Nitroaromatics are major pollutants released in the environment during the post-industrialization era and pose toxic effects to living organisms. Several bacterial strains have been isolated for the degradation of these nitroaromatic pollutants. Some of them have been used in field trial experiments for the removal of nitroaromatics from industrial water and groundwater. Very few bacterial pathways have been characterized at genetic and molecular levels. In this review, we cover all reported degradation pathways and their gene evolution. These studies for nitroaromatics clearly indicate that most of the involved genes have evolved from preexisting enzymes by using all means of gene evolution like horizontal gene transfer, mutation, and promiscuity principle. This information has been exploited for the creation of hybrid pathways and better biocatalysts for degradation.
This article presents a PCB based microfluidic platform for performing a dielectrophoretic capture of live microorganisms over inter-digitated electrodes buried under layers of different surface roughness values. Although dielectrophoresis has been extensively studied earlier over silicon and polymer surfaces with printed electrodes the issue of surface roughness particularly in case of buried electrodes has been seldom investigated. We have addressed this issue through a layer of spin coated PDMS (of various surface roughness) that is used to cover the printed electrodes over a printed circuit board. The roughness in the PDMS layer is generally defined by the roughness of the FR4 base which houses the printed electrodes as well as other structures. Possibilities arising out of COMSOL simulations have been well validated experimentally in this work.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.