Can glycoprofiling be helpful in detecting prostate cancer?

Glycans are chains of carbohydrates attached to proteins (glycoproteins and proteoglycans) or lipids (glycolipids). Glycosylation is a post-translational modification and glycans have a wide range of functions in the human body including involvement in oncological diseases. Change in a glycan structure can not only indicate the presence of a pathological process but, more importantly, in some cases also its stage. Thus, a glycan analysis has the potential to be an effective and reliable tool in cancer diagnostics. Lectins are proteins responsible for natural biorecognition of glycans; even carbohydrate moieties still attached to proteins or whole cells can be recognised by lectins, which makes them an ideal candidate for designing label-free biosensors for glycan analysis. This review seeks to summarise evidence that the glycoprofiling of biomarkers by lectin-based biosensors can be of significant help in detecting prostate cancer.     

Amino-calixarene-modified graphitic carbon as a novel electrochemical interface for simultaneous measurement of lead and cadmium ions at picomolar level

Amino-calixarene-derivatized graphitic carbon electrode has been used in the simultaneous quantification of lead and cadmium ions at picomolar level. The graphitic carbon has been chemically modified using amino-calixarene as an indicator molecule through microwave irradiation, and it has been characterized by NMR, mass, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) techniques. The proposed sensor has shown linearity in the concentration range 10–120 pM with detection limits of 3.3 and 3.5 pM for lead and cadmium, respectively. The proposed sensor has been successfully applied to quantify lead and cadmium levels in battery effluents, alloy materials, and sewage water sample matrices. The results obtained by the proposed sensor are in agreement with the results of the standard protocols.     

Evaluating a time-delay of hydrogen production quantitatively in photosynthetic bacteria for stabilizing intermittency

Renewable energy is regarded as a clean energy source but has some problems, one of which is intermittency. To reduce this, the time-delay of hydrogen production by photosynthetic bacteria can be effective. In this study, we qualitatively evaluated the time-delay of hydrogen production by photosynthetic bacteria under various irradiation conditions, and we also quantitatively evaluated it by fitting the experimental data and the hydrogen production model with a genetic algorithm. As a result of model fitting, we found that the relationship between the lengths of the optimized time-delay of hydrogen production by photosynthetic bacteria and the amount of light irradiation is linear. And we also found that the time-delay of hydrogen production by photosynthetic bacteria had an upper limit under low light intensity. We have suggested the existence of an energy store mechanism in photosynthetic bacteria.     

Chemical characterisation of bioactive compounds in Medicago sativa growing in the desert of Oman

Medicago sativa Linn growing in Omani desert were chemically characterised using flame photometry, inductively coupled plasma, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) analysis. HPLC analyses were performed to determine the phenolics and flavonoids present in M. sativa. The major compounds detected in M. sativa leaves were protchaechenic acid (3.22%), hydroxyl benzoic acid (1.05%), β-Phenyl caffate (0.97%) and kaempherol (0.89%). Pterostilbene, a cholesterol-lowering compound, was detected in M. sativa.     

Narrowband polarization entangled paired photons with controllable temporal length

Quantum networks strongly depend on the efficient interactions between flying photonic quantum bits and local long-lived atomic matter nodes. To achieve the efficient quantum interfaces between polarization-encoding photons and spin-encoding atoms, polarization-entangled paired photons with a bandwidth narrower than the natural linewidth of the atoms are highly required. In this paper, we review the generation of subnatural-linewidth polarization-entangled paired photons through spontaneous four-wave mixing with cold atoms, which is very suitable for the application of quantum networks.