Biomedical subjects

Priyanka Sharma

Publications and source records attributed to Priyanka Sharma.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2026

Fungi to the rescue: recent advances, mechanistic insights and omics-based perspectives in heavy metal mycoremediation.

Heavy metal (HM) contamination arising from rapid industrialization poses critical threats to global ecosystem integrity and public health. Conventional physicochemical approaches are limited by high costs, incomplete removal, and toxic waste generation, necessitating sustainable alternatives. Mycoremediation, which harnesses the remarkable, diverse capacities of fungi to tolerate and mitigate HM stress through sophisticated biological mechanisms, has emerged as a promising and sustainable approach to address HM pollution. This review examines the sources and ecotoxicological impacts of HM pollution, alongside the intracellular and extracellular mechanisms underlying fungal tolerance and removal, including biosorption, precipitation, membrane transport, antioxidant defense, chelation, bioaccumulation, and biotransformation. It further synthesizes fungal-based bioremediation strategies, while examining how metagenomic, metatranscriptomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic approaches are advancing understanding of fungal community structure and active detoxification pathways. This work uniquely integrates community- and isolate-level multi-omics data, explicitly bridges mechanistic understanding with omics-driven insights, and extends this into translational roadmap for applied bioremediation.

Biodegradation, Environmental↗

PubMed2026

Analysis of the genome of a Pseudomonas monsensis isolate that produces the antifungal dipeptide maculosin.

Candida species have been attributed to causing ~647,000 deaths annually. Candida albicans has been identified by the WHO as a priority pathogen for targeted antifungal drug development. To this end, we have screened microbial strains from the public outreach project Swab and Send for anti-Candida activity. This process identified Pseudomonas sp. SS1954.14, which displayed potent activity against C. albicans, both on agar and in a cell-free supernatant assay. Whole-genome sequence analysis identified this strain as Pseudomonas monsensis. It contains several biosynthetic gene clusters, suggesting that it can produce hydrogen cyanide, lokisin, pyoverdine and colicin/carocin, which may contribute to the observed antifungal activity. However, an active compound was separated by preparative high-performance liquid chromatography and identified through high-resolution mass spectrometry as maculosin [cyclo(Pro-Tyr)]. This cyclic dipeptide has previously been found to possess antifungal activity, but the exact biosynthetic mechanism remains undetermined. Reporting this genome alongside the associated evidence of maculosin production represents a valuable resource for biosynthetic investigations.

Candida albicans↗

PubMed2026

Screening, isolation, and identification of Latilactobacillus sakei strains from kimchi with potential probiotic properties.

UNLABELLED: The study aimed to screen 40 lactic acid bacterial isolates from kimchi types to isolate Latilactobacillus (L.) sakei strains for their probiotic potential. Based on random amplified polymorphic DNA-based initial screening, 16 S rRNA-based phylogeny, and species-specific PCR, three sakei strains (RKA, RKC, and TAB) were selected for evaluating their probiotic and functional attributes. The selected strains demonstrated probiotic characteristics, including acid tolerance (33-85%), bile salt tolerance (49-68%), cell surface hydrophobicity with ethyl acetate (11.5-25.6%) and hexane (21.0-47.4%), and auto-aggregation (12.6-44.0%). The safety of strains was assessed by γ-hemolytic activity and susceptibility to most tested antibiotics, including carbenicillin, clindamycin, chloramphenicol, ampicillin, erythromycin, and tetracycline, with resistance to cefoxitin and metronidazole. Both crude and cell-free supernatants (CFSs) of selected strains were tested for antimicrobial and antioxidant activities, as well as for cytotoxic effects against human colon adenocarcinoma (Caco-2) cells. CFSs displayed DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activities of 34.1-37.9% and 41.6-43.1%, whereas the crude ranged from 3.9 to 8.7% and 11.0-17.3%, respectively, supported by the presence of the sod and katA genes. All strains showed good resistance to hydrogen peroxide at various concentrations. Notably, RKC showed superior antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Candida albicans, compared to RKA and TAB. No significant cytotoxicity was observed in Caco-2 cells. In summary, these findings indicate the probiotic potential of L. sakei isolates and the preliminary functional properties of their CFSs; further genome-based characterization of selected strains is warranted. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-026-04978-7.

Antimicrobial↗

PubMed2025

MammaPrint predicts chemotherapy benefit in HR+HER2- early breast cancer: FLEX Registry real-world data.

BACKGROUND: Gene expression assays help personalize adjuvant chemotherapy decisions for hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative (HR+HER2-) early breast cancer (EBC). The 70-gene risk of distant-recurrence signature, MammaPrint, demonstrated clinical utility in guiding chemotherapy de-escalation in genomically low risk patients in the MINDACT trial. This study evaluates MammaPrint as a continuous predictor of chemotherapy benefit in HR+HER2- EBC using real-world data (RWD) from the FLEX Registry. METHODS: The study evaluated 1002 patients treated with endocrine therapy (ET) only or ET with chemotherapy (ET+CT) enrolled in FLEX (NCT03053193) with 5-year median follow-up. Propensity-score matching balanced treatment groups by menopausal status, T-stage, and nodal status. The primary endpoint was distant recurrence-free interval (DRFI). Regression and Cox proportional hazards models assessed chemotherapy benefit across MammaPrint Index (MPI) risk. RESULTS: Most patients were postmenopausal (70.1%), node-negative (70.0%), and had grade 2 tumors (51.2%). The regression models showed that MPI strongly predicted 5-year DRFI in ET only (R2 = 0.99, P < .001) and ET + CT (R2 = 0.90, P < .001) groups, corresponding to an average absolute chemotherapy benefit of 5.6% in High 1 and 10.9% in High 2. Minimal improvement in DRFI with chemotherapy was observed for Low (1.7%) and UltraLow (<1.0%) risk groups. A multivariate Cox model with an MPI-by-treatment interaction term demonstrated that increasing MPI risk was associated with greater chemotherapy benefit on DRFI (HR = 0.15, P = .047). Chemotherapy benefit was significantly associated with premenopausal status, but not age, T-stage, nodal status, or grade. CONCLUSIONS: These RWD from the FLEX Registry demonstrate that MPI is predictive of both DRFI prognosis and chemotherapy benefit in HR+HER2- EBC. (NCT03053193).

Adult↗

PubMed2017

A directed evolution approach to select for novel Adeno-associated virus capsids on an HIV-1 producer T cell line.

A directed evolution approach was used to select for Adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids that would exhibit more tropism toward an HIV-1 producer T cell line with the long-term goal of developing improved gene transfer vectors. A library of AAV variants was used to infect H9 T cells previously infected or uninfected by HIV-1 followed by AAV amplification with wild-type adenovirus. Six rounds of biological selection were performed, including negative selection and diversification after round three. The H9 T cells were successfully infected with all three wild-type viruses (AAV, adenovirus, and HIV-1). Four AAV cap mutants best representing the small number of variants emerging after six rounds of selection were chosen for further study. These mutant capsids were used to package an AAV vector and subsequently used to infect H9 cells that were previously infected or uninfected by HIV-1. A quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay was performed to measure cell-associated AAV genomes. Two of the four cap mutants showed a significant increase in the amount of cell-associated genomes as compared to wild-type AAV2. This study shows that directed evolution can be performed successfully to select for mutants with improved tropism for a T cell line in the presence of HIV-1.

Capsid↗