Polytechnic University of Valencia

About: Polytechnic University of Valencia is a education organization based out in Valencia, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Population. The organization has 16282 authors who have published 40162 publications receiving 850234 citations.

Fast screening methods to detect antibiotic residues in food samples

Abstract: Antibiotic residues in edible animal products are of great concern to regulatory agencies and consumers, so reliable screening methods for rapid, selective and sensitive detection of these residues are necessary to ensure food safety. In recent years, great efforts have been made to simplify the treatment of solid food samples and also to introduce high-throughput methods, so different screening methods have been developed. This review presents a general overview on the progress of the three most important screening approaches to detect antibiotic residues in food samples (i.e. immunoassays, microbiological tests and biosensors). Their main advantages are short analysis time, high sensitivity and selectivity for immunoassays, simplicity and low cost for microbiological tests, and automation and the possibility of in situ analysis for biosensors. Moreover, it is important to note a great increase in the number of commercial kits. Regarding the detection mode employed, the lowest limits of detection were achieved using microbiological inhibition tests and immunoassays with time-resolved fluorometry detection, so antibiotic residues at levels lower than the maximum residue limits established by legislation were detected.

GoldenBraid 2.0: A Comprehensive DNA Assembly Framework for Plant Synthetic Biology

Abstract: Plant synthetic biology aims to apply engineering principles to plant genetic design One strategic requirement of plant synthetic biology is the adoption of common standardized technologies that facilitate the construction of increasingly complex multigene structures at the DNA level while enabling the exchange of genetic building blocks among plant bioengineers Here, we describe GoldenBraid 20 (GB20), a comprehensive technological framework that aims to foster the exchange of standard DNA parts for plant synthetic biology GB20 relies on the use of type IIS restriction enzymes for DNA assembly and proposes a modular cloning schema with positional notation that resembles the grammar of natural languages Apart from providing an optimized cloning strategy that generates fully exchangeable genetic elements for multigene engineering, the GB20 toolkit offers an ever-growing open collection of DNA parts, including a group of functionally tested, premade genetic modules to build frequently used modules like constitutive and inducible expression cassettes, endogenous gene silencing and protein-protein interaction tools, etc Use of the GB20 framework is facilitated by a number of Web resources that include a publicly available database, tutorials, and a software package that provides in silico simulations and laboratory protocols for GB20 part domestication and multigene engineering In short, GB20 provides a framework to exchange both information and physical DNA elements among bioengineers to help implement plant synthetic biology projects

An integrated optical interferometric nanodevice based on silicon technology for biosensor applications

Abstract: Integrated optical sensors have become important in recent years since they are the only technology which allows the direct detection of biomolecular interactions. Moreover, silicon microelectronics technology allows mass production as well as the fabrication of nano-/macrosystems on the same platform by hybrid integration of sources, sensors, photodetectors and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor electronics.For the fabrication of an optical sensor nanodevice with an integrated Mach–Zehnder interferometric (MZI) configuration, the optical waveguides must have two main features: monomode behaviour and a high surface sensitivity. In this paper we present the development of a MZI sensor based on total internal reflection waveguides with nanometre dimensions. The aim is to use these sensors in environmental control to detect water pollutants by immunoassay techniques.