Advanced adsorptions of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs from environmental waters in improving offline and online preconcentration techniques: An analytical review

Current Status of Microneedle Array Technology for Therapeutic Delivery: From Bench to Clinic

In recent years, microneedle (MN) patches have emerged as an alternative technology for transdermal delivery of various drugs, therapeutics proteins, and vaccines. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand the status of MN-based therapeutics. The article aims to illustrate the current status of microneedle array technology for therapeutic delivery through a comprehensive review. However, the PubMed search was performed to understand the MN's therapeutics delivery status. At the same time, the search shows the number no of publications on MN is increasing (63). The search was performed with the keywords "Coated microneedle," "Hollow microneedle," "Dissolvable microneedle," and "Hydrogel microneedle," which also shows increasing trend. Similarly, the article highlighted the application of different microneedle arrays for treating different diseases. The article also illustrated the current status of different phases of MN-based therapeutics clinical trials. It discusses the delivery of different therapeutic molecules, such as drug molecule delivery, using microneedle array technology. The approach mainly discusses the delivery of different therapeutic molecules. The leading pharmaceutical companies that produce the microneedle array for therapeutic purposes have also been discussed. Finally, we discussed the limitations and future prospects of this technology.

Glycosylation of 6-gingerol and unusual spontaneous deglucosylation of two novel intermediates to form 6-shogaol-4'-O-β-glucoside by bacterial glycosyltransferase

6-Gingerol is a major phenolic compound within ginger (Zingiber officinale), often used in healthcare; however, its lower bioavailability is partly due to its poor solubility. Four bacterial glycosyltransferases (GTs) were tested to glycosylate 6-gingerol into soluble gingerol glucosides. BsUGT489 was a suitable GT to biotransform 6-gingerol into five significant products, which could be identified via nucleic magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry as 6-gingerol-4',5-O-β-diglucoside (1), 6-gingerol-4'-O-β-glucoside (2), 6-gingerol-5-O-β-glucoside (3), 6-shogaol-4'-O-β-glucoside (4), and 6-shogaol (5). The enzyme kinetics of BsUGT489 showed substrate inhibition toward 6-gingerol for producing two glucosides. The kinetic parameters were determined as KM (110 µM), kcat (862 min-1), and KI (571 µM) for the production of 6-gingerol-4'-O-β-glucoside (2) and KM (104 µM), kcat (889 min-1), and KI (545 µM) for the production of 6-gingerol-5-O-β-glucoside (3). The aqueous solubility of the three 6-gingerol glucosides, compound (1) to (3), was greatly improved. However, 6-shogaol-4'-O-β-glucoside (4) was found to be a product biotransformed from 6-shogaol (5). This study first confirmed that the glucose moiety at the C-5 position of both 6-gingerol-4',5-O-β-diglucoside (1) and 6-gingerol-5-O-β-glucoside (3) caused spontaneous deglucosylation through β-elimination to form 6-shogaol-4'-O-β-glucoside (4) and 6-shogaol (5), respectively. Moreover, the GTs could glycosylate 6-shogaol to form 6-shogaol-4'-O-β-glucoside (4). The assays showed 6-shogaol-4'-O-β-glucoside (4) had higher anti-inflammatory activity (IC50 value of 10.3 ± 0.2 µM) than 6-gingerol. The 6-gingerol-5-O-β-glucoside (3) possessed 346-fold higher solubility than 6-shogaol, in which the highly soluble glucoside is a potential prodrug of 6-shogaol via spontaneous deglucosylation. This unusual deglucosylation plays a vital role in influencing the anti-inflammatory activity.

IMPORTANCE

Both 6-gingerols and 6-shogaol possess multiple bioactivities. However, their poor solubility limits their application. The present study used bacterial GTs to catalyze the glycosylation of 6-gingerol, and the resulting gingerol glycosides were found to be new compounds with improved solubility and anti-inflammatory activity. In addition, two of the 6-gingerol glucosides were found to undergo spontaneous deglucosylation to form 6-shogaol or 6-shogaol glucosides. The unique spontaneous deglucosylation property of the new 6-gingerol glucosides makes them a good candidate for the prodrug of 6-shogaol.

On-site extraction using a 3D printed device coated with Zn/Co-ZIF-derived carbon followed by an on-line SIA-HPLC-FL system for fluoroquinolones determination in wastewater

A 3D printed device covered with Zn/Co-ZIF-derived carbon allows the on-site extraction of fluoroquinolones (FQs) from wastewater, avoiding the sample transportation to the laboratory, and the subsequent elution, separation and determination using an on-line flow system based on sequential injection analysis (SIA) coupled to HPLC-FL. Several parameters that affect the extraction efficiency and desorption were optimized including the sorption phase immobilization technique on the 3D device, extraction time, pH effect, sample volume as well as the type of eluent, eluent volume, and flow rate. Under optimum conditions, detection limits of 3-9 ng L-1 were achieved for norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, danofloxacin, enrofloxacin and difloxacin. The precision expressed as relative standard deviation (%RSD, n = 3), showed intraday and interday ranges of 1.5-5.3% and 2.8-5.7%, respectively, demonstrating a good precision of the proposed methodology. To assess matrix effects and accuracy of the proposed method in real samples, recovery studies were performed without and with FQs spiked at different concentrations (0.5-10 μg L-1) to wastewater samples, showing good recoveries in the range of 91-104%. The results allow to confirm the applicability of MOF-derived carbons as adsorbents for on-site extraction, and the satisfactory separation and quantification of FQs by a SIA-HPLC-FL on-line system after their desorption with small eluent volumes.

A review on carbon-based biowaste and organic polymer materials for sustainable treatment of sulfonamides from pharmaceutical wastewater

Frequent detection of sulfonamides (SAs) pharmaceuticals in wastewater has necessitated the discovery of suitable technology for their sustainable remediation. Adsorption has been widely investigated due to its effectiveness, simplicity, and availability of various adsorbent materials from natural and artificial sources. This review highlighted the potentials of carbon-based adsorbents derived from agricultural wastes such as lignocellulose, biochar, activated carbon, carbon nanotubes graphene materials as well as organic polymers such as chitosan, molecularly imprinted polymers, metal, and covalent frameworks for SAs removal from wastewater. The promising features of these materials including higher porosity, rich carbon-content, robustness, good stability as well as ease of modification have been emphasized. Thus, the materials have demonstrated excellent performance towards the SAs removal, attributed to their porous nature that provided sufficient active sites for the adsorption of SAs molecules. The modification of physico-chemical features of the materials have been discussed as efficient means for enhancing their adsorption and reusable performance. The article also proposed various interactive mechanisms for the SAs adsorption. Lastly, the prospects and challenges have been highlighted to expand the knowledge gap on the application of the materials for the sustainable removal of the SAs.