OBJECTIVES To determine the serum levels of methylglyoxal (MG) and carbonic anhydrase (CA) activity in known cases of type-II diabetes mellitus with insulin resistance and to compare them with age-sex matched healthy controls. METHODS Eightysix participants were enrolled for the present case-controlled study with ages ranging from 25 to 44 years. The analytes measured were fasting blood gluco...

Carbonic anhydrases (CAs, EC 4) are zinc containing metalloenzymes. The active site of these enzymes contains a Zn (II) ion Co-ordinated by three histidine residues and a water molecule/hydroxide ion. Four distinct gene families encode them and distributed throughout the phylogenetic tree. Presently 16 different CA isoforms of alpha family have been isolated and characterized in mammals. They c...

Nurofen Plus is a common analgesic containing ibuprofen and codeine. We present a case of a 38-year-old lady who developed renal tubular acidosis with severe hypokalaemia, after chronic abuse of Nurofen Plus tablets. She presented with confusion and profound biochemical abnormalities requiring critical care admission for electrolyte replacement. Ibuprofen causes renal tubular acidosis due to it...

Microbially-induced CaCO3 precipitation (MICP) is a naturally occurring process wherein durable carbonates are formed as a result of microbial metabolic activities. In recent years, MICP technology has been widely harnessed for applications in civil engineering wherein synthesis of calcium carbonate crystals occurs at ambient temperature paving way for low energy biocement. MICP using pure urea...

Ocean acidification, the decrease in seawater pH due to the absorption of atmospheric CO2, profoundly threatens the survival of a large number of marine species. Cold-water corals are considered to be among the most vulnerable organisms to ocean acidification because they are already exposed to relatively low pH and corresponding low calcium carbonate saturation states (). Lophelia pertusa is ...

To identify genes of potential importance to alkalinity tolerance, RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was performed to survey gill transcriptome profiles from freshwater (FW) and alkaline water (AW) exposed Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). A total of 22,724,036 (AW)/16,461,040 (FW) single-end reads were generated in which 20,304,348 (AW)/14,681,290 (FW) reads (90.0/89.72%) were aligned to the refere...

The enzyme carbonic anhydrase (carbonate dehydratase, EC 4.2.1.1) is an abundant soluble protein in the C3 plant chloroplast; however, its function in photosynthetic carbon assimilation is not well defined. In this study we have examined the relationship between carbonic anhydrase (CA) and ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) expression during pea (Pisum sativum) developmen...

The precipitation of calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate by isolated bacteria from seawater and real brine obtained in a desalination plant growth in culture media containing seawater and brine as mineral sources has been studied. However, only bioprecipitation was detected when the bacteria were grown in media with added organic matter. Biomineralization process started rapidly, crystal for...

Cement-based material is one of the most versatile and largest amounts of building materials which can not only be used in load-bearing structure but also be used as decoration materials, like brick, wallboard, and tile. However, white calcium carbonate always be found on the surface of wallboard. This phenomenon is generally called efflorescence, which has no damage to wallboard, but has aesth...

The calcifying shell is an excellent model for studying biomineralization and evolution. However, the molecular mechanisms of shell formation are only beginning to be elucidated in Mollusca. It is known that shell matrix proteins (SMPs) play important roles in shell formation. With increasing data of shell matrix proteomes from various species, we carried out a BLASTp bioinformatics analysis us...