New Semi-Synthetic Rosmarinic Acid-Based Amide Derivatives as Effective Antioxidants

Integrating Antioxidant Functionality into Polymer Materials: Fundamentals, Strategies, and Applications

While antioxidants are widely known as natural components of healthy food and drinks or as additives to commercial polymer materials to prevent their degradation, recent years have seen increasing interest in enhancing the antioxidant functionality of newly developed polymer materials and coatings. This paper provides a critical overview and comparative analysis of multiple ways of integrating antioxidants within diverse polymer materials, including bulk films, electrospun fibers, and self-assembled coatings. Polyphenolic antioxidant moieties with varied molecular architecture are in the focus of this Review, because of their abundance, nontoxic nature, and potent antioxidant activity. Polymer materials with integrated polyphenolic functionality offer opportunities and challenges that span from the fundamentals to their applications. In addition to the traditional blending of antioxidants with polymer materials, developments in surface grafting and assembly via noncovalent interaction for controlling localization versus migration of antioxidant molecules are discussed. The versatile chemistry of polyphenolic antioxidants offers numerous possibilities for programmed inclusion of these molecules in polymer materials using not only van der Waals interactions or covalent tethering to polymers, but also via their hydrogen-bonding assembly with neutral molecules. An understanding and rational use of interactions of polyphenol moieties with surrounding molecules can enable precise control of concentration and retention versus delivery rate of antioxidants in polymer materials that are critical in food packaging, biomedical, and environmental applications.

Nanoantioxidant-Based Silica Particles as Flavonoid Carrier for Drug Delivery Applications

Nanosystems used in pharmaceutical formulations have shown promising results in enhancing the administration of drugs of difficult formulations. In particular, porous silica nanoparticles have demonstrated excellent properties for application in biological systems; however, there are still several challenges related to the development of more effective and biocompatible materials. An interesting approach to enhance these nanomaterials has been the development of nanoantioxidant carriers. In this work, a hybrid nanoantioxidant carrier based on porous silica nanoplatform with rosmarinic acid antioxidant immobilized on its surface were developed and characterized. Techniques such as dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta potential, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), N2 adsorption-desorption measurements, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH●) assay were used to characterize and evaluate the antioxidant activity of nanocarriers. In addition, drug release profile was evaluated using two biorelevant media. The antioxidant activity of rosmarinic acid was maintained, suggesting the correct disposition of the moiety. Kinetic studies reveal that more morin is released in the simulated intestinal fluid than in the gastric one, while an anomalous non-Fickian release mechanism was observed. These results suggest a promising antioxidant nanocarrier suitable for future application in drug delivery.

Hemisynthesis, computational and molecular docking studies of novel nitrogen containing steroidal aromatase inhibitors: testolactam and testololactam

Combined DFT and molecular docking studies of synthesized steroidal lactams reveal their potential as aromatase inhibitors.

Synthesis of an unusual quinazoline alkaloid: theoretical and experimental investigations of its structural, electronic, molecular and biological properties

An unusual quinazoline alkaloid (1) was obtained when 2-aminobenzaldehyde was refluxed with pyrrolidine in ethanol for 12 h. The synthesized compound was characterized using spectral data analysis augmented with X-ray and literature precedent. Single crystal analysis depicted four conformations differing slightly in bond angles and bond lengths. Compound 1 crystallizes in a triclinic crystal system with a P1̄ space group having two molecules within the unit cell. The experimentally obtained parameters were compared to those obtained theoretically, which depicted a good agreement. Using the DFT/B3LYP/6-31G (d,p) level of theory, HOMO–LUMO energy gap, molecular electrostatic potential (MEP), vibrational (IR) and NMR analyses were carried out. The HOMO–LUMO energy gap allowed the calculation of chemical hardness, chemical inertness, electronegativity and the electrophilicity index of the molecule, which depicted its potential kinetic stability and reactivity. Prediction of activity spectra of the target compound revealed that compound 1 possesses notable antineoplastic activity with P_a = 0.884. The molecule was therefore evaluated against various cancerous cell lines in an in vitro SRB assay which depicted that compound 1 possesses the highest growth inhibition activity against THP-1 cell lines with an IC₅₀ of 7 μM.

A comparative overview of theoretical and experimental studies concerning the electronic, structural and biological domains of the synthesized unusual quinazoline alkaloid is presented.