Browsing by Subject "Screening"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Development of a planar yeast estrogen screen as screening tool for estrogen active compounds
(2018) Schick, Dinah; Schwack, Wolfgang
Substances that disrupt or impair the hormone system (endocrine system) or that show an irreversible influence on it are referred to as endocrine disruptors or xenohormones. Concerning this, also estrogen active compounds (EAC) are endocrine disruptors, that are under suspicion of being involved in the formation of tumors or to induce disruption during development and reproduction, and are, for example, blamed for being responsible for the feminization of fish. At this, EAC can be natural (human, phytoestrogens) but also synthetic substances, which are discharged to the environment by humans (e.g. pharmaceuticals, pesticides, additives). Regarding the ubiquitous presence of EAC, suitable methods for the analysis of EAC are required. An in vitro method for the determination of EAC is the YES assay (yeast estrogen screen) that is executed in liquid solutions in microtiter plates and that works with genetically modified yeasts, which contain the human estrogen receptor (hER) and a reporter gene encoding for the enzyme beta-galactosidase. In presence of EAC, the enzyme is produced and subsequently cleaves a substrate that is used to measure the receptor activity and thus the estrogenic activity. The transfer of the YES assay to high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) was successfully demonstrated and advanced, thus resulting in the combination of a chromatographic separation of analytes and the detection of EAC using genetically modified yeast cells directly on the HPTLC plate (HPTLC planar yeast estrogen screen, HPTLC-pYES). Usually, the substrate 4-methylumbelliferyl-beta-D-galactopyranoside is used for pYES, releasing blue fluorescing 4-methylumbelliferone (MU) after enzymatic cleavage. Various matrices, however, often contain a plenty of different components, partly showing native fluorescences (blue, red), why the detection of the blue fluorescing MU can be interfered. By applying the substrate resorufin-beta-D-galactopyranoside (RGP) and by using automated devices, the RGP-pYES as fast screening tool for EAC was developed and successfully applied to waste water samples and extracts of hops pellet samples. A screening method using HPTLC simultaneously represents a planar clean-up, why samples do not have to undergo complex steps of sample preparation or purification. The chromatographic separation in combination with the detection of estrogenic activity using genetically modified yeasts directly on the plate allowed the detection, the determination and the identification of single EAC. Using RGP, which releases orange fluorescing resorufin after enzymatic cleavage as positive signal of estrogenic activity, enabled a clear differentiation between fluorescences due to estrogenicity and the native fluorescence of sample components. Application of the RGP-pYES to spiked water samples and sewage samples showed high recovery rates and a good precision, and thus the applicability of the method as screening tool for environmental samples. By means of suitable evaluation methods, additionally the generation of dose-response curves of known and unknown EAC and thus the generation of so-called logit-log plots was possible. This enabled the determination of estradiol equivalent factors of known EAC as well as the determination of estradiol equivalent concentrations and amounts, respectively, of known and unknown EAC in liquid and solid samples. Thus, the possibility to estimate the estrogenic potential of a sample or single sample components was given. The coupling of pYES to mass spectrometry additionally allowed the identification of unknown EAC, demonstrated exemplarily by investigation of extracts of hops pellet samples, in which the only detected EAC in the hops extracts was identified as prenylnaringenin. Since the method uses a planar system, the pYES advantageously reveals all chromatographically separated sample components at one look and, as bioassay, additionally detects a possible estrogenic activity (activity at the hER) of single substances, while a differentiation between native occurring fluorescences of sample contaminants and the fluorescence as positive signal for estrogenicity of a substance is granted.
Glucoselipid biosurfactant biosynthesis operon of Rouxiella badensis DSM 100043T: screening, identification, and heterologous expression in Escherichia coli
(2025) Harahap, Andre Fahriz Perdana; Treinen, Chantal; Van Zyl, Leonardo Joaquim; Williams, Wesley Trevor; Conrad, Jürgen; Pfannstiel, Jens; Klaiber, Iris; Grether, Jakob; Hiller, Eric; Vahidinasab, Maliheh; Perino, Elvio Henrique Benatto; Lilge, Lars; Burger, Anita; Trindade, Marla; Hausmann, Rudolf; Seo, Myung-Ji
Rouxiella badensis DSM 100043T had been previously proven to produce a novel glucoselipid biosurfactant which has a very low critical micelle concentration (CMC) as well as very good stability against a wide range of pH, temperature, and salinity. In this study, we performed a function-based library screening from a R. badensis DSM 100043T genome library to identify responsible genes for biosynthesis of this glucoselipid. The identified open reading frames (ORFs) were cloned into several constructs in Escherichia coli for gene permutation analysis and the individual products were analyzed using high-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC). Products of interest from positive expression strains were purified and analyzed by liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) for further structure elucidation. Function-based screening of 5400 clones led to the identification of an operon containing three ORFs encoding acetyltransferase GlcA (ORF1), acyltransferase GlcB (ORF2), and phosphatase/HAD GlcC (ORF3). E. coli pCAT2, with all three ORFs, resulted in the production of identical R. badensis DSM 100043T glucosedilipid with Glu-C10:0-C12:1 as the main congener. ORF2-deletion strain E. coli pAFP1 primarily produced glucosemonolipids, with Glu-C10:0,3OH and Glu-C12:0 as the major congeners, predominantly esterified at the C-2 position of the glucose moiety. Furthermore, fed-batch bioreactor cultivation of E. coli pCAT2 using glucose as the carbon source yielded a maximum glucosedilipid titer of 2.34 g/L after 25 h of fermentation, which is 55-fold higher than that produced by batch cultivation of R. badensis DSM 100043T in the previous study.
Inflammation and nutrition: friend or foe?
(2023) Stumpf, Franziska; Keller, Bettina; Gressies, Carla; Schuetz, Philipp
The importance of the interplay between inflammation and nutrition has generated much interest in recent times. Inflammation has been identified as a key driver for disease-related malnutrition, leading to anorexia, reduced food intake, muscle catabolism, and insulin resistance, which are stimulating a catabolic state. Interesting recent data suggest that inflammation also modulates the response to nutritional treatment. Studies have demonstrated that patients with high inflammation show no response to nutritional interventions, while patients with lower levels of inflammation do. This may explain the contradictory results of nutritional trials to date. Several studies of heterogeneous patient populations, or in the critically ill or advanced cancer patients, have not found significant benefits on clinical outcome. Vice versa, several dietary patterns and nutrients with pro- or anti-inflammatory properties have been identified, demonstrating that nutrition influences inflammation. Within this review, we summarize and discuss recent advances in both the role of inflammation in malnutrition and the effect of nutrition on inflammation.