Evaluation of antifungal activity of cerium oxide nanoparticles and associated cellular responses.

Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2), as a metal oxide nanomaterial, are increasingly used for various industrial and biomedical applications. Although their cytotoxicity to bacteria and the associated mechanisms have attracted particular attention, the mechanisms behind their antifungal effects have remained unclear. This study investigated the antifungal properties of CeO2, focusing on Aspergillus oryzae. CeO2 inhibited fungal spore germination on solid substrates, and the effect was fungistatic rather than fungicidal. CeO2 inhibited fungal growth, especially under UV irradiation, and induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Tocopherol reduced the intracellular ROS levels and the growth-inhibitory effects of CeO2, suggesting that ROS are involved in these growth-inhibitory effects. Transcriptomic analysis revealed upregulated expression of genes related to phospholipases and phosphate metabolism. CeO2 affected phosphate ion concentration in the medium, potentially influencing cellular responses. This research provided valuable insights into the antifungal effects of CeO2 application, which differ from those of conventional photocatalysts like TiO2.

Improved Thermoelectric Properties of Re-Substituted Higher Manganese Silicides by Inducing Phonon Scattering and an Energy-Filtering Effect at Grain Boundary Interfaces.

In this study, the effect of the grain boundary density on the transport properties of the Re-substituted higher manganese silicide Mn30.4Re6Si63.6 has been investigated. The efficiency of electrical energy conversion from waste heat, mainly in thermoelectric generators, depends on how the thermal conduction is reduced, while the charge-carrier electrons/holes contribute to possess a large magnitude of both the electrical conductivity σ and Seebeck coefficient S. In this work, we tried to obtain such a condition with a novel approach of merging the energy-filtering effect at the grain boundaries to improve the power factor (PF) = S2σ. The nanostructuring and heavy-element substitution were also employed to greatly scatter the phonon conduction. As a result, enhancement of the PF was observed in the diffused nanostructure of annealed ribbon samples, and the enhancement was correlated with the formation of Schottky barriers at the grain boundary interface. Together with a reduction of the thermal conductivity to very low magnitude 1.27 W m-1 K-1, we obtained a maximum ZT = 1.15 at 873 K for the annealed ribbon samples.

Targeted proteome analysis of single-gene deletion strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae lacking enzymes in the central carbon metabolism.

Central carbon metabolism is controlled by modulating the protein abundance profiles of enzymes that maintain the essential systems in living organisms. In this study, metabolic adaptation mechanisms in the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae were investigated by direct determination of enzyme abundance levels in 30 wild type and mutant strains. We performed a targeted proteome analysis using S. cerevisiae strains that lack genes encoding the enzymes responsible for central carbon metabolism. Our analysis revealed that at least 30% of the observed variations in enzyme abundance levels could be explained by global regulatory mechanisms. A enzyme-enzyme co-abundance analysis revealed that the abundances of enzyme proteins involved in the trehalose metabolism and glycolysis changed in a coordinated manner under the control of the transcription factors for global regulation. The remaining variations were derived from local mechanisms such as a mutant-specific increase in the abundances of remote enzymes. The proteome data also suggested that, although the functional compensation of the deficient enzyme was attained by using more resources for protein biosynthesis, available resources for the biosynthesis of the enzymes responsible for central metabolism were not abundant in S. cerevisiae cells. These results showed that global and local regulation of enzyme abundance levels shape central carbon metabolism in S. cerevisiae by using a limited resource for protein biosynthesis.

Absolute quantitation of glycolytic intermediates reveals thermodynamic shifts in Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains lacking PFK1 or ZWF1 genes.

Internal standard based absolute quantitation of glycolytic intermediates was performed to characterize the thermodynamic states of Saccharomyces cerevisiae metabolism. A mixture of (13)C-labeled glycolytic intermediates was prepared via extraction from S. cerevisiae cells cultivated using a synthetic medium containing [U-(13)C] glucose as the sole carbon source. The (13)C-labeled metabolite mixture was used as an internal standard for the analysis of S. cerevisiae cultivated in a medium containing natural glucose. The methodology was employed for the absolute quantitation of glycolytic intermediates of BY4742, pfk1Δ, and zwf1Δ strains of S. cerevisiae. Fructose-1,6-bisphosphate was the most abundant intermediate in the BY4742 strains in the log phase of growth. Estimation of the Gibbs free energy change (ΔG) from the absolute concentration revealed that several reactions, such as those catalyzed by ribose-5-phosphate keto-isomerase and phosphoglucose isomerase, were commonly at near-equilibrium in all three strains. A significant shift in thermodynamic state was also observed for the transketolase-transaldolase reaction, for which ΔG was -6.6 ± 0.5 kJ mol(-1) in the BY4742 strain and 5.4 ± 0.3 kJ mol(-1) in the zwf1Δ strain.

Chalcopyrite Nanoparticles as a Sustainable Thermoelectric Material.

In this report, copper iron sulfide nanoparticles with various composition were synthesized by a thermolysis based wet chemical method. These inherently sustainable nanoparticles were then fully characterized in terms of composition, structure, and morphology, as well as for suitability as a thermoelectric material. The merits of the material preparation include a straightforward bulk material formation where particles do not require any specialized treatment, such as spark plasma sintering or thermal heating. The Seebeck coefficient of the materials reveals P-type conductivity with a maximum value of 203 µV/K. The results give insight into how to design and create a new class of sustainable nanoparticle material for thermoelectric applications.