Many methods, including solid dispersion, micellization, and inclusion complexes, have been employed to increase the solubility of potent drugs. Beta-cyclodextrin (βCD) is a cyclic oligosaccharide consisting of seven glucopyranoside molecules, and is a widely used polymer for formulating soluble inclusion complexes of hydrophobic drugs. The enzymatic activity of Glycosyltransferase or α-amylase converts starch or its derivatives into a mixture of cyclodextrins. The βCD units are characterized by α -(1-4) glucopyranose bonds. Cyclodextrins possess certain properties that make them very distinctive because of their toroidal or truncated cage-like supramolecular configurations with multiple hydroxyl groups at each end. This allowed them to encapsulate hydrophobic compounds by forming inclusion complexes without losing their solubility in water. Chemical modifications and newer derivatives, such as methylated βCD, more soluble hydroxyl propyl methyl βCD, and sodium salts of sulfobutylether-βCD, known as dexolve® or captisol®, have envisaged the use of CDs in various pharmaceutical, medical, and cosmetic industries. The successful inclusion of drug complexes has demonstrated improved solubility, bioavailability, drug resistance reduction, targeting, and penetration across skin and brain tissues. This review encompasses the current applications of β-CDs in improving the disease outcomes of antimicrobials and antifungals as well as anticancer and anti-tubercular drugs.
Wetlands are an important source of DOM. However, the quantity and quality of wetlands' DOM from various climatic regions have not been studied comprehensively. The relationship between the concentrations of DOM (DOC), humic substances (HS) and non-humic substances (NHS) in wetland associated sloughs, streams and rivers, in cool temperate (Hokkaido, Japan), sub-tropical (Florida, USA), and tropical (Sarawak, Malaysia) regions was investigated. The DOC ranged from 1.0 to 15.6 mg CL(-1) in Hokkaido, 6.0-24.4 mg CL(-1) in Florida, and 18.9-75.3 mg CL(-1) in Sarawak, respectively. The relationship between DOC and HS concentrations for the whole sample set was regressed to a primary function with y-intercept of zero (P<0.005) and a slope value of 0.841. A similar correlation was observed between DOC and NHS concentrations, with a smaller slope value of 0.159. However, the correlation coefficient of the latter was much larger when the data was regressed to a logarithmic curve. These observations suggest the presence of a general tendency that the increased DOC in the river waters was mainly due to the increased supply of HS from wetland soils, whereas the rate of the increase in the NHS supply has an upper limit which may be controlled by primary productivity.
In this study, the selenium enriched peanuts and the different solubility proteins extracted from them were investigated. The dried defatted selenium enriched peanuts (SeP) powder (0.3147 μg/g) had a 2.5-fold higher mean total selenium concentration than general peanuts (GP) power (0.1233 μg/g). The SeP had higher concentration of selenium, manganese and zinc than that of GP, but less calcium. The rate of extraction of protein was 23.39% for peanuts and alkali soluble protein was the main component of protein in SeP, which accounted for 92.82% of total soluble protein and combined selenium was 77.33% of total selenium protein. In different forms of proteins from SeP, the WSePr due to higher concentration of selenium had higher DPPH free-radical scavenging activity, higher reducing activity and longer induction time than other proteins.
Nickel-titanium shape memory alloy (NiTi) has a unique capacity to restore its initial shape after deformation, which is highly applicable to orthopaedic implantations, especially for the minimization of invasive surgeries. The high nickel content of this alloy can lead to unfavourable effects on the human body upon dissolution; thus, a reliable barrier of coatings on the NiTi surface is required to alleviate the nickel migration and increase its biocompatibility. In this paper, analyses of a titanium oxide layer development on NiTi surface using electrical discharge coating (EDC) process is presented. The recast layer thickness, crater sizes, and surface roughness were characterized based on five parameters; polarity, discharge duration, pulse interval, peak current, and gap voltage. The results show that the discharge duration is the most significant parameter to influence all responses, followed by peak current. The surface characteristics of the EDC substrate is depending on the crater formations and is highly correlated with the discharge energy intensity. As a result, appropriate parametric conditions of the electrical discharge coating process can enhance the NiTi surface for future medical applications, without compromising the shape memory effect.
Atovaquone (ATQ) is a poorly soluble drug. Therefore, formulating ATQ into its supersaturated state through solid dispersion for bioavailability enhancement can be of great value. However, due to fast crystallising properties of ATQ, the quantification of ATQ in a supersaturated solid dispersion system can be complicated. Therefore, in pursuit of accurate quantification of such sample, a simple HPLC analytical method utilising a C18 column (250 × 4.6 mm ID, 5 μm) for the quantitation of ATQ has been developed and validated. Atovaquone elution using the proposed method demonstrated a retention time around 7.6 min with good linearity (R2 > 0.999). The system suitability is also detailed with the tailing factor at 1.365 ± 0.002. The addition of solubilising agent as sample treatment step aided in ensuring the accurate quantitation of the fast crystallising ATQ. The developed HPLC quantitation method has been successfully employed in the analysis of ATQ from solid dispersion samples in in vitro dissolution as well as ex vivo permeation studies for formulation development.
This study examined the influence of pH and salt concentration on the protein solubility of slaughtered and non-slaughtered broiler chicken meat. Three types of salt (NaCl, Na2SO4, and (NH4)2SO4), five different pH levels (5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0) and five salt concentrations (0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, and 2.0 M) were examined. Each type of salt showed distinctive activities for slaughtered and non-slaughtered meat protein solubility. Soluble protein concentration increased as pH increased (p<0.05) from pH5.0 to 8.0 and decreased from pH8.0 to 9.0. It was also observed that protein solubility increased as the salt concentration increased. Protein solubility significantly increased (p<0.05) in the non-slaughtered meat compared to the slaughtered meat at pH8.0 for Na2SO4 at 1.2 M.
Questioned document examination becomes a great interest and one of the broad fields in forensic science. It involves the analysis of ink, handwriting and signature examination, paper’s physical structure analysis and the ageing of a document. Ink analysis in forensic document examination is a challenging process. Questioned documents examiners are dealing with unknown source of ink and minute sample size. Ink extraction needs to be done before the ink analysis. 17 gel pen ink samples were chosen in this study. Solubility test has been done to determine the degree of solubility of ink in a variety of organic solvents. Extraction solvent optimization is a process to evaluate the efficiency of organic solvents to extract ink samples. Ethanoic acid showed the ability to dissolve most of the ink samples and displayed maximum absorbance of UV-Vis spectra.
Many plant-based bioactive compounds have been serving as the origin of drugs since long ago and many of them have been proven to have medicinal value against various chronic diseases, including, cancer, arthritis, hepatic diseases, type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. However, their clinical applications have been limited due to their poor water solubility, stability, low bioavailability and extensive transformation due to the first-pass metabolism. The applications of nanocarriers have been proven to be able to improve the delivery of bioactive phytoconstituents, resulting in the enhancement of various pharmacokinetic properties and thereby increasing the therapeutic value of phytoconstituents. These biocompatible nanocarriers also exert low toxicity to healthy cells. This review focuses on the uses and applications of different types of nanocarriers to enhance the delivery of phytoconstituents for the treatment of various chronic diseases, along with comparisons related to bioavailability and therapeutic efficacy of nano phytoconstituents with native phytoconstituents.
Orally disintegrating tablets are a solid dosage form that will disintegrate rapidly within 3 minutes upon contact with saliva. Fillers or diluents are excipients that are used to make up the volume of orally disintegrating tablets, and some might act as a disintegrant or binder that will affect the physical properties of orally disintegrating tablets. The objective of this study was to formulate and evaluate physical properties of orally disintegrating tablets containing Annona muricata leaves extract by a freeze-drying method using different fillers at different concentrations. In this study, fifteen formulations of orally disintegrating tablets were prepared by a freeze-drying method with different fillers such as starch, lactose, microcrystalline cellulose, StarLac, and CombiLac at 5%, 10%, and 15%. The orally disintegrating tablets were evaluated for hardness, thickness, weight variation, friability, and disintegration time test. The optimum formulation was chosen and incorporated with Annona muricata leaves extract. The results obtained in this work indicated that Formulation 3, with 15% starch, was the most optimum formulation due to the shortest disintegration time (21.08 seconds ± 4.24 seconds), and all the physical tests were within the acceptable range. The orally disintegrating tablets containing Annona muricata leaves extract possessed antioxidant activity and stable at least for 3 months under 60°C and 75% relative humidity.
The present study is aimed to prepare κ-carrageenan microparticles for the encapsulation of model drug, coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10). A face-centered central composite design was employed to study the effects of three different formulation variables (κ-carrageenan, emulsifier, and oil). The powder yield was found inversely affected by the κ-carrageenan and oil concentration. The encapsulation efficiency was maximized in the region of the middle level κ-carrageenan concentration, the high level emulsifier concentration, and the low level oil concentration. The emulsifier concentration was the most influential variable on the particle size of powder. The optimal formulation was reported as 0.91% (w/v) κ-carrageenan concentration, 0.64% (w/v) emulsifier, and 1.0% (w/w) oil. Both differential scanning colorimeter and X-ray diffraction analyses proved that incorporation of CoQ10 into κ- carrageenan microcapsules resulted in amorphous powder with significantly (p<0.05) higher water solubility compared to pure CoQ10 and physical mixture in the crystalline form.
The purpose of this study was to simultaneously predict the drug release and skin permeation of Piroxicam (PX) topical films based on Chitosan (CTS), Xanthan gum (XG) and its Carboxymethyl derivatives (CMXs) as matrix systems. These films were prepared by the solvent casting method, using Tween 80 (T80) as a permeation enhancer. All of the prepared films were assessed for their physicochemical parameters, their in vitro drug release and ex vivo skin permeation studies. Moreover, deep learning models and machine learning models were applied to predict the drug release and permeation rates. The results indicated that all of the films exhibited good consistency and physicochemical properties. Furthermore, it was noticed that when T80 was used in the optimal formulation (F8) based on CTS-CMX3, a satisfactory drug release pattern was found where 99.97% of PX was released and an amount of 1.18 mg/cm2 was permeated after 48 h. Moreover, Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) efficiently enhanced the performance of deep learning models and DNN was chosen as the best predictive approach with MSE values equal to 0.00098 and 0.00182 for the drug release and permeation kinetics, respectively. DNN precisely predicted PX dissolution profiles with f2 values equal to 99.99 for all the formulations.
In this work, oven-dried, freeze-dried and spray-dried agaro-oligosaccharide powders were characterized to investigate their physicochemical and antioxidant properties. Agaro-oligosaccharide powders were shown to exhibit high water solubility index (88.73 – 95.88%), water absorption capacity (0.96 – 2.57 g/g) and oil absorption capacity (0.40 – 0.45 g/g). Agaro-oligosaccharide powders were shown to possess moderate DPPH radical scavenging activity (10.65 – 14.59%), ABTS radical scavenging activity (44 .47 – 65.61%) and ferric reducing antioxidant activity (0.165 – 0.353). Agaro-oligosaccharide powders were further characterized with respect to thermal and pH stability. Agaro-oligosaccharide powders were shown to exhibit high temperature resistance (≤ 100oC) and acid/alkaline resistance.
This work was investigated the protein solubility properties of meat from chicken in different
body part. The effects of fresh and freezing condition were studied on the protein solubility as
a functional property of slaughter and non slaughtering chicken meat. Solubility of proteins
was significantly reduced for slaughtering fresh meat and in contrast, non slaughtering fresh
meat shows the higher protein solubility. On the other hand, frozen storage meat showed the
difference amount of protein solubility between slaughtering and non slaughtering condition
meat. Freezing condition also showed that the different solubility of different body part meat.
The protein solubility of some parts was significantly increased and some were decreased
between the slaughtering and non slaughtering condition.
The bottleneck of conventional polymeric membranes applied in industry has a tradeoff between permeability and selectivity that deters its widespread expansion. This can be circumvented through a hybrid membrane that utilizes the advantages of inorganic and polymer materials to improve the gas separation performance. The approach can be further enhanced through the incorporation of amine-impregnated fillers that has the potential to minimize defects while simultaneously enhancing gas affinity. An innovative combination between impregnated Linde T with different numbers of amine-functional groups (i.e., monoamine, diamine, and triamine) and 4,4'-(hexafluoroisopropylidene) diphthalic anhydride (6FDA)-derived polyimide has been elucidated to explore its potential in CO2/CH4 separation. Detailed physical properties (i.e., free volume and glass transition temperature) and gas transport behavior (i.e., solubility, permeability, and diffusivity) of the fabricated membranes have been examined to unveil the effect of different numbers of amine-functional groups in Linde T fillers. It was found that a hybrid membrane impregnated with Linde T using a diamine functional group demonstrated the highest improvement compared to a pristine polyimide with 3.75- and 1.75-fold enhancements in CO2/CH4 selectivities and CO2 permeability, respectively, which successfully lies on the 2008 Robeson's upper bound. The novel coupling of diamine-impregnated Linde T and 6FDA-derived polyimide is a promising candidate for application in large-scale CO2 removal processes.
Aluminum foams were fabricated by sintering dissolution process (SDP) using sodium chloride (NaCl) as space holder. The compositions of space holder, used in this study were 40 and 60 wt. % with different dissolution times; 1, 2 and 3 h. The effect of different dissolution times on compressive behavior and energy absorption of foams were evaluated. The result showed that by increasing space holder and dissolution times, energy absorption capability increases. For aluminum foam contains 60 wt. % NaCl, longer dissolution times resulted in thinner cell wall and cell structure become more unstable which lead to lower plateau region.
Groundwater is the prime source of freshwater in most small islands. A detailed groundwater and seawater chemistry study was undertaken from March 2006 to January 2007 to examine the evolution of groundwater in the shallow aquifer of Manukan Island, Sabah, Malaysia. Coastal groundwater aquifers especially for small islands are often exposed to heavy pumping and consequently to risks of seawater intrusion. Major ion chemistry analysis showed that the groundwater quality of the island experienced changes attributed to seawater intrusion. The groundwater has undergone a compositional change from Ca-rich to Na-rich which can be explained mostly by simple mixing process and cation exchange process. From the PHREEQC simulation model, calcite, dolomite and aragonite solubility showed positive mean values (0.65; 1.11; 0.51, respectively) of the saturation indices (SI) indicating supersaturation which attributed from the simple mixing and eventually cation exchange process. This information is important in protecting and remediating the disturbed aquifer situation.
The aims of this study are to isolate and characterize acid soluble collagen (ASC) and pepsin soluble collagen (PSC) extracted from silver catfish (Pangasius sp.) skin. Isolated ASC and PSC collagen were characterized in terms of chemical composition (moisture, protein, fat and ash content), protein concentration, functional group, solubility, and morphological properties as compared to commercial collagen. Yields of ASC and PSC were 4.27% and 2.27%, respectively. The chemical compositions of raw skin were 34.64%, 2.81%, 3.68%, and 0.31%, while the chemical compositions of ASC and PSC were 94.21%, 3.48%, 0.81%, 59.15%, and 88.25%, 3.46%, 0.92%, and 29.24%, for moisture, protein, fat, and ash, respectively. ASC and PSC had protein concentrations of 2.27 mg/mL and 2.70 mg/mL, respectively. Functional group analysis revealed that both isolated collagens exhibited Amide A, II and III as a fingerprint for collagen structure. The highest solubility was found at pH 4 for ASC, pH 1 for PSC, and pH 5 for commercial collagen. The morphology of the isolated collagens was porous and they contained fibril. In conclusion, the characteristics of the isolated ASC and PSC from silver catfish (Pangasius sp.) skin indicate that value-added collagen can be produced from the alternative source of freshwater fish.
This research mainly focused on isolation of non-starch polysaccharide (NSP) from different parts of cassava tuber by using water extraction and to evaluate the effect of NSP addition into flour on nutritional composition, swelling and solubility, pasting properties and dough characteristics by farinograph and extensograph. Three origins of (NSP) extracted were used: cassava peels, coarse and fine portions from cassava flesh. The isolation of NSP was done by using water extraction method and designated as water-extractable (WEP) and water un-extractable non starch polysaccharides (WUP). The percentage yield of WEP (0.24 - 1.64%) from water extraction was significantly lower as compared to WUP (2.58 - 4.33%). Upon the incorporation of 5% NSP, the cassava flour showed lower moisture content compared to the sample without the addition of NSP, while fats and crude fiber content of cassava flours were found to be increased upon the incorporation of 5% NSP from all origins. Swelling power and solubility of cassava flour were being reduced upon the incorporation of 5% of NSP from cassava peel and coarse portion of cassava flesh. The changes in dough characteristics showed that water absorption of the samples upon the addition of 5% NSP into wheat flour was found to be higher compared to control wheat flour. In contrast, dough stability and extensibility, tolerance index, resistance to extension, as well as the work input necessary for dough deformation from wheat flour with addition of 5% NSP resulted lower than control wheat flour. Overall, NSP extracted from cassava peels and coarse portion of cassava flesh performed similar characteristics and functional properties upon the incorporation into the flour.
Spermine (SPM) is considered a biomarker for prostate cancer and detecting it becomes highly challenging due to its electro- and optical-inactive nature. SPM has a tendency to interact with groups such as phosphates and sulfides to form macrocyclic arrangements known as nuclear aggregates of polyamines. Using this tendency, an electrochemical sensor has been developed using a polysulfide (PS) modified Au electrode (PS@Au electrode). PS has been synthesized from elemental sulfur by hydrothermal method and characterized using UV-Vis, fluorescence, FTIR, SEM, and XPS analyses. The PS@Au electrode was employed for electrochemical sensing of SPM. In the presence of SPM, a decrease in gold oxide reduction current was noted which is proportional to the concentration of SPM. The decrease in gold oxide reduction (0.5 V) current was attributed to the complexing nature of SPM-PS at the electrode interface. The reason for the decrease in current has been substantiated using XRF, XPS, and spectroelectrochemical studies. Under the optimized conditions, the PS@Au electrode exhibited a linear range of 1.55-250 µM with LOD of 0.511 ± 0.02 µM (3σ). The electrochemical strategy for SPM sensing exhibited better selectivity even in the presence of possible interferents. The selectivity stems from the selective interaction of SPM with PS on the Au electrode surface; the tested amino acids, and other molecules do not complex with PS and hence they could not interfere. The PS@Au electrode has been subjected to the determination of SPM in artificial urine samples and exhibited outstanding performance in the synthetic sample.
Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas that is responsible for global warming and renders harmful effects on the atmosphere. The unconstrained release of CO2 into the atmosphere should be prevented and various techniques have been developed in this regard to capture CO2 using different solvents and other compounds. Ionic liquids are a suitable candidate to capture CO2 due to their better solubility behaviour. In this work, two ionic liquids namely tetramethylammonium bromide (TMAB) and tetraethylammonium bromide (TEAB) are employed experimentally to capture CO2 and investigate their solubility behaviour. The study is performed at the temperature values of 303 K, 313 K, and 323 K and the pressure values of 5, 10, 15, and 20 bar equivalent to 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 MPa respectively. The concentrations of both ionic liquid solutions are 2.5 wt%, 5.0 wt%, and 10.0 wt%. The solubility results are considered in terms of mol fraction which is the ratio of moles of CO2 captured per moles of ionic liquid. The density and viscosity values are also determined for both compounds at respective conditions. COSMO-RS is used to generate the sigma profile, sigma surface, and Henry's constant of the ions involved in the study. CO2 is found to be soluble in both ionic liquids, but TEAB showed better solubility behaviour as compared to TMAB. The solubility of CO2 is found to be increasing with the increase in pressure while it decreases with the increase in temperature.