Biosurfactants from Soil Microorganisms as a Possible Detergent Replacement

Biosurfactants belong to the amphiphilic molecules category and are formed by a range of microorganisms. Similar to chemical surfactants, properties of Biosurfactants that make them unique include minimizing the surface and interfacial tensions. Biosurfactants also have Critical Micelle Concentration (CMC) in organic and aqueous solutions. Recent studies confirm the toxic nature of chemically synthesized surfactants and the advantages of biosurfactants prove their potential than commercially artificial counterparts. Rhamnolipids are well-characterized and promising compounds among other biosurfactants. In this study, biosurfactants producing microorganisms were isolated from the soil. The isolated microorganism was identified with different biochemical tests and found to be Pseudomonas aeruginosa. 16s rRNA locus was utilized for DNA bar-coding. Production of biosurfactants was done at shake flask level and 5L lab-scale fermenter using minimal media optimized for high yield. Cell-free supernatant was purified using LLE and biosurfactants characterization was performed on HPTLC and HPLC using standard Rhamnolipids. The isolated biosurfactants were tested to remove common stains and were found effective. This shows the potential of biosurfactants as a Laundry detergent.

Wildlife Collisions to Aircraft in India a Comparative Analysis of Hazardous Species Involved in Different Time Periods

Wildlife strikes (mainly birds, but also includes bats and other mammals on the ground) with aircraft isa serious economic and safety concern in the aviation industry. The solution to the problem can be evolved byidentifying the species involved in the incidents/ accidents. In the Indian context, such an attempt was started in1980. In the recent past, the Indian Air Force adopted the DNA Bar-coding technology to identify the species involved. The extent of the problems faced by the country and involvement of different species in various time blocks has been compared with the objective of analyzing changes over different periods to gauge the changes and assess the future requirements. The data indicates that over the years, the number of strikes has increased manifold in the civil aviation sector. The number of species involved in strikes has almost doubled. The serious strikes due to Vultures have nearly disappeared and their place has been mainly taken over by Black Kites. In the recent past, Black Kites are the cause of the highest damages and also have the highest probability of causing damages (61.17%) when struck. Adoption of DNA Barcoding technology has helped to identify the species in incidents where minimal bird remnants were found. Although the number of accidents has decreased, the economical losses continue to rise due to the high cost of modern aircraft.

DNA barcoding application of garfish (Hemirhampus sp.) in North Maluku Sea

The purpose of this study was to identify the species of garfish in the waters of north Maluku by applying DNA bar-coding techniques. The method used in the study was the primary design of DNA extraction and isolation, and DNA amplification through polymerase chain reaction. The results showed that Gen Cyt b analysis amplified ± 350 bp amplicon and for the alignment analysis showed that the amplification sample sequence had similarity with the Cyt b gene sequence of Hemiramphus balao with value of 97%. Sequence analysis showed that the six specimens had very low genetic distances. It can be concluded that the isolate samples of garfish have a very close kinship.

DNA Bar-coding: A Novel Approach for Identifying an Individual Using Extended Levenshtein Distance Algorithm and STR analysis

DNA bar-coding is a technique that uses the short DNA nucleotide sequences from the standard genome of the species in order to find and group the species to which it belongs to. The species are identified by their DNA nucleotide sequences in the same way the items are recognized and billed in the supermarket using barcode scanner to scan the Universal Product Code of the items. Two items may look same to the untrained eye, but in both cases the barcodes are distinct. It was possible to create DNA-barcodes to characterize species by analysing DNA samples from fish, birds, mammals, plants, and invertebrates using Smith-waterman and Needleman-Wunsch algorithm. In this work we are creating human DNA barcode and implementing Extended Levenshtein distance algorithm along with STR analysis that uses less computation time compared to the previously used algorithms to measure the differential distance between the two DNA nucleotide sequences through which an individual can be identified.