Absract Archive March 2008 Research article Antibacterial Activity of The bio-Multidrug (Ganoderma lucidum) on Multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Abstract The increasing prevalence of MRSA has prompted the need for antibacterial controls other than the antibiotics. In this study about 120 samples were screened for isolating the positive Multidrug resistant MRSA. About 10 positive samples were identified. There were 9 Coagulase positive and 1 negative was obtained from 10 positive MRSA. These 10 samples were tested for there drug resistance using the kirby bauer disc diffusion method, 7 samples were showed resistance to 5 drugs and 3 samples showed resistant to 11 drugs resistant but the drug resistance shown by all the samples were not same. This indicates there R-plasmids are varied in all the isolated positive MRSA samples. In this present study, Mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum) was assessed in vitro for its ability to inhibit emerging multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains. The methanolic extract of Ganoderma lucidum showed effective antibacterial activity even at very low concentrations (i.e 5, 10, 15, 20 micro litres) of the organic extract. Where as the petroleum ether extract were showed partial inhibition on MRSA in low concentrations (i.e 20 micro liters) but it showed complete inhibition on high concentration (350 micro liters). Key words: Multidrug Resistant Organisms (MDRO), Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Ganoderma lucidum, Antibacterial activity, Organic extracts, Disk diffusion, well diffusion. Authors:Prasad Y, Wesely. Application of Powdered Activated Carbon to Reduce Fouling of Membrane in a Pilot-Scale Recirculating Aquaculture System Abstract Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) are essential for the reduction in fresh water usage as well as the discharge of nutrients along with aquaculture effluents. A RAS consisted of an anoxic reactor, a membrane bioreactor (MBR) and a UV-disinfection unit was used to process 10,000 L/day of aquaculture effluent provided high quality treated water for recirculation to a Barramundi fish culture. However, the rate of fouling of membrane in the MBR was around 1.47 kPa/day. In order to reduce the rate of fouling, 500 mg of powdered activated carbon (PAC) per litre of MBR volume was introduced which decreased the rate of fouling to 0.90 kPa/day, while maintaining the treated effluent quality. Keywords: Denitrification, fouling, Membrane bioreactor (MBR), Powdered activated carbon (PAC), Recirculating aquaculture system (RAS), Transmembrane pressure (TMP) Introduction As the needs to combat the ever-increasing problems of excessive demands on capture fisheries coupled with the diminishing number of species due to over-exploitation, the aquaculture industry is expected to alleviate some pressure in the near future. However, the challenges brought about by human population growth and competition for water, land and natural resources forces the aquaculture industry to maximise the productivity and minimise the water usage. Both these criteria could be met if efficient recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) were brought into practice. A RAS could theoretically eliminate the daily water exchange required in an aquaculture farm by treating the effluent for recirculation (Gutierrez-Wing and Malone, 2006; Avnimelech, 2006; Lucas and Southgate, 2003). The effluent should be treated to remove the water quality parameters such as total ammonia (NH3/NH4+), nitrate (NO3-), nitrite (NO2-), chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), suspended solids (SS), turbidity and microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses. An effective RAS system that consisted of an anoxic reactor followed by a membrane bioreactor (MBR) and a UV disinfecting unit could treat the aquaculture effluent and provide significant reductions in the water quality parameters that have been mentioned above. However, one major problem of this system would be the fouling of membrane in the MBR. Fouling is the coating of the membrane surface or blocking of the pores with a solid or gelatinous material (cake), which creates a barrier through which the treated effluent (permeate) must pass. Thus, the effective pore size distribution of the membrane is reduced. The net effect of blockage is to reduce the permeate flux passing through the membrane. There are three major categories of membrane fouling: Inorganic fouling, organic fouling and microbiological fouling. Most inorganic fouling occurs due to scale-forming dissolved solids such as calcium. The most common inorganic fouling problems can be dealt with by appropriate pre-treatment. Organic foulants have a natural affinity for the membrane surface. Due to this affinity, organic foulants such as oils, wet out the membrane spreading directly onto the membrane surface. Organic fouling may be cleaned with a detergent or caustic soda. Biological foulants are aerobic and anaerobic living materials such as bacteria, fungus, algae, and the extra-cellular polymeric substances (EPS) and metabolic wastes they generate. Authors:V. Jegatheesan, N. Senaratne, C. Steicke, S.H. Kim, P. Rajasekaran. Review Biotechnological routes in flavour industries Abstract During the past years biocatalytic production of fine chemicals has been expanding rapidly. flavours and fragrances belong to many different structural classes and therefore represent a challenging target for academic and industrial research. Here, we present a condensed overview of the potential offered by biocatalysis for the synthesis of natural and natural-identical odorants, highlighting relevant biotransformations using microorganisms and isolated enzymes. The industrial processes based on biocatalytic methods are discussed in terms of their advantages over classical chemical synthesis and extraction from natural sources. Recent applications of the biocatalytic approach to the preparation of the most important fine odorants are comprehensively covered.Flavours and fragrances are extremely important for the food, feed, cosmetic, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Most available flavour compounds are now produced via chemical synthesis or extraction. Drawbacks of such chemical processes are the formation of undesirable racemic mixtures and the growing aversion of the consumer towards chemicals added to his food, cosmetics and other household products. This has caused flavour companies to direct their attention towards flavour compounds of biological origin, so called natural or bio-flavours. Upto now, plants were also an important source of essential oils and flavours: however, active components are often present in minor quantities or in bound form or are only found in exotic plants, making isolation dificult and the flavour products expensive. Apart from plant cell and tissue culture techniques a directly viable alternative route for flavour synthesis is based on microbial processes, i.e. fermentation (= denovo) and bioconversion of appropriate precursor compounds. This review presents the current state of the art of bioflavour-synthesis, based on microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, yeasts) and their enzymes, with emphasis on currently commercialised processes. It also comments on regulatory aspects of biotechnological production of aroma-compounds. A comprehensive referenced literature survey of de novo fermentation and of bioconversion processes for flavour-compound synthesis concludes this review. Key words: Hydrolytic Enzymes, Oxireductases, Transferases, Lyases, Characteristics of Microbial Flavour Production, Driving forces, Regulatory aspects and legal status, Industrial applications Authors:Sushilkumar A. Dubal,Yogesh, P.Tilkari, S.A.Momin, Indrakant V.Borkar. Short Communications Production and Kinetics of Cellulase Enzyme from saw Dust Hydrolysate using Trichoderma reesei 992 6a Abstract Cellulase is a multi component enzyme most widely used in food processing, paper and textile industry. Since cellulase is an inducible enzyme, high yields are obtained only when substrates containing large amount of cellulose are used. Cellulase was produced by fermenting the Saw Dust Hydrolysate residues using the organism Trichoderma reesei. The work was carried out for the period of seven days. The cellulase activity, amount of substrate and proteins were estimated by standard methods. Saw dust hydrolysate was chosen as the substrate due to high content of cellulose (40-55%), low cost and easy availability. Experimental work shows high growth rate and yield of cellulase by this method. The kinetic study were also made for both growth and product formation. Keywords: Cellulase, Trichoderma reesei, Cellulose, Saw dust. Introduction Cellulase refers to a family of enzymes, which act in concert to hydrolyze cellulose. At least two steps in cellulose degradation by microorganisms begin with the preparatory prehydrolytic first step involving an enzyme (C1), which swells and/or Hydrates anhydroglucose chains. The second step uses hydrolytic enzymes (CX) and beta Glucosidase. The fungus T. reesei is an efficient producer of cellulase enzyme. Strains of T. reesei have been studied in great detail for more than two decades for the ability to Produce cellulase protein. Montenecourt and EveLeigh (1977) developed an agar plate screening technique to isolate a mutant of T. reesei capable of synthesizing cellulase. Ghose and Sahai(1979) produced cellulase by T. reesei QM-9414 in fed-batch and continuous flow culture. Mukhopadhyay and Malik(1980) enhanced the cellulase production by adopting the strategy of pH cycling and temperature profiling using T. reesei MCG-77. Alimohagheghi et al,(1988)studied the cellulase production by the Mutant of fungus T. reesei on mixtures of xylose and cellulose. Schaffner and Toledo (1992) produced the cellulase in continuous culture by T. reesei on xylose-based media. Tholudur et-al, (1999) developed a mathematical model and optimized the cellulase Protein Production using T. reesei RL-P37 on soluble sugar lactose. Harikrishna et-al, (2000) used the high yielding strain,T.reesei QM-9414 for the cellulase enzyme production. Oinomen and Suominen(2002) identified the filamentous fungus T. reesei strains is an efficient producer of cellulase. Mach and Zeilinger(2003) established the genus T. reesei widely used in industrial applications in the production of extra cellular hydrolase and heterologous protein. In this work wood residue was utilized for the production of cellulase. Authors:Balasubramaniyan, Bharathiraja, Jayaraman, Jayamuthunagai. Tools & Techniques Paradigm shift in laser scanning confocal microscopy: Resonant real time live spectral imaging for cell dynamics Introduction Cell underlies the basis of all living organisms that operates both simple and complex arrays of diverse biochemical and molecular processes, including those that govern its own growth, division, development and survival. Understanding these complex cellular behavior in terms of its morphology, topography, physiology and the function is a complicated task and perhaps the most important when such cellular processes break down suddenly, causing disease and ultimately death of a organism. The use of cell imaging fluorescence microscope with high spectral resolution has enabled live cell imaging using confocal laser scanning microscopes. The temporal and spectral resolution capabilities of confocal systems are especially useful for detecting spectral changes of a fluorescent dyes that reveal the complex cellular and molecular dynamic processes. Nikon has designed a new confocal system A1 to cater the upcoming needs of live cell imaging and molecular interaction analysis. As the molecular biological processes are happening in-vivo at nano/micro second levels, we require higher speed without compromising the resolution and without generating unwanted artifacts and stray noise interference. A1 and A1R goes well with the recently introduced Ti-E inverted microscope system (figure 1), especially when coupled with Nikon's patented 870nm Perfect Focus System (PFS) that ensures the elimination of focal drift though IR based hardware control. Due to high optical efficiency and 16 million pixels resolution, high quality confocal images can be achieved that will bring inter/intra cellular nuance into the limelight. Along with the Ti-E inverted microscope, the A1/A1R confocal system set a new standard for advanced time-lapse molecular imaging of rapid cellular interactions to bring biological imaging to life. A1 and A1R are separate products and there is no possibility to upgrade A1 into A1R confocal system. Nikon claims that the new system can resolve rapid biological events with ultra high resolution. This evolved version of the present real time spectral confocal system C1si, have other unique features like diffraction efficiency enhancement system based multiple gratings (DEES), weak signal sensitivity through dual integration signal processing (DISP), pre-calibrated synchronized 32 channel multi-anode PMTs, high-efficiency fluorescence transmission technology to achieve high optical transmission and most importantly the faster spectral unmixing algorithm that enables high speed spectral imaging without any molecular crosstalk in real time. DISP enhances the sensitivity by using a pair of integrating digitizers in order to assure the data is gathered over the full pixel period without any down time delay. Together with these technical features, A1R confocal system comes with high resolution and high speed hybrid scanner, low incidence angle dichroic mirror, hexagonal continuously variable pinhole and an innovative virtual adaptable aperture system for deconvolved simultaneous image acquisition both at focal and non-focal plane with a single scan with higher speed and reduced cell damage. About the Authors: Vee-Jay Light, Gene Maverick.