Quorum sensing (QS) is a perfectly orchestrated molecular communication system. It is a boon for Klebsiella pneumoniae, and bane for the host. This system is believed to make K. pneumoniae a leading cause of multidrug-resistant (MDR) nosocomial infections. This study aimed to investigate the antibacterial and anti-biofilm potential of medicinal plant extracts through interfering with QS of K. pneumoniae. The effect of different concentrations of ethanolic extracts of cinnamon and clove on K. pneumoniae was determined by analyzing the growth curve, survival assay (MTT), Qualitative and quantitative biofilm formation, antibiotic resistance, along with studying gene expression of the genes encoding the above traits, using quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The low concentrations of the plant extracts did not affect neither on the bacterial growth, nor on the viability of K. pneumoniae, supported with growth curves. Additionally, the biofilm production was inhibited even by lower plant concentrations, and both cinnamon and clove extracts were able to render the MDR bacteria to be more susceptible to antibiotics. At the molecular levels, the bacterium treated with either clove or cinnamon or in combination showed under expression of the biofilm formation regulation gene (bssS), the carbapenem resistance gene (bla), as well as the QS target gene (LuxS). Both clove and cinnamon ethanolic extracts exerted potent impacts on reducing pathogenic traits regulated by QS in K. pneumoniae. Finally, the study recommends further exploration of clove and cinnamon extracts separately or in combination to develop alternative therapies against MDR K. pneumoniae infections.
In this work, an efficient energy management (EEM) approach is proposed to merge IoT technology to enhance electric smart meters by working together to satisfy the best result of the electricity customer's consumption. This proposed system is called an integrated Internet of things for electrical smart meter (2IOT-ESM) architecture. The electric smart meter (ESM) is the first and most important technique used to measure the active power, current, and energy consumption for the house’s loads. At the same time, the effectiveness of this work includes equipping ESM with an additional storage capacity that ensures that the measurements are not lost in the event of a failure or sudden outage in WiFi network. Then then these measurement
... Show MoreIn this work, the dyes Rhodamine B and Coumarin 102 containing titanium dioxide nanoparticles were used as scattering centers to fabricate a random gain medium. The laser dye was dissolved in hexanol and methanol solvent respectively. The titanium dioxide nanoparticles were synthesized by DC reaction magnetron spraying technique. The random-gain medium was made by adding 2.5 mg of titanium dioxide nanoparticles to Rhodamine and coumarin 102 dyes by coating the glass cell with two-sided titanium dioxide with high spectral efficiency and low production cost. A narrow line optical emission was detected at 565 nm for Rhodamine B and 534 nm for coumarin 102, where it was found that rhodamine B dye has FWHM 8 nm and coumarin dye 102 has FWHM 9 nm
... Show MoreIn the present work, a density functional theory (DFT) calculation to simulate reduced graphene oxide (rGO) hybrid with zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle's sensitivity to NO2 gas is performed. In comparison with the experiment, DFT calculations give acceptable results to available bond lengths, lattice parameters, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), energy gaps, Gibbs free energy, enthalpy, entropy, etc. to ZnO, rGO, and ZnO/rGO hybrid. ZnO and rGO show n-type and p-type semiconductor behavior, respectively. The formed p-n heterojunction between rGO and ZnO is of the staggering gap type. Results show that rGO increases the sensitivity of ZnO to NO2 gas as they form a hybrid. ZnO/rGO hybrid has a higher number of vacancies that can b
... Show MoreThe present research was conducted to reduce the sulfur content of Iraqi heavy naphtha by adsorption using different metals oxides over Y-Zeolite. The Y-Zeolite was synthesized by a sol-gel technique. The average size of zeolite was 92.39 nm, surface area 558 m2/g, and pore volume 0.231 cm3/g. The metals of nickel, zinc, and copper were dispersed by an impregnation method to prepare Ni/HY, Zn/HY, Cu/HY, and Ni + Zn /HY catalysts for desulfurization. The adsorptive desulfurization was carried out in a batch mode at different operating conditions such as mixing time (10,15,30,60, and 600 min) and catalyst dosage (0.2,0.4,0.6,0.8,1, and 1.2 g). The most of the sulfur compounds were removed at 10 min for all catalyst types. The maximum
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