2022 - Publications Repository - Gdańsk University of Technology

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Publications from the year 2022

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Recent Advancements in Cyclodextrin-Based Adsorbents for the Removal of Hazardous Pollutants from Waters
- Shan E Zehra Syeda
- Dominika Nowacka
- Muhammad Shahzeb Khan
- Muhammad Khan
- Anna Skwierawska
2022 Full text Polymers
Water is an essential substance for the survival on Earth of all living organisms. However, population growth has disturbed the natural phenomenon of living, due to industrial growth to meet ever expanding demands, and, hence, an exponential increase in environmental pollution has been reported in the last few decades. Moreover, water pollution has drawn major attention for its adverse effects on human health and the ecosystem. Various techniques have been used to treat wastewater, including biofiltration, activated sludge, membrane filtration, active oxidation process and adsorption. Among the mentioned, the last method is becoming very popular. Moreover, among the sorbents, those based on cyclodextrin have gained worldwide attention due to their excellent properties. This review article overviewed recent contributions related to the synthesis of Cyclodextrin (CD)-based adsorbents to treat wastewater, and their applications, especially for the removal of heavy metals, dyes, and organic pollutants (pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptor chemicals). Furthermore, new adsorption trends and trials related to CD-based materials are also discussed regarding their regenerative potential. Finally, this review could be an inspiration for new research and could also anticipate future directions and challenges associated with CD-based adsorbents.
Recent advancements in LC‐MS based analysis of biotoxins: Present and future challenges
- Debabrata Panda
- Bisnu P. Dash
- Sivakumar Manickam
- Grzegorz Boczkaj
2022 MASS SPECTROMETRY REVIEWS
There has been a rising concern regarding the harmful impact of biotoxins, source of origin, and the determination of the specific type of toxin. With numerous reports on their extensive spread, biotoxins pose a critical challenge to figure out their parent groups, metabolites, and concentration. In that aspect, liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry (LC‐MS) based analysis paves the way for its accurate identification and quantification. The biotoxins are ideally categorized as phytotoxins, mycotoxins, shellfish‐toxins, ciguatoxins, cyanotoxins, and bacterial toxins such as tetrodotoxins. Considering the diverse nature of biotoxins, both low‐resolution mass spectrometry (LRMS) and high‐resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) methods have been implemented for their detection. The sample preparation strategy for complex matrix usually includes “QuEChERS” extraction or solid‐phase extraction coupled with homogenization and centrifugation. For targeted analysis of biotoxins, the LRMS consisting of a tandem mass spectrometer operating in multiple reaction monitoring mode has been widely implemented. With the help of the reference standard, most of the toxins were accurately quantified. At the same time, the suspect screening and nontarget screening approach are facilitated by the HRMS platforms during the absence of reference standards. Significant progress has also been made in sampling device employment, utilizing novel sample preparation strategies, synthesizing toxin standards, employing hybrid MS platforms, and the associated data interpretation. This critical review attempts to elucidate the progress in LC‐MS based analysis in the determination of biotoxins while pointing out major challenges and suggestions for future development.
Recent advances in aqueous virus removal technologies
- Hussein Al-Hazmi
- Hanieh Shokrani
- Amirhossein Shokrani
- Karam Jabbour
- Otman Abida
- Seyed Soroush Mousavi Khadem
- Sajjad Habibzadeh
- Shirish H. Sonawane
- Mohammad Saeb
- Adrián Bonilla-Petriciolet
- Michael Badawi
2022 CHEMOSPHERE
The COVID-19 outbreak has triggered a massive research, but still urgent detection and treatment of this virus seems a public concern. The spread of viruses in aqueous environments underlined efficient virus treatment processes as a hot challenge. This review critically and comprehensively enables identifying and classifying advanced biochemical, membrane-based and disinfection processes for effective treatment of virus-contaminated water and wastewater. Understanding the functions of individual and combined/multi-stage processes in terms of manufacturing and economical parameters makes this contribution a different story from available review papers. Moreover, this review discusses challenges of combining biochemical, membrane and disinfection processes for synergistic treatment of viruses in order to reduce the dissemination of waterborne diseases. Certainly, the combination technologies are proactive in minimizing and restraining the outbreaks of the virus. It emphasizes the importance of health authorities to confront the outbreaks of unknown viruses in the future.
Recent Advances in Development of Waste-Based Polymer Materials: A Review
- Krzysztof Formela
- Maria Kurańska
- Mateusz Barczewski
2022 Full text Polymers
Limited petroleum sources, suitable law regulations, and higher awareness within society has caused sustainable development of manufacturing and recycling of polymer blends and composites to be gaining increasing attention. This work aims to report recent advances in the manufacturing of environmentally friendly and low-cost polymer materials based on post-production and postconsumer wastes. Sustainable development of three groups of materials: wood polymer composites, polyurethane foams, and rubber recycling products were comprehensively described. Special attention was focused on examples of industrially applicable technologies developed in Poland over the last five years. Moreover, current trends and limitations in the future “green” development of waste-based polymer materials were also discussed.
Recent advances in hydrodynamic cavitation-based pretreatments of lignocellulosic biomass for valorization
- Xun Sun
- Shuai Liu
- Xinyan Zhang
- Yang Tao
- Grzegorz Boczkaj
- Joon Yong Yoon
- Xiaoxu Xuan
2022 BIORESOURCE TECHNOLOGY
Recently, the hydrodynamic cavitation (HC)-based pretreatment has shown high effectiveness in laboratories and even in industrial productions for conversion of lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) into value-added products. The pretreatment capability derives from the extraordinary conditions of pressures at ∼500 bar, local hotspots with ∼5000 K, and oxidation (hydroxyl radicals) created by HC at room conditions. To promote this emerging technology, the present review summarizes the recent advances in the HC-based pretreatment of LCB. The principle of HC including the sonochemical effect and hydrodynamic cavitation reactor is introduced. The effectiveness of HC on the delignification of LCB as well as subsequent fermentation, paper production, and other applications is evaluated. Several key operational factors (i.e., reaction environment, duration, and feedstock characteristics) in HC pretreatments are discussed. The enhancement mechanism of HC including physical and chemical effects is analyzed. Finally, the perspectives on future research on the HC-based pretreatment technology are highlighted.
Recent advances on SOA formation in indoor air, fate and strategies for SOA characterization in indoor air - A review
- Klaudia Pytel
- Renata Marcinkowska
- Małgorzata Rutkowska
- Bożena Zabiegała
2022 Full text SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Recent studies proves that indoor air chemistry differs in many aspects from atmospheric one. People send up to 90 % of their life indoors being exposed to pollutants present in gas, particle and solid phase. Particle phase indoor is composed of particles emitted from various sources, among which there is an indoor source – secondary chemical reactions leading to formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Lately, researchers' attentions turned towards the ultrafine particles, for there are still a lot of gaps in knowledge concerning this field of study, while there is evidence of negative influence of ultrafine particles on human health. Presented review sums up current knowledge about secondary particle formation in indoor environment and development of analytical techniques applied to study those processes. The biggest concern today is studying ROS, for their lifetime in indoor air is very short due to reactions at the very beginning of terpene oxidation process. Another interesting aspect that is recently discovered is monoterpene autooxidation process that leads to HOMs formation that in turn can influence SOA formation yield. A complex studies covering gas phase and particle phase characterization, but also toxicological studies are crucial to fully understand indoor air chemistry leading to ultrafine particle formation.
Recent and Emerging Applications of Graphene-based metamaterials in Electromagnetics
- Meisam Esfandiari
- Ali Lalbakhsh
- Paria Shehni
- Saughar Jarchi
- Mohsen Miab
- Hamideh Mahtaj
- Sam Reisenfeld
- Mohammad Alibakhshikenari
- Sławomir Kozieł
- Stanisław Szczepański
2022 Full text MATERIALS & DESIGN
Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) operating in mid-infrared up to terahertz (THz) frequencies have been traditionally manufactured on expensive metals such as gold, silver, etc. However, such metals have poor surface confinement that limits the optical applications of SPPs. The invention of graphene is a breakthrough in plasmon-based devices in terms of design, fabrication and applications, thanks to its plasmonic wave distribution, low-cost prototyping and its inherent reconfigurability. In addition, recent advancements in plasmon-based metamaterials and metasurfaces led to the elimination of the past constraints on regular optical devices, opening a new door in THz devices and applications. This paper provides an operational perspective of the advanced graphene-based electromagnetic devices, with a focus on graphene enabled antennas, absorbers and sensors, analyzing the strengths and limitations of various design methodologies.
Recent Progress on Hydrogen Storage and Production Using Chemical Hydrogen Carriers
- Ewelina Pawelczyk
- Natalia Łukasik
- Izabela Wysocka
- Andrzej Rogala
- Jacek Gębicki
2022 Full text ENERGIES
Depleting fossil fuel resources and anthropogenic climate changes are the reasons for the intensive development of new, sustainable technologies based on renewable energy sources. One of the most promising strategies is the utilization of hydrogen as an energy vector. However, the limiting issue for large-scale commercialization of hydrogen technologies is a safe, efficient, and economical method of gas storage. In industrial practice, hydrogen compression and liquefaction are currently applied; however, due to the required high pressure (30–70 MPa) and low temperature (−253 °C), both these methods are intensively energy consuming. Chemical hydrogen storage is a promising alternative as it offers safe storage of hydrogen-rich compounds under ambient conditions. Although many compounds serving as hydrogen carriers are considered, some of them do not have realistic perspectives for large-scale commercialization. In this review, the three most technologically advanced hydrogen carriers—dimethyl ether, methanol, and dibenzyltoluene—are discussed and compared. Their potential for industrial application in relation to the energy storage, transport, and mobility sectors is analyzed, taking into account technological and environmental aspects.
Recognition of Emotions in Speech Using Convolutional Neural Networks on Different Datasets
- Marta Zielonka
- Artur Piastowski
- Andrzej Czyżewski
- Paweł Nadachowski
- Maksymilian Operlejn
- Kamil Kaczor
2022 Full text Electronics
Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models, specifically Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), were applied to extract emotions based on spectrograms and mel-spectrograms. This study uses spectrograms and mel-spectrograms to investigate which feature extraction method better represents emotions and how big the differences in efficiency are in this context. The conducted studies demonstrated that mel-spectrograms are a better-suited data type for training CNN-based speech emotion recognition (SER). The research experiments employed five popular datasets: Crowdsourced Emotional Multimodal Actors Dataset (CREMA-D), Ryerson Audio-Visual Database of Emotional Speech and Song (RAVDESS), Surrey Audio-Visual Expressed Emotion (SAVEE), Toronto Emotional Speech Set (TESS), and The Interactive Emotional Dyadic Motion Capture (IEMOCAP). Six different classes of emotions were used: happiness, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and neutral. However, some experiments were prepared to recognize just four emotions due to the characteristics of the IEMOCAP dataset. A comparison of classification efficiency on different datasets and an attempt to develop a universal model trained using all datasets were also performed. This approach brought an accuracy of 55.89% when recognizing four emotions. The most accurate model for six emotion recognition was trained and achieved 57.42% accuracy on a combination of four datasets (CREMA-D, RAVDESS, SAVEE, TESS). What is more, another study was developed that demonstrated that improper data division for training and test sets significantly influences the test accuracy of CNNs. Therefore, the problem of inappropriate data division between the training and test sets, which affected the results of studies known from the literature, was addressed extensively. The performed experiments employed the popular ResNet18 architecture to demonstrate the reliability of the research results and to show that these problems are not unique to the custom CNN architecture proposed in experiments. Subsequently, the label correctness of the CREMA-D dataset was studied through the employment of a prepared questionnaire.
Recurrent Neural Network Based Adaptive Variable-Order Fractional PID Controller for Small Modular Reactor Thermal Power Control
- Bartosz Puchalski
- Tomasz Rutkowski
- Jarosław Tarnawski
- Tomasz Karla
2022
This paper presents the synthesis of an adaptive PID type controller in which the variable-order fractional operators are used. Due to the implementation difficulties of fractional order operators, both with a fixed and variable order, on digital control platforms caused by the requirement of infinite memory resources, the fractional operators that are part of the discussed controller were approximated by recurrent neural networks based on Gated Recurrent Unit cells. The study compares the performance of the proposed neural controller with other solutions, which are based on definitional fractional-order operators exploiting an infinite memory buffer and a classical adaptive PID controller. The proposed neural approximations of variable-order fractional operators applied to a PID-type controller provide a viable solution that can be successfully implemented on present-day digital control platforms. The research presented here focuses on the aspects of accuracy of approximators in simulated operating conditions within the thermal power control system of the challenging plant such as Small Modular Nuclear Reactor.
Redesigning Informal Beirut: Shaping the Sustainable Transformation Strategies
- Piotr Lorens
- Dorota Wojtowicz-Jankowska
- Bahaa Bou Kalfouni
2022 Full text Urban Planning
Lebanon is distinguished by its strategic geographical location among the Arab countries. Beirut, as the capital city and the major commercial and cultural centre of the country, is a point of interest for migrants. The region has witnessed many changes since the end of World War II, which have resulted in internal and external conflicts, migrations, the centralization of the country’s economy, etc. Furthermore, the city has witnessed many periods of urbanization, destruction, reconstruction, and regeneration, which has contributed to the complex nature of the city’s population and a blurring of the boundaries between settlements which are quite different in their natures. As a result, Beirut has become a home to mixed communities and societies of different origins and natures. The extensive inflow of migrants combined with economic crises has contributed to the appearance of informal settlements. They are located in different areas of the city and its surroundings, known as Greater Beirut. These settlements face various challenges, including spatial organization, socioeconomic standing, and environmental concerns. The current situation in Lebanon (resulting from the Covid‐19 pandemic combined with the 4th of August 2020 blast in the port of Beirut) makes these challenges even more appalling. Some of the key issues discussed in this article are associated with the origin, current state, and prospects for improving the urban quality of these informal settlements considering their unplanned development and underused potentials. The article includes an inventory and speculates about the best possible strategies derived from three local interventions which are based on published reports. These examples represent rehabilitation and reconstruction activities in different cities in Lebanon. They can be applied to the specific situation of Beirut, given the variety of possible contexts there. The authors’ initial intention is to deal with the possible scope of the physical improvement in these settlements which will lead to socioeconomic and environmental development and will also include possible ways of reinventing Beirut’s urban structure
Reduced-cost optimization-based miniaturization of microwave passives by multi-resolution EM simulations for internet of things and space-limited applications
- Anna Pietrenko-Dąbrowska
- Sławomir Kozieł
- Ali Raef
2022 Full text Electronics
Stringent performance specifications along with constraints imposed on physical dimensions, make the design of contemporary microwave components a truly onerous task. In recent years, the latter demand has been growing in importance, with the innovative application areas such as Internet of Things coming into play. The need to employ full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simu-lations for response evaluation, reliable yet CPU heavy, only aggravates the issue. This paper proposes a reduced-cost miniaturization algorithm that employs trust-region search procedure and multi-resolution EM simulations. In our approach, the resolution of the EM model is ad-justed throughout the optimization process based on its convergence status starting from the lowest admissible fidelity. As the algorithm converges, the resolution is increased up to the high-fidelity one, used at the final phase to ensure reliability. Four microwave components have been utilized as verification structures: an impedance matching transformer, and three branch-line couplers. Significant savings in terms of the number of EM analyses required to con-clude the size reduction process of 41, 42, 38 and 50 percent have been obtained (in comparison to a single-fidelity procedure). The footprint area of the designs optimized using the pro-posed approach are equal to: 32, 205, 410 and 132 mm2, in comparison to 52, 275, 525, and 213 mm2 of the initial (and already compact) design.
Reduced-Cost Two-Level Surrogate Antenna Modeling using Domain Confinement and Response Features
- Anna Pietrenko-Dąbrowska
- Sławomir Kozieł
- Ullah Ubaid
2022 Full text Scientific Reports
Electromagnetic (EM) simulation tools have become indispensable in the design of contemporary antennas. Still, the major setback of EM-driven design is the associated computational overhead. This is because a single full-wave simulation may take from dozens of seconds up to several hours, thus, the cost of solving design tasks that involve multiple EM analyses may turn unmanageable. This is where faster system representations (surrogates) come into play. Replacing expensive EM-based evaluations by cheap yet accurate metamodels seems to be an attractive solution. Still, in antenna design, application of surrogate models is hindered by the curse of dimensionality. A practical workaround has been offered by the recently reported reference-design-free constrained modeling techniques that restrict the metamodel domain to the parameter space region encompassing high-quality designs. Therein, the domain is established using only a handful of EM-simulations. This paper proposes a novel modeling technique, which incorporates the response feature technology into the constrained modeling framework. Our methodology allows for rendering accurate surrogates using exceptionally small training data sets, at the expense of reducing the generality of the modeling procedure to antennas that exhibit consistent shape of input characteristics. The proposed technique can be employed in other fields that employ costly simulation models (e.g., mechanical or aerospace engineering).
Regeneration Project of Market Places GOSPOSTRATEG – “Polanki” Market in Gdańsk-Oliwa Pilot Project Monitoring Dataset
- Justyna Borucka
2022 Full text
The dataset entitled Monitoring of activities carried out as part of prototyping and implementation of the pilot project in the area of the “Polanki” market and its direct neighbourhood, in the Gdańsk-Oliwa district, step1; stage from July 2020 year contains tabular monitoring lists (quantitative and qualitative documentation report in the form of tables) of activities carried out as part of the prototyping and implementation of the pilot project in the area of the Polanki market and its immediate vicinity in the Gdańsk-Oliwa district conducted during the month of July 2020. The data collection was carried out as part of the first step of monitoring in the series: “Monitoring of activities, prototyping and implementation of the pilot project in the area of the “Polanki” market, Gdańsk-Oliwa district, step1”. The second step of monitoring is scheduled for 2021. Monitoring is the basis for the subsequent analysis used in the implementation of the pilot project of the “Polanki” Market and supports the proper development of the regeneration project of the marketplace.
Regenerative Drug Discovery Using Ear Pinna Punch Wound Model in Mice
- Paweł Sosnowski
- Piotr Sass
- Paulina Słonimska
- Rafał Płatek
- Jolanta Kamińska
- Jakub Baczyński-Keller
- Piotr Mucha
- Grażyna Peszyńska-Sularz
- Artur Czupryn
- Michał Pikuła
- Arkadiusz Piotrowski
- Łukasz Janus
- Sylwia Rodziewicz-Motowidło
- Piotr Skowron
- Paweł Sachadyn
2022 Full text Pharmaceuticals
The ear pinna is a complex tissue consisting of the dermis, cartilage, muscles, vessels, and nerves. Ear pinna healing is a model of regeneration in mammals. In some mammals, including rabbits, punch wounds in the ear pinna close spontaneously; in common-use laboratory mice, they remain for life. Agents inducing ear pinna healing are potential regenerative drugs. We tested the effects of selected bioactive agents on 2 mm ear pinna wound closure in BALB/c mice. Our previous research demonstrated that a DNA methyltransferase inhibitor, zebularine, remarkably induced ear pinna regeneration. Although experiments with two other demethylating agents, RG108 and hydralazine, were unsuccessful, a histone deacetylase inhibitor, valproic acid, was another epigenetic agent found to increase ear hole closure. In addition, we identified a pro-regenerative activity of 4-ketoretinoic acid, a retinoic acid metabolite. Attempts to counteract the regenerative effects of the demethylating agent zebularine, with folates as methyl donors, failed. Surprisingly, a high dose of methionine, another methyl donor, promoted ear hole closure. Moreover, we showed that the regenerated areas of ear pinna were supplied with nerve fibre networks and blood vessels. The ear punch model proved helpful in testing the pro-regenerative activities of small-molecule compounds and observations of peripheral nerve regeneration.
Regulation of LPS assembly via controlled proteolysis and sensing of LPS stress in Escherichia coli
- Daria Biernacka
2022 Full text
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a complex glycolipid, essential for the bacterial viability and along with phospholipids, it constitutes the major amphiphilic component of outer membrane (OM) in most of the Gram-negative bacteria, including Escherichia coli. LPS molecules confer an effective permeability barrier to the OM and play a crucial role in bacteria-environment and -host interactions. The synthesis and accumulation of this highly heterogeneous in the composition molecule are controlled by abundance of regulatory factors and growth conditions. Furthermore, the synthesis of LPS and phospholipids is tightly co-regulated and held at a nearly constant ratio. Any alterations in the balance of phospholipids and LPS are not tolerated by bacteria and cause cell death. This balance is achieved by tightly regulated turnover of unstable LpxC enzyme to maintain the flux of common precursor for the utilization in either LPS or phospholipid biosynthetic pathways. It constitutes an essential branch point in the biosynthesis of phospholipids and the lipid A part of LPS and simultaneously determines the first committed step in LPS biosynthetic pathway. It has been reported that LPS assembly requires the essential LapB protein to regulate FtsH-mediated proteolysis of LpxC protein. To further understand the function of LapB and its role in LpxC turnover, multicopy suppressor screening of ΔlapB was employed and it revealed a role for HslUV proteases in regulating LpxC amounts, providing the first alternative pathway of LpxC degradation. Isolation and characterization of an extragenic suppressor mutation that prevents lethality of ΔlapB by restoration of normal LPS synthesis identified a frame-shift in the essential gene designated lapC, suggesting LapB and LapC act antagonistically. The same lapC gene was identified during selection for mutations that induce transcription from LPS defects-responsive rpoEP3 promoter, confer sensitivity to LpxC inhibitor CHIR090 and exhibit a temperature-sensitive phenotype. Suppressors of lapC mutants that restored growth at elevated temperatures mapped to lapA/lapB, lpxC and ftsH genes. Such suppressor mutations restored normal levels of LPS and prevented excessive proteolysis of LpxC in lapC mutants. Interestingly, a lapC deletion could be constructed in strains either overproducing LpxC or in the absence of LapB, revealing that FtsH, LapB and LapC together regulate LPS synthesis by controlling LpxC amounts.
REJESTRACJA SERII ZDJĘĆ, Z WYMUSZENIEM ZMIENNYCH WARUNKÓW OŚWIETLENIOWYCH, JAKO TECHNIKI WSPOMAGAJĄCEJ PRZY AUTOMATYCZNYM ROZPOZNAWANIU TEKSTU
- Grzegorz Jędrzejewski
- Stanisław Galla
2022 Elektronika : konstrukcje, technologie, zastosowania
W artykule przedstawiono autorskie rozwiązania problemu wykonywania zdjęć niewyraźnych tekstów na opakowaniach i niewielkich produktach. W sytuacji gdy napis posiada niską rozdzielczość (drukarka atramentowa), albo jest wykonany poprzez technikę tłoczenia, wykonanie zwykłego, pojedynczego zdjęcia daje przeważnie niezadowalające wyniki. Dzięki przedstawionym tu rozwiązaniom, znacząco polepszamy materiał wejściowy (fotografie), który jest podstawą, na przykład do analizy przez algorytmy uczenia maszynowego, dedykowanych do rozpoznawania znaków (OCR).
Relations between magnetosonic perturbations as an indicator of a magnetosonic exciter and equilibrium parameters of a plasma
- Anna Perelomova
2022 Full text CONTRIBUTIONS TO PLASMA PHYSICS
The thermodynamic relations between perturbation of pressure and pertur- bation of mass density and between components of velocity which specify a magnetosonic wave are theoretically studied. A planar flow with the wave vec- tor forming a constant angle with the equilibrium magnetic field is investigated. The theory considers deviation from the adiabaticity of a flow due to some kind of heating–cooling function and thermal conduction of a plasma. It considers also the weak impact of nonlinearity. The thermodynamic relations and corre- sponding diagrams reveal the hysteretic character of irreversible processes in a plasma flow and may indicate damping and nonlinear parameters of a flow. They may indicate also the geometry of a flow, the equilibrium parameters of plasma, and specify a magnetosonic source. The harmonic and impulsive exciters are discussed in this connection.
Relationship between Telomere Length, TERT Genetic Variability and TERT, TP53, SP1, MYC Gene Co-Expression in the Clinicopathological Profile of Breast Cancer
- Marta Dratwa
- Barbara Wysoczanska
- Wioletta Brankiewicz
- Martyna Stachowicz-Suhs
- Joanna Wietrzyk
- Rafał Matkowski
- Marcin Ekiert
- Jolanta Szelachowska
- Adam Maciejczyk
- Mariusz Szajewski
- Maciej Bagiński
- Katarzyna Bogunia-Kubik
2022 Full text INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
The molecular mechanisms of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) upregulation in breast cancer (BC) are complex. We compared genetic variability within TERT and telomere length with the clinical data of patients with BC. Additionally, we assessed the expression of the TERT, MYC, TP53 and SP1 genes in BC patients and in BC organoids (3D cell cultures obtained from breast cancer tissues). We observed the same correlation in the blood of BC patients and in BC organoids between the expression of TERT and TP53. Only in BC patients was a correlation found between the expression of the TERT and MYC genes and between TP53 and MYC. We found associations between TERT genotypes (rs2735940 and rs10069690) and TP53 expression and telomere length. BC patients with the TT genotype rs2735940 have a shorter telomere length, but patients with A allele rs10069690 have a longer telomere length. BC patients with a short allele VNTR-MNS16A showed higher expression of the SP1 and had a longer telomere. Our results bring new insight into the regulation of TERT, MYC, TP53 and SP1 gene expression related to TERT genetic variability and telomere length. Our study also showed for the first time a similar relationship in the expression of the above genes in BC patients and in BC organoids. These findings suggest that TERT genetic variability, expression and telomere length might be useful biomarkers for BC, but their prognostic value may vary depending on the clinical parameters of BC patients and tumor aggressiveness.
Relative quantification of pork and beef in meat products using global and species-specific peptide markers for the authentication of meat composition
- Katarzyna Nalazek-Rudnicka
- Ilona Kłosowska-Chomiczewska
- Jens Brockmeyer
- Andrzej Wasik
- Adam Macierzanka
2022 Full text FOOD CHEMISTRY
We used global and species-specific peptide markers for a relative quantitative determination of pork and beef in raw and processed meat products made of the two meat species. Four groups of products were prepared (i.e., minced raw meats, sausages, raw and fried burgers) in order to represent products with different extents of food processing. In each group, the products varied in the pork/beef proportions. All products were analysed by multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry (MRM–MS) for the presence/concentration of pork- and beefspecific peptide markers, as well as global markers – peptides widely distributed in muscle tissue. The combined MRM-MS analysis of pork-specific peptide HPGDFGADAQGAMSK, beef-specific peptide VLGFHG and global marker LFDLR offered the most reliable validation of declared pork/beef compositions across the whole range of meat products. Our work suggests that a simultaneous analysis of global and species-specific peptide markers can be used for composition authentication in commercial pork/beef products.