Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is a private university located in&nbsp;Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 1984, as Vellore Engineering College, the institution offers 20 undergraduate, 34 postgraduate, four integrated and four research programs. It has campuses in Vellore, Amravati, Bhopal and Chennai.

VIT is one of the top ranked private universities in India according to NIRF, THE and QS Rankings.&nbsp;Govt. of India has recognized&nbsp;VIT, Vellore as an&nbsp;Institution of Eminence. This has allowed VIT to take independent quality initiatives and move up in world ranking.

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VIT University

Department of Bio-Medical Sciences

World University root node

School of Bio Sciences and Technology

Vellore Campus

Advances in Energy Research

Flocculation–Solar Distillation—an Integrated Energy-Efficient Technology for Desalination of Seawater

Aloe vera is an important commodity plant which has been traditionally used for the treatment of various diseases. This study investigated the use of extracted bioflocculant from Aloe vera for the treatment of textile wastewater. The bioflocculant was extracted, purified and characterized using GC-MS, FTIR, SEM, AFM, EDX and XRD analysis. It was mainly composed of carbohydrate (19.5{\%}) and protein (6.0{\%}). Box-Behnken design (BBD), using 3 level-3 variables, was employed to enhance the decolorization process by optimizing the effect of various factors. A significant enhancement from 62.50±0.1 to 82.01±0.8{\%} in decolorization of wastewater was observed under optimized conditions viz. bioflocculant dosage (60 mg/L), pH (5.0) and contact time (180 min). A quadratic polynomial model was adequate beside the actual statistics at an R2 value of 0.99 for the response decolorization {\%} and was in good agreement with the predicted value (82.01±0.1{\%}) obtained by the RSM model. The results of the present investigation demonstrated that Aloe vera mucilage can serve as a promising bioflocculant with high removal efficiency for solids, colour and dye from wastewater. To the best of our information, this is the first report on the use of Aloe vera mucilage as a natural bioflocculant for the treatment of dye-bearing wastewater.

Fulltext

Water Science and Technology

Application of Aloe vera mucilage as bioflocculant for the treatment of textile wastewater: Process optimization

Fermented Food Products

Fermented Soybean Food Products as Sources of Protein-rich Diet: An overview

Pyrethrin is one of the oldest and widely used insecticides in India which contains six esters derived from two acids and three alcohols. They are derived from dried and crushed flowers of Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium. Pyrethroids are synthetic derivatives of pyrethrin. These are classified as ‘likely to be human carcinogen’ by the Environment Protection Act as they were reported to cause thyroid tumor in laboratory tests. The wide use of pyrethroids has led to permanent occurrence in the environment, especially in soils where they can be toxic to target or non target organisms. Due to their estrogenic and antiprogestogenic activities, it is important to eliminate or minimize the concentration of pyrethroids from the environment. Microbial approaches have emerged as a solution to counter the toxicity of pyrethroids. It is one of the safest, least disruptive, reliable and cost effective technique. The natural degradation of pyrethroids leads to the formation of intermediate 3-phenoxy benzoic acid, causing secondary pollution of agricultural products. Many studies have revealed the different strains of microorganisms that are capable of degrading pyrethroids and their degradation pathways. The current chapter deals with the brief discussion about pyrethroid exposure, toxicity, effects and their application in different field. A detailed insight of microbial mediated transformation of pyrethroids has been discussed. © 2020 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Pyrethroids: Exposure, Applications and Resistance

Microbial mediated transformation of synthetic pyrethroids

Journal of reproductive immunology

The role of Interleukin-4 in COVID-19 associated male infertility--a hypothesis: running title: IL-4 and its role in COVID-19 associated male infertility

The authors report a novel, effective and enhanced method of conjugating anticancer drug, paclitaxel and gallic acid with magnetosomes. Here, anticancer drugs were functionalised with magnetosomes membrane by direct and indirect (via crosslinkers: Glutaraldehyde and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane) adsorption methods. The prepared magnetosome-drug conjugates were characterised by Fourier transform infrared, zeta potential, field-emission scanning electron microscope and thermogravimetric analysis/differential scanning calorimetry. The drug-loading efficiency and capacity were found to be 87.874% for paclitaxel (MP) and 71.3% for gallic acid (MG), respectively as calculated by ultraviolet spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography. The drug release demonstrated by the diffusion method in phosphate buffer (PBS), showing a prolonged drug release for MP and MG, respectively. The cytotoxicity effect of the MP and MG displayed cytotoxicity of 69.71%, 55.194% against HeLa and MCF-7 cell lines, respectively. The reactive oxygen species, acridine orange and ethidium bromide and 4, 6- diamidino-2-phenylindole staining of the drug conjugates revealed the apoptotic effect of MP and MG. Further, the regulation of tumour suppressor protein, p53 was determined by western blotting which showed an upregulation of p53. Comparatively, the magnetosome-drug conjugates prepared by direct adsorption achieved the best effects on the drug-loading efficiency and the increased percentage of cancer cell mortality and the upregulation of P53. The proposed research ascertains that magnetosomes could be used as effective nanocarriers in cancer therapy. © 2020 Institution of Engineering and Technology. All rights reserved.

IET Nanobiotechnology

Preparation and characterisation of magnetosomes based drug conjugates for cancer therapy

Listeriosis through contaminated food is one of the leading causes of premature deaths in pregnant women and new born babies. Here, the authors have developed a magnetosomes-based biosensor for the rapid, sensitive, specific and costeffective detection of Listeria monocytogenes from food sample. Magnetosomes were extracted from Magnetospirillum sp. RJS1 and then directly bound to anti-Listeriolysin antibody (0.25-1 μg/ml), confirmed in spectroscopy. Listeriolysin (LLO) protein (0.01-7 μg/ml) was optimised in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Magnetosomes was conjugated with LLO antibody (0.25 μg/ml) in optimum concentration to detect LLO protein (0.01 μg/ml). Magnetosomes-LLO antibody complex was 25% cost effective. The magnetosomes-LLO antibody complex was directly stabilised on screen printed electrode using external magnet. The significant increase in resistance (RCT value) on the electrode surface with increase in concentration of LLO protein was confirmed in impedance spectroscopy. The L. monocytogenes contaminated milk and water sample were processed and extracted LLO protein was detected in the biosensor. The specificity of the biosensor was confirmed in cross-reactivity assay with other food pathogens. The detection limit of 101 Cfu/ml in both water and milk sample manifests the sensitive nature of the biosensor. The capture efficiency and field emission scanning electron microscopy confirmed positive interaction of Listeria cells with magnetosomes-antibody complex. © 2020 Institution of Engineering and Technology. All rights reserved.

Development of magnetosomes-based biosensor for the detection of Listeria monocytogenes from food sample

This study was aimed to isolate the endophytic bacteria and fungi from the fruit and root of Musa Paradisiaca, commonly called as Nendran banana cul-tivar in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Endophytes are microbes living in plant tissue without harming the plants rather existing as potential beneficial organisms. Musa paradisiaca is a less explored variety of banana culti-var which possess anti-disease potential apart from nutritional quality. The total number of twelve root and fruit associated endophytes were isolated. The fruit associated endophytes were seven with four bacterial isolates and three fungal isolates. The number of root-associated endophytes were five with three bacterial isolates and two fungal isolates. The morphological char-acterisation of both root and fruit endophytes were performed by Gram staining for bacteria and lacto-phenol cotton blue staining for fungi. The bacterial colony examination of the fruit associated culture revealed a specific pink strain with an inhibitory zone proving antibacterial activity which was further investigated through agar well diffusion test. The strain exhibited potential antibacterial activity against five human clinical pathogens. A significant zone of inhibition was observed against Bacillus subtilis (22 mm), Escherichia coli (21 mm), Klebsiella pneumonia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (18 mm) which confirmed the potential antibacterial property of the fruit endophytic strain. © 2020, J. K. Welfare and Pharmascope Foundation. All rights reserved.

International Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences

Antibacterial activity of endophytes from musa paradisiaca

The present study reports the synthesis of a porous Fe-based MOF named MIL-100(Fe) by a modified hydrothermal method without the HF process. The synthesis gave a high surface area with the specific surface area calculated to be 2551 m2 g-1 and a pore volume of 1.407 cm3 g-1 with an average pore size of 1.103 nm. The synthesized electrocatalyst having a high surface area is demonstrated as an excellent electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction investigated in both acidic and alkaline media. As desired, the electrochemical results showed low Tafel slopes (53.59 and 56.65 mV dec-1), high exchange current densities (76.44 and 72.75 mA cm-2), low overpotentials (148.29 and 150.57 mV), and long-term stability in both media, respectively. The high activity is ascribed to the large surface area of the synthesized Fe-based metal-organic framework with porous nature. Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society.

Centre for Nanotechnology Research

ACS Omega

Highly Porous MIL-100(Fe) for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) in Acidic and Basic Media

Hydrogen is one of the sustainable and promising carriers for the renewable electricity storage. In this context, Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) takes regained interest than the Oxygen evolution reaction. Besides the noble metals, carbon based materials are found to be effective for catalyzing these reactions. The metal encapsulated with graphitic layers shows good activities towards HER. In the present work, cuprous oxide encapsulated with graphitic carbon nitride was synthesized and further structural and morphological properties were analyzed by XRD, SEM and BET. The as synthesized Cu2O/g-C3N4 served as electrodes for electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction. The synthesized Cu2O/g-C3N4 composites show better electrochemical surface area and enhanced electrocatalytic behavior (148.7 mV over-potential with an exchange current density of 12.8 mA cm−2 and a Tafel slope 55 mV/dec) in alkaline medium. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.