RESUMEN
Flax fiber (Linen fiber), a valuable and inexpensive material was used as sorbent material in the uptake of uranium ion for the safe disposal of liquid effluent. Flax fibers were characterized using BET, XRD, TGA, DTA and FTIR analyses, and the results confirmed the ability of flax fiber to adsorb uranium. The removal efficiency reached 94.50% at pH 4, 1.2â¯g adsorbent dose and 100â¯min in batch technique. Adsorption results were fitted well to the Langmuir isotherm. The recovery of U (VI) to form yellow cake was investigated by precipitation using NH4OH (33%). The results show that flax fibers are an acceptable sorbent for the removal and recovery of U (VI) from liquid effluents of low and high initial concentrations. The design of a full scale batch unit was also proposed and the necessary data was suggested.
RESUMEN
Dengue virus (DENV) infection is one of the most widely-spread flavivirus infections with no effective antiviral drugs available. Peptide inhibitors have been considered as one of the best drug candidates due to their high specificity, selectivity in their interactions and minimum side effects. In this study, we employed computational studies using YASARA, HADDOCK server and PyMOL software to generate short and linear peptides based on a reference peptide, CP5-46A, to block DENV NS2B-NS3 protease. The inhibition potencies of the peptides were evaluated using in-house DENV2 serine protease and fluorogenic peptide substrates. In vitro analyses were performed to determine the peptides cytotoxicity and the inhibitory effects against DENV2 replication in WRL-68 cells. Our computational analyses revealed that the docking energy of AYA3, a 16 amino acid (aa) (-81.2 ± 10.6 kcal/mol) and AYA9, a 15 aa peptide (-83.8 ± 6.8 kcal/mol) to DENV NS2B-NS3 protease were much lower than the reference peptide (46 aa; -70.9 ± 7.8 kcal/mol) and the standard protease inhibitor, aprotinin (58 aa; -48.2 ± 10.6 kcal/mol). Both peptides showed significant inhibition against DENV2 NS2B-NS3 protease activity with IC50 values of 24 µM and 23 µM, respectively. AYA3 and AYA9 peptides also demonstrated approximately 68% and 83% of viral plaque reduction without significantly affecting cell viability at 50 µM concentration. In short, we generated short linear peptides with lower cytotoxic effect and substantial antiviral activities against DENV2. Further studies are required to investigate the inhibitory effects of these peptides in vivo. Keywords: peptide inhibitors; dengue virus; NS2B-NS3 protease; plaque reduction.