@article {48227, title = {Gut microbiota dysbiosis in patients with intracranial sino-venous thrombosis and acute ischemic stroke in the young}, journal = {Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology}, volume = {25}, year = {2022}, month = {SEP-OCT}, pages = {980+}, type = {Letter}, issn = {0972-2327}, doi = {10.4103/aian.aian_393_22}, author = {Prabhu, Varsha A. and Rajput, Vinay and Yadav, Rakeshkumar and Gohil, Kushal and Dharne, Mahesh S. and Unnikrishnan, Mazhuvancherry Kesavan and Gorthi, Sankar Prasad} } @article {48995, title = {Genomic surveillance reveals early detection and transition of delta to omicron lineages of SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater treatment plants of Pune, India}, journal = {Environmental Science and Pollution Research }, volume = {30}, year = {2023}, month = {DEC}, pages = {118976-118988}, type = {Article}, abstract = {

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the urgency for rapid public health surveillance methods to detect and monitor the transmission of infectious diseases. The wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a promising tool for proactive analysis and quantification of infectious pathogens within a population before clinical cases emerge. In the present study, we aimed to assess the trend and dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 variants using a longitudinal approach. Our objective included early detection and monitoring of these variants to enhance our understanding of their prevalence and potential impact. To achieve our goals, we conducted real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and Illumina sequencing on 442 wastewater (WW) samples collected from 10 sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Pune city, India, spanning from November 2021 to April 2022. Our comprehensive analysis identified 426 distinct lineages representing 17 highly transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2. Notably, fragments of Omicron variant were detected in WW samples prior to its first clinical detection in Botswana. Furthermore, we observed highly contagious sub-lineages of the Omicron variant, including BA.1 (similar to 28\%), BA.1.X (1.0-72\%), BA.2 (1.0-18\%), BA.2.X (1.0-97.4\%) BA.2.12 (0.8-0.25\%), BA.2.38 (0.8-1.0\%), BA.2.75 (0.01-0.02\%), BA.3 (0.09-6.3\%), BA.4 (0.24-0.29\%), and XBB (0.01-21.83\%), with varying prevalence rates. Overall, the present study demonstrated the practicality of WBE in the early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants, which could help track future outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2. Such approaches could be implicated in monitoring infectious agents before they appear in clinical cases.

}, keywords = {Bioinformatics pipeline, COVID-19, Early warning, India, Next-generation sequencing, Omicron, Public health, SARS-CoV-2, wastewater, Wastewater-based epidemiology}, issn = {0944-1344}, doi = {10.1007/s11356-023-30709-z}, author = {Rajput, Vinay and Pramanik, Rinka and Malik, Vinita and Yadav, Rakeshkumar and Samson, Rachel and Kadam, Pradnya and Bhalerao, Unnati and Tupekar, Manisha and Deshpande, Dipti and Shah, Priyanki and Shashidhara, L. S. and Boargaonkar, Radhika and Patil, Dhawal and Kale, Saurabh and Bhalerao, Asim and Jain, Nidhi and Kamble, Sanjay and Dastager, Syed and Karmodiya, Krishanpal and Dharne, Mahesh} } @article {50007, title = {Genome mining of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZyme) and poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) synthesis by Bacillus velezensis (WA11) directly from lignocellulosic biomass-based substrate}, journal = {Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology}, volume = {69}, year = {2025}, month = {NOV}, pages = {103747}, type = {Article}, abstract = {

Poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA/PGA), a non-toxic and biodegradable polymer with additional diverse properties such as higher heat resistance and water retention, is widely implicated in myriad applications, including agricultural and food processing, medical treatments, and cosmetics. The industrial bio-based production of γ-PGA is primarily hindered by the potential of microbial strains and substrate costs, which are attributed primarily to the carbon sources. The present study is a proof-of-concept study, wherein a bacterial isolate,\ Bacillus velezensis\ WA11 strain, was employed for the production of γ-PGA from sugarcane bagasse (lignocellulosic biomass) without any pretreatment or pre-processing. The CAZyme annotation identified several enzyme families involved in metabolizing complex polysaccharides, including cellulose, xylan, and lignin. We obtained 104.3\ g/L γ-PGA production with a productivity of 1.09\ g/L/h in the optimized synthetic medium containing maltose as a carbon source, 2.9-fold higher than the earlier study using maltose as a carbon source. Further, substituting maltose with untreated sugarcane bagasse resulted in 12\ g/L of γ-PGA, higher than most of the reported studies utilizing pretreated lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) lysates for producing γ-PGA. The present study demonstrates the production of γ-PGA using lignocellulosic biomass without pretreatment, providing a chemical-free, sustainable avenue for directly utilizing untreated lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) to produce expensive polymers by employing potential bacterial strains.

}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcab.2025.103747}, author = {Yadav, Rakeshkumar and Awathare, Pranay and Shitut, Pushkar and Mahajan, Vaishnavi and Nair, Pranav and Dharne, Mahesh} }