Synthesis and characterization of lactide from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens brewed lactic acid utilizing cheap agricultural sources.

Lactic acid (LA) is a nifty molecule with an eclectic range of applications in innumerable industries and is produced through biological and chemical processes. Factually, LA is converted into lactide (LAC), which is the precursor for polylactic acid (PLA). PLA is considered one of the first-rate replacements for petroleum-based products and is believed to be environmentally sustainable. Nevertheless, it has always been challenging due to increased PLA productivity costs. Reduction in the LA and LAC production price directly echoes the production price of PLA. Therefore, low-cost LA and LAC production methods have to be found to produce PLA effectively. Hence, this study uses cheap agricultural sources derived microbial LA to make LAC through dimerization. Produced LAC was analyzed through FT-IR, NMR, TGA and XRD. FT-IR results revealed that the successful dimerization of LA to LAC, NMR analysis revealed that the aligning of methine and methyl groups in produced LAC, TGA analysis exposed that the microbial LAC has more thermal stability than the commercial LAC, XRD results showed that the produced LACs are crystalline with 32% and 42% crystallinity. To the best of our acquaintance, this manuscript is pioneering one to describe LA production through microbial fermentation and uses this monomer to produce LAC through dimerization.

Antioxidant Activity and Gas Chromatographic-Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Extracts of the Marine Algae, Caulerpa peltata and Padina Gymnospora.

The results of our previous investigations on extracts of selected marine algae showed that Caulerpa peltata and Padina gymnospora had more promising antiproliferative and antioxidant activities than Gelidiella acerosa and Sargassum wightii. Based on these results, the more active chloroform extract of C. peltata and ethyl acetate extract of P. gymnospora were further analyzed for their constituents by using gas chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry. The GC-MS analysis (GC % peak area given in parentheses) showed that fucosterol (12.45%) and L-(+)-ascorbic acid 2, 6-dihexadecanoate (8.13%) were the major compounds present in P. gymnospora ethyl acetate extract. On the other hand, C. peltata chloroform extract had 1-heptacosanol (10.52%), hexacosanol acetate (9.28%), tetradecyl ester of chloroacetic acid (7.22%), Z,Z-6, 28-heptatriactontadien-2-one (6.77%) and 10, 13-dimethyl-methyl ester of tetradecanoic acid (5.34%) as major compounds. Also described in the report are the beta-carotene bleaching inhibitory and total reducing activities of the chloroform and ethyl acetate extracts of C. peltata and P. gymnospora, respectively, relative to the other three extracts (aqueous, methanol, chloroform or ethyl acetate) of the two algae.

Differential growth inhibition of cancer cell lines and antioxidant activity of extracts of red, brown, and green marine algae.

As the use of various anticancer drugs is associated with many undesirable side effects, there is an urgent need for the discovery of new, better, and specific anticancer compounds. Antioxidant and antiproliferative activities as well as effects on cell morphology were investigated for methanol (M), chloroform (C), ethyl acetate (E), and aqueous (A) extracts of Caulerpa peltata, Gelidiella acerosa, Padina gymnospora, and Sargassum wightii using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical-scavenging, ferrous ion chelation, and resazurin-based growth inhibition (in A549, HCT-15, MG-63, and PC-3 cell lines) assays. A general trend was the greater extraction of phenols and flavonoids by chloroform and ethyl acetate, which showed higher activity in many assays. These non-polar C and E extracts showed higher DPPH radical-scavenging and growth inhibitory activities in A549, HCT-15, and PC-3 cells. However, higher ferrous ion chelation (A extracts) and growth inhibition in MG-63 cells (M and A extracts) were seen for the polar extracts. Furthermore, P. gymnospora and C. peltata emerged as promising sources for antiproliferative agents that could be explored for their own activity and as leads for the development of other compounds.

Synonymous codon usage in chloroplast genome of Coffea arabica.

Synonymous codon usage of 53 protein coding genes in chloroplast genome of Coffea arabica was analyzed for the first time to find out the possible factors contributing codon bias. All preferred synonymous codons were found to use A/T ending codons as chloroplast genomes are rich in AT. No difference in preference for preferred codons was observed in any of the two strands, viz., leading and lagging strands. Complex correlations between total base compositions (A, T, G, C, GC) and silent base contents (A(3), T(3), G(3), C(3), GC(3)) revealed that compositional constraints played crucial role in shaping the codon usage pattern of C. arabica chloroplast genome. ENC Vs GC(3) plot grouped majority of the analyzed genes on or just below the left side of the expected GC(3) curve indicating the influence of base compositional constraints in regulating codon usage. But some of the genes lie distantly below the continuous curve confirmed the influence of some other factors on the codon usage across those genes. Influence of compositional constraints was further confirmed by correspondence analysis as axis 1 and 3 had significant correlations with silent base contents. Correlation of ENC with axis 1, 4 and CAI with 1, 2 prognosticated the minor influence of selection in nature but exact separation of highly and lowly expressed genes could not be seen. From the present study, we concluded that mutational pressure combined with weak selection influenced the pattern of synonymous codon usage across the genes in the chloroplast genomes of C. arabica.