Spectroscopic assessment of biomolecular changes in Helicobacter pylori and Epstein–Barr virus co-infected gastric epithelial cells

Helicobacter pylori and Epstein–Barr Virus (EBV) are Group 1 carcinogens that can enhance gastric cancer progression. Bioactive substances extracted from plants can be effective therapeutic agents in cancer treatment. For example, Withania somnifera extract-WSE reduces the Gankyrin oncoprotein, which is upregulated in the presence of H. pylori and EBV. The various biochemical and metabolic changes upon 24 hrs post-infection followed by W. somnifera extract (WSE) treatment on gastric epithelial cells (AGS) can be studied using spectroscopic techniques. In the biomedical sciences, Raman and NMR spectroscopy have been extensively employed to interpret cellular alterations contributing to the onset of infection and the severity of gastric cancer. More specifically, alterations in cellular biochemical homeostasis are linked to the moieties of cholesterol, collagen, choline, carbohydrate, lipids, tyrosine, and phenylalanine. Further, we have found significantly elevated FWHM for carbohydrates, tumor associated protein, collagen, cholesterol, and cholesterol ester in the co-infection model. We also looked into the potential correlation between these molecules using molecular network analysis and found several related factors that can be modulated through biomolecular levels. These molecules are crucial in several physiological functions, including cell division, cell proliferation, apoptosis, necrosis, cell migration, and lipid transport. Our study paves the pathway to study H. pylori and EBV co-infection in human gastric epithelial cells and the therapeutic interventions of WSE in this scenario and highlights specific biomolecular alterations, which can be focused for further mechanistic investigations.     

Nanoscale Mapping of the Conductivity and Interfacial Capacitance of an Electrolyte-Gated Organic Field-Effect Transistor under Operation

Probing nanoscale electrical properties of organic semiconducting materials at the interface with an electrolyte solution under externally applied voltages is key in the field of organic bioelectronics. It is demonstrated that the conductivity and interfacial capacitance of the active channel of an electrolyte-gated organic field-effect transistor (EGOFET) under operation can be probed at the nanoscale using scanning dielectric microscopy in force detection mode in liquid environment. Local electrostatic force versus gate voltage transfer characteristics are obtained on the device and correlated with the global current–voltage transfer characteristics of the EGOFET. Nanoscale maps of the conductivity of the semiconducting channel show the dependence of the channel conductivity on the gate voltage and its variation along the channel due to the space charge limited conduction. The maps reveal very small electrical heterogeneities, which correspond to local interfacial capacitance variations due to an ultrathin non-uniform insulating layer resulting from a phase separation in the organic semiconducting blend. Present results offer insights into the transduction mechanism at the organic semiconductor/electrolyte interfaces at scales down to ≈100 nm, which can bring substantial optimization of organic electronic devices for bioelectronic applications such as electrical recording on excitable cells or label-free biosensing.     

Surface structure of magnetite (111) under hydrated conditions by crystal truncation rod diffraction

X-ray crystal truncation rod (CTR) diffraction under hydrated conditions at circum-neutral pH was used to determine the surface structure of Fe₃O₄(111) following a wet chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) preparation method. The best-fit model to the CTR data shows the presence of two oxygen terminated domains that are chemically inequivalent and symmetrically distinct in the surface contribution ratio of 75% oxygen octahedral-iron (OOI) termination (^aO_2.61–^aO_1.00–^oh1Fe_2.55–^bO_1.00–^bO_3.00–^td1Fe_1.00–^oh2Fe_1.00–^td2Fe_1.00–R) to 25% oxygen mixed-iron (OMI) termination (^bO_1.00–^bO_3.00–^td1Fe₀–^oh2Fe_1.00–^td2Fe_1.00–^aO_3.00–^aO_1.00–^oh1Fe_3.00–R). An adsorbed water layer could not be constrained in the best-fit model. However, bond-valence analyses suggest that both of the surfaces are hydro-oxo terminated. Furthermore, the topmost iron layers of both domains are inferred to be occupied with the redox active Fe²⁺ and Fe³⁺ cations indicating that these irons are the principle irons involved in controlling the surface reactivity of magnetite in industrial and environmentally relevant conditions.     

DNA-Origami-Based Assembly of Au@Ag Nanostar Dimer Nanoantennas for Label-Free Sensing of Pyocyanin

Early-stage detection of diseases caused by pathogens is a prerequisite for expedient patient care. Due to the limited signal-to-noise ratio, molecular diagnostics needs molecular signal amplification after recognition of the target molecule. In this present study, we demonstrate the design of plasmonically coupled bimetallic Ag coated Au nanostar dimers with controlled nanogap using rectangular DNA origami. We further report the utility of the designed nanostar dimer structures as efficient SERS substrate for the ultrasensitive and label-free detection of the pyocyanin molecule, which is a biomarker of the opportunistic pathogenic bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The experimental results showed that the detection limit of pyocyanin with such nanoantenna based biosensor was 335 pM, which is much lower than the clinical range of detection. Thus, fast, sensitive and label-free detection of pyocyanin at ultralow concentration in an infected human body can pave a facile route for early stage warning for severe bacterial infections.     

Enantioresolution of Amino Acids: A Decade’s Perspective,Prospects and Challenges

Both from academic and industrial points of view enantioseparation of dl-amino acids continues to be a subject of immense importance and enjoys a great analytical significance in various fields, such as in the studies of fossils, origin of life, disease diagnosis, quality of food and beverages, etc. The present paper is a topical collection of recent advances along with a discussion on possible challenges in chiral amino acid analysis and is intended to present the existing state of knowledge on the topic as a particular facet of chromatography (and electrophoretic techniques). It presents a critical overview of the state-of-the-art of the topic, with critically selected examples to point the reader to trends and likely future developments and to give a selection of important references to the current literature.

     

Phase evolution of strontium bismuth niobate ceramics by conventional solid-state reaction method

In the present study, formation of single-phase Strontium Bismuth Niobate (SBN) composition is investigated and the phase evolution is understood by studying the reaction mechanism between the raw materials and their combinations. The ceramics compositions were prepared using conventional solid-state reaction method. TG/DTA studies of all the constituents of SBN and the combination of its components have been carried out. X ray diffraction studies reveal the evolution of different phases among the raw powders thermally treated in different temperature ranges. FTIR studies reveal how different phases evolve as a function of calcination temperature. In the present study, an attempt is made to understand the effect of thermal treatment on the reaction mechanism for the formation of single-phase SBN.

     

3T‐FASDM: Linear discriminant analysis‐based three‐tier face anti‐spoofing detection model using support vector machine

In recent years, to solve the problem of face spoofing, momentous work has been done in this field, but still, there is a need for establishing counter measures to the biometric spoofing attacks. Although trained and evaluated on different databases, impressive results have been achieved in existing face anti‐spoofing techniques, but biometric authentication is a very significant problem as imposters are using lots of reconstructed samples or fake synthetic material or structure that can be used for various attack purposes. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, this paper explains the security for face anti‐spoofing detection using linear discriminant analysis and validates the results by calculating HTER and accuracy on different databases (i.e., REPLAY ATTACK and CASIA). The proposed model, that is, three‐tier face anti‐spoofing detection model (3T‐FASDM), is used for the detection of the fake biometric user and works well for real‐time applications. The proposed methods tested on a set of state‐of‐the‐art anti‐spoofing features for the face mode gives a very low degree of complexity as 26 general image quality measures are applied to differentiate among legitimate and imposter samples. The outcomes obtained from publically available data show that this technique has improved performance and accuracy by analyzing the HTER and machine learning classifiers that are helpful to differentiate among real and fake traits.     

ElectroBlocks: A blockchain‐based energy trading scheme for smart grid systems

Smart grid systems are widely used across the world for providing demand response management between users and service providers. In most of the energy distributions scenarios, the traditional grid systems use the centralized architecture, which results in large transmission losses and high overheads during power generation. Moreover, owing to the presence of intruders or attackers, there may be a mismatch between demand and supply between utility centers (suppliers) and end users. Thus, there is a need for an automated energy exchange to provide secure and reliable energy trading between users and suppliers. We found, from the existing literature, that blockchain can be an effective solution to handle the aforementioned issues. Motivated by these facts, we propose a blockchain‐based smart energy trading scheme, ElectroBlocks, which provides efficient mechanisms for secure energy exchanges between users and service providers. In ElectroBlocks, nodes in the network validate the transaction using two algorithms that are cost aware and store aware. The cost‐aware algorithm locates the nearest node that can supply the energy, whereas the store‐aware algorithm ensures that the energy requests go to the node with the lowest storage space. We evaluated the performance of the ElectroBlocks using performance metrics such as mining delay, network exchanges, and storage energy. The simulation results obtained demonstrate that ElectroBlocks maintains a secure trade‐off between users and service providers when using the proposed cost‐aware and store‐aware algorithms.