December 2011
LMOs/GMOs, the environment and the people: A critical exposition
A continuous viable research used to develop living modified organisms/genetically modified organisms (LMOs/GMOs) by biotechnologists around the world is a sine qua non for providing subsistence to the ever growing populations in developing and least developed countries because they will continually experience rise in population till 2050. Moreover, it is necessary that all LMOs/GMOs are safe for...
December 2011
Application of semifluidized bed bioreactor as novel bioreactor system for the treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME)
Palm oil mill effluent (POME) is a high strength organic wastewater, which adversely affects aquatic life as well as human life directly or indirectly. This has attracted concern due to the rapid expansion of the oil palm industries in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, which currently contribute about 80% of the world palm oil. The conventional bioreactors such as pond digester, anaerobic filtration, up-flow...
December 2011
Production of effective microorganism using halal-based sources: A review
Contemporary Malaysia faces rapid population growth that will increase competition for land and water resources for industrial use and urban growth. Solutions are needed to increase agricultural productivity to combat hunger and poverty. Since the agriculture sector has long been the backbone of the economy, the nation has found effective microorganism (EM) technology that has potential use in developing a sustainable...
December 2011
Observation of antioxidant activity of leaves, callus and suspension culture of Justicia gendarusa
Antioxidant activity and phenolic compound was found in Justicia gendarussa via total phenolic content (TPC) and α,α-diphenyl-β-pycrilhydrazil hydrate (DPPH) radical scavenging assays. The assays were applied on aqueous and methanolic extracts of leaves, callus culture and cell suspension culture of J. gendarussa. Callus was induced from green and matured leaves of J....
December 2011
Development of compatible fungal mixed culture for composting process of oil palm industrial waste
Six filamentous fungal strains/isolates such as Aspergillus niger (A), Trichoderma viride (Tv), Trichoderma reesei (Tr), Penicillium sp. (P), Basidiomycete M1 (M1) andPanus tigrinus M609RQY (IMI 398363)(M6) were tested to find their mutual growth in the laboratory. Potato dextrose agar (PDA) as a media was used for their fifteen combinations and two different fungi...
December 2011
Predicting group of metabolites available in partially purified tomato leaves extract showing anticancer activity by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR)
Previously, tomato leaves were proved to be one of the potential anticancer agents. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic instrumentation were used to predict the presence of group of metabolites and to ascertain the possibility of certain absorption bands, in which most of the peaks in partially purified tomato (Solanum lycopersicon) leaves methanol...
December 2011
Tomato leaves methanol extract possesses anti-inflammatory activity via inhibition of lipopolysacharide (LPS)-induced prostaglandin (PGE2)
Recently, the leaves of tomato plant that contained several active compounds including alkaloid, steroid and flavanoid has been used for the treatment of variety of diseases and as anti-cancer, anti-oxidant and anti-gout. Although, a number of pharmacological properties have already been demonstrated, the anti-inflammatory effect of tomato leaves and its associated molecular mechanisms have not yet been fully...
December 2011
Evaluation of antibacterial activity of flowering plants and optimization of process conditions for the extraction of antibacterial compounds from Spathiphyllum cannifolium leaves
The screening practices for phytochemical compound from plants is essential to explore more natural sources to replace synthetic antibiotics which are generally associated with multi-drug resistance as well as having side effects such as hypersensitivity, immune-suppression and allergic reactions. In this study, screening of antibacterial property of 19 Malaysian flowering plants was conducted and optimization of the...
December 2011
Visual plumes coastal dispersion modeling in south-west Sabah
The visual plumes model encompassing the DKHW (Davis, Kannberg, Hirst model for Windows) and Update Merge (UM3) sub-models were utilized in the modeling exercise. In theory, the dilution capacity of open waters, particularly coastal areas, straits and oceans are enormous. This means that for surface and sub-merged point source discharges, the effluent concentration (Ce) will cause insignificant change in the overall...
December 2011
Isolation and screening of arsenic resistant rhizobacteria of Ludwigia octovalvis
Ludwigia octovalvis was characterized for its potential in arsenic phytoremediation.Epiphyte rhizobacteria from the roots of L. octovalvis were isolated in five different arsenic concentrations (4, 20, 40, 60 and 80 mg kg-1) and control after single exposure for 35 days. Results show that 109 colonies were isolated which were further grouped into 29 groups of isolated...
December 2011
Evaluation of nutritional components by Plackett-Burman design for Penicillium citrinum lipase production using palm oil mill effluent
A number of medium components influencing lipase production by Penicillium citrinum (ATCC 42799) were studied using palm oil mill effluent (POME) as the basal medium. The medium components (peptone, yeast extract, malt extract, NH4Cl, NaNO3, KH2PO4, CaCl2, MgSO4, olive oil and Tween-80) were analyzed in twelve experimental trials using Plackett–Burman (PB) design. The most significant...
December 2011
Study of in vitro degradation of biodegradable polymer based thin films and tissue engineering scaffolds
This paper reports the in vitro degradation of three-dimensional, highly porous tissue engineering scaffolds and non-porous thin films based on poly (L-lactide) (PLLA) biopolymers. The tissue engineering scaffolds were produced through the emulsion freezing/freeze-drying technique. The non-porous thin films were produced using solvent casting technique. In vitro degradation experiments in terms of...
December 2011
Chinese hamster ovary (CHO-K1) cells expressed native insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) gene towards efficient mammalian cell culture host system
Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) has been shown to promote cell proliferation and inhibit apoptosis of cells. These are two characteristics of mammalian cell culture which may lead to high density cell culture producing optimal desired yield of bioproducts. An inherent secretion of IGF-1 protein from host cells into the culture media is hypothesized to enable reduction or removable of serum from culture media, thus...
December 2011
Production of sugar by hydrolysis of empty fruit bunches using palm oil mill effluent (POME) based cellulases: Optimization study
The utilization of lignocellulosic materials such as empty fruit bunches (EFB) from palm oil plant for bioethanol production attract increasing attention as an abundantly available and cheap renewable residue, especially in Malaysia where palm oil production is the major agricultural industry. The most challenging part in conversion of lignocellulosic materials to bioethanol is the hydrolysis process in order...
December 2011
Development of pretreatment of empty fruit bunches for enhanced enzymatic saccharification
To achieve an accomplished optimized condition for enzymatic saccharification of palm oil mill empty fruit bunches (EFB) for higher yield of sugar hydrolysis, a comprehensive pretreatment of EFB was carried out using the laboratory produced cellulase enzyme through bioconversion of palm oil mill effluent (POME) by the fungal strain, Trichoderma reesei RUT C-30. This study was conducted by using two different...
December 2011
Antibacterial activity of Malaysian mango kernel
Mango (Mangifera indica) is a fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera and familyAnacardiaceae, consisting of numerous species of tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant. Mango has been reported to have high antibacterial activity against Gram positive bacteria, aids the development of the placenta and fetus, and helps in the metabolic activities of teeth, the retina and skin, while preventing...
December 2011
Disinfection studies of Nahar (Mesua ferrea) seed kernel oil using pour plate method
As a result of disinfection byproducts (DBP) concerns from chlorine, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as the water treatment industry, place more emphasis on the use of disinfectants other than chlorine. Disinfection also plays a key role in the reclamation and reuse of wastewater for eliminating infectious diseases, and to augment domestic water supply and decrease the impact of human activities on the...
December 2011
Simulation of ammoniacal nitrogen effluent using feedforward multilayer neural networks
Ammoniacal nitrogen in domestic wastewater treatment plants has recently been added as the monitoring parameter by the Department of Environment, Malaysia. It is necessary to obtain a suitable model for the simulation of ammonical nitrogen in the effluent stream of sewage treatment plant in order to meet the new environmental laws. Therefore, this study explores the robust capability of artificial neural...
December 2011
An isolated bacterial consortium for crude oil biodegradation
Crude oil utilizing bacteria were isolated from crude-oil contaminated soil (COCS) and tested for their ability to degrade COCS. Fifty strains were isolated, purified and monitored on agar plated for their growth. Twenty strains were selected for the second monitoring in shake flask using minimal salt medium with crude oil as sole carbon source. The growth was monitored by measuring the optical density (OD600) on daily...
December 2011
Application of activated carbon from empty fruit bunch (EFB) for mercury [Hg(II)] removal from aqueous solution
Mercury is a heavy metal and is used widely in the industry, making it a global problem. It accounts for approximately 70% of man-made emissions. Activated carbon was found to be efficient for the adsorption of Hg(ll) in aqueous solution. The characterization of Hg(ll) uptake showed that the mercury binding is dependent on initial pH, agitation speed, amount of dosage and also the interaction between pH and contact...
December 2011
Bioconversion of empty fruit bunches (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) into compost using Trichoderma virens
This study shows the performance of Trichoderma virens as an activator for conversion of empty fruit bunches (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) into compost. EFB and POME are two abundant wastes produced by oil palm industries which keep accumulating. Since there is no proper way to dispose these wastes, a potential way is to turn them into value-added product which is compost. However, normal composting...
December 2011
Integrated scheduled waste management system in Kuala Lumpur using expert system
Over the past decade, Malaysia has enjoyed tremendous growth in its economy. This has brought about a population growth together with a great influx of foreign workforce to the cities. This resulted in an increase in the amount of scheduled waste generated. Furthermore, scheduled waste management has long been a problem for local authorities in Kuala Lumpur. Continued illegal dumping by waste generators...
December 2011
Response surface optimization of the process conditions for anti-diabetic compounds from Cucumis sativus
Presently, there is a growing interest in herbal remedies due to the side effects associated with the use of insulin and oral hypoglycaemic agents for diabetic patient. Therefore, an investigation is required in a bionetwork rich and industrially-developed country like Malaysia to use alternative approaches to treat diabetics, such as plant based medicine. In this study, Cucumis sativus was examined on the...
December 2011
Phytochemical screening for antibacterial activity of potential Malaysian medicinal plants
Plants have been identified for their valuable properties for traditional medicine since thousands of years ago. The huge diversity of the Malaysian flora that has chemical diversity is one of the vital factors that make natural products outstanding candidates for any screening practice. In this study, the leaves of five local plants which areCentella asiatica (‘pegaga’), Ficus...
December 2011
Composting of food and yard wastes by locally isolated fungal strains
Four lignocellulolytic fungi isolates, Phanerochaete chrysosporium PC-13 (PC2094),Lentinus tigrinus M609RQY, Aspergillus niger and Penicillium spp. were used as inocula in source separated organics (food and yard trimmings) from solid waste (SW) to produce biofertilizer and stabilize waste constituents. The results show that composting with sequential pure culture accelerates substrates...
December 2011
Optimization of process parameters for the production of citric acid using sewage sludge as major fermentation media
A research was conducted on liquid state bioconversion for the production of citric acid using sewage treatment plant (STP) sludge as the main substrate with supplementation of sucrose as co-substrate. Three parameters were examined to determine the best process optimization conducted in two liter (2 L) bioreactor. Two level factorial designs with three parameters were applied for the fermentation....
December 2011
Enzymatic hydrolysis of oil palm empty fruit bunch using immobilized cellulase enzyme
The rapid development and the economic growth of oil palm industry have exacerbated environmental pollution since it results in large quantity of waste products produced from the oil extraction process. In many cases, however, low catalytic efficiency and instability of enzymes were considered as barriers for the development of large-scale operations and applications. In this study, hydrolysis of oil palm...
December 2011
Optimization of Newcastle disease virus production in T-flask
Newcastle disease (ND) is regarded as one of the most important diseases in the poultry industry. Currently, vaccines for ND are produced by using embryonated chicken eggs, a method which has the disadvantages of being labour-intensive, time consuming and requires large area for the incubation of eggs. In the present study, the production of lentogenic Asplin F strain of Newcastle disease virus by using cell...
December 2011
Simple process capability analysis and quality validation of monoclonal antibody production in bench-top bioreactor
The production of monoclonal antibody (MAbs) for anti-cancer by fermentation of hybridoma cell in bench-top bioreactor was investigated. The main aim of this study was to increase the percentage of cell viability and to achieve high yield of IgM. Many ways can be applied to improve the process and one of them is by choosing the correct six sigma’s design of experiment (DOE). In this study, Taguchi’s...
December 2011
Recovery of recombinant bromelain from Escherichia coli BL21-AI
In spite of the fact that commercial bromelain supplements are available in the market, to date, none of them are produced and formulated from recombinant forms. They are extracted and purified (often partially) from the stem and fruit of pineapple (Ananas comosus). This makes the production of bromelain very difficult, less reliable, often contaminated and expensive. In this study, a recombinant bromelain was...
December 2011
Prediction of significant factors in the production of ethanol by ragi tapai co-culture using Taguchi methodology
Ethanol production by co-culture of ragi tapai and Saccharomyces cerevisiae from unhydrolyzed cassava starch without addition of enzymes was conducted in a 2 L batch fermentor. Taguchi’s method with orthogonal array of L8 was applied in design of experiment (DOE) and the results were analyzed using MINITAB v14 software. Seven factors: Nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium (NPK), urea, fermentation temperature,...
December 2011
Study of growth kinetic and modeling of ethanol production by Saccharomyces cerevisae
There is a growing interest in bioethanol as biofuel since it has the possibility to be the potential substitute for fossil fuels. Ethanol batch fermentation ofSaccharomyces cerevisiae strain was carried out in 10 L stirred tank bioreactor for 72 h at 0.075 vvm of aeration and 75 rpm of agitation speed. 85.8% conversion efficiency of ethanol production from glucose substrate was accomplished. This study...
December 2011
Isolation of fucoxanthin and fatty acids analysis of Padina australis and cytotoxic effect of fucoxanthin on human lung cancer (H1299) cell lines
Fucoxanthin has been successfully isolated from species of Malaysian brown seaweed, namely Padina australis. The purity of the fucoxanthin is >98% as indicated by high performance liquid chromatography analysis. This seaweed also contains a considerable amount of unsaturated fatty acids. Thirteen fatty acids were detected with gas chromatography. However, fatty acid methyl ester (FAMEs) of eicosapentanoic acid...
December 2011
Nano-structural analysis of fish collagen extracts for new process development
Nano and micro imaging were used to evaluate effects of pretreatment solution on gelatin. Four types of pretreatment solution were used during fish gelatin extraction in this study. They are acetic acid (A), acetic acid-NaCl (SA), acetic acid-NaOH (BA) and acetic acid-NaOH-NaCl (SBA). Different patterns were observed for different gelatins pretreated. Results show that each pretreatment gave different...
December 2011
Prediction of anticancer activity of aliphatic nitrosoureas using quantum chemical quantitative structure activity relation (QSAR) methods
Design and development of new anticancer drugs with low toxicity is a very challenging task and computer aided methods are being increasingly used to solve this problem. In this study, we investigated the anticancer activity of aliphatic nitrosoureas using quantum chemical quantitative structure activity relation (QSAR) approach. In this method, the physic-chemical properties, known as descriptors, necessary for...
December 2011
Adsorption of heavy metal from landfill leachate by wasted biosolids
The adsorption capacity of wasted solids that contained dead fungal biomass (Phanerochaete chrysosporium) was studied to remove cadmium, copper, zinc and iron from synthetic water and leachate. The biomass was produced due to the experiments conducted for bioconversion of wastewater for lignin peroxydase production in the laboratory. In the screening experiments, the maximum cadmium (Cd) adsorption from synthetic water...
December 2011
An intermediate region in C-terminal of phosphoprotein is required for binding to nucleocapsid of Newcastle disease virus
The phosphoprotein (P) of paramyxoviruses plays a central role in the viral genome replication and transcription. The P either binds to the unassembled nucleocapsid (NP0) to assist in viral genomic replication or binds to assembled NP (NP-RNA or NPNC) to transcribe genome to produce the sub-genomic mRNAs. In this study, the region of P that binds to NPNC was mapped. To determine the binding region, 18 N- and...
December 2011
Synthesis of various carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) on powdered activated carbon
Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) are promising in many potential applications for their attractive physical and chemical properties. Chemical vapor deposition technique (CVD) is used to synthesize CNMs on fixed substrate. Powdered activated carbon (PAC) was used as a successful substrate for CNMs growth in CVD reaction process. Iron clustered nano particles Fe3+ was impregnated successfully on PAC surface under...
December 2011
Enhanced electroforced sedimentation of various solid-liquid systems
This study presents the results of experimental work carried out to evaluate the role of polyacrylamide as dewatering aid in electroforced sedimentation. Electroforced sedimentation experiments under constant electric current density of zinc oxide and kaolin suspended in aqueous media with and without polyacrylamide were carried out and comparison was made between the experimental results...
December 2011
Cloning of pCDNA3-IgG4 and pQE-2-IgG4 human hinge region cDNA for intrasplenic and intraperitoneal immunization
Human immunoglobulin G4 (hIgG4) is increasingly being used for the detection of various infectious diseases and in allergy-related immunoassays, thus, anti-hIgG4 antibody is of interest in the development of diagnostic tests. The present study was conducted to prepare the plasmid construct of pQE-2-IgG4 for peptide expression and pCDNA3-IgG4 for use in intrasplenic immunization in view of monoclonal antibody...
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