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Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is a double strained Deoxyribonucleic Acid (dsDNA) virus that infect and reside in the epithelial cells of human as tropism. The virus caused a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and it divided as Low Risk (LR) and High Risk (HR) HPVs. The HR HPVs infection may cause cervical cancer, while the LR HPVs infection are commonly self-limiting. However, the LR HPVs has a higher transmission rate than the HR HPVs and caused several diseases such as Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis (RPP). The RPP are commonly caused by HPVs type 6 and type 11. The present study aims to optimize multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to detect the HPVs type 6 and type 11 cervical swab and urine sample. Various in-house primers were tested to detect the infection, with a range of primer concentration from 0.1 to 1 µM. In addition to that, various annealing concentration also tested, in a range of 60 up to 70°C. The result showed different optimum primer concentration, 0.5 µM and 1 µM, to detect the HPVs infection in the cervical swab and the urine, respectively. While the optimum annealing temperature was 66.8°C for both samples. An amplicon sequencing was performed to validate the method and the Basic Local Alignment Search Tools (BLAST) showed high similarity to the HPVs type 6 and type 11. Therefore, it may conclude that the optimized method presented in this study is valid to detect the infection of HPVs type 6 and type 11 in cervical swab and urine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine sponges are known as the producers of marine-derived bioactive compounds. Among all, sponges from Indonesia were reported as the second-highest contributors to many new sponge-derived compounds. A recent review on the bioactive potential of Indonesian sponges reported the potential of sponges from Indonesia to produce bioactive compounds, including alkaloids, terpenoids, peptides, macrolides, and polyketides. In addition to their ability to produce bioactive compounds, sponges harbor many different prokaryotic phyla, including Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Cyanobacteria. Many reports have indicated the bioactive potential of Indonesian sponges. However, research on bioprospecting bacteria associated with Indonesian sponges remains limited and under-explored. The present study reviewed available reports on the diversity of bacteria associated with Indonesian sponges, including their bioactive potential. Available reports from 2011 to 2021 were collected, aiming to provide a general overview of bioprospecting sponge-associated bacteria in Indonesia. The bioactive potential of compounds derived from bacteria associated with Indonesian sponges was analyzed, for example for antimicrobial and anticancer. In addition to the review, the present study also discusses the opportunity and challenge of conducting marine bioprospecting, especially for bioprospecting sponge-associated bacteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antibiotic resistance poses a global health challenge. Multiple resistance mechanisms enable bacterial pathogens to evade antibiotic killing. Furthermore, there is a lack of new antibiotics entering the clinical pipeline. An alternative strategy to alleviate the problem of antibiotic resistance is the use of antibiotic potentiators, also known as antibiotic adjuvants or resistance breakers. Antibiotic potentiators are molecules that may not have antibiotic activity on their own but are able to block the bacterial resistance mechanisms or enhance the antibacterial activity of antibiotics. As such, antibiotic potentiators are a promising approach to combat drug resistance in bacterial pathogens. This mini review aims to elaborate on the discovery and development of antibiotic potentiators for the past decade (2012-2022) for the treatment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an important nosocomial pathogen that is resistant to almost all β-lactam antibiotics. Different microbial-derived compounds and studies pertaining to their discovery process will be elucidated. The mechanisms by which these antibiotic potentiators exert their adjuvating activity and their targets will also be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a robust high-throughput method which can expedites the sequencing of the base pairs in DNA or RNA samples rapidly and efficiently. As the cost of NGS has declined, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) has become continuously appealing due to a large amount of genetic information it reveals. The emergence of WGS using NGS technology is a revolutionary advancement in almost all areas of life sciences, ranging from health and medical to agricultural and forestry applications. NGS-based WGS technology has been implemented for several years in Indonesia, especially in the genomics study of infectious disease-related microbes. Yet, it continues to thrive and extensively be used in the recent emergence and widespread transmission of SARS-CoV-2. This present brief review will discuss WGS platforms and their applications that have been documented in Indonesia in recent times. Moreover, the challenges and future prospects of research and development of WGS in Indonesia will also be highlighted herein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agarase is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of agar. Numerous agarases have been obtained from different microorganism genera found in sponges, marine water, and marine sediments. Streptomyces sampsonii from marine sediments of Tanjung Kusu-Kusu, Lembeh, North Sulawesi showed potential as a producer of agarase with various applications in the cosmeceutical, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical industries, because they have the ability to produce oligosaccharides with high activity. This study aimed to characterize the agarase enzyme produced by S. sampsonii using commercial substrates. The results showed that the agarase enzyme had the highest activity with an optimum pH of 9.0 using the glycine-NaOH buffer and an optimum temperature of 80 °C. The enzyme activity assay with several metal ions and chemical compounds showed that Fe3+, Mn2+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ were activators, Hg2+, Cu2+, and EDTA were inhibitors, while K+, PEG-600, isopropanol, methanol, ethanol, and TritonX-100 ions had no significant effect on enzyme activity. Hydrolysis and thin layer chromatography have shown that it is capable of hydrolyzing Agar, Agarose, and Euchema cottonii seaweed biomass into Neoagarooligosaccharides such as Neo-agarobiose (NA2), Neo-agarotetraose (NA4), and Neo-agarohexaose (NA6), which can be used in nutrition, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and industrial applications with further development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]