Chromium is a toxic heavy metal abundantly present in the environment, specifically in groundwater. The groundwater in Saudi Arabia was assessed for heavy metal presence; chromium was detected at a high concentration in Madinah. Many researchers have used various bioprocesses over the last few decades to mitigate Cr(VI) toxicity. The genus Pseudomonas member Pseudomonas putida is widely dispersed in the natural environment. P. putida is chromate-resistant and has a high chromate reduction rate. Bioremediation procedures can eradicate the most potently toxic metal, Cr(VI), in water, air, and soil. Chromate reductase (ChrR) is a bacterial enzyme from P. putida that can be utilized in bioremediation to remove chromate from the environment in a cost-effective and environmentally safe approach. To comprehend the role of ChrR in reducing Cr(VI) to Cr(III), a thorough sequence analysis was followed by constructing models for wild-type and mutants by applying several homology modeling techniques. The protein structure quality of the generated models was evaluated, and the best model was adopted for further optimization by employing an energy minimization technique. Molecular docking studies investigated the intra-molecular interaction between wild-type and mutant ChrR and Cr(VI). Our study is a novel method for determining the 3D structure and interaction of ChrR with Cr(VI) to convert it to a less hazardous form (III). Additionally, it provides stable mutants: Arg83Trp, Gly124Ile, and His127Trp, with a high binding affinity for Cr(VI), which can be considered for protein engineering to produce stable and efficacious enzymes to reduce Cr(VI) to a less toxic form.
In Saudi Arabia, seawater desalination is the primary source of acquiring freshwater, and groundwater contains a high concentration of toxic heavy metals. Chromium (Cr) is one of the heavy metals that is widely distributed in the environment, particularly in the groundwater of Madinah. Diverse techniques are employed to eliminate the toxicity of heavy metals from the environment, but, lately, the focus has shifted to biological remediation systems, due to their higher removal efficiencies, lower costs, and more ecologically benign characteristics than the conventional methods. Providencia bacteria engage in a variety of adsorption processes to interact with heavy metals. In this study, we aim to investigate the role of potential active site residues in the bioengineering of chromate reductase (ChrR) from Providencia alcalifaciens to reduce the Cr to a lesser toxic form by employing robust computational approaches. This study highlights Cr bioremediation by providing high-quality homology-modeled structures of wild type and mutants and key residues of ChrR for bioengineering to reduce the Cr toxicity in the environment. Glu79 is found to be a key residue for Cr binding. The mutant models of Arg82Cys, Gln126Trp, and Glu144Trp are observed to establish more metallic interactions within the binding pocket of ChrR. In addition, the wild type ChrR (P. alcalifaciens) has been found to be unstable. However, the mutations stabilized the structure by preserving the metallic contacts between the critical amino acid residues of the identified motifs and the Cr(VI). Therefore, the mutants discovered in the study can be taken into account for protein engineering to create reliable and effective enzymes to convert Cr(VI) into a lesser toxic form.
Thyroid hormones are essential for growth and development of the liver. This study evaluated some biochemical alterations in post-pubertal hypothyroidism and its impact on liver functions. Additionally, the ameliorating role of folic acid supplementation was investigated. Fifty male albino rats were randomly divided into five groups (group I, control; group II, folic acid; group III, 0.05% propylthiouracil-induced hypothyroid rats; group IV, Co-treatment; group V post-treatment). There was a significant decrease in plasma T 3 , body weight, fluid and food intakes, folic acid, ALT, total thiol and tFRAP in hypothyroid rats as compared to control group. On the other hand, a significant increase in TSH, relative liver weight, plasma of total homocysteine, serum total protein, AST, total serum bilirubin, cholesterol and tMDA in hypothyroid rats as compared to control group. This reflects hyperhomocysteinemia and oxidative stress associated with hypothyroid state. Folic acid supplemented after restoration of the euthyroid state presented better amelioration over its concurrent supplementation. If confirmed in human beings, our results could propose that folic acid can be used as an adjuvant therapy in hypothyroidism disorders with thyroxin replacement therapy.
Hyperspectral imaging becomes an important technique that increases the valuable information enclosed within the image. Spectral cube produced by this type of imaging introduces a new material signature known as "spectral signature". This signature is unique for each material as it depends on the molecular composition of the material surface. To produce the spectral cube, a spectrometer should be used in the imagery device to split the electromagnetic energy at different wavelengths before its projection on the imaging array. This spectrometer may be a dispersive element, such as prism and grating, or an electronically tuneable filter. Some of dispersive spectrometers, such as Fourier transform interferometer (FTIR) and image multi-spectral imaging (IMSS), are based on sliding the lenses, or mirrors, along the optical axis which may result in a slightly out-of-focus blurring. Blind deconvolution techniques have been successfully used to decrease this blurring but at the expense of edge sharpening which may be a problem in some applications such as target detection and recognition.In this paper, we introduce a new method to deblurr the hyperspectral images keeping edges as sharp as possible. This is done by firstly detecting the edges locations and then applying a class of morphological filtering. Motivated by the success of threshold decomposition, gradient-based operators are used to detect the locations of these edges followed by an adaptive morphological filter to sharpen these detected edges. Experimental results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed deblurring filter is superior to that of the blind deconvolution methods.
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