Glycoalkaloids (α-chaconine and α-solanine) contents of selected Pakistani potato cultivars and their dietary intake assessment

Glycoalkaloids (α-solanine and α-chaconine) are naturally occurring toxic compounds in potato tuber (Solanum tuberosum L.) that cause acute intoxication in humans after their consumption. Present research was conducted to evaluate α-chaconine, α-solanine, and total glycoalkaloids (TGAs) contents in the peel and flesh portions by high-performance liquid chromatography method in selected Pakistani potato cultivars. The α-solanine content varies 45.98 ± 1.63 to 2742.60 ± 92.97 mg/100 g of dry weight (DW) in peel and from 4.01 ± 0.14 to 2466.56 ± 87.21 mg/100 g of DW in flesh. Similarly, α-chaconine content varied from 4.42 ± 0.16 to 6818.40 ± 211.07 mg/100 g of DW in potato peel and from 3.94 ± 0.14 to 475.33 ± 16.81 mg/100 g DW in flesh portion. The TGA concentration varied from 177.20 ± 6.26 to 5449.90 ± 192.68 mg/100 g of DW in peel and from 3.08 ± 0.11 to 14.69 ± 0.52 mg/100 g of DW in flesh portion of all the potato cultivars tested. All the potato cultivars contained lower concentration of TGA than the limits recommended as safe, except 2 cultivars, that is FD8-3 (2539.18 ± 89.77 mg/100 g of DW) and Cardinal (506.16 ± 17.90 mg/kg). The dietary intake assessment of potato cultivars revealed that Cardinal, FD 35-36, FD 8-3, and FD 3-9 contained higher amount of TGA in whole potato, although FD 8-3 only possessed higher content of TGA (154.93 ± 7.75) in its flesh portion rendering it unfit for human consumption. Practical Application: This paper was based on the research conducted on toxic compounds present in all possible potato cultivars in Pakistan. Actually, we quantify the toxic compounds (glycoalkaloids) of potato cultivars through HPLC and their dietary assessment. This paper revealed safety assessment and their application in food industries especially potato processing.     

Impact of Sodium Dichloroacetate Alone and in Combination Therapies on Lung Tumor Growth and Metastasis

Metabolic reprogramming has been recognized as an essential emerging cancer hallmark. Dichloroacetate (DCA), an inhibitor of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK), has been reported to have anti-cancer effects by reversing tumor-associated glycolysis. This study was performed to explore the anti-cancer potential of DCA in lung cancer alone and in combination with chemo- and targeted therapies using two non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines, namely, A549 and LNM35. DCA markedly caused a concentration- and time-dependent decrease in the viability and colony growth of A549 and LNM35 cells in vitro. DCA also reduced the growth of tumor xenografts in both a chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane and nude mice models in vivo. Furthermore, DCA decreased the angiogenic capacity of human umbilical vein endothelial cells in vitro. On the other hand, DCA did not inhibit the in vitro cellular migration and invasion and the in vivo incidence and growth of axillary lymph nodes metastases in nude mice. Treatment with DCA did not show any toxicity in chick embryos and nude mice. Finally, we demonstrated that DCA significantly enhanced the anti-cancer effect of cisplatin in LNM35. In addition, the combination of DCA with gefitinib or erlotinib leads to additive effects on the inhibition of LNM35 colony growth after seven days of treatment and to synergistic effects on the inhibition of A549 colony growth after 14 days of treatment. Collectively, this study demonstrates that DCA is a safe and promising therapeutic agent for lung cancer.     

On‐chip label‐free impedance‐based detection of antibiotic permeation

Biosensors are analytical tools used for the analysis of biomaterial samples and provide an understanding about the biocomposition, structure, and function of biomolecules and/or biomechanisms by converting the biological response into an electrical and/or optical signal. In particular, with the rise in antibiotic resistance amongst pathogenic bacteria, the study of antibiotic activity and transport across cell membranes in the field of biosensors has been gaining widespread importance. Herein, for the rapid and label‐free detection of antibiotic permeation across a membrane, a microelectrode integrated microfluidic device is presented. The integrated chip consists of polydimethylsiloxane based microfluidic channels bonded onto microelectrodes on‐glass and enables us to recognize the antibiotic permeation across a membrane into the model membranes based on electrical impedance measurement, while also allowing optical monitoring. Impedance testing is label free and therefore allows the detection of both fluorescent and non‐fluorescent antibiotics. As a model membrane, Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) are used and impedance measurements were performed by a precision inductance, capacitance, and resistance metre. The measured signal recorded from the device was used to determine the change in concentration inside and outside of the GUVs. We have found that permeation of antibiotic molecules can be easily monitored over time using the proposed integrated device. The results also show a clear difference between bilayer permeation that occurs through the lipidic bilayer and porin‐mediated permeation through the porin channels inserted in the lipid bilayer.     

Antibiotic susceptibility patterns of Enterococcus strains isolated from Turkish Tulum cheese

The aim of this study was to detect the plasmid profiles, haemolytic activity and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of 47 Enterococcus strains isolated from Turkish Tulum cheese. Enterococcus strains were found to comprise 1–9 plasmids with molecular weight from 2.0 to 47.6 kb. None of the Enterococcus strains displayed haemolytic activity. The Enterococcus strains were found mostly resistant to tetracycline (30 μg) followed by high‐level streptomycin (300 μg). The Enterococcus faecalis strains were found to be highly resistant to antibiotics than Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus durans strains. In total, 4.3% of the strains exhibited multiple antibiotic resistance patterns.     

Securing Cloud Storage by Remote DataIntegrity Check with Secured Key Generation

In recent decades, a number of protocols for Remote data integrity checking (RDIC) have been proposed.Identity (ID) based RDIC protocols are constructed to guarantee cloud data integrity and data privacy. The known protocols for RDIC always assume that the Private key generator (PKG) is a trusted one, but in real-world applications by corrupt PKG, malicious Cloud server (CS) can easily cheat the third party auditor that the data owner's outsourced data are kept safe through the data has been deleted or altered. In this paper, we explore the novel model of RDIC with untrusted PKG and malicious CS, by employing the partial key method and Authentication, authorization, accounting (AAA) service. We construct a new ID-based RDIC, which provides the ID revocation and key updation. The experimental evaluations show that our scheme is more efficient than known ones.     

Numerical sensitivity analysis of temperature-dependent reaction rate constants for optimized thermal conversion of high-density plastic waste into combustible fuels

The use of experimental rate constants for producing a high yield of liquid fuels from the pyrolysis of plastic waste is not widely accepted owing to a lack of compatibility between the different kinetic rate constants responsible for successful conversion reactions. In R software, the Arrhenius law can forecast the ideal combination of reaction rate constants and frequency factors and then perform sensitivity analysis on individual rate constants to estimate the selectivity and quantity of primary pyrolysis products. Sensitivity analysis is a way of determining the effectiveness of individual rate constants in the reaction. This research element is currently lacking in the literature for the cost-effective valorization of plastics into combustible fuels. We are the first to use R software to perform sensitivity analysis on specific rate constants by reducing or raising their initial values to a point where maximum oil yield is attainable in the temperature range of 340–370°C. The primary focus was to save time and cost of extracting empirical rate constants from experiments to produce commercial-scale pyrolytic oil. The H-abstraction, chain fission, polymerization, and scission reactions were chosen due to the high availability of free radicals for maximum oil production. The oil recovery rate improved drastically to 90% at the end of processing time, while the number of by-products gradually decreased. The k8 rate constant driven reaction is the best-suited condition for industrial-scale pyrolysis of high-density plastics into liquid fuels, with 74% improvement in oil production and 14% improvement in light wax during sensitivity analysis.