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 Biotechnology

An experiment was carried out to assess the impact of gibberellic acid (GA3) and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) onquality attributes and shelf life of green chili cv. PKM-1. Out of 6 lots of sterilized chili samples, 3 lots were treated with 3 μM gibberellic acid (GA3) for 10 min. Then treated and untreated chili samples were packed under different modified atmosphere packaging (MAP): anti fog film (RD 45) and low density polyethylene (LDPE), and stored under low temperatures (8 ± 2 °C) in BOD incubator for 30 days. Chili samples treated with GA + RD extended the shelf life up to 30 days as compared GA + LDPE treated (25 days), while control, GA and C + LDPE samples had 10, 15 and 12 days of shelf life. Further, GA + RDtreatment was found more effective in preserving quality attributes (firmness, total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, antioxidant activity, total chlorophyll, total carotenoids, ascorbic acid, capsaicin content, pericarp color). Anti fog film RD 45 packed samples displayed optimal CO2/O2 gases composition and low respiration rate as compared to samples packed in LDPE film hence extending the shelf life of green chili. Principal component analysis also indicates the synergetic effect of GA3 and MAP in improving the quality attributes of green chili. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.

World University root node

School of Bio Sciences and Technology

Vellore Campus

Scientia Horticulturae

Exogenous gibberellic acid treatment extends green chili shelf life and maintain quality under modified atmosphere packaging

Oxidative damage caused by free radicals is an inevitable and pervasive phenomenon that leads to cell damage and the emergence of diseases including ageing, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disorders. In this context, antioxidants play a significant role in encountering free radicals by delaying or reducing the oxidative damage of cells. Evidence suggests that synthetic antioxidants are double-edged swords wherefore the requirement for natural antioxidants is increasing globally. Exploring non-toxic, biodegradable and compatible natural molecules like exopolysaccharides can favour the current antioxidant limitations. Microbial exopolysaccharides represent a structurally diverse class of carbohydrate molecules secreted at the cell wall. Recently, bioprospecting exopolysaccharides for their astounding physiochemical properties and the reliable structure-activity relationship have motivated more research towards the investigation of their antioxidant properties. Here we propose that structural features of exopolysaccharides such as monosaccharide residues, branching, molecular weight, glycosidic linkage, functional groups, protein, selenium, and chemical modifications are likely to influence their antioxidant activity. To support this hypothesis we review the interdependence of structural features of exopolysaccharides to the observed antioxidant activity. In light of its importance, this review focuses on the understanding of the elimination of free radicals by microbial exopolysaccharides derived from marine and nonmarine sources during the last six years. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd

VIT Unitversity

Carbohydrate Research

Structural features of microbial exopolysaccharides in relation to their antioxidant activity

Artificial intelligence has illustrated drastic changes in radiology and medical imaging techniques which in turn led to tremendous changes in screening patterns. In particular, advancements in these techniques led to the development of computer aided detection (CAD) strategy. These approaches provided highly accurate diagnostic reports which served as a "second-opinion"to the radiologists. However, with significant advancements in artificial intelligence strategy, the diagnostic and classifying capabilities of CAD system are meeting the levels of radiologists and clinicians. Thus, it shifts the CAD system from second opinion approach to a high utility tool. This article reviews the strategies and algorithms developed using artificial intelligence for the foremost cancer diagnosis and classification which overcomes the challenges in the traditional method. In addition, the possible direction of AI in medical aspects is also discussed in this study. © 2020 the Author(s).

Fulltext

BioMedicine (Taiwan)

A review on recent advancements in diagnosis and classification of cancers using artificial intelligence

Hyperthermophiles, a subset of prokaryotes that thrive in adverse temperatures, potentially utilize the protein molecular biosystem for maintaining thermostability in a wide range of temperatures. Recent studies revealed that these organisms have smaller proportions of intrinsically disordered proteins. In this study, we performed sequence and structural analysis to investigate the maintenance of protein conformation and their stability at different temperatures. The sequence analysis reveals the higher proportion of charged amino acids are responsible for preventing the helix formation and, hence, become disordered regions. For structural analysis, we chose shikimate dehydrogenase from four species, namely Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Thermus thermophilus, and Methanopyrus kandleri, and evaluated the protein adaptation at 283 K, 300 K, and 395 K temperatures. From this investigation, we found more residues of shikimate dehydrogenase prefer an order-to-disorder transition at 395 K only for hyperthermophilic species. The solvent-accessible surface area (SASA) and hydrogen-bond analysis revealed that the tertiary conformation and the number of hydrogen bonds for hyperthermophilic shikimate dehydrogenase are highly preserved at 395 K, compared to 300 K. Our simulation results conjointly provide shikimate dehydrogenase of hyperthermophile which resists high temperatures through stronger protein tertiary conformations. © 2020, Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature.

Extremophiles

Statistical and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation approach to investigate the role of intrinsically disordered regions of shikimate dehydrogenase in microorganisms surviving at different temperatures

The authors regret that the First Author affiliation was mistakenly provided as aDepartment of Biotechnology, Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai 600116, India and it should read as aBioinformatics Division, School of Biosciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore, India The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. © 2020

Gene Reports

Corrigendum to “Functional and structural characterization of deleterious nsSNPs of cyp19a1 based on binding affinity and stability - A computational approach” [Gene Reports. Volume 5, December 2016, Pages 34 - 39] (Gene Reports (2016) 5 (34–39), (S2452014416300541), (10.1016/j.genrep.2016.08.004))

India is the largest producers of fruits and vegetables, and most are being thrown away because of spoilage, due to lack of adequate cold storage facilities or refrigerated transport. As fruit and vegetables contains lots of water, as a result they are prone to microbes which could easily grow and multiple hence resulting to spoilage. This work provides a review about the production of citric acid which is produced in tonnage and is extensively used in food & Pharmaceutical industry. In this study bacterial and fungal species are isolated from the spoiled part of the fruits and vegetables by various methods to have a pure culture of microbes and undergone submerged fermentation with a suitable fermentation media for production of critic acid by optimizing various factors like carbon source, temperature, pH, incubation time to recover maximum production. Then the final product is recovered and a comparative analysis was done between the amount of production of citric acid by bacterial species and fungal species. © IJSTR 2020.

International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research

Citric acid fermentation from spoiled fruits and vegetables

Microbial asymmetric reduction of ketone is an efficient tool for the synthesis of chiral alcohols. This research focuses on exploring the soil fungal isolates for their ability toward the keto reduction of acetophenone and its derivatives to their corresponding chiral alcohols using growing cells. Bioreduction of acetophenone, 4-fluoro acetophenone, 4-methyl acetophenone, and 3-hydroxy acetophenone was carried out using different fungal cultures isolated from soil. Among the fungal isolates, Penicillium sp. and Aspergillus sp. showed significant bioconversion with varying enantio-selectivity. However, the Penicillium sp. has shown the maximum ability of bioreduction. The potential isolate was characterized using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and found to be Penicillium rubens VIT SS1 (Genbank accession number: MK063869.1), which showed higher conversion and selectivity > 90%. The biocatalyst production and the reaction conditions were optimized using Taguchi analysis. The process conditions such as pH, temperature, media components, cosolvent, and substrate dosing were evaluated for the bioreduction of 3-hydroxy acetophenone, which is a key chiral intermediate of Phenylephrine and Rivastigmine using P. rubens VIT SS1. This study concludes about the potential of fungal cultures for sustainable synthesis of key chiral intermediates of Phenylephrine and Rivastigmine, similarly many aromatic chiral alcohols in simpler, novel, and cost-effective manner. © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Preparative Biochemistry and Biotechnology

Taguchi analysis and asymmetric keto-reduction of acetophenone and its derivatives by soil filamentous fungal isolate: Penicillium rubens VIT SS1

Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhi, a human enteric pathogen causing typhoid fever, developed resistance to multiple antibiotics over the years. The current study was dedicated to understand the multi-drug resistance (MDR) mechanism of S. enterica serovar Typhi CT18 and to identify potential drug targets that could be exploited for new drug discovery. We have employed gene interaction network analysis for 44 genes which had 275 interactions. Clustering analysis resulted in three highly interconnecting clusters (C1–C3). Functional enrichment analysis revealed the presence of drug target alteration and three different multi-drug efflux pumps in the bacteria that were associated with antibiotic resistance. We found seven genes (arnA,B,C,D,E,F,T) conferring resistance to Cationic Anti-Microbial Polypeptide (CAMP) molecules by membrane Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) modification, while macB was observed to be an essential controlling hub of the network and played a crucial role in MacAB-TolC efflux pump. Further, we identified five genes (mdtH, mdtM, mdtG, emrD and mdfA) which were involved in Major Facilitator Superfamily (MFS) efflux system and acrAB contributed towards AcrAB-TolC efflux pump. All three efflux pumps were seen to be highly dependent on tolC gene. The five genes, namely tolC, macB, acrA, acrB and mdfA which were involved in multiple resistance pathways, can act as potential drug targets for successful treatment strategies. Therefore, this study has provided profound insights into the MDR mechanism in S. Typhi CT18. Our results will be useful for experimental biologists to explore new leads for S. enterica. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Department of Bio-Sciences

Microbial Pathogenesis

Gene interaction network studies to decipher the multi-drug resistance mechanism in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi CT18 reveal potential drug targets

Resistance to antibiotics have created havoc around the globe due to the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogenic bacterial strains. To decipher this problem, a detailed understanding of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes and their resistant mechanisms are obligatory. The present study is mainly focused on an opportunistic, nosocomial bacterial strain Enterococcus faecalis V583, which possess acquired exogenous AMR genes portraying resistance against Chloramphenicol, Tetracycline, Vancomycin, Linezolid, Ampicillin and other antibiotics. An interaction network of eight AMR genes along with 40 functional partners have been constructed and analysed. Functional enrichment analysis highlighted 20, 21 and 22 genes having significant roles in Cellular Component (CC), Molecular Functions (MF) and Biological Process (BP) respectively. Clustering analysis resulted in four densely interconnected clusters (C1-C4) which were associated with three AMR mechanisms that include the alteration in drug target (pbps, mur and van genes), complete replacement/bypass of target sites (van genes) and ATP Binding Cassette (ABC) transporter efflux pump mechanisms (msrA, EF_1680, EF_1682 and pbps). Our results showed that the genes responsible for β-lactams resistance (pbp1A, 1C, 2A, 2B); glycopeptide resistance (ddl, vanBHBRBSBWXYB); Erythromycin, Macrolides, Lincosamide and Streptogramin-B (MLSB) resistance (msrA, EF_1680, EF_1682) along with mur genes (murABBCDEFG) played an important role in MDR mechanisms. Network analysis has shown the genes mraY, pbpC, murE, murG and murD possessed 26, 24, 23, 22 and 22 interactions respectively. With more number of direct interactions, these genes can be considered as hub genes that could be exploited as potential drug targets for new drug discovery. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.

Gene

Elucidating the multi-drug resistance mechanism of Enterococcus faecalis V583: A gene interaction network analysis

Carotenoids and their metabolites play crucial roles in human health such as in immunity, cell differentiation, embryonic development, maintenance of plasma membrane integrity, and gastrointestinal functions, in addition to counteracting night blindness and other eye-related diseases. However, carotenoid bioavailability is highly variable and often low. The bioavailability of β-carotene, among the most frequently consumed carotenoid from the diet, is determined by food matrix related factors such as carotenoid dose, its location in food the matrix, the physical state in food, the presence of other food compounds in the matrix such as dietary fiber, dietary lipids, other micronutrients present such as minerals, and food processing, influencing also the size of food particles, and the presence of absorption inhibitors (fat replacers and anti-obesity drugs) or enhancers (nano-/micro-formulations). However, also host-related factors such as physiochemical interactions by gastrointestinal secretions (enzyme and salts) and other host-related factors such as surgery, age, disease, obesity, and genetic variations have shown to play a role. This review contributes to the knowledge regarding factors affecting the bioavailability of β-carotene (food and host-relegated), as well as highlights in vitro models employed to evaluate β-carotene bioavailability aspects. © 2020 Hogrefe Verlag.