Aqueous wastes from nuclear fuel reprocessing present special problems of radiotoxicity of the active species. Cells of Serratia sp. were found previously to accumulate high levels of hydrogen uranyl phosphate (HUP) via the activity of a phosphatase enzyme. Uranium is of relatively low radiotoxicity whereas radionuclide fission products such as 90Sr and 137Cs are highly radiotoxic. These radionuclides can be co-crystallized, held within the bio-HUP ‘host’ lattice on the bacterial cells and thereby removed from contaminated solution, depending on continued phosphatase activity. Radiostability tests using a commercial 6°Co γ-source showed that while cell viability and activity of purified phosphatase were lost within a few hours on irradiation, whole-cell phosphatase retained 80% of the initial activity, even after loss of cell culturability, which was increased to 100% by the incorporation of mercaptoethanol as an example radioprotectant, beyond an accumulated dose of >1.3MGy. Using this co-crystallization approach (without mercaptoethanol) 137Cs+ and 85Sr2+ were removed from a simulated waste selectively against a 33-fold excess of Na+. Biotechnol. Bioeng.
We previously demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of different boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) protocols in an experimental model of oral cancer. BNCT is based on the selective accumulation of 10B carriers in a tumor followed by neutron irradiation. Within the context of exploring the pote...
Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) combines selective accumulation of 10B carriers in tumor tissue with subsequent neutron irradiation. We previously demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of BNCT in the hamster cheek pouch oral cancer model. Optimization of BNCT depends largely on improving bor...
Deinococcaceae are a family of extremely radiation-tolerant bacteria that are currently subjected to numerous studies aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms for such radiotolerance. To achieve a comprehensive and accurate annotation of the Deinococcus deserti genome, we performed an N te...
The treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) associated with portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT) is very challenging because of HCC's grave prognosis. Despite many efforts to improve the treatment results, patient survival has been limited to several months. In this situation, radioth...
