Human serum albumin: from bench to bedside.

The origin of plant cell and tissue culture can be found in a treatise published during the mid-18th century, entitled La Physique des Arbes, that describes the formation of callus tissue following the for mation of a ring of cortex from elm trees. Over the next two centuries, the discovery of plant growth hormones, in particular auxins and cytokinins, and detailed analyses on the nutritional requirements of plants, led to the formulation of media that could maintain actively dividing cultures derived from gymnosperms, and both dicotyledon ous and monocotyledonous angiosperms. However, much of the prog ress and technological development in the in vitro propagation of plant cells, tissues, and organs has occurred during the last 25 years. Recently, plant tissue culture techniques have been used as basic tools in the rapidly expanding field of plant biotechnology for the development and clonal propagation of new and/or improved plant varieties. Plant tissue culture is used for the micropropagation of commercially valuable cultivars that include ornamentals, oil palm, Glycyrrhiza, Pyrethrum, pine, Eucalyptus, sugar cane, and potatoes. Cultured plant tissue is also used for the selection of cells and, ul timately, the regeneration of plants that are tolerant to physical stresses such as pathogens, drought, and temperature extremes, and to chemical stress agents such as salinity, herbicides, proteins, and pyrethrins. In addition, new plants have been produced by the fusion of protoplasts prepared from cultured cells of different species in cluding sunflower and french bean, tomato and potato, and various cultivars of Datura. Finally, bacterial vectors and various mechanical methods have been used to introduce foreign genes into cultured plant tissues. Genetic transformation can result in profound changes in the phenotype and/or biochemical profile of the regenerated trans genic plants that are not characteristic of the wild type. An impressive variety of technologies in tissue culture, genetic manipulation, and molecular biology have been developed for nu merous plant species. Many of these techniques, sometimes referred to as plant biotechnology, have been extensively summarized and compiled in a well-balanced collection of easy-to-follow protocols presented in three separate, but complimentary, volumes. Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture consists of 22 chapters (with 86 figures) and 5 appendices. The chapters cover critical aspects of (a) the es sential requirements for the operation of a plant tissue culture lab oratory; (b) the basic procedures of micropropagation, regeneration, and somatic embryogenesis; (c) some specific applications of organ culture systems such as embryo rescue and culture, and anther and microspore culture for haploid and double haploid production; (d) elementary transformation technology; and (e) useful microtechnique and analytical protocols specifically adapted to cultured tissues and cells. The appendices provide a convenient summary of media for mulations and commercial suppliers for the materials described in the text.

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Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture

Serum albumin first appeared in early vertebrates and is present in the plasma of all mammals. Its canonical structure supported by a conserved set of disulfide bridges is maintained in all mammalian serum albumins and any changes in sequence are highly correlated with evolution of the species. Previous structural investigations of mammalian serum albumins have only concentrated on human serum albumin (HSA), most likely as a consequence of crystallization and diffraction difficulties. Here, the crystal structures of serum albumins isolated from bovine, equine and leporine blood plasma are reported. The structure of bovine serum albumin (BSA) was determined at 2.47 A resolution, two crystal structures of equine serum albumin (ESA) were determined at resolutions of 2.32 and 2.04 A, and that of leporine serum albumin (LSA) was determined at 2.27 A resolution. These structures were compared in detail with the structure of HSA. The ligand-binding pockets in BSA, ESA and LSA revealed different amino-acid compositions and conformations in comparison to HSA in some cases; however, much more significant differences were observed on the surface of the molecules. BSA, which is one of the most extensively utilized proteins in laboratory practice and is used as an HSA substitute in many experiments, exhibits only 75.8% identity compared with HSA. The higher resolution crystal structure of ESA highlights the binding properties of this protein because it includes several bound compounds from the crystallization solution that provide additional structural information about potential ligand-binding pockets.

Structures of bovine, equine and leporine serum albumin.

Plant biomass are woody and non-wood materials (e.g., oil palm, bamboo, rattan, bagasse, and kenaf) and are abundant and renewable resource. Unfortunately, the heavy reliance on this resource is a threat to forest ecosystems and a recipe for accelerated land resource degradation. Due to the increasing scarcity of wood resources, many rural communities have shifted to utilization of crop residues for many different applications. The non-wood biomass is readily available, environmental friendly, and technologically suitable, and therefore, an excellent raw material for the future. The non-wood materials like bamboo, rattan, oil palm, and bagasse have superior properties and durability, which can be further prolonged by the modifi cation treatment. The modifi cation treatments increase the performance of the non-wood and could make it suitable for applications in many fi elds ranging from construction industry to automotive industry. This chapter deals with the properties improvement techniques of the selected non-wood biomasses and evaluates its applications for various purposes. The new developments dealing with the improvement of non-wood properties have also been presented in the chapter. The performance of non-wood biomass materials has been compared to the wood-based materials. Recent studies pertaining to the above topics have also been cited. Finally, the advanced applications of the improved non-wood biomasses have been highlighted.

Biomass and bioenergy

A comprehensive review on flavanones, the major citrus polyphenols

Ligand binding strategies of human serum albumin: how can the cargo be utilized?

Human serum albumin (HSA), being the most abundant carrier protein in blood and a modern day clinical tool for drug delivery, attracts high attention among biologists. Hence, its unfolding/refolding strategies and exogenous/endogenous ligand binding preference are of immense use in therapeutics and clinical biochemistry. Among its fellow proteins albumin is known to carry almost every small molecule. Thus, it is a potential contender for being a molecular cargo/or nanovehicle for clinical, biophysical and industrial purposes. Nonetheless, its structure and function are largely regulated by various chemical and physical factors to accommodate HSA to its func- tional purpose. This multifunctional protein also possesses enzymatic properties which may be used to convert prodrugs to active therapeutics. This review aims to highlight current overview on the binding strategies of protein to various ligands that may be expected to lead to significant clinical applications. Chirality 00:000-000, 2009. V C 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Review Article Ligand Binding Strategies of Human Serum Albumin: How Can the Cargo be Utilized?

Uremic syndrome results from malfunctioning of various organ systems due to the retention of uremic toxins which, under normal conditions, would be excreted into the urine and/or metabolized by the kidneys. The aim of this study was to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the renal elimination of uremic toxin creatinine that accumulate in chronic renal failure. Quantitative investigation of the plausible correlations was performed by spectroscopy, calorimetry, molecular docking and accessibility of surface area. Alkalinization of normal plasma from pH 7.0 to 9.0 modifies the distribution of toxin in the body and therefore may affect both the accumulation and the rate of toxin elimination. The ligand loading of HSA with uremic toxin predicts several key side chain interactions of site I that presumably have the potential to impact the specificity and impaired drug binding. These findings provide useful information for elucidating the complicated mechanism of toxin disposition in renal disease state.

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Elimination of Endogenous Toxin, Creatinine from Blood Plasma Depends on Albumin Conformation: Site Specific Uremic Toxicity & Impaired Drug Binding

The binding of ciprofloxacin (CFX) to human serum albumin (HSA) has been investigated by fluorescence displacement and induced circular dichroism (ICD) measurements. Displacement measurements were performed with CFX in the absence and presence of marker ligands (hemin for domain I, bilirubin for interspace of domain IA and IIA, chloroform for domain II, and diazepam for domain III) to establish CFX binding site in one of the three major domains of HSA. The primary binding site of CFX is located in site I of HSA (domain IIA) in close vicinity to the site where chloroform (CHCl3) binds. It is depicted from the decrease in quenching constant of HSA–CHCl3 system (0.02 ± 0.06) × 10−3 L mol−1 compared to HSA–CFX–CHCl3 system (0.01 ± 0.06) × 10−3 L mol−1 as obtained by the fluorescence displacement spectroscopy. Furthermore, far-UV CD results show that the binding of CFX leads to change in the helicity of HSA. The ICD results indicated that the CFX binds to the domain IIA of HSA which is in agreement with the fluorescence displacement results.

Analysis of Binding Interaction Between Antibacterial Ciprofloxacin and Human Serum Albumin by Spectroscopic Techniques

The aim of the study was to develop an improved and rapid regeneration system via axillary shoot proliferation for Tecomella undulata, an important endangered medicinal tree in India. The Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium augmented with different concentrations (0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0 μM) of Thidiazuron (TDZ) was tested for the ability to induce axillary shoot development from cotyledonary node explants excised from 7-day-old sterile seedlings. Among the tried concentrations of TDZ, 0.7 μM showed optimum response in inducing maximum number (25.00 ± 2.30) of shoots and shoot length (4.06 ± 0.58 cm) after 3 weeks of incubation. The regenerated shoots when subcultured on MS medium lacking TDZ gave twofold shoot multiplication rate with maximum number (43.00 ± 2.86) of shoots per explant and longer shoot length (7.40 ± 0.34 cm) during the fourth subculture passage. Attempts were also made to study the morphogenetic effect of medium pH and sucrose concentration on axillary shoot induction and proliferation. The highest efficiency of shoot regeneration was recorded in MS medium supplemented with 0.7 μM TDZ and 3% sucrose at pH 5.8 after 3 weeks of culture. Different concentrations of Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) were tested to determine the optimum conditions for ex vitro rooting of microshoots. The best result was accomplished with IBA (200 μM) pulse treatment given to the basal end of the microshoots for 30 min followed by their transfer in plastic cups containing soilrite and eventually established in natural soil with 80% survival rate. During acclimatization of plants, catalase (CAT) activity increased reaching maximum at 28th day after transplantation, while superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity increased reaching a maximum in the 21 days. Likewise, changes in the glutathione reductase (GR) and Ascorbate peroxidase (APX) were also detected. The observed changes reflect the plant’s capacity to develop antioxidant mechanisms during acclimatization which determine the ability to survive in oxidative stress. The standardized protocol for mass propagation of Tecomella undulata should eliminate the dependence on natural stands of plants for pharmaceutical purposes, and will also serve as a means of conservation as the species is highly overexploited.

Improvement of shoot morphogenesis in vitro and assessment of changes of the activity of antioxidant enzymes during acclimation of micropropagated plants of Desert Teak

Ankita Varshney

Papers

Ligand binding strategies of human serum albumin: how can the cargo be utilized?

Review Article Ligand Binding Strategies of Human Serum Albumin: How Can the Cargo be Utilized?

Elimination of Endogenous Toxin, Creatinine from Blood Plasma Depends on Albumin Conformation: Site Specific Uremic Toxicity & Impaired Drug Binding

Analysis of Binding Interaction Between Antibacterial Ciprofloxacin and Human Serum Albumin by Spectroscopic Techniques

Improvement of shoot morphogenesis in vitro and assessment of changes of the activity of antioxidant enzymes during acclimation of micropropagated plants of Desert Teak