Alzheimer's disease (AD) is marked by the accumulation of neuronal plaques from insoluble amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides. Growing evidence for the role of Aβ oligomers in neuronal cell cytotoxicity and pathogenesis has prompted the development of novel techniques to better understand the early stages of aggregation. Near infrared (NIR) optical trapping was applied to characterize the early stages o...

Mushrooms contain high amounts of substances like chitin and glucans, which can be used for medical purposes and nutrient matter. Therefore, an easy quantification method for chitin and for glucans, with high precision, is a matter of particular importance. For this purpose, we developed an easy and unique photometric method for the determination of -1,3-1,6 glucans in mushrooms. This method i...

Objective: Aim of this study deals with screening and characterization of chitinase-producing bacteria from marine waste and its deposited soil along the coastal regions in Chennai. Methods: The soil samples were collected aseptically and subjected to serial dilution to isolate the bacterial strains. Totally, 35 morphologically different microorganisms were isolated and were screened for their ...

Amyloids are usually used to refer to a wide range of fibrous nanostructures formed from natural and synthetic proteins and peptides. The self-propagating protein aggregates are rich in ┚-sheets, which stack in hundreds to thousands units perpendicular to the fibrous axis, forming fibrils 5-15 nm in width and several micrometers in length (Dobson, 1999; Jaroniec et al., 2004; Luhrs et al., 2005...

Gastric emptying was compared in patients with gastric cancers and fundal gastritis to determine its value in identifying patients at high risk of gastric cancer. Gastric emptying was measured by the acetaminophen absorption method, and the extent of fundal gastritis was determined by the endoscopic Congo red test. The results showed that gastric emptying was significantly slower in patients wi...

In this study we investigated the phenotypic slime production of Vibrio alginolyticus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains, food-borne pathogens, using a Congo red agar plate assay. Furthermore, we studied their ability to adhere to abiotic surfaces and Vero cells line. Our results showed that only V. alginolyticus ATCC 17749 was a slime-producer developing almost black colonies on Congo red aga...

The study was undertaken to answer the question that how many patients with pigmentation of back and arms actually have amyloid deposits in pathology. 44 patients presenting with diffuse pigmentation of back and arms (DPOBA) were selected. Skin biopsies were performed in all cases from the affected sites. On all formalin fixed and paraffin embedded specimens, the following histochemical stains ...