Potential Therapeutic Option used for the Cure of Covid-19 using Locally Available Indigenous Herbs (Nigeria) Containing Antioxidant, Vitamins, Minerals; thus, this will help to tackle Current Status, Challenges as well as Futuristic Perspective Globally

Purpose: The unprecedented global pandemic from Covid-19 infection has generated significant chaos to humanity in both health wise and as well as economically. Thus, there have been no specific pharmacological and antiviral therapeutic option to date available for covid-19 management. For these reasons, there have been urgent needs to discover an effective medicine for preventive, and eradication methods due to the hash nature of death toll from this novel corona virus infection. Methods: Repurposing of selection, characterization of bacteria through genomic / traditional, phytochemical and fermentation methods base anti covid-19 drugs discovery. Thus, these approaches and techniques is essential to provides a better lead or otherwise. Results: Taking a bold step of faith to approach the techniques for Covid-19 methods, the results for microbiological screening of bacterial reveals that Bacillus sp (spore former, motile, rod (+) was pin-point to have the highest colony followed by Pseudomonas sp alongside with Klebsiellas sp(Capsule formers ,motile and rod (+)) and the least were found with both shigella sp (none motile, Rod (-ve) and Staphylococcus sp (cocci (+). Phytochemical screening of different plants both in qualitative and quantitative methods using Raphanu satinus, Neem (Azadirachata indica), Bagaruwa (Acacia nilotica), Moringa (Moringa oleifera) etc., respectively contain all the natural antioxidant, bioactive compounds, vitamins as well as an appreciable amount of micronutrient/ macronutrient for combatting covid-19 pandemic. Further investigation through fermentation processes were accentuated with time differences have reveal microbial crude proteins (%), pH and dry matter values have significant changes to all the specific species. Thus, there were significant increase in proteins, pH values decrease as well as dry matter decreases in this order% Protein< pH>DM respectively. Originality: in view of this current investigation anti covid-19 leads translated through microbial screening, phytochemical as well as fermentation processes could overcome the current challenges of covid-19 pandemic therapy. Considering the immense potential of phytochemical, microbiological and fermentation processes, this article summarizes the present status of the research carried out on their anti-covid-19 activities with its limitation and futuristic direction to foster drug discovery.

Probing Specificities of Alcohol Acyltransferases for Designer Ester Biosynthesis with a High-Throughput Microbial Screening Platform

Alcohol acyltransferases (AATs) enables microbial biosynthesis of a large space of esters by condensing an alcohol and an acyl CoA. However, substrate promiscuity of AATs prevents microbial biosynthesis of designer esters with high selectivity. Here, we developed a high-throughput microbial screening platform that facilitates rapid identification of AATs for designer ester biosynthesis. First, we established a microplate-based culturing technique with in situ fermentation and extraction of esters. We validated its capability in rapid profiling of the alcohol substrate specificity of 20 chloramphenicol acetyltransferase variants derived from Staphylococcus aureus (CATSa) for microbial biosynthesis of acetate esters with various exogeneous alcohol supply. By coupling the microplate-based culturing technique with a previously established colorimetric assay, we developed a high-throughput microbial screening platform for AATs. We demonstrated that this platform could not only confirm CATSa F97W with enhanced isobutyl acetate synthesis but also identify three ATF1Sc (P348M, P348A, and P348S) variants, derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae' s AAT and engineered by model-guided protein design, for enhanced butyl acetate production. We anticipate the high-throughput microbial screening platform is a useful tool to identify novel AATs that have important roles in nature and industrial biocatalysis for designer bioester production.

Revisiting Substrate Specificity Concept in Microbial Screening Methodologies for Fish Waste Management

Microbial and enzymatic processing is an attractive area for production of valuable byproducts from fish waste. Functional screening methodologies for the purpose are still based on activities in non-specific substrates, and concept of substrate specificity is not yet validated. Therefore, reliability of using non-specific substrate for the purpose was checked. Results revealed the existence of a limited number of mutually inclusive positive isolates in non-specific and specific substrate based assays (13% for fish proteolysis and 22% for fish lipolysis), with no significant positive correlations (P>0.05). Further, using non-specific substrates in screening assays missed 57.1% and 53.33% of fish proteolytic and fish lipolytic microbes respectively, signifying the use of same substrates. Beyond methodological perspectives, the paper forms the first report on fish proteolytic activity of Bacillus tropicus, Bacillus vallismortis, Paenibacillus alvei, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus hominis. Similarly, fish oil hydrolyzing capacities of B. tropicus, Cronobacter sakazakii, P. alvei, Paenibacillus pinisoli, Pantoea stewartii, S. hominis and Staphylococcus caprae are recorded for the first time. Further, the paper points out 6 and 3 potential microbial species producing > 1 protease units/ml and >1 enzymatic index for fish proteolytic and lipolytic activities, without any optimization, warranting future use in fish waste management.

What are Optimal Bacteriological Screening Test Cut-Offs for Pasteurized Donor Human Milk Intended for Feeding Preterm Infants?

Background Definitive criteria for microbial screening of pasteurized donor human milk are not well established and international recommendations vary. Aims (1) To review pasteurized donor human milk batch discard due to failed microbial screening criteria at our milk bank (following United Kingdom National Institute of Clinical Excellence guidelines), and (2) to compare our known milk discard proportion with estimated milk discard proportions that would be required by other international milk bank guidelines. Methods We reviewed our microbial screening results ( N = 783) over 18-months (July 2018-December 2019) and compared our known milk discard proportion with estimated milk discard proportions using other international milk bank guidelines. Results Of samples, n = 50 (6.4%) failed pre-pasteurization screening, most commonly due to the presence of >104 CFU/mL Enterobacterales in the pre-pasteurization sample ( n = 30; 3.8%). Two (0.3%) samples failed post-pasteurization screening, with Bacillus cereus identified in both cases, resulting in total discard proportion of 6.7% ( n = 52) of batches. Applying European Milk Bank Association recommended bacterial screening criteria, approximately 23.3% ( n = 183) of milk batches would have been discarded. Conclusions Further research is required to justify the stringent European Milk Bank Association recommendations for pre-pasteurization discard criteria, although we believe that a post-pasteurization acceptance criterion of <1 CFU/mL is appropriate and aligns with international guidance. Further work is needed to understand pasteurized donor human milk microbiological safety risks, to better integrate screening criteria within current food standards regulation, and to consider risk-based assessment including the impact on availability and affordability.

Organoid-based models to study the role of host-microbiota interactions in IBD

The gut microbiota appears to play a central role in health, and alterations in the gut microbiota are observed in both forms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), namely Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Yet, the mechanisms behind host-microbiota interactions in IBD, especially at the intestinal epithelial cell level, are not yet fully understood. Dissecting the role of host-microbiota interactions in disease onset and progression is pivotal, and requires representative models mimicking the gastrointestinal ecosystem, including the intestinal epithelium, the gut microbiota and immune cells. New advancements in organoid microfluidics technology are facilitating the study of IBD-related microbial-epithelial crosstalk, and the discovery of novel microbial therapies. Here, we review different organoid-based ex vivo models that are currently available, and benchmark their suitability and limitations for specific research questions. Organoid applications such as patient-derived organoid biobanks for microbial screening and omics technologies are discussed, highlighting their potential to gain better mechanistic insights into disease mechanisms and eventually allowing personalized medicine.