide range of choices when it comes to hues, inks, and paints. Since the accidental synthesis of the first synthetic aniline dye, mauveine, by William Perkin in 1856, the range of dye molecules available has widened and entered not only the textile, food, and cosmetic fields but also the pharmaceutical, plastics, ink, and packaging industries. As consumers, we mainly see them as a way of expressing our personal taste, mood, or personality and usually pay little attention to their origin and production process. As scientists, we are fascinated by the chemical processes behind them and, at the same time, mindful of the hazards they pose to the environment. This research highlights the importance not only of biotechnological approaches but also of a sustainable leadership to achieve a future-proof fashion industry. Science has been producing sustainable alternatives to counter the issue of dyes, but this is not enough. A change in the business attitude and leadership approach of the organizations that operate in the industry is needed. Only through the successful combination of new technologies and forward-looking decision-making will it be possible to alter the status quo and deal with the multiple environmental challenges that businesses are and will be facing.
  • 835
  • 07 Dec 2022
Topic Review
The Cannabinoids
Cannabinoids are bioactive meroterpenoids comprising prenylated polyketide molecules that can modulate a wide range of physiological processes. Cannabinoids have been shown to possess various medical/therapeutic effects, such as anti-convulsive, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotic, antinausea, and anti-microbial properties. 
  • 834
  • 09 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Bioactive compounds from the Gut of Grey Mullets
Fish gut represents a peculiar ecological niche where bacteria can transit and reside to play vital roles by producing bio-compounds with nutritional, immunomodulatory and other functions. This complex microbial ecosystem reflects several factors (environment, feeding regimen, fish species etc.). The objective of the present study was the identification of intestinal microbial strains able to produce molecules called biosurfactants (BSs) which were tested for surface and antibacterial activity in order to select a group of probiotic bacteria for aquaculture use. This works indicated that fish gut is a source of bioactive compounds which deserves to be explored for applicative purposes.
  • 833
  • 28 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Bacteriophage Tail Proteins for Bacterial Pathogen Recognition
In recent years, a number of bacterial detection methods have been developed to replace time-consuming culture methods. One interesting approach is to mobilize the ability of phage tail proteins to recognize and bind to bacterial hosts. Bacteriophages combine several properties that are desirable for the purpose of detecting bacterial pathogens. Compared to the traditional culture-based methodologies, capture-dependent methodologies are accurate, reliable, simple, relatively inexpensive, fast, and require a fairly low skill level. These properties are all desirable for diagnostics, suggesting that phage tail protein-based capture methods could potentially improve the treatment and control of pathogenic bacteria, thereby decreasing their negative impact worldwide.
  • 832
  • 11 May 2022
Topic Review
CRISPR-Cas Genome Editing
The adaptive immune system CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas (CRISPR-associated) in prokaryotes has led to a revolution in targeted genome editing with high precision and accuracy. This technology allows the manipulation or modification of crop plant genome in several ways. The CRISPR-Cas technology is faster, cheaper, precise, and highly efficient in editing genomes even at the multiplex level. Application of CRISPR-Cas in editing the crop plant genome is emerging rapidly for the increased yield, quality, domestication, and stress tolerance. More importantly, this technology is becoming a user-friendly tool for the development of non-transgenic genome-edited crop plants.
  • 831
  • 25 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Polyphenols in Health and Disease
Polyphenolic compounds (PC) are among the most abundant secondary metabolites in nature. They are widely distributed in the world and can be found in fruits, cereals, tea, coffee, and beverages. Due to their structural diversity, polyphenols have many different properties and biological effects. They are resistant to the acid of the gastric tract, and very few are hydrolysed or absorbed in the stomach. Significant portions of ingested polyphenols reach the large intestine and interact with the local bacteria, the so-called gut microbiota. Epidemiological studies confirm that moderate and prolonged intake of foods rich in polyphenols could prevent the development of cancer and chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.
  • 831
  • 31 Jan 2023
Topic Review
Marine Microbial Polysaccharides
One of the most promising properties displayed by marine microbial polysaccharides is their biological activities. Indeed, it is not uncommon for studies to investigate such characteristics in view of presenting these polymers as attractive candidates for biomedical applications, with some of the most studied biological activities being anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-oxidant, and immunomodulation.
  • 831
  • 02 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Plant Microbiome and Heavy Metal Stress
Plant microbiomes represent dynamic entities, influenced by the environmental stimuli and stresses in the surrounding conditions. The benefits of commensal microbes in improving the overall fitness of plants, besides beneficial effects on plant adaptability and survival in challenging environmental conditions. Plant-associated microbiomes are gaining significant recognition as biological alternatives for heavy metal tolerance and mitigation. The recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies have opened new avenues in the characterization of microbiomes, deciphering the functional mechanisms of these microbes. Omics approaches, namely metagenomics, metaproteomics, metatranscriptomics, and metabolomics have proved to be valuable tools to understand microbe composition and structure (diversity, abundance), plant–microbe dynamics, and potential effects on exposure to HM stress. Several genes from plants and plant-associated microbes have been identified by employing omics biology and can be further explored for conferring metal tolerance to the holobiont.
  • 829
  • 13 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Antibacterial Peptides and Their Mechanism of Action
Despite the great strides in healthcare during the last century, some challenges still remained unanswered. The development of multi-drug resistant bacteria, the alarming growth of fungal infections, the emerging/re-emerging of viral diseases are yet a worldwide threat. Since the discovery of natural antimicrobial peptides able to broadly hit several pathogens, peptide-based therapeutics have been under the lenses of the researchers. Antimicrobial peptides generally affect highly preserved structures, e.g., the phospholipid membrane via pore formation or other constitutive targets like peptidoglycans in Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, and glucan in the fungal cell wall. Additionally, some peptides are particularly active on biofilm destabilizing the microbial communities. They can also act intracellularly, e.g., on protein biosynthesis or DNA replication. Their intracellular properties are extended upon viral infection since peptides can influence several steps along the virus life cycle starting from viral receptor-cell interaction to the budding. Besides their mode of action, improvements in manufacturing to increase their half-life and performances are also taken into consideration together with advantages and impairments in the clinical usage. Thus far, the progress of new synthetic peptide-based approaches is making them a promising tool to counteract emerging infections.
  • 822
  • 08 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Biodiesel Production Process from Yeast Lipids
Renewable sources of energy have been sought due to the environmental impacts associated with fossil fuels, such as greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. A promising alternative is biodiesel, particularly when obtained using yeast, as they offer certain advantages over other microorganisms due to their resilience to grow in various conditions, short reproduction times, and lower susceptibility to bacterial infections because they thrive at lower pH levels and have the ability to utilize a wide variety of substrates. Furthermore, biodiesel produced with yeast is composed of methyl ester fatty acids (FAME), providing it with good quality and performance in internal combustion engines, resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional diesel. The production of biodiesel using yeast involves six general stages, which offer various methodological alternatives with different degrees of sustainability.
  • 820
  • 04 Mar 2024
Topic Review
CRISPR-Cas Systems-Based Bacterial Detection
Enzymes from clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)- CRISPR associated protein (Cas) systems have been adapted for the specific, rapid, sensitive, and portable sensing of nucleic acids. The CRISPR–Cas system is composed of RNA-guided endonucleases, and it is an adaptive immune system that protects its hosts from bacteriophage predation and parasitism by other mobile genetic elements (MGEs).
  • 819
  • 14 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis and Climate Change Stress Alleviation
Climate change is likely to have severe impacts on food security in the topics as these regions of the world have both the highest human populations and narrower climatic niches, which reduce the diversity of suitable crops. Legume crops are of particular importance to food security, supplying dietary protein for humans both directly and in their use for feed and forage. Other than the rhizobia associated with legumes, soil microbes, in particular arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), can mitigate the effects of biotic and abiotic stresses, offering an important complementary measure to protect crop yields. 
  • 818
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Isolated Limb Infusion
Isolated limb infusion (ILI) and hyperthermic isolated limb perfusion (HILP) are used to treat melanoma in-transit metastases and unresectable sarcoma confined to the limb utilizing the effect of high-dose loco-regional chemotherapy, normally melphalan +/- actinomycin-D. Both procedures are able to provide high response rates in patients with numerous or bulky lesions in whom other loco-regional treatments are less effective. In comparison to systemic therapies, on the other hand, ILI and HILP result less in severe systemic side-effects. Although in principle ILI and HILP are similar procedures, ILI is technically simpler to perform and takes advantage of the hypoxic and acidotic environment in the isolated limb, potentiating anti-tumour activity of the cytotoxic agents.
  • 816
  • 22 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Deep Learning Methods for Antibodies
Driven by its successes across domains such as computer vision and natural language processing, deep learning has recently entered the field of biology by aiding in cellular image classification, finding genomic connections, and advancing drug discovery. In drug discovery and protein engineering, a major goal is to design a molecule that will perform a useful function as a therapeutic drug. Typically, the focus has been on small molecules, but new approaches have been developed to apply these same principles of deep learning to biologics, such as antibodies. 
  • 816
  • 20 Dec 2021
Topic Review
The Effects of Nanomaterials on Microalgae Growth
Microalgae are promising biological factories for the production of diverse natural products, such as proteins, lipids, exopolysaccharides (EPSs), carotenoids, and phenolic compounds. These biomolecules or metabolites can be used in industrial products ranging from biofuels, food additives, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals to alternatives to chemically synthetic or animal-derived products. To improve the production efficiency of microalgae-derived metabolites, diverse microalgal cultivation methods have been developed, such as nitrogen deficiency, salinity stress, photoinduction, and carbon source addition. Nanotechnology or nanomaterial application has arisen as a new strategy in the production of valuable metabolites or bioproducts in microalgae. Nanomaterials (NMs) are materials that are manufactured with at least one dimension being less than 100 nanometers (nm). They have been found to influence the physiology and metabolism of algal cells by generating cell shading, physical damage, and oxidative stress.
  • 814
  • 29 Nov 2023
Topic Review
Tissue-Engineered Grafts with Minimally Manipulated Cells
Transfer of regenerative approaches into clinical practice is limited by strict legal regulation of in vitro expanded cells and risks associated with substantial manipulations. Isolation of cells for the enrichment of bone grafts directly in the Operating Room appears to be a promising solution for the translation of biomedical technologies into clinical practice. These intraoperative approaches could be generally characterized as a joint concept of tissue engineering in situ.
  • 812
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Sonodelivery in Skeletal Muscle
Ultrasound-mediated gene delivery, also known as sonoporation or sonodelivery, is a technique that utilizes the ability of ultrasound to disrupt the cell membrane to allow for the delivery of genes, proteins, and other therapeutics into cells. One potential application of this technique is sonodelivery of therapeutic genes into skeletal muscle, which allows the muscle to act as a therapeutic "factory" for long-term gene therapy. There are some complications associated with this application and with sonoporation in general, but it still appears to be a promising method for gene delivery, particularly in vivo, due to its advantages.
  • 811
  • 09 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Nanoparticles for Coronavirus Control
Some countries have been able to overcome this global challenge by relying on vaccines against the virus, and vaccination has begun in many countries. Many of the proposed vaccines have nanoparticles as carriers, and there are different nano-based diagnostic approaches for rapid detection of the virus.
  • 811
  • 25 May 2022
Topic Review
Fungal Chassis and Production of Functional Foods
Bio-based products from fungi are extensively explored in the present era, attributed to their emerging importance in the industrial sector, healthcare, and food applications. The edible group of fungi and multiple fungal strains defines attractive biological resources for high-value metabolites comprising food additives, pigments, dyes, industrial chemicals, and antibiotics, including other compounds. Usually, a biological species with a small genome size is preferred for engineering, since it can be handled with precision. For example, S. cerevisiae has efficient integration of DNA at desired regions, facilitating easy biological chassis. With an efficient genome editing tool, CRISPR/Cas9, the design, and development of plasmids have considerably improved, adding versatility to the scope of yeast systems as a biotechnological tool. Moreover, synthetic biology strategies are adopted to manipulate S. cerevisiae and design promoters, cloning plasmids, methods, etc., to benefit their diverse applications in biotechnology.
  • 808
  • 04 May 2023
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