Pranab Goswami

Recent advances in material science for developing enzyme electrodes

The enzyme-modified electrode is the fundamental component of amperometric biosensors and biofuel cells. The selection of appropriate combinations of materials, such as: enzyme, electron transport mediator, binding and encapsulation materials, conductive support matrix and solid support, for construction of enzyme-modified electrodes governs the efficiency of the electrodes in terms of electron transfer kinetics, mass transport, stability, and reproducibility. This review investigates the varieties of materials that can be used for these purposes. Recent innovation in conductive electro-active polymers, functionalized polymers, biocompatible composite materials, composites of transition metal-based complexes and organometallic compounds, sol-gel and hydro-gel materials, nanomaterials, other nano-metal composites, and nano-metal oxides are reviewed and discussed here. In addition, the critical issues related to the construction of enzyme electrodes and their application for biosensor and biofuel cell applications are also highlighted in this article. Effort has been made to cover the recent literature on the advancement of materials sciences to develop enzyme electrodes and their potential applications for the construction of biosensors and biofuel cells.

Synthesis of novel biodegradable and self-assembling methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-palmitate nanocarrier for curcumin delivery to cancer cells.

A novel polymeric amphiphile, mPEG-PA, was synthesized with methoxy poly(ethylene glycol) (mPEG) as the hydrophilic and palmitic acid (PA) as the hydrophobic segment. The conjugate prepared in a single-step reaction showed minimal toxicity on HeLa cells. (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed that the conjugation was through an ester linkage, which is biodegradable. Enzymes having esterase activity, such as lipase, can degrade the conjugate easily, as observed by in vitro studies. mPEG-PA conjugate undergoes self-assembly in an aqueous environment, as evidenced by fluorescence spectroscopic studies with pyrene as a probe. The mPEG-PA conjugate formed micelles in the aqueous solution with critical micelle concentration of 0.12 g l(-1). Atomic force microscopy and dynamic light scattering studies showed that the micelles were spherical in shape, with a mean diameter of 41.43 nm. The utility of mPEG-PA to entrap the potent chemopreventive agent curcumin in the core of nanocarrier was investigated. The encapsulation of a highly hydrophobic compound like curcumin in the nanocarrier makes the drug readily soluble in an aqueous system, which can increase the ease of dosing and makes intravenous dosing possible. Drug-loaded micelle nanoparticles showed good stability in physiological condition (pH 7.4), in simulated gastric fluid (pH 1.2) and in simulated intestinal fluid (pH 6.8). This micellar formulation can be used as an enzyme-triggered drug release carrier, as suggested by in vitro enzyme-catalyzed drug release using pure lipase and HeLa cell lysate. The IC(50) of free curcumin and encapsulated curcumin was found to be 14.32 and 15.58 microM, respectively.

A case study of bioremediation of petroleum-hydrocarbon contaminated soil at a crude oil spill site

Abstract Laboratory and field pilot studies were carried out on the bioremediation of soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons in the Borhola oil fields, Assam, India. The effects of aeration, nutrients (i.e. nitrogen and phosphorus) and inoculation of extraneous microbial consortia on the bioremediation process were investigated. The beneficial effects of these parameters on the bioremediation rate were realised equally in laboratory and field pilot tests. The field tests revealed that up to 75% of the hydrocarbon contaminants were degraded within 1 year, indicating the feasibility of developing a bioremediation protocol. A complementary computer simulation study was carried out to enhance the understanding of the basic processes and the rate determining factors for bioremediation under the practically relevant conditions of Borhola oil fields. The simulations indicated that due to the high initial contaminant concentrations, the bioremediation process was restricted mostly to the macropores of the system within the period of 1 year and had not penetrated into the soil aggregates sufficiently. Certain shortcomings of the model have been identified and possible refinements suggested.

Encapsulation of Curcumin in Pluronic Block Copolymer Micelles for Drug Delivery Applications

We report here the potential of Pluronic tri-block copolymer micelles for the formulation of curcumin, a natural dietary compound having great therapeutic potential against many diseases including cancer. Two most commonly used Pluronic F127 and F68 were used for the formulation and analyzed for curcumin encapsulation efficiency and stability. The encapsulation of drug in micelle was highly dependent on drug-to-copolymer ratio. Pluronic F127 showed better encapsulation efficiency than Pluronic F68. In vitro release profile demonstrated slower and sustained release of curcumin from Pluronic micelles. The lyophilized form of the formulations exhibited good stability for long-term storage. The physical interaction of curcumin with Pluronic was evident by XRD analysis, UV-visible, fluorescence, and FT-IR spectroscopy. AFM study showed that the drug-encapsulated micelles were spherical in shape with diameters below 100 nm. The in vitro cytotoxicity of the drug formulations was investigated with HeLa cancer cells. Pluronic-encapsulated curcumin showed comparable anticancer activity with free curcumin.

Ethyl oleate synthesis by Porcine pancreatic lipase in organic solvents

The Porcine pancreatic lipase catalysed esterification of oleic acid with ethanol was studied in 10 different solvents with constant initial water content in the reaction mixture. The initial rates of the esterification reaction were attempted to correlate with such solvent properties as hydrophobicity (log P), water solubility (Sw), dielectric constant, electron pair acceptance and donation index (expressed as E N + DN N ), polarisability etc. While significantly good linear correlations with log P and log Sw were obtained, the correlations with the other properties were found to be inferior. The kinetics of the reactions was found to conform to the so-called Ping-Pong-Bi-Bi model with ethanol inhibition effect and the estimated model parameters exhibited statistically significant correlation with log P consistent to its correlation with the initial rate. Assuming that organic solvents do not interfere with the lipase–substrate binding process nor with the catalytic mechanism, the contribution of substrate–solvent interactions to enzyme kinetics was accounted for by replacing the substrate concentrations of the intrinsic kinetic equations by thermodynamic activities. The values of the corrected intrinsic parameters ( Km, ksp) and the maximal rate (Vmax) were found to be nearly equal for all the media.

Recent advances on developing 3rd generation enzyme electrode for biosensor applications

The electrochemical biosensor with enzyme as biorecognition element is traditionally pursued as an attractive research topic owing to their high commercial perspective in healthcare and environmental sectors. The research interest on the subject is sharply increased since the beginning of 21st century primarily, due to the concomitant increase in knowledge in the field of material science. The remarkable effects of many advance materials such as, conductive polymers and nanomaterials, were acknowledged in the developing efficient 3rd generation enzyme bioelectrodes which offer superior selectivity, sensitivity, reagent less detection, and label free fabrication of biosensors. The present review article compiles the major knowledge surfaced on the subject since its inception incorporating the key review and experimental papers published during the last decade which extensively cover the development on the redox enzyme based 3rd generation electrochemical biosensors. The tenet involved in the function of these direct electrochemistry based enzyme electrodes, their characterizations and various strategies reported so far for their development such as, nanofabrication, polymer based and reconstitution approaches are elucidated. In addition, the possible challenges and the future prospects in the development of efficient biosensors following this direct electrochemistry based principle are discussed. A comparative account on the design strategies and critical performance factors involved in the 3rd generation biosensors among some selected prominent works published on the subject during last decade have also been included in a tabular form for ready reference to the readers.

Production of a Pseudomonas lipase in n-alkane substrate and its isolation using an improved ammonium sulfate precipitation technique

Among the various lipidic and non-lipidic substances, normal alkanes within the chain lengths of C-12 to C-20 served as the best carbon substrates for the production of extracellular lipase by Pseudomonas species G6. Maximum lipase production of 25 U/ml of the culture broth was obtained by using n-hexadecane as the sole carbon substrate. The optimum pH of 8 and temperature of 34 + 1 degrees C were demonstrated for the production of lipase in n-hexadecane substrate. The optimum concentration of iron, which played a critical role on the lipase production, was found to be 0.25 mg/l. Lipase production could be enhanced to nearly 2.4-fold by using tributyrin at a concentration of 0.05% (v/v) in the culture medium. High recovery of the lipase protein (83%) from the culture broth was achieved by treating the culture supernatant with Silicone 21 Defoamer followed by ammonium sulfate (60% saturation) fractionation.

Selective and sensitive detection of free bilirubin in blood serum using human serum albumin stabilized gold nanoclusters as fluorometric and colorimetric probe.

We report here a fluorescence quenching based non-enzymatic method for sensitive and reliable detection of free bilirubin in blood serum samples using human serum albumin (HSA) stabilized gold nanoclusters (HSA-AuNCs) as fluorescent probe. The fluorescence of the nanoclusters was strongly quenched by bilirubin in a concentration dependent manner by virtue of the inherent specific interaction between bilirubin and HSA. A strong binding constant of 0.55×10(6) L mole(-1) between the HSA-AuNC and bilirubin was discerned. The nano clusters each with size ~1.0 nm (in diameter) and a core of Au18 were homogeneously distributed in HSA molecules as revealed from the respective high resolution transmission electron microscopic and mass spectroscopic studies. The fluorescence quenching phenomena which obeyed a simple static quenching mechanism, was utilized for interference free detection of bilirubin with minimum detection limit (DL) of 248±12 nM (S/N=3). The fluorescence response of HSA-AuNCs against bilirubin was practically unaltered over a wide pH (6-9) and temperature (25-50 °C) range. Additionally, peroxidase-like catalytic activity of these nanoclusters was exploited for colorimetric detection of bilirubin in serum sample with a DL of 200±19 nM by following the decrease in absorbance (at λ440 nm) of the reaction and its rate constant (Kp) of 2.57±0.63 mL μg(-1) min(-1). Both these fluorometric and colorimetric methods have been successfully used for detection of free bilirubin in blood serum samples.

Direct electrochemistry of alcohol oxidase using multiwalled carbon nanotube as electroactive matrix for biosensor application

Rapid detection of alcohol is important in clinical diagnosis and fermentation industry. An octameric alcohol oxidase (AOx) (Mr 675 kDa) from Pichia pastoris, immobilized on multiwalled carbon nanotubes-Nafion® (MWCNT-Nf) matrix and encapsulated with polyethylenimine (PEI) on gold electrode (AuE), showed a redox peak at 0.21V (vs. Ag/AgCl electrode at pH 7.5) for oxidation of alcohol. The electron transfer rate constant and surface coverage of the immobilized AOx were 1.69±0.15 s⁻¹ and 2.43×10⁻¹² mol cm⁻², respectively. Studies on response and kinetics of Au-MWCNT-Nf-AOx-PEI bioelectrodes for alcohol showed a linear response in the range of 8 μM-42 μM, response time of 55 s for steady state current, and detection limit of 5 μM. The bioelectrode retains ~90% of the original response even after four weeks when stored in potassium phosphate buffer pH 7.5 at 4 °C. The fabricated bioelectrode was found to exclude interference caused by the common electroactive species such as ascorbic acid, uric acid, lactic acid, glucose and urea. The bioelectrode also showed reliable response characteristics in blood serum samples. The findings of the investigation have established the direct electrochemistry of the AOx protein and its potential biosensor application for quantitative detection of alcohol in blood serum.

An overview on alcohol oxidases and their potential applications

Alcohol oxidases (Alcohol: O2 Oxidoreductase; EC 1.1.3.x) are flavoenzymes that catalyze the oxidation of alcohols to the corresponding carbonyl compounds with a concomitant release of hydrogen peroxide. Based on substrate specificity, alcohol oxidases may be categorized broadly into four different groups namely, (a) short chain alcohol oxidase (SCAO), (b) long chain alcohol oxidase (LCAO), (c) aromatic alcohol oxidase (AAO), and (d) secondary alcohol oxidase (SAO). The sources reported for these enzymes are mostly limited to bacteria, yeast, fungi, plant, insect, and mollusks. However, the quantum of reports for each category of enzymes considerably varies across these sources. The enzymes belonging to SCAO and LCAO are intracellular in nature, whereas AAO and SAO are mostly secreted to the medium. SCAO and LCAO are invariably reported as multimeric proteins with very high holoenzyme molecular masses, but the molecular characteristics of these enzymes are yet to be clearly elucidated. One of the striking features of the alcohol oxidases that make them distinct from the widely known alcohol dehydrogenase is the avidly bound cofactor to the redox center of these enzymes that obviate the need to supplement cofactor during the catalytic reaction. These flavin-based redox enzymes have gained enormous importance in the development of various industrial processes and products primarily for developing biosensors and production of various industrially useful carbonyl compounds. The present review provides an overview on alcohol oxidases from different categories focusing research on these oxidases during the last decade along with their potential industrial applications.