Abstract Microbial proteases are one of the most demanding enzymes for various industries with diverse applications in food, pharmaceutics, and textile industries to name the few. An extracellular alkaline metalloprotease was produced and purified from moderate halophilic bacterial strain, Bacillus cereus TS2, with some unique characteristics required for various industrial applications. The protease was produced in basal medium supplemented with casein and was partially purified by ion exchange chromatography followed by ammonium sulphate precipitation. The alkaline metalloprotease has molecular weight of 35 kDa with specific activity of 535.4 µM/min/mg. It can work at wide range of pH from 3 to 12, while showing optimum activity at pH 10. Similarly, the alkaline metalloprotease is stable till the temperature of 80 °C and works at wide range of temperature from 20 to 90 °C with optimum activity at 60 °C. The turnover rate increases in the presence of NaCl and Co+2 with k cat/KM of 1.42 × 103 and 1.27 × 103 s-1.M-1 respectively, while without NaCl and Co+2 it has a value of 7.58× 102. The alkaline metalloprotease was relatively resistant to thermal and solvent mediated denaturation. Applications revealed that the metalloprotease was efficient to remove hair from goat skin, remove blood stains and degrade milk, thus can be a potential candidate for leather, detergent, and food industry.

ABSTRACT Parthenium hysterophorus is an invasive plant variety found in around 50 countries. Phenolic compounds in the P. hysterophorus leaves, HPLC analysis was carried out. In addition, methanolic extract of P. hysterophorus leaves was evaluated for total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), DPPH free radical scavenging activity, and hemolytic activity. The leaves crude extract was orally administered to rabbits (n = 5) at four doses (10, 20, 40 and 80 mg kg–1) for 9 days and its effects on hematological and biochemical parameters were investigated. Statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism 8.0 software. The HPLC data revealed the presence of Chlorogenic acid, Bis-HHDP-hex (pedunculagin), Morin, Ellagic acid, Rutin, Syringic acid, etc., which were detected at various retention times. Among these compounds, Ellagic acid was abundantly present with sample peak area of 9594.909 %. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents in the leaves extracts at a concentration of 80 μg were, 57.35 ± 4.12 μg GAE/μg and 39.44 ± 0.41 μg QE/μg. DPPH free radical scavenging activity was 72.82 % with IC50 value of 168 μg/μL at 80 μg of the extract. In the hemolysis assay, 200 μg of extract had highest cell inhibition of 76.90 % with IC50 >500. Significant (P<0.05) variation in the hematological and biochemical parameters was observed in the extract fed groups. It has been concluded that P. hysterophorus leaves extract had toxic effects on the hematological and biochemical parameters in rabbits which cause abnormal blood profile.

RESUMO Contexto A desnutrição é comum em pacientes com cirrose hepática e está correlacionada com complicações precoces, morbidade e mortalidade. Objetivo O objetivo do estudo foi avaliar o estado nutricional, o impacto da triagem nutricional e a intervenção em pacientes com cirrose hepática, avaliando sua ingestão real de energia e proteína durante a internação hospitalar. Métodos Foi realizado um estudo transversal em que o estado nutricional de todos os pacientes foi definido pela ferramenta de Avaliação Global Subjetiva. O fornecimento adequado de energia e proteína foi planejado e executado por meio de plano nutricional individualizado para pacientes com colaboração de nutricionista. As medidas antropométricas incluíram: altura, peso, índice de massa corporal, circunferência do braço médio, força de aderência da mão e espessura da dobra da pele tríceps. Os testes bioquímicos incluíram: hemoglobina, volume e concentração da hemoglobina corpuscular média, albumina e testes de função hepática. Para registrar a ingestão diária de alimentos, foi utilizado um recall dietético de 24 horas. Resultados Ao todo foram incluídos 83 pacientes (média de 55 anos), entre eles 46% dos pacientes estavam moderadamente desnutridos, 12% estavam normais, enquanto 42% dos pacientes cirróticos estavam severamente depletados de acordo com a Avaliação Global Subjetiva. A ingestão média de calorias e proteínas foi melhorada durante a internação hospitalar após intervenção nutricional e monitoramento crítico (P<0,05). As medidas antropométricas na linha de base e descarga apresentaram diferenças significativas (P< 0,05) em peso, índice de massa corporal, espessura da dobra da pele do tríceps e valores médios de circunferência do braço, mas não na força de aderência da mão que estava associada à desnutrição entre os pacientes. Conclusão Proporcionar intervenção nutricional individualizada e seu acompanhamento por nutricionistas qualificados durante a internação hospitalar ajuda a melhorar a ingestão em pacientes que previnem maior risco de desnutrição e complicações relacionadas.

ABSTRACT Background Malnutrition is common in liver cirrhosis patients that is correlated with early complications, morbidity and mortality. Objective The purpose of the study was to assess nutritional status, impact of nutritional screening and intervention in liver cirrhosis patients by evaluating their actual energy and protein intake during hospital stay. Methods A cross sectional study was conducted wherein all patients’ nutritional status was defined by Subjective Global Assessment tool. Adequate energy and protein supply were planned and executed by using individualized nutritional plan for patients with dietitian’s collaboration. Anthropometric measurements included height, weight, body mass index, mid upper arm circumference, hand grip strength and triceps skin-fold thickness. Biochemical tests included haemoglobin, mean corpuscular haemoglobin, volume and concentration, albumin and liver function tests. To record the daily food intake, a 24-hour dietary recall was used. Results Overall 83 patients (mean age 55) were included, among them 46% of patients were moderately malnourished, 12% were normal, while 42% of cirrhotic patients were severely depleted according to Subjective Global Assessment. The mean intake of calories and protein was improved during stay in hospital after nutritional intervention and critical monitoring (P<0.05). Anthropometric measurements at baseline and discharge showed significant differences (P <0.05) in weight, body mass index, triceps skin fold thickness and mid upper arm circumference values, but not in hand grip strength that was associated with malnourishment among patients. Conclusion Providing individualized nutritional intervention and its monitoring by qualified dietitians during hospital stay helps to improve intake in patients that prevent further risk of malnutrition and related complications.

Abstract Milk is an excellent source of nutrients. It is a balanced diet. Cheeses are fermented milk product. There are hunderds of cheese types. Cottage cheese is fermented dairy product made by the coagulation of milk. It is nutritionally most suitable diet for lactose intolerant people. It contains all essential nutrients. Recently cottage cheese was made with the use of tatri and lemon juice. The use of tatri and lemon do not produce good quality end product. This project was aimed to standardize cottage cheese using food grade coagulants. Cottage cheese was analyzed for physicochemical, textural, functional and sensorial analysis. The use of food grade organic acids produced strong results. The increase in acid level increases the yield but it is not remains good organolaptically. Sensory results reveals that the use of acetic acid has a bitter aftertaste. The use of citric acid at the level of 0.4% was found best on all aspects.

Abstract Snakebite is one of the major health issues posing considerable morbidity and mortality. According to an estimate of World Health Organization (WHO) (World health organization, 2021) approximately 5 million people are bitten by several species of snakes resulting in up to 2.5 million envenomation cases annually. The mainstay of treatment for envenomation is intravenous administration of anti-snake venom. Although antivenom neutralizes the systemic effects but it does not relieve the symptoms such as venom-induced hemorrhage, necrosis and nephrotoxicity. Moreover, the use of antivenoms is associated with hypersensitivity reactions including urticaria, anaphylaxis, or serum sickness due to their heterologous property. Furthermore, stringent storage conditions and narrow specificity of antivenoms limit their use in both developed as well as developing countries. In this context, researchers have been searching for natural products and plant extracts to explore their antivenom activity along with anti-myotoxic, anti-hemorrhagic and anti-inflammatory properties. Plant remedies may prove to be an effective alternate for antivenom sera with less adverse events and better tolerability. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review of medicinal plants possessing anti-snake venom activities against certain species of snakes. The current review highlights the investigated plants with their phytochemical analysis to integrate the available information for future research and development of antivenom sera.

ABSTRACT Megaloptera is a small holometabolous insect order that includes two genera and three species of Corydalidae in Pakistan. Here we sequenced the complete mitochondrial genomes of these three Pakistani corydalids: Nevromus intimus (McLachlan, 1869) (16,614 bp), Protohermes motuoensis Liu & Yang, 2006 (16,238 bp), and Protohermes walkeri Navás, 1929 (16,514 bp). It also represents the first set of complete mitogenomes sequenced for Neuropterida in Pakistan. The gene order was found to be similar to other published dobsonfly mitogenomes except the variable length of the non-coding region in each species. The phylogenetic analysis using 13 protein-coding genes by Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference yielded largely consistent topologies, in which the phylogenetic positions of the three species herein studied are recovered.

Abstract: In this paper, we firstly obtain two identities for multiplicative differentiable functions. Then by using these identities, we establish Ostrowski and Simpson type inequalities for multiplicative integrals. At the end we give detail applications of our main results

Abstract: Topological indices are useful in QSAR/QSPR studies for modeling biological and physiochemical properties of molecules. The neighborhood Zagreb index (M N ) is a novel topological index having good correlations with some physiochemical properties. For a simple connected graph G, the neighborhood Zagreb index is the totality of square of δ G (v) over the vertex set, where δ G (v) is the total count of degrees of all neighbors of v in G. In this report, some bounds are established for the neighborhood Zagreb index. Some explicit expressions of the index for some graph operations are also computed, which are used to obtain the index for some chemically significant molecular graphs.

Zirconia was prepared by a precipitation method and calcined at 723 K, 1023 K, and 1253 K in order to obtain monoclinic zirconia. The prepared zirconia was characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX, surface area and pore size analyzer, and particle size analyzer. Monoclinic ZrO2 as a catalyst was used for the gas-phase oxidation of isopropanol to acetone in a Pyrex-glass-flow-type reactor with a temperature range of 443 K - 473 K. It was found that monoclinic ZrO2 shows remarkable catalytic activity (68%) and selectivity (100%) for the oxidation of isopropanol to acetone. This kinetic study reveals that the oxidation of isopropanol to acetone follows the L-H mechanism.