<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

(SoNS) School of Natural Sciences

Understanding the folding pathway of any protein is of utmost importance for deciphering the folding problems under adverse conditions. We can obtain important information about the folding pathway by monitoring the folding of any protein from its unfolded state. It is usually very difficult to monitor the folding process in real time as the process is generally very fast, and we need a suitable read out. In this protocol, we have solved this issue by using a protein that is non-fluorescent in its unfolded state but fluoresces in its native state after folding. The kinetics of refolding can be monitored by following the increase in fluorescence in real time. Previously, this was generally achieved by either monitoring a protein's enzymatic activity or measuring the tryptophan fluorescence, where the signal output depends on well-described enzymatic activity or the frequency of tryptophan residues present in the proteins, respectively. Here, we describe a simple and real-time assay to monitor the refolding of sGFP, a recently described slow-folding mutant of yeGFP (yeast enhanced GFP). We unfold this protein using chemical denaturant and refold in a suitable buffer, monitoring the increase in fluorescence over time. GFP is fluorescent only when correctly folded; thus, using this technique, we can measure the true rate of protein refolding by following the increase in fluorescence over time. Therefore, sGFP can be used as an ideal model to study the in vitro protein folding process. Accordingly, the effects of different conditions and molecules on the protein folding pathway can be efficiently studied using sGFP as a model protein. © 2021 The Authors.

World University root node

Life Sciences

Bio-protocol

Protocol for spontaneous and chaperonin-assisted in vitro refolding of a slow-folding mutant of gfp, sgfp

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a common group of neurodevelopmental disorders which causes significant alterations in social and communication skills along with repetitive behavior and limited interests. The physiological understanding of ASD is ambiguous. Several reports suggested that environmental, genetic and epigenetic changes, neuroinflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction and metabolic alterations orchestrate the pathological outcomes of ASD. A recent report from Saudi Arabia found a mutation in X-chromosomal housekeeping glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) gene in two male ASD patients. Although, the involvement of G6PD-deficiency in the pathogenesis of ASD is poorly understood. Several reports suggested that G6PD deficiency impedes cellular detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which may result in neuronal damage and neuroinflammation. A deficiency of G6PD in newborn children may play a fundamental role in the pathogenesis of ASD. In this review, we will discuss the implications of G6PD deficiency in pathogenesis, male biasness and theranostics in ASD patients. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.

Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - Molecular Basis of Disease

Role of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency and its association to Autism Spectrum Disorders

A cellular membrane, primarily a lipid bilayer, surrounds the internal components of a biological cell from the external components. This self-assembled bilayer is known to be perturbed by ionic liquids (ILs) causing malfunctioning of a cellular organism. In the present study, surface-sensitive X-ray scattering techniques have been employed to understand this structural perturbation in a lipid multilayer system formed by a zwitterionic phospholipid, 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine. The ammonium and phosphonium-based ILs with methanesulfonate anions are observed to induce phase-separated domains in the plane of a bilayer. The lamellar X-ray diffraction peaks suggest these domains to correlate across the bilayers in a smectic liquid crystalline phase. This induced IL-rich lamellar phase has a very low lamellar repeat distance, suggesting the formation of an interdigitated bilayer. The IL-poor phase closely related to the pristine lipid phase shows a decrement in the in-plane chain lattice parameters with a reduced tilt angle. The ammonium and phosphonium-based ILs with a relatively bulky anion, p-toluenemethanesulfonate, have shown a similar effect. © 2021 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.

Physics

Fulltext

ACS Omega

Ionic liquid-induced phase-separated domains in lipid multilayers probed by x-ray scattering studies

Due to their outstanding and versatile properties, polybenzoxazines have quickly occupied a great niche of applications. Developing the ability to polymerize benzoxazine resin at lower temperatures than the current capability is essential in taking advantage of these exceptional properties and remains to be most challenging subject in the field. The current review is classified into several parts to achieve this goal. In this review, fundamentals on the synthesis and evolution of structure, which led to classification of PBz in different generations, are discussed. Classifications of PBzs are defined depending on building block as well as how structure is evolved and property obtained. Progress on the utility of biobased feedstocks from various bio‐/waste‐mass is also discussed and compared, wherever possible. The second part of review discusses the probable polymerization mechanism proposed for the ring‐opening reactions. This is complementary to the third section, where the effect of catalysts/initiators has on triggering polymerization at low temperature is discussed extensively. The role of additional functionalities in influencing the temperature of polymerization is also discussed. There has been a shift in paradigm beyond the lowering of ring‐opening polymerization (ROP) temperature and other areas of interest, such as adaptation of molecular functionality with simultaneous improvement of properties. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Chemistry

Polymers

Review on the accelerated and low‐temperature polymerization of benzoxazine resins: Addition polymerizable sustainable polymers

<p>Atmospheric degradation of the metallic components initiated by the accumulation of contaminants and humidity significantly limits the performance and sustainability of many engineering systems. Aluminium and its alloys are widely used in different industries such as food processing, marine, aerospace, automobiles and household appliances. The leaching of aluminium can cause significant environmental and health-related issues. In the present study, a facile and environment-friendly (hot water treatment) processing route was utilized to fabricate sustainable Al surfaces without the use of any chemical reagents and toxic solvents. The developed nanostructured Al surface showed immense mechanical, chemical and thermal durability restricting corrosion and leaching of aluminium. The processed Al composed of self-assembled 2D nanostructures showed extreme wettability ranging from superhydrophilic (θ &lt; 5°) to superhydrophobicity (SHS) (θ &gt; 160°), depending upon post-processing conditions. The developed SHS has showed high water (droplet impacts) and dust repellence under static and dynamic conditions. This is related with effective entrapment of air, prompted by the presence of nanostructured morphology, leading to stable Cassie state. Results showed that SHS possess better self-cleaning ability compared to the superhydrophilic counterpart. The SHS showed better sustainability in terms of high thermal stability in a temperature range of −80 °C to 350 °C and corrosion resistance under prolonged immersion for 48 h in salt media. Compared to unprocessed counterpart, SHS showed 40 times reduction in the corrosion rate, which is significantly high when compared with several other processing routes. The present study showed an eco-friendly and straightforward approach which can be effectively used for fabricating multifunctional metallic surfaces with widespread applications. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd</p>

Mechanical Engineering

(SoE) School of Engineering

Journal of Cleaner Production

Green manufacturing of nanostructured Al-Based sustainable self-cleaning metallic surfaces

Formaldehyde (FA), a simple reactive carbonyl molecule, is endogenously produced in the cell at various physiological condition. At elevated level, FA causes severe cell toxicity as well as damage in macromolecules such proteins and DNA. For detecting FA in living cell, we identify a small but effective fluorescent turn on probe comprising single benzene-based orothophenylenediamine compound. Further study reveals that carboxylic group in orothophenylenediamine plays the important role in enhancing fluorescent signal than another electron withdrawing group. It is even interesting to observe the occurrence of fluorescent enhancement in glutathione (GSH) environment which is generally abundant in every cell. Our probe enables to detect FA over other bio-analytes efficiently with limit of detection of 123 nM and 355-fold of enhancement in cellular mimicking conditions. Moreover, this probe could be useful in discriminating cell that has high concentration of FA as well as GSH. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.

Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology

A single benzene fluorescent probe for efficient formaldehyde sensing in living cells using glutathione as an amplifier

SrTiO3 is a wide bandgap cubic perovskite oxide and displays many exotic properties, i.e., transparent conductivity, photocatalysis, metallicity, ferroelectricity, superconductivity, colossal magnetoresistance, two-dimensional electron gas, etc., due to the manipulations of defect chemistry and constituent elements via impurity doping. This paper reports on the intricacy of the structural and optoelectronic properties of the epitaxially stabilized 5 at. % Ta-doped SrTiO3 (001) thin films on LaAlO3 (001) substrates by systematically varying the growth temperature and oxygen partial pressure during the pulsed laser deposition process. The influences of Ta dopant and growth parameters on the epitaxial quality of these layers are understood by determining the dopant location and its concentration in the SrTiO3 lattice. The complex relationships of optical and electronic properties on growth parameters, dopant concentration, and single crystal quality of the films are demonstrated. The observed low resistivity (∼5 × 10-3 ω cm) and high optical transparency (∼85%-90%) of optimized Ta-doped SrTiO3 films offer it as an exciting material for next generation transparent optoelectronics. © 2021 Author(s).

Journal of Applied Physics

Ta-doped SrTiO3epitaxial thin film: A promising perovskite for optoelectronics

Rechargeable magnesium-sulfur (Mg/S) batteries are considered a promising energy storage devices for grid-scale applications due to their high theoretical energy density, safety, and low cathode cost. However, the Mg/S batteries suffer from the low practical energy density mainly arising from the rapid dissolution of polysulfides and slow reaction kinetics between Mg and solid-phase sulfur. In this regard, we have introduced here the magnesium polysulfide (MgSx) catholyte as a liquid-phase active material to conquer the sluggish redox kinetics of Mg/S batteries. A polyaniline-coated carbon cloth (CC@PANI) has been incorporated as a current collector and a reservoir for magnesium-polysulfide(MgSx) catholyte. The MgSx containing CC@PANI cathode (i.e., CC@PANI@MgSx cathode) exhibits an initial reversible specific capacity of 514 mA h g−1 and retains 428 mA h g−1 after 25 cycles. The effect of MgSx catholyte on the electrochemical performance of the Mg/S batteries have been closely investigated through post-cycling characterization of Mg anode and computational studies. Besides, the phase transition of sulfur during magnesiation a complete reaction has been studied in the current report. © 2020

Journal of Power Sources

Magnesium polysulfide catholyte (MgSx): Synthesis, electrochemical and computational study for magnesium-sulfur battery application

In the last few decades, the concept of Birkhoff–James orthogonality has been used in several applications. In this survey article, the results known on the necessary and sufficient conditions for Birkhoff–James orthogonality in certain Banach spaces are mentioned. Their applications in studying the geometry of normed spaces are given. The connections between this concept of orthogonality, and the Gateaux derivative and the subdifferential set of the norm function are provided. Several interesting distance formulas can be obtained using the characterizations of Birkhoff–James orthogonality, which are also mentioned. In the end, some new results are obtained. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Mathematics

Operator Theory: Advances and Applications

Birkhoff–James Orthogonality and Applications: A Survey

Ionic liquids (ILs) are the attractions of researchers today due to their vast area of potential applications. For biomedical uses, it becomes essential to understand their interactions with cellular membrane. Here, the membrane is mimicked with lipid bilayer and monolayer composed of liver lipids extract. Three archetypal imidazolium based ILs, 1-decyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([DMIM][BF4] or [C10MIM][BF4]), 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, ([OMIM][BF4] or [C8MIM][BF4]) and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([EMIM][BF4] or [C2MIM][BF4]) having different alkyl chain lengths are used in the present study. The isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) measurements showed that [DMIM][BF4] interacts strongest with the liver lipid membrane compared to other two ILs which have relatively shorter alkyl chain length. The low values of stoichiometry ratio of ILs indicates that ILs penetrate within the core of the lipid bilayer. The interaction of ILs with the liver lipid membrane is found to be mainly driven by entropy which could be due to the change in the structure of the lipid membrane at local or global scales. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements indicate that there are no changes in the size of vesicles due to addition of [DMIM][BF4] indicating stability of the vesicles. On the other hand, x-ray reflectivity (XRR) measurements showed a concentration dependent change in the monolayer structure. At low concentration of the IL, the monolayer thickness decreases, exhibiting an increase in the electron density of the layer. However, at higher concentrations, the monolayer thickness increases proving a concentration dependent effects of the IL on the arrangement of the molecules. © 2021