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Cline Swanson posted an update 1 year, 4 months ago
This article includes a general overview of the published research on a topic relevant to biomedical sciences research, pharma-industries and healthcare sector. We have presented a concise information on three enzymes. These biomolecules have been investigated for their biocatalytic activities beneficial in the detection of drugs and their metabolites present in micro-quantities in samples of blood, urine, and other body fluids, such as salicylate hydroxylase, and dihydrofolate reductase. Some enzymes are useful in biotransformation of compounds to convert them in an optically active form, such as lipase. The information presented in this article has been collected from the published studies on their catalytic function, and biosynthesis using selected microorganisms. Several diagnostic assays are currently using enzymes as effective biocatalysts to perform the detection-test. For the marketing and consumer’s convenience, pharmaceutical companies have designed biosensors and diagnostic kits by incorporating specific enzymes for rapid tests required in pathology, as well as for the quantification of certain metabolites and chemicals in pathology samples in a shorter time. For such purpose use of enzymes synthesized by selected specific microorganisms is economical.Exposure to wildfire smoke increases the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions. Health impact assessments, used to inform decision-making processes, characterize the health impacts of environmental exposures by combining preexisting epidemiological concentration-response functions (CRFs) with estimates of exposure. These two key inputs influence the magnitude and uncertainty of the health impacts estimated, but for wildfire-related impact assessments the extent of their impact is largely unknown. We first estimated the number of respiratory, cardiovascular, and asthma hospital admissions attributable to fire-originated PM2.5 exposure in central California during the October 2017 wildfires, using Monte Carlo simulations to quantify uncertainty with respect to the exposure and epidemiological inputs. We next conducted sensitivity analyses, comparing four estimates of fire-originated PM2.5 and two CRFs, wildfire and nonwildfire specific, to understand their impact on the estimation of excess admissions and sources of uncertainty. We estimate the fires accounted for an excess 240 (95% CI 114, 404) respiratory, 68 (95% CI -10, 159) cardiovascular, and 45 (95% CI 18, 81) asthma hospital admissions, with 56% of admissions occurring in the Bay Area. Although differences between impact assessment methods are not statistically significant, the admissions estimates’ magnitude is particularly sensitive to the CRF specified while the uncertainty is most sensitive to estimates of fire-originated PM2.5. Not accounting for the exposure surface’s uncertainty leads to an underestimation of the uncertainty of the health impacts estimated. Employing context-specific CRFs and using accurate exposure estimates that combine multiple data sets generates more certain estimates of the acute health impacts of wildfires.The rapid growth of inhalable cannabis concentrates raises questions about the safety of acute and chronic exposure to these aerosol mixtures. Due to the nonpolar nature of the aerosol mixture created from cannabis vapor cartridges, traditional aqueous-based capture methods used in e-cigarette or tobacco cigarette studies for analysis of metals are insufficient. Moreover, hydrophobic cannabis concentrates are not miscible with dilute aqueous acids and therefore not ideal for metal spiking unlike electronic nicotine delivery systems. This study describes a method of spiking nonaqueous matrices with aqueous metals standards to investigate aerosolization and recovery of the metals. It also compares various methods for nonpolar aerosol capture and subsequent analysis of 10 metals (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Sn) in two model cannabis matrices, flower and concentrate. Spiked cannabis concentrates were vaped in commercially available cartridges, and their aerosol mixtures were investigated for recovery of heavy metals via ICP-MS. Calcium folinate Spiked flower samples were also combusted to compare collection rates of the 10 metals. Results show that not all metals that are present in the concentrate or flower can be fully recovered in the aerosol capture processes at standard voltage settings or combustion temperatures. These studies also demonstrate the importance of a nonpolar solvent as part of the aerosol collection to increase the recovery of some metals. The high concentration of some metals seen in the concentrate suggests that the devices themselves are potential routes of exposure. The ICP-MS analysis method was further validated by evaluating different parameters including linearity, matrix effect, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, and repeatability.High-capacity and highly stable anode materials are some of the keys to the realization of the application of potassium-ion batteries (PIBs). Cobalt diselenide (CoSe2) has been regarded as a high-potential anode material for PIBs. However, solving the problems of sluggish kinetics and large volumetric expansion during intercalation/deintercalation of K+ ions is always very challenging in terms of cobalt diselenide-based anode materials. Herein, reduced graphene oxide-encapsulated polyphosphazene-derived S, P, and N codoped carbon (SPNC)-coated CoSe2 nanorods (CoSe2⊂SPNC⊂rGO) were designed as PIB anode materials. CoSe2⊂SPNC⊂rGO delivers an excellent reversible capacity of 287.2 mAh g-1 at 100 mA g-1. Benefiting from the coating of heteroatom-doped carbon and encapsulation of rGO, the CoSe2⊂SPNC⊂rGO anodes exhibit a remarkable rate capability (100-1500 mA g-1 current density) and high stability (208.8 mAh g-1 after 500 cycles at 500 mA g-1). The results demonstrate that S, P, and N codoping in carbon layers provides active sites for K+ ion storage and increases the electrical conductivity. More importantly, the dual confinement of CoSe2 nanorods with carbon layers and rGO significantly reduced the volume expansion and kept the electrode structural integrity with repeating intercalation/deintercalation of K+ ions.