Muhammad Shahid Mahmood

Antioxidant and Antipathogenic Activities of Citrus Peel Oils

Abstract The present study was focused on unexplored Pakistani citrus species viz. sweet oranges (Citrus sinensis Vars. Jaffa, Blood Red and Mosambi), Mandarins (Citrus reticulata Var. kinnow) and grapefruits (Citrus paradisi Var. Shamber) for peel oil yield, chemical composition and antipathogen activities. The chemical composition of citrus peel oil was analyzed through gas chromatographic - mass spectrometric analysis. Six compounds viz. D-limonene, d-carvone, Z-5-nonadecane, thujol, trans-P-mentha-2,8-dienol and heneicosane were commonly present in all cultivars. However, D-limonene (40.9–76 %) was a major compound in all citrus peel oils. The high amounts of phenolic compounds were recorded in the peel oil with a maximum amount in grapefruit (8.58 mg/g) and minimum in Kinnow mandarin (5.20 mg/g). Jaffa orange cultivar showed a highest radical scavenging activity (70.14 %). Furthermore, peel oils were tested for their antimicrobial activities against five pathogenic bacterial strains viz. Staphylococcus aureus, Eschrichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Proteus vulgaris, Staphylococcus epidermidisand two pathogenic fungal strains viz. Aspergillus flavus and Trichophyton alba. Citrus peel was found effective against all tested micro-organisms and in particular Jaffa orange essential oil was highly effective against all microbial strains growth and Salmonella typhi was the most inhibited strains among all.

CRISPR/Cas9: the Jedi against the dark empire of diseases

Advances in Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR associated system (CRISPR/Cas9) has dramatically reshaped our ability to edit genomes. The scientific community is using CRISPR/Cas9 for various biotechnological and medical purposes. One of its most important uses is developing potential therapeutic strategies against diseases. CRISPR/Cas9 based approaches have been increasingly applied to the treatment of human diseases like cancer, genetic, immunological and neurological disorders and viral diseases. These strategies using CRISPR/Cas9 are not only therapy oriented but can also be used for disease modeling as well, which in turn can lead to the improved understanding of mechanisms of various infectious and genetic diseases. In addition, CRISPR/Cas9 system can also be used as programmable antibiotics to kill the bacteria sequence specifically and therefore can bypass multidrug resistance. Furthermore, CRISPR/Cas9 based gene drive may also hold the potential to limit the spread of vector borne diseases. This bacterial and archaeal adaptive immune system might be a therapeutic answer to previous incurable diseases, of course rigorous testing is required to corroborate these claims. In this review, we provide an insight about the recent developments using CRISPR/Cas9 against various diseases with respect to disease modeling and treatment, and what future perspectives should be noted while using this technology.

Evaluation of efficacy of Vero cell-adapted, thermostable Newcastle disease vaccine in broilers

&NA; The main theme of this project was to develop a Vero cell‐adapted, thermostable NDV I‐2 vaccine and evaluate its efficacy against challenge infection. For this purpose, serial passages of virus were done in Vero cell line up to 13 times and after each passage samples were subjected to heat treatment at 56°C for 40 min. After 13 passages, the virus was completely adapted on Vero cell line and cytopathic effects were observed, including syncytial formation, rounding, degeneration, and detachment of cells. Hemagglutination and infectivity titers showed that the virus was thermostable after each passages in Vero cell line. One‐day‐old broiler chicks (Group 1) were vaccinated orally with thermostable NDV I‐2 vaccine. A commercially available thermolabile NDV LaSota was used in Group 2 used as positive control. NDV I‐2 vaccine produced maximum % inhibition migration at d 6 (50%) as compared with LaSota ND vaccine (i.e., 32%). On encounter with virulent NDV I‐2, 100% safety was accomplished in group 1 and 60% in case of group 2. All the birds in the control negative group had died. This study led to the conclusion that thermostable Vero cell adapted I‐2 strain vaccine resulted in better immunization in broiler birds than obtained by the use of commercially available thermolabile vaccines.

Transesterification of oil extracted from freshwater algae for biodiesel production

ABSTRACT Currently, energy crisis is a burning issue throughout the world, particularly in underdeveloped countries like Pakistan where the demand of conventional fuels has been increasing day by day. The main objective of this project was the production of biodiesel from Algae. Samples of freshwater were collected. The Chlorella species produced 6.26 g oil from 38.23 g of dry weight and the Oedogonium species produced 8.07 g of oil from 38.23 g of dried weight. The biomass obtained after oil extraction was 31.97 g from chlorella species and 30.16 g from Oedogonium species. The fatty acids that were displayed by a gas chromatographic machine in chlorella species were capric acid, nanoic acid, arachidonic acid, behenic acid, and erucic acid and in oedogonium species they were capric acid, butyric acid, behenic acid, luric acid, tridecanoic acid, and arachidonic acid.