An explainable stacking-based approach for accelerating the prediction of antidiabetic peptides.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that is characterized by high blood sugar levels and can have several harmful outcomes. Hyperglycemia, which is defined by persistently elevated blood sugar, is one of the primary concerns. People can improve their overall well-being and get optimal health outcomes by prioritizing diabetes control. Although the use of experimental approaches in diabetes treatment is cost-effective, it necessitates the development of many strategies for evaluating the efficacy of therapies. Researchers can quickly create new strategies for managing diabetes and get vital insights by enabling virtual screening with computational tools and procedures. In this study, we suggest a predictor named STADIP (STacking-based predictor for AntiDiabetic Peptides), a new method to predict antidiabetic peptides (ADPs) utilizing a stacked-based ensemble approach. It uses 12 different feature encodings and seven machine-learning techniques to construct 84 baseline models. The impacts of various baseline models on ADP prediction were then thoroughly examined. A two-step feature selection method, eXtreme Gradient Boosting with Sequential Forward Selection (XGB-SFS), was employed to determine the optimal number, out of 84 PFs to enhance predictive performance. Subsequently, utilizing the meta-predictor approach, 45 selected PFs were integrated into an XGB classifier to formulate the final hybrid model. The proposed method demonstrated superior predictive capabilities compared to constituent baseline models, as evidenced by evaluations on both cross-validation and independent tests. During extensive independent testing, STADIP achieved promising performance with accuracy and mathew's correlation coefficient of 0.954 and 0.877, respectively. It is anticipated that it will be useful tool in helping the scientific community to identify new antidiabetic proteins.

Correction to "Visible Light-Mediated Photoactivated Sulfur Quantum Dots as Heightened Antibacterial Agents".

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.2c03968.].

Microwave-mediated synthesis of tetragonal Mn3O4 nanostructure for supercapacitor application.

The development of electrode materials plays a vital role in energy storage applications to save and store energy. In the present work, the synthesis of nanorod shaped Mn3O4 supported with amorphous carbon (Mn3O4/AC) is reported by the microwave method for supercapacitor application. The as-prepared electrode material was then characterized using microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. The electrochemical supercapacitor performance of Mn3O4/AC was examined by the cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge-discharge method inside the three-electrode assembly cell. The results showed that the Mn3O4/AC delivers the excellent capacitance value of the 569.5 Fg-1 at the current load of 1 Ag-1, higher than the previously reported Mn3O4 based electrodes. The better performance of the Mn3O4/AC is credited to the excellent redox behaviour of the Mn3O4 and the presence of the amorphous carbon, which facilitated the fast ion interaction between the electrode and electrolyte during the electrochemical reaction.

Visible Light-Mediated Photoactivated Sulfur Quantum Dots as Heightened Antibacterial Agents.

The need for antimicrobial or antibacterial fabric has increased exponentially in recent past years, especially after the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Several studies have been conducted, and the primary focus is the development of simple, automated, performance efficient and cost-efficient fabric for disposable and frequent-use items such as personal protective materials. In this regard, we have explored the light-driven antibacterial activity of water-soluble Sdots for the first time. Sdots are a new class of non-metallic quantum dots of the nanosulfur family having a polymeric sulfur core. These Sdots exhibited excellent antibacterial activity by generating reactive oxygen species under sunlight or visible light. Under 6 h of sunlight irradiation, it was observed that >90% of the bacterial growth was inhibited in the presence of Sdots. Furthermore, low toxic Sdots were employed to develop antibacterial fabric for efficiently cleaning the bacterial infection. The prominent zone of inhibition of up to 9 mm was observed post 12 h incubation of Sdots treated fabric with E. coli in the presence of visible light. Furthermore, the SEM study confirmed the bactericidal effect of these Sdots-treated fabrics. Moreover, this study might help explore the photocatalytic disinfection application of Sdots in diverse locations of interest, Sdots-based photodynamic antimicrobial chemotherapy application, and provide an opportunity to develop Sdots as a visible light photocatalyst for organic transformations and other promising applications.

Emergence of sulfur quantum dots: Unfolding their synthesis, properties, and applications.

Over the past few decades, the sphere of applied science has witnessed soaring demand in developing high performance, novel and sustainable materials due to ever-increasing population coupled with need for alternative-green-energy resources. Inevitably, sulfur research expands through the breadth of materials sciences including sustainable use of the by-products obtained from petroleum industry, preparation of biocompatible materials, and constructing energy harvesting devices, indispensable to our everyday lives. Congruous with popular heavy-metal free elemental quantum dots such as the carbon, silicon and phosphorus, emergence of sulfur quantum dots (SQDs) has drawn substantial attention due to their bright luminescence, infrequent to other sulfur allotropes. In this review article, we focus some of the pioneering advances on synthesis and characterizations of luminescent sulfur nanodots and their potential applications in bioimaging, fabrication of light emitting devices, sensing and catalysis. Finally, critical challenges along with future perspectives corresponding to this newly discovered research area have been discussed.

Role of surface charge in enhancing antibacterial activity of fluorescent carbon dots.

Herein, different surface charged carbon dots (Cdots) were synthesized by using diethylene glycol as a carbon source with various amine containing surface passivating agents. The synthesis method is very simple and fast microwave oven-based, that results in almost similar sized positive, negative and uncharged fluorescent Cdots which has been confirmed by zeta potential analysis in our case. The formation of Cdots was confirmed by characterization using fluorescence spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, XRD, FT-IR, and XPS spectroscopy. To find out relative bactericidal activity of these Cdots, green fluorescence protein expressing recombinant E. coli bacteria were taken as a model system. Time-dependent bacterial growth and FACS study demonstrated that both uncharged Cdots and positively charged Cdots were showing better bactericidal activity as compared to negative charged Cdots. The Cdots caused elevation of reactive oxygen species level, which is possibly leading to bacterial cell death.