Nowadays, there is increased interest in the biosynthesis of microbial melanin related to their numerous biological functions and applications in many fields, especially in medical fields, including immune-modulating, antimicrobial antibiotic, antiviral antivenin, anticancer, antitumor activity, and anti-biofilm activity. Pyomelanin is a hydrophobic macromolecule that is typically dark brown or black in color, formed by the oxidative polymerization of phenolic or indolic compounds. Pyomelanin is reported to be safe for consumption, thus providing a crucial strategy for biocontrol of biofilm. Furthermore, natural pyomelanin is known as a potent antioxidant, photoprotective, and free radical scavenging. Objective: This study focuses on the extraction and parametric optimization of melanin using Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) isolates. Materials and Methods: P. aeruginosa was isolated from various clinical sources, including urinary tract infections, burn patients, and wound infections. The isolate’s identification was done by biochemical, cultural, and VITEK-2 compact system. The isolates were subjected to pyomelanin production in nutrient agar supplemented with L-tyrosine, and the potential isolate was selected and employed for melanin production using nutrient broth supplemented with L-tyrosine. The pyomelanin-producing isolates were further identified through the PCR analysis technique. Different physical parameters were used for optimum pyomelanin yield. Results: The potential P. aeruginosa isolates were further identified using 16s rRNA. Pyomelanin production was better at 2.9 µg/mL at 100 rpm. The highest pyomelanin production was 3.07 µg/mL after 72 h incubation. The optimum pH at 7 was 3.12 µg/mL. The highest pyomelanin yield at 40°C was 3.03 µg/mL, while the maximum pyomelanin was produced using 2 g/L tyrosine at 2.99 µg/mL. UV-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy analysis for pyomelanin pigment was at 273.5 nm. The infrared spectrum exhibited a broad absorption band around 3280.82 cm−1 which corresponds to the presence of -OH and N-H groups. Conclusion: This study provides knowledge on factors affecting pyomelanin production using bacteria in broth media supplemented with L-tyrosine.
The phytoremediation technique has become very efficient for treating soil contaminated with heavy metals. In this study, a pot experiment was conducted where the Dodonaea plant (known as hops) was grown, and soil previously contaminated with metals (Zn, Ni, Cd) was added at concentrations 100, 50, 0 mg·kg-1 for Ni and Zn, and at concentrations of 0, 5, 10 mg·kg-1 for cadmium. Irrigation was done within the limits of the field capacity of the soil. Cadmium, nickel and zinc was estimated in the soil to find out the capacity of plants to the absorption of heavy and contaminated metals by using bioconcentration factors (BCFs), bioaccumulation coefficient (BAC) and translocation factor (TF). Additionally, BCF values of both Ni and Zn were l
... Show MoreThis work studies the performance of zeolite permeable reactive barrier in removing cadmium from a contaminated shallow aquifer. Batch tests have been performed to characterize the equilibrium sorption properties of the zeolite in cadmium-containing aqueous solutions. A 1D numerical finite difference model has been developed to describe pollutant transport within groundwater taking pollutant sorption on the permeable reactive barrier (PRB), which is performed by Langmuir equation, into account. Numerical results show that the PRB starts to saturate after a period of time (~120 h) due to reduction of the retardation factor, indicating a decrease in the percentage of zeolite functionality. However, a reasonable agreement between model predict
... Show MoreEnzyme activity were studied in the sera of children with leukemia than healthy children, where 31 cases were studied, including 21 cases of patients with acute lymphatic leukemia
Water scarcity is one of the most important problems facing humanity in various fields such as economics, industry, agriculture, and tourism. This may push people to use low-quality water like industrial-wastewater. The application of some chemical compounds to get rid of heavy metals such as cadmium is an environmentally harmful approach. It is well-known that heavy metals as cadmium may induce harmful problems when present in water and invade to soil, plants and food chain of a human being. In this case, man will be forced to use the low quality water in irrigation. Application of natural materials instead of chemicals to remove cadmium from polluted water is an environmental friendly approach. Attention was drawn in this research wor
... Show MoreA simulation study of using 2D tomography to reconstruction a 3D object is presented. The 2D Radon transform is used to create a 2D projection for each slice of the 3D object at different heights. The 2D back-projection and the Fourier slice theorem methods are used to reconstruction each 2D projection slice of the 3D object. The results showed the ability of the Fourier slice theorem method to reconstruct the general shape of the body with its internal structure, unlike the 2D Radon method, which was able to reconstruct the general shape of the body only because of the blurring artefact, Beside that the Fourier slice theorem could not remove all blurring artefact, therefore, this research, suggested the threshold technique to eliminate the
... Show MoreThis work deals with thermal cracking of heavy vacuum gas oil which produced from the top of vacuum distillation unit at Al- DURA refinery, by continuous process. An experimental laboratory plant scale was constructed in laboratories of chemical engineering department, Al-Nahrain University and Baghdad University. The thermal cracking process was carried out at temperature ranges between 460-560oC and atmospheric pressure with liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) equal to 15hr-1.The liquid product from thermal cracking unit was distilled by atmospheric distillation device according to ASTM D-86 in order to achieve two fractions, below 220oC as a gasoline fraction and above 220oC as light cycle o
... Show MoreSimulation of free convection heat transfer in a square enclosure induced by heated thin plate is represented numerically. All the enclosure walls have constant temperature lower than the plate’s temperature. The flow is assumed to be two-dimensional. The discretized equations were solved stream function, vorticity, and energy equations by finite difference method using explicit technique and Successive Over- Relaxation method. The study was performed for different values of Rayleigh number ranging from 103 to 105 for different angle position of heated thin plate(0°, 45°, 90°). Air was chosen as a working fluid (Pr = 0.71). Aspect ratio of center of plate to the parallel left wall A2
... Show MoreThe species of Opilio kakunini Snegovaya, Cokendolpher & Mozaffarian, 2018 was recorded for the first time in Iraq; as well as to four species belonging to this order which were recorded previously. In this paper, we added a new species to the checklist of Iraqi opilionid fauna with a description of the most important characteristics, along with genitalia, for both males and females are presented with digital photographs. Specimens of males and females were collected from Al- Rifai district northern of Dhi-Qar Province, southern of Iraq.