Therapeutic Use of Plant Secondary Metabolites

Book Announcement

BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS

Indeed, medicinal plants, unlike conventional drugs, commonly have bioactive constituents working together catalytically and synergistically to produce a combined effect that may surpass the total activity of the individual constituents.

The combined actions of these metabolites tend to increase the activity of the main constituent by speeding up or slowing down its metabolism in the body. Also, the secondary metabolites might minimize the rate of undesired adverse effects, and have an additive, potentiating, or antagonistic effect.

The book “Therapeutic Use of Plant Secondary Metabolites” offers evidence-based mechanistic views on complementary and alternative medicine with a focus on biological mechanisms of action of plant secondary metabolites in degenerative and microbial diseases such as diabetes, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, antimicrobial resistance, etc., while reporting health benefits.

The chapters are written by enviable scholars, lecturers, and experts in indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), industrial and medicinal plants, phytotherapeutics, and phytoinformatics. Therapeutic Uses of Plant Secondary Metabolites is timely and highly valuable for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers and professionals in IKS, phytomedicine, ethno pharmacology, phytopharmacology, plant biotechnology, drug discovery and development, and phytotherapeutics.

 

About the editor:

• Saheed Sabiu

 

Keywords:

Phyto-omics, Phenolic compounds, Essential oils in health promotion, Antibiotic resistance, Nanoparticles in cancer therapy, Nanoparticles, Nanoparticles in diabetes therapy, Ethnopharmacology, Antimicrobials from plants, Plant biotechnology, Oxidative stress and antimicrobial therapy, Computational drug discovery, Medicinal plants, Computer-aided drug design, Phytomedicine, Drug discovery and development, Phytochemicals, Complementary and alternative medicine 10 Diabetes mellitus, Indigenous knowledge systems.

 

For more information please visit: https://bit.ly/3DEhSef

Terpenoids: Recent Advances in Extraction, Biochemistry and Biotechnology

Book Announcement

BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS

The knowledge of the production of countless chemical compounds by plants generates great expectations and concrete possibilities so that in the not too distant future, science can make available new technological processes compatible with current needs. Among the numerous chemically diverse compounds, there are the apolar ones, including hydrocarbons, and those of high polarity represented by polyphenols. Terpenoids are of great importance in this context, especially those found in essential oils, which represent an auspicious expectation for use in combating different endemic diseases that affect agricultural production.

The present book is entitled “TERPENOIDS: RECENT ADVANCES IN EXTRACTION, BIOCHEMISTRY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY”, and it will approach the most varied possibilities of using terpenoids in the control of pests such as insects, diseases caused by microorganisms, ticks, and weeds. Priority will be given to terpenoids produced by plants, endophytic fungi, propolis, and geopropolis. It will also focus on the functions of terpenoids in plants, as well as their biosynthetic pathways of production.

In general, the book will provide its readers with a broad and diverse mirror of the importance that terpenoids have for plant safety, and the possibilities for innovative biotechnological approaches that will make all the difference to agricultural production, resulting in more functional areas and higher-value products.

 

About the editors:

Mozaniel Santana de Oliveira, Ph.D.

Mozaniel Santana de Oliveira graduated in Chemistry from the Federal University of Pará, Brazil. He obtained both a master’s and Ph.D. in Food Science and Technology from the same university. He has 12 years of professional experience. From 2010 to 2014, he worked on the chemistry of natural products at the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), and from 2014 to 2018, he worked in the Postgraduate Program in Food Science and Technology at the Federal University of Pará, specifically with essential oils. Since 2020, he has been a researcher for the Institutional Training Program - PCI, at the institution Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, linked to the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações of Brazil (MCTI), with studies focused on extraction, characterization chemistry, and applications of essential oils in several industrial segments, among them the food industry. Specifically, Dr. Oliveira has experience in engineering, food science and technology, pharmacology and drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, ethnopharmacology and ethnobotany, phytochemistry, methods of extraction of bioactive compounds, biotechnology of natural products, and allelopathy to find new natural herbicides to control invasive plants. He also has experience in the area of essential oil extraction using supercritical technology and conventional methods. Since 2020, he has supervised and co-supervised master’s and Ph.D. students in several graduate programs. Dr. Oliveira serves as a reviewer for thirty-one international scientific journals and is the academic editor of the journals Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Journal of Food Quality, Molecules, and Open Chemistry.

 

Antônio Pedro da Silva Souza Filho, Ph.D.

Antonio Pedro da Silva Souza Filho is a Brazilian, graduated in Agronomic Engineering from the Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia (UFRA-1977), with a Ph.D. in Animal Science from the Universidade do Estado de São Paulo (Unesp-1995) and Post-doctoral internship at the Institute of Chemistry of the Universidade de São Paulo (2001). He began his professional activities in 1978, at Embrapa, having worked over the years on several research projects, both as a research coordinator and project member, in the area of natural products, specifically in the line of prospecting chemical molecules with potential for use. in weed management, focusing on the bioactivity of essential oils. He also worked as a collaborating professor in the postgraduate courses in Chemistry of Natural Products and Animal Science, at the Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), having supervised several Master and Doctoral students. He also participated as co-advisor of masters and doctoral students from the Universidade do Estado de Paraná and Federal de Viçosa. He contributed to the development of doctoral thesis works at the Universidade Federal do Amazonas and the Universidade Federal do Maranhão. Currently, he is linked to Embrapa and throughout his scientific career, he has published numerous scientific articles in different specialized journals and has published several books and book chapters in the area of natural products with an emphasis on the chemical composition and bioactivity of essential oils. He was the President of the Brazilian Society for the Science of Weeds (SBCPD).

He has several article publications to his name as well as books.

 

Keywords:

Natural products, Allelopathy, Essential oils, Antimicrobials, Extraction, Bees, Supercritical Fluid,  Bioactive compounds, Isolation, Terpenes, Biochemistry,  Terpenoids, Biotechnology, Pharmacology, Entophytic fungi, Agriculture, Allelochemicals

For more information please visit: https://bit.ly/3STsGtm

 

World's simplest animals get their place in the tree of life

Study on blob-like placozoans, first described more than 100 years ago, receive first phylogenomic analysis and complete classification based on molecular, rather than physical, characteristics

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

 

IMAGE: THE PLACOZOAN TRICHOPLAX ADHERENTS view more 

CREDIT: © B. SCHIERWATER, ET AL.

The group with the world’s simplest animals—tiny blob-like life forms with no organs and just a few cell types—finally has a fleshed-out family tree built by a research group led by the American Museum of Natural History, St. Francis College, and the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover. The study comes more than 100 years after the discovery of these ameboid animals called placozoans and represents the first—and potentially only—time in the 21st century that a backbone Linnaean taxonomy is constructed for an entire animal phylum. Published today in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, the research is based on genetic makeup—the presence and absence of genes—rather than outward physical appearance, which is traditionally used to classify organisms.

“Placozoans look like miniscule, shape-shifting disks—basically, they are the pancake of the animal world,” said the study’s co-lead author Michael Tessler, a research associate at the Museum and an assistant professor at St. Francis College. “For a taxonomist looking through a microscope, even a powerful one, there are almost no characters to compare and differentiate them. Yet, despite most of them looking almost exactly the same, we know that on the genetic level, there are very distinct lineages.”

The first placozoan species was described in 1883, and Placozoa remained a “phylum of one” until DNA-based research in the last 20 years revealed that it contains multiple lineages.  Most placozoans, which generally live in tropical and subtropical waters across the globe, are about the size of a grain of sand, with hair-like structures that allow them to move. “After decades of turmoil, this most exciting phylum has finally gotten the attention it deserves,“ said senior author Bernd Schierwater, a professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover.

“We wanted to know the relationships within this ancient group of animals and where it sits in the tree of life,” said co-lead author Johannes Neumann, a recent doctoral graduate from the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School. “People have been speculating about that for decades, but now, by looking at differences among placozoans on the molecular level, we’re able to paint a clear picture of how these animals are related to one another.”

The researchers used a method called molecular morphology—using differences in DNA sequences and other molecular characters—to make classifications. In doing so, they established a backbone taxonomy: two new classes, four orders, three families, one genus, and one species. Their research also suggests that placozoans are most closely related to cnidarians (a group of aquatic animals including jellyfish, corals, and sea anemones) and bilaterians (animals that have a left and right side, like insects and humans).

“I personally collected placozoans on six continents for almost 10 years, did lab work and bioinformatic work on them, but it took decades of effort from a great number of colleagues to finally get to this exciting first classification for this cryptic phylum,” Neumann said. “This is why we call our newly described species Cladtertia collaboinventa, which means ‘discovered in collaboration.’”

The authors suggest that this study could serve as a template to revisit systematics of other organisms that look very similar, such as bacteria, fungi, protists, and parasites. Tessler also is the lead author of a second paper out now in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution that makes the case for molecular morphology in other groups of organisms that have few distinguishable visual features but are genetically diverse.

“Taxonomic blank slates are problematic. Without names, communication is hampered, and other scientific progress is slowed,” said Tessler. “We suggest that the morphology of molecules, such as proteins—which have distinctive structures—should not be considered as anything less than traditional morphology.”

Other authors include Kai Kamm and Hans-Jürgen Osigus, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover; Gil Eshel, New York University; Apurva Narechania and Rob DeSalle, American Museum of Natural History; Spencer Galen, University of Scranton; and John Burns, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.

Support for this work was provided in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research grant # DE-SC0014377; the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD); the U.S. National Science Foundation grant number OIA-1826734; and Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

  

The placozoan Hoilungia hongkongensis

CREDIT

© M. Tessler, J. Neumann, K. Kamm, et al.

ABOUT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY (AMNH)

The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses more than 40 permanent exhibition halls and galleries for temporary exhibitions, the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, and the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, which opens February 2023. The Museum’s scientists draw on a world-class permanent collection of more than 34 million specimens and artifacts, some of which are billions of years old, and on one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, the Museum grants the Ph.D. degree in Comparative Biology and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree, the only such freestanding, degree-granting programs at any museum in the United States. The Museum’s website, digital videos, and apps for mobile devices bring its collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to millions around the world. Visit amnh.org for more information.

---

JOURNAL

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

DOI

10.3389/fevo.2022.1016357 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Phylogenomics and the first higher taxonomy of Placozoa, an ancient and enigmatic animal phylum

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Dec-2022

Could a nasal spray treat sleep apnea?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

A drug in development for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) has shown promising results, after researchers from Flinders University tested the treatment in people for the first time.

Designed to prevent the narrowing or collapse of the upper airways during sleep, a key factor in OSA, the treatment could prove to be a potential alternative for certain people with OSA to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines, which can only be tolerated by about half of all OSA sufferers.

“While further rigorous clinical evaluation and testing is required, this is a great first step and should offer some hope to the many people worldwide who suffer from sleep apnoea,” says study senior author Professor Danny Eckeart, Director of Flinders’ sleep lab FHMRI: Sleep Health. 

“OSA is one of the most common sleep-related breathing disorders, with an estimated one billion sufferers, and when untreated is associated with major health and safety consequences. While CPAP machines are effective, tolerance remains a major issue for many and other treatments such as dental splints and upper airway surgery don’t always work. This is why we need new treatment options for OSA.

“At the moment, there are no approved drug treatments for OSA. However, with advances in our understanding of the different reasons people get OSA, the potential for effective new medications is growing stronger each year.”

Published in the journal Chest, the study tested the drug on 12 people with OSA using either nasal drops, a nasal spray or via direct application using an endoscope, versus a placebo.

Monitoring for sleep and airway activity across several sessions, the team found consistent and sustained improvements in the patients’ airways staying open throughout sleep, compared to the placebo treatment, regardless of the delivery method used. 

“Although a small study, our findings represent the first detailed investigation of this new treatment in people with OSA, with promising results,” says study lead author Dr Amal Osman from FHMRI: Sleep Health.

“The drug we tested is designed to target specific receptors that are expressed on the surface of the upper airways, triggering them more easily to activate the surrounding muscles to keep the airway open during sleep. While there’s still a long way to go in terms of clinical testing and development, our study shows targeting these receptors may be a promising avenue for future treatments.”

The paper – ‘Topical K+ channel blockage improves pharyngeal collapsibility: A translational, placebo-controlled trial’ by Amal M. Osman, Sutapa Mukherjee, Thomas J. Altree, Martina Delbeck, Doris Gehring, Michael Hahn, Tina Lang, Charles Xing, Thomas Muller, Gerrit Weimann and Danny J. Eckert – is published in the journal Chest. DOI: 10.1016/j.chest.2022.11.024.

Funding support:  The study was sponsored by Bayer, manufacturer of the drug tested. Professor Eckert is funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Leadership Fellowship.

Potential conflict of interest: DJE reports grants from Bayer, Apnimed, Invicta Medical, Takeda, serves as an advisor for Bayer, Invicta Medical, Mosanna, and Apnimed. TJA serves on a scientific advisory board for Jazz Pharmaceuticals. MD, DG, MH, TL, CX, TM and GW are employees (including stock options) of the study sponsor. AMO and SM do not have any potential conflicts to declare.

---

JOURNAL

CHEST Journal

DOI

10.1016/j.chest.2022.11.024 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Topical K+ channel blockage improves pharyngeal collapsibility: A translational, placebo-controlled trial

COI STATEMENT

DJE reports grants from Bayer, Apnimed, Invicta Medical, Takeda, serves as an advisor for Bayer, Invicta Medical, Mosanna, and Apnimed. TJA serves on a scientific advisory board for Jazz Pharmaceuticals. MD, DG, MH, TL, CX, TM and GW are employees (including stock options) of the study sponsor. AMO and SM do not have any potential conflicts to declare.

Emerging Technologies and Applications for a Smart and Sustainable World

Book Announcement

BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS

The reference “Emerging Technologies and Applications for a Smart and Sustainable World” extracts information about emerging technologies and applications for smart city design and sustainable urban planning. Chapters present technology use-cases that have radical novelty and high scalability with a prominent impact on community living standards. These technologies prepare urban and rural dwellings for the transformation to the smart world. It is suitable for learning and understanding various technologies used in making smart applications for living smart and transforming communities into smart communities. Authors from different geographical locations contributed the various chapters to this Edited Book. Emerging technologies will have radical novelty, relatively fast growth, and coherence, prominent impact on community and in the transformation to smart world.

Applications and techniques highlighted in the book “Emerging Technologies and Applications for a Smart and Sustainable World“ use a combination of artificial intelligence and IoT technologies in areas like transportation, energy, healthcare, education, governance, and manufacturing, to name a few. The book serves as a learning resource for smart city design and sustainable infrastructure planning. Scholars and professionals who are interested in understanding ways for transforming communities into smart communities can also benefit from the cases presented in the book.

 

About the editor:

Dr. M.A. JABBAR is a Professor and Head of the Department CSE(AI&ML), Vardhaman College of Engineering, Hyderabad, and Telangana, India. He obtained Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from JNTUH, Hyderabad, and Telangana, India. He has been teaching for more than 20 years. His research interests include Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Bio-Informatics, Cyber Security, Machine Learning, Attack Graphs, and Intrusion Detection Systems. He has published more than 60 papers in various journals and conferences. He served as a technical committee member for more than 70 international conferences. He has edited 7 books with various leading publishers like Elsevier, Springer, and Taylor and Francis.  He is a senior Member of IEEE and Senior member of ACM, Governing body member of Internet Society India Hyderabad Chapter. Dr M.A.Jabbar Received best faculty researcher award from CSI Mumbai and Fossee Labs, IIT Bombay. He has been awarded with the prestigious title of IEEE CS Distinguished contributor.

Mamun Bin Ibne Reaz received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Applied Physics and Electronics, both from University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh, in 1985 and 1986, respectively. He received his D.Eng. degree in 2007 from Ibaraki University, Japan. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia. He is involved in teaching, research and industrial consultation. He is a Senior Associate of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy since 2008. He is also a Senior Member of IEEE. He has published extensively in the area of IC Design, Biomedical application IC and Smart Home. He is author and coauthor of more than 300 research articles in design automation, IC design for biomedical applications and Smart Home. He is also the recipient of more than 50 research grants (national and international).

Ana Madureira received her BSc degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, in 1996, from the University of Porto, and the PhD degree in Production and Systems, in 2003, from University of Minho, Portugal. Currently, she is a Professor at the Institute of Engineering – Polytechnic of Porto (ISEP/IPP). In the last few years, she was author of fifty scientific papers in scientific conference proceedings, journals and books. She is a Ph.D. researcher of the GECAD - Knowledge Engineering and Decision Support Research Group where she is the supervisor of the Special Interest Group in Manufacturing Systems. Her main areas of interest are Industrial Management, Planning and Scheduling, Dynamic and Reactive Scheduling, Meta-Heuristics, Genetic Algorithms, Evolutionary Computation, Decision Support Systems and Intelligent systems.

 

Keywords:

Smart transportation and parking, Block chain Technology for smart cities, AI in smart Cities,  Federation of Services (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS) aimed at Public Administrations, Cyber security infrastructure Development, Software engineering methodology for the design of Smart Cities Systems, Smart Energy & Power infra 14 Cyber Physical Systems in Smart city, Environmental monitoring and waste management, Green Computing, Health sector in Smart Cities, Big Data, Smart infrastructure for Education, Analytics, Smart Infra for Construction and logistics 18 Smart Manufacturing for the Oil and Gas industries, IoT applications and communications networks for enabling the Smarter City, Wireless sensor networks in smart cities , Smart Economy and Transformation 20 Health care and education in smart cities.

 

For more information please visit: https://bit.ly/3qzDC38

Efficient synthesis of (-)-quinine paves the way for malarial drug development and more

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TOHOKU UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: (-)-QUININE AND THE CHINCHONA PLANT FROM WHICH IT IS DERIVED FROM. view more 

CREDIT: TOHOKU UNIVERSITY

Malaria is one of the world's "big-three" infectious diseases. In 2020 alone, it infected roughly 240,000 million people and caused 630,000 deaths worldwide.

Quinine, an alkaloid derived from the cinchona plant, has been used to treat malaria for centuries. Artificial antimalarial drugs with relatively few side effects, such as chloroquine and mefloquine, have been developed based on the chemical structure of quinine. However, Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the deadliest form of malaria, has started to become resistant to such drugs.

Now, a research team from Tohoku University has achieved an efficient synthesis of quinine and its derivatives that can serve as a building block for further medication development and innovations in organocatalyst chemistry.

"We accomplished an efficient enantioselective total synthesis of (-)-quinine by using an organocatalyst-mediated reaction," said Professor Yujiro Hayashi. "It is the shortest-pot synthesis."

Synthetic efficiency aids scientists in developing new chemical compounds by cutting the steps it takes to achieve bonds and generate complex molecules. One-pot reactions are one way to do this. They circumvent several purification steps via in situ quenching, thereby minimizing chemical waste and saving time.

The team's discovery is not limited to innovations in medicine. In recent years, quinine and its derivatives have attracted attention for their use as ligands for metal catalysts and as organocatalysts. Whilst many organocatalysts derived from quinine exist and have been applied to a wide range of reactions and syntheses, structure diversity remains limited because of the complexity involved in synthesizing from quinine.

To realize what the team conceptually dub "pot economy," they used an organocatalyst and constructed a six-membered ring from three compounds by controlling two stereocenters in one-pot. This reaction could be conducted over a 10 g scale.

After two one-pot reactions, a heteroaromatic ring, which is capable of being applied to the syntheses of quinine analogs, was introduced. The synthesis requires a total of five separate one-pot operations and five purifications by column chromatography and resulted in a quinine yield of 14%.

Details of the research were published in the journal Nature Communications on December 7, 2022.

One-pot reaction can improve the yield, reduce waste generation, and saving time.

Five-pot synthesis of (-)-quinine have been achieved using organocatalyst.

CREDIT

Yujiro Hayashi et al.

---

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-34916-z 

ARTICLE TITLE

Organocatalyst-mediated five-pot synthesis of (-)-quinine

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022

Water Pollution Sources and Purification

Challenges and Scope

Book Announcement

BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS

It is hoped that “Water Pollution Sources and Purification: Challenges and Scope“ shall provide guidelines to all interested in research studies of one sort or the other. The book consists of seven chapters, well arranged in a coherent manner.

 Chapter one deals with the different water purification techniques used for safe drinking water production, their potential threats, and their challenges. Chapter two focuses exclusively on fluoride removal by adsorption method using activated alumina modified with different materials and isothermal studies. Chapter three is the result-oriented chapter that discusses different parameters affecting photocatalytic degradation of substituted benzoic acids. Chapter four covers the analysis of seasonal and spatial variations of water quality of Dulhara and Ved ponds in Ratnapura, Chhattisgarh, India. Chapter five examines the degradation of benzoic acid by iron nanoparticles as a photo-catalyst using an advanced oxidation process (AOP). This chapter also discusses the synthesis of Fe nanoparticles via hydrothermal process at ordinary temperature and elevated temperature.

Chapter six deals with wastewater treatment using modern methods supported by nanoscale materials. Chapter seven discusses the impact of water mismanagement on the environment and suggests preventive measures for proper water utilization.

The book “Water Pollution Sources and Purification: Challenges and Scope“ targets post-graduate and research scholars in the field of physical sciences, chemistry, and material science who is interested in water treatment, photocatalytic degradation, advanced oxidation process, and solar cell.

 

About the editors:

Water treatment, Adsorption kinematics, Water purification methods, Properties of nanoparticles in water bodies, Advanced oxidation process, Utilization of water, Photochemical degradation, Environmental impact and health issues, Water quality parameters, Integrated water conservation techniques, Seasonal variation in pond water, Activated alumina and challenges in fluoride removal, Nano-particle aided AOP, Degradation of Benzoic acid, Wastewater purification using nano-scale techniques, Defluoridation , techniques,

 

For more information please visit: https://bit.ly/3yj1Va7

Scientists remove yeast cell's sex drive and turn it into a cannabis tracker

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Science have modified a yeast cell to sense the active substances in cannabis and get it to turn red when it does. The result paves the way for more actors to discover new medicinal substances 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - FACULTY OF SCIENCE

 

IMAGE: YEAST CELL BEING EXAMINED. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO: EMIL BLANGSTRUP TOFT

• MEDICINE

MEDICINE 

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Science have modified a yeast cell to sense the active substances in cannabis and get it to turn red when it does. The result paves the way for more actors to discover new medicinal substances and for a new type of drug test that can be done with a smartphone.

The researchers also developed a portable plastic device with a yeast cell biosensor in it. Plant material, saliva, urine, blood and other material is placed into the gizmo. The device then uses the smartphone’s camera to see if the yeast cells light up, delivering its result in just 15 minutes. Photo: Getty

Yeast cells are simple organisms. They do two things in life: eat and propagate. Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences have equipped common baker’s yeast cells with a new function.

The researchers substituted the yeast cell’s sex drive with a sense of taste and smell that allows it to detect cannabinoids, the active substances in cannabis. Going one step further, the researchers made the yeast turn red or glow when it successfully detects cannabinoids. The study has been published in Nature Communications.      

"We have made a living sensor out of the yeast cell, which can now sense cannabinoids or molecules that have the same function as cannabinoids even if they look very different than cannabinoids. Among other things, the biosensor can be used to look for new substances with the same properties as cannabinoids. This could democratize medicinal development so that pharmaceutical companies aren’t the only ones equipped to discover new substances," says Professor Sotirios Kampranis of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, who headed the research.

CAPTION

Professor Sotirios Kampranis in the lab.

Photo: Emil Blangstrup Toft

Turns red when sensing cannabinoids

Humans use hundreds of different GPCRs (G-protein-coupled receptors) to taste and smell. In our noses alone, 400 different GPCRs make it possible for us to detect and distinguish between the smell of roses and freshly baked bread, each of which activates different GPCRs that then signal the brain.

Along with his research colleagues, Professor Kampranis swapped the GPCR that yeast cells use to sense the opposite sex in an environment, with the GPCR we humans use to recognize cannabinoids. At the same time, the researchers complemented the yeast cell's genetic material with a set of new genes that make it turn red or even glow when it senses cannabinoids nearby.

"The yeast cell now emits a signal when there are cannabinoids in the yeast cell's environment. This allows us to screen thousands of plants for substances with therapeutic potential. And we can also investigate whether people are on drugs or whether someone is trying to smuggle illegal cannabinoids or “designer drugs” through an airport checkpoint," explains Professor Sotirios Kampranis.

Yeast turns red when sensing cannabinoids. Photo: Sotirios Kampranis.

"The yeast cell now emits a signal when there are cannabinoids in the yeast cell's environment. This allows us to screen thousands of plants for substances with therapeutic potential. And we can also investigate whether people are on drugs or whether someone is trying to smuggle illegal cannabinoids or “designer drugs” through an airport checkpoint," explains Professor Sotirios Kampranis.

CREDIT

Sotirios Kampranis

Discovered four new substances in one day

Cannabinoids are known to be connected with sleep, appetite and pain relief. In fact we have them naturally in our bodies where they are calle endocannabinoids. This is precisely why the researchers chose to encode the ability to find cannabinoids in the yeast cells. But in principle, they could have done so for opioids or any other group of medicinal substances.This is precisely why the researchers chose to encode the ability to find cannabinoids in the yeast cells. But in principle, they could have done so for opioids or any other group of medicinal substances.

There is no doubt that the yeast cell can find new substances. In initial tests, the researchers used the yeast cell to study 1600 random substances from a vast chemical compound library available at the University of Copenhagen. It didn’t take long to get a bite.

"In a single day, the yeast cell found four undiscovered substances that had never been associated with anti-inflammatory properties or pain relief, but could potentially be used for these purposes," says Sotirios Kampranis.

When drug companies look for new drugs today, it is with the help of state-of-the-art robotics and laboratory equipment that universities and other non-commercial entities will never be able to afford. That the researchers have developed an alternative, may allow for more people to hunt for helpful substances in nature.

"It's a crowdsourcing approach whereby smaller laboratories can find more new potential substances for pharmaceutical use. I don't see it as competition with pharmaceutical companies – but as something that can create a synergy between independent players in the scientific world and the pharmaceutical industry," says Professor Kampranis.

The Portable biosensor used for smart phones. Photo: Sotirios Kampranis.

The researchers also developed a portable plastic device with a yeast cell biosensor in it. Plant material, saliva, urine, blood and other material is placed into the gizmo. The device then uses the smartphone’s camera to see if the yeast cells light up, delivering its result in just 15 minutes.

CREDIT

Sotirios Kampranis

Smartphone accessory can find drugs

The researchers also developed a portable plastic device with a yeast cell biosensor in it. Plant material, saliva, urine, blood, material from a suitcase, or whatever one would like for the yeast cell to test, is placed into the gizmo.

The device then uses the smartphone’s camera to see if the yeast cells light up, delivering its result in just 15 minutes. The application could be able to help police officers and others track down drugs at airports or administer drug tests.

"We can test for both natural cannabinoids and designer drugs – chemical substances that have very different structures – with the same effects as cannabinoids. In principle, we could also adapt the yeast cell to be able to detect opioids like morphine, fentanyl and oxycodone," says Sotirios Kampranis.

The device can be 3D printed or assembled using materials easily obtained online. The researchers are now working to make the test tool available free of charge, for as many people as possible, but at the same time be able to maintain control for maintenance and further development. 

Team undertakes study of lithium deposition behavior in hard carbon hosts

Team’s strategy solves problems found in development of lithium metal anodes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY PRESS

 

IMAGE: THIS IS A SCHEMATIC ILLUSTRATION OF THE SYNERGISTIC IMPROVEMENT OF LITHIUM DEPOSITION BEHAVIOR IN HYDROCARBON HOST STRUCTURES BY LITHIOPHILIC SITES AND LOCALIZED HIGH-CONCENTRATION ELECTROLYTES, WHICH SHOWS THREE SIGNIFICANT REDUCTIONS IN BOTH ELECTRODE THICKNESS AND DENDRITES GROWTH. view more 

CREDIT: NANO RESEARCH, TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY PRESS

While lithium metal is an ideal anode for next-generation high-energy-density batteries, there are challenges to be addressed before it can reach its full potential. A research team has conducted a study of lithium deposition behavior and developed a strategy involving hard carbon hosts that successfully addresses some of the problems currently facing the development of the lithium metal anode. “This strategy addresses the volume change and dendrite problems by rationally designed host and electrolyte, providing a broad perspective for realizing lithium-metal anode,” said Liping Wang, a professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

 

The team published their research in the journal Nano Research on  December 07, 2022.

 

Lithium metal is recognized as a promising anode for next-generation batteries because of its ultra-high theoretical capacity and extremely low electrode potential, and low density. However, lithium metal suffers from uncontrollable lithium dendrite growth, side reactions, and infinite relative volume change. These issues can lower the batteries’ efficiency and shorten the battery cycle life, even possibly leading to short circuit or security risks.

 

Over time, researchers have suggested various strategies to alleviate dendrite growth and volume expansion. These strategies include constructing three-dimensional composite lithium anodes, optimizing the composition of electrolytes, applying artificial interphases, and using solid-state electrolytes.  

 

The three-dimensional host is the most promising strategy to address the volume expansion and dendrite growth issues. Carbon-based materials are ideal host candidates for lithium-metal anodes because they are lightweight, have high conductivity and many pore structures, along with stable electrochemical/chemical properties. “Yet even with these advantages, the challenges of volume expansion and dendrite growth have not been completely solved by the carbon-based host,” said Wang.

 

More recently, researchers have explored modifying carbon materials with lithiophilic species (such as zinc, zinc oxide, aluminum, tin, silicon, silver, and magnesium) and developing suitable electrolytes as effective methods to improve the performance of these three-dimensional host materials. “Yet the lithium deposition behavior and its intrinsic mechanism in these processes has not been systematically analyzed,” said Wang.

 

To better understand the structure-activity relationship and guide the development of high-performance carbon-based host electrodes, the lithium deposition behavior and its intrinsic mechanism, the research team undertook their in-depth study. They used an optical microscope and a scanning electron microscope to systematically study the lithium deposition behavior of the hydrocarbon electrode under different surface modifications and electrolytes. They found that lithium will not spontaneously deposit into the carbon pores, which is significantly dependent on the carbon surface, current density, areal capacity, and electrolyte.

 

So the team developed a lithiophilic modified commercial hard carbon with silver as a stable host. They discovered that the introduction of lithiophilic sites induced moderate dendrite growth and inhibited volume expansion. They also discovered that localized high-concentration electrolytes proved to be more compatible with lithium and could optimize the lithium deposition morphology instead of the dendrite. Therefore, the silver/hydrocarbon electrode in the localized high-concentration electrolyte exhibited low volume change during cycling, achieved uniform and dendrite-free morphology of lithium deposition, and showed good long-term cycling with high efficiency over 316 cycles.

 

The team summarized their findings, explaining that although porous carbon has space to theoretically hold lithium, the lithium ions will not deposit into the expected pores because lithium atoms prefer to accumulate in explosive growth mode and are strong enough to prop up the carbon particles. They also discovered that surface modification on carbon can partially moderate lithium deposition with a decreasing nucleation barrier. However, it is not significantly efficient as it is lithium-lithium deposition behavior after lithium is deposited on lithiophilic carbon. The team learned that using localized high-concentration electrolytes is more efficient in achieving a dendrite-free lithium deposition. 

 

The research team includes Ge Zhou, Yulin Zhao, Chuan Hu, Zhenzhen Ren, Hong Li, and Liping Wang from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

 

This work is funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project.

 

##

 

About Nano Research 

 

Nano Research is a peer-reviewed, international and interdisciplinary research journal, publishes all aspects of nano science and technology, featured in rapid review and fast publishing, sponsored by Tsinghua University and the Chinese Chemical Society. It offers readers an attractive mix of authoritative and comprehensive reviews and original cutting-edge research papers. After 15 years of development, it has become one of the most influential academic journals in the nano field. In 2022 InCites Journal Citation Reports, Nano Research has an Impact Factor of 10.269 (9.136, 5 years), the total cites reached 29620, ranking first in China's international academic journals, and the number of highly cited papers reached 120, ranked among the top 2.8% of over 9000 academic journals.

 

About Tsinghua University Press

 

Established in 1980, belonging to Tsinghua University, Tsinghua University Press (TUP) is a leading comprehensive higher education and professional publisher in China. Committed to building a top-level global cultural brand, after 41 years of development, TUP has established an outstanding managerial system and enterprise structure, and delivered multimedia and multi-dimensional publications covering books, audio, video, electronic products, journals and digital publications. In addition, TUP actively carries out its strategic transformation from educational publishing to content development and service for teaching & learning and was named First-class National Publisher for achieving remarkable results.

 

---

JOURNAL

Nano Research

DOI

10.1007/s12274-022-5256-8 

ARTICLE TITLE

Lithium deposition behavior in hard carbon hosts: optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022