A study of the analytical behaviour of selected synthetic and naturally occurring quinolines using electrospray ionisation ion trap mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography and gas chromatography and the construction of an appropriate database for quinoline characterisation.

Mass spectral fragmentation of quinoline alkaloids of significance in plants has been investigated using electrospray ionisation ion trap mass spectrometry (ESI-MS(n)) with a view to characterisation of molecules of unknown structure isolated from these natural sources. This investigation has led to the generation of an appropriate database incorporating data from ESI-MS(n) and also from gas liquid chromatography (GLC) and liquid chromatography (HPLC) for these low molecular mass quinolines. This has been put to practical application in the identification of quinoline alkaloids in a plant extract. Thus, an acid extraction of the leaves of Choisya ternata containing such tertiary alkaloids was analysed by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS) and the resulting behaviour of the quinolines was compared with that of the quinoline alkaloids in the database.

Knowledge discovery in biology and biotechnology texts: a review of techniques, evaluation strategies, and applications.

Arguably, the richest source of knowledge (as opposed to fact and data collections) about biology and biotechnology is captured in natural-language documents such as technical reports, conference proceedings and research articles. The automatic exploitation of this rich knowledge base for decision making, hypothesis management (generation and testing) and knowledge discovery constitutes a formidable challenge. Recently, a set of technologies collectively referred to as knowledge discovery in text (KDT) has been advocated as a promising approach to tackle this challenge. KDT comprises three main tasks: information retrieval, information extraction and text mining. These tasks are the focus of much recent scientific research and many algorithms have been developed and applied to documents and text in biology and biotechnology. This article introduces the basic concepts of KDT, provides an overview of some of these efforts in the field of bioscience and biotechnology, and presents a framework of commonly used techniques for evaluating KDT methods, tools and systems.

High-temperature wine making using the thermotolerant yeast strain Kluyveromyces marxianus IMB3.

Kluyveromyces marxianus IMB3 yeast cells were immobilized on delignified cellulosic material, apple, and quince separately. Both immobilized and free cells were used in high-temperature wine making, and their fermented grape must contained 3 to 4% alcohol. Semisweet wines were produced by the addition of potable alcohol to the fermented must. Preliminary sensory evaluation of the produced semisweet wines showed good flavor and aroma. The final product contained extremely low levels of higher and amyl alcohols while ethyl acetate was at levels usually present in wines. The ferment produced may be blended with other products to improve their quality.

The use of oxygen uptake rate measurements to control the supply of toxic substrate: toluene hydroxylation by Pseudomonas putida UV4.

During toluene hydroxylation, catalyzed by Pseudomonas putida UV4 one molecule of oxygen is added to the aromatic ring to produce the dihydroxylated (non-aromatic) ring structure, toluene cis-glycol. Toluene, which is toxic to the cells at aqueous phase concentration above ( approximately 2.4 mmol), is fed to the reactor. A feed-back control system based on oxygen uptake rate measurements was used to control the feed rate, and thus maintain the aqueous phase toluene concentration in the desired range for zero order kinetics.

Fermentation of molasses using a thermotolerant yeast, Kluyveromyces marxianus IMB3: simplex optimisation of media supplements.

The use of molasses as a substrate for ethanol production by the thermotolerant yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus var. marxianus was investigated at 45 degrees C. A maximum ethanol concentration of 7.4% (v/v) was produced from unsupplemented molasses at a concentration of 23% (v/v). The effect on ethanol production of increasing the sucrose concentration in 23% (v/v) molasses was determined. Increased sucrose concentration had a similar detrimental effect on the final ethanol produced as the increase in molasses concentration. This indicated that the effect may be due to increased osmotic activity as opposed to other components in the molasses. The optimum concentration of the supplements nitrogen, magnesium, potassium and fatty acid for maximum ethanol production rate was determined using the Nelder and Mead (Computer J 7:308-313, 1965) simplex optimisation method. The optimum concentration of the supplements were 0.576 g1(-1) magnesium sulphate, 0.288 g1(-1) potassium dihydrogen phosphate and 0.36% (v/v) linseed oil. Added nitrogen in the form of ammonium sulphate did not affect the ethanol production rate.