In the conversion of woody biomass feedstocks into liquid fuel ethanol, the pretreatment process is the most critical and costly step. Variations in biomass composition based on genetic differences or environmental effects have a significant impact on the degree of accessibility accomplished by pretreatment and subsequent sugar release by enzymatic hydrolysis. To evaluate this, biomass from 10 ...

Because conventional approaches for evaluating sugar release from the coupled operations of pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis are extremely time and material intensive, high throughput (HT) pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis systems have become vital for screening large numbers of lignocellulosic biomass samples to identify feedstocks and/or processing conditions that significantly impro...

The effect of pretreatment with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) on chromate-induced DNA damage, cytotoxicity, and enzyme inhibition as well as on the cellular reduction of chromium(VI) was investigated using Chinese hamster V-79 cells. Cellular pretreatment with nontoxic levels of 1 mM ascorbic acid for 24 h prior to exposure resulted in a significant increase (1.7-fold) in cellular levels of this vi...

The antihypertensive, hemodynamic, and humoral effects of the new converting-enzyme inhibitor enalapril (MK-421) were assessed by sequential studies during 3 months of uninterrupted treatment (20 mg twice daily) in 10 hypertensive patients. Six achieved good blood pressure (mean arterial pressure) control with enalapril alone (from 126 +/- 7.0 mm Hg pretreatment to 105 +/- 1.6 mm Hg at 3 months...

1. Histamine catabolism in vivo was studied in mice subjected to various forms of pretreatment; tissues from mice killed 2.5 min after intravenous injection of (14)C-histamine were assayed for (14)C-histamine, (14)C-methylhistamine and total (14)C.2. Pretreatment of mice with aminoguanidine, an inhibitor of diamine oxidase, strongly increased levels of (14)C-histamine in intestine; pretreatment...

Twenty percent of of the world's flowering plants produce recalcitrant seeds (i.e., seeds that cannot withstand drying or freezing). We investigated whether the embryonic axis from the normally recalcitrant seeds of silver maple (Acer saccharinum L.) can be made tolerant to desiccation (10% water content) and low temperature (-196 degrees C, cryopreservation) by pretreatment with ABA or the com...

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of calcium chloride and calcium lactate pretreatments at different concentrations (1, 1.5 and 2% w/v) on enzymatic browning of clingstone and freestone peaches following high-pressure processing (HPP) at 200 MPa for 10 min. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (H-NMR) relaxometry indicated that following calcium pretreatment and HPP, both pea...

BACKGROUND Bamboo is potentially an interesting feedstock for advanced bioethanol production in China due to its natural abundance, rapid growth, perennial nature and low management requirements. Liquid hot water (LHW) pretreatment was selected as a promising technology to enhance sugar release from bamboo lignocellulose whilst keeping economic and environmental costs to a minimum. The present ...

The feasibility of the combination of fungal with mild acid pretreatments of Glycyrrhiza uralensis residue (GUR) for enzymatic hydrolysis and oil production was studied. Combined pretreatment with Phanerochaete chrysosporium and 2.5% sulfuric acid was shown to be more effective than the acid-only pretreatment. Subsequently, the residue obtained from acid hydrolysis was subjected to enzymatic hy...

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based regenerative therapy is currently regarded as a novel approach with which to repair damaged tissues. However, the efficiency of MSC transplantation is limited due to the low survival rate of engrafted MSCs. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) production is increased in numerous diseases and serves an essential function in the regulation of apoptosis in a variety of cell t...