The fisheries and livestock sectors capture the highest share of protein-rich animal food and demonstrate accelerated growth as an agriculture subsidiary. Environmental pollution, climate change, as well as pathogenic invasions exert increasing stress impacts that lead the productivity momentum at a crossroads. Oxidative stress is the most common form of stress phenomenon responsible for the retardation of productivity in fisheries and livestock. Essential micronutrients play a determinant role in combating oxidative stress. Selenium, one of the essential micronutrients, appears as a potent antioxidant with reduced toxicity in its nanoscale form. In the present review, different methods of synthesis and characterization of nanoscale selenium have been discussed. The functional characterization of nano-selenium in terms of its effect on growth patterns, feed digestibility, and reproductive system has been discussed to elucidate the mechanism of action. Moreover, its anti-carcinogenic and antioxidant potentiality, antimicrobial and immunomodulatory efficacy, and fatty acid reduction in liver have been deciphered as the new phenomena of nano-selenium application. Biologically synthesized nano-selenium raises hope for pharmacologically enriched, naturally stable nanoscale selenium with high ecological viability. Hence, nano-selenium can be administered with commercial feeds for improvising stress resilience and productivity of fish and livestock.

Currently, one of the major problem affecting the world is solid waste management, predominantly petroleum-based plastic and fish solid waste (FSW). However, it is very difficult to reduce the consumption of plastic as well as fish products, but it is promising to convert FSW to biopolymer to reduce eco-pollution. On account of that, the bioconversion of FSW extract to polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) was undertaken by using Bacillus subtilis (KP172548). Under optimized conditions, 1.62 g/L of PHB has been produced by the bacterium. The purified compound was further characterized by advanced analytical technologies to elucidate its chemical structure. Results indicated that the biopolymer was found to be PHB, the most common homopolymer of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). This is the first report demonstrating the efficacy of B. subtilis to utilize FSW extract to produce biopolymer. The biocompatibility of the PHB against murine macrophage cell line RAW264.7 demonstrated that, it was comparatively less toxic, favourable for surface attachment and proliferation in comparison with poly-lactic acid (PLA) and commercially available PHB. Thus, further exploration is highly indispensable to use FSW extract as a substrate for production of PHB at pilot scale.

Municipal sewage triggers a stress prone environment to accumulate polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) in the cytosol of bacteria. In view of that, different Bacillus species were isolated from municipal sewage and screened for evaluating their efficacy of PHA production. Growth parameters such as temperature, pH, glucose concentration and carbon nitrogen combinations were optimized with respect to higher biomass production as it is analogous to PHA accumulation. Under optimized conditions, the Bacillus species produced 3.09 g/L of PHAs which was estimated as a higher yield in comparison to other similar strains. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic analysis of the extracted polyhydroxybutyrate confirmed the distinct peak corresponding to C=O group, whereas proton nuclear magnetic resonance ( 1 H NMR) and differential scanning colorimetric analysis exhibited detailed insight of its chemical structure and properties by reflecting monomeric unit. The high yielding bacterial isolate was identified by 16S rDNA sequencing and the sequence was confirmed as Bacillus subtilis with an accession no. KP172548 after submission to NCBI data base. The potential bacterium may be further exploited for cost effective and mass scale production of biopolymer.

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Low doses of Plumbagin and Gentamicin exhibit synergistic activity against P. aeruginosa biofilm whilst maintaining their effectiveness This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.