Curcumin-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles for drug delivery: synthesis, biological assays and therapeutic potential - a review.

Curcumin-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) have shown promise as drug delivery systems to address the limited pharmacokinetic characteristics of curcumin. Functionalization with folic acid and PEGylation enhance anticancer activity, biocompatibility, stability, and permeability. Co-delivery with other drugs results in synergistically enhanced cytotoxic activity. Environment-responsive MSNs prevent undesirable drug leakage and increase selectivity towards target tissues. This review summarizes the methods of Cur-loaded MSN synthesis and functionalization and their application in various diseases, and also highlights the potential of Cur-loaded MSNs as a promising drug delivery system.

An evaluation of qH NMR: A complementary approach to GC-FID for quantification of Thymol and trans-Anethole in essential oils and supplements.

Sweet fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill. var. dulce) and thyme (Zataria multiflora Boiss.) are regarded as the important supplies for pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, and perfume industries. The major components trans-anethole and thymol are represented in fennel and thyme, respectively. The essential oils (EOs) content and the value of their related constituents should be given in strict quality control due to the storage conditions, source, and adulterations. In this study, we compared the validation of quantitative 1H NMR (qH NMR) method with the gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID) to quantify the trans-anethole and thymol in fennel and thyme EOs and their related supplements. The current results showed that the quantification of trans-anethole and thymol by qH NMR method was successfully achieved from their EOs and supplements. All the validation parameters including linearity, robustness, repeatability, and stability were authenticated for thymol and trans-anethole quantification. Similar results were obtained in both qH NMR and conventional GC-FID methods. Therefore, according to the measured values, the qH NMR method was adequate to determine the constituents of the EOs, with the results being roughly comparable to those obtained by GC-FID, with the advantage of being simple, repeatable, rapid (8-10 min, while for GC-FID 55 min) and essential for quality control of commercial samples.

Studying Adsorption and Cellular Toxicity of Boron Nitride Nanostructure versus Melphalan Anti-ovarian Cancer Drug.

BACKGROUND: Inclusion of anticancer drugs into biocompatible nanoparticulate carriers decreases the general toxicity and improves the efficacy of clinical treatments due to the reduction of soluble circulating free drugs. METHODS: In addition, removal of emerging drug contaminants from wastewaters is a necessity that should be seriously attended. Boron nitride (BN) is a choice in drug delivery because of its many surprising properties. Here, boron nitride nanoparticles are prepared, characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) and used in the delivery of melphalan anti-cancer drug. RESULTS: Then, density functional theory (DFT) calculations are carried out to study the adsorption of this drug on the surface of pure boron nitride fullerene via familiar hybrid functionals B3LYP and B3PW91. In addition, the polarizable continuum model (PCM) calculations show that BN is stable in water. CONCLUSION: Finally, the in vitro cellular toxicity and viability of BN nanoparticles was examined on ES-2 cancer cells. The inhibitory dose IC50 of the material confirmed acceptable cytotoxicity and nanoparticles affected the average growth of the ES-2 cancer cells.

2-Benzylidenebenzofuran-3(2H)-ones as a new class of alkaline phosphatase inhibitors: synthesis, SAR analysis, enzyme inhibitory kinetics and computational studies.

The excelling role of organic chemistry in the medicinal field continues to be one of the main leads in the drug development process. Particularly, this industry requires organic chemists to discover small molecular structures with powerful pharmacological potential. Herein, a diverse range of chalcone (1-11) and aurone (12-22) derivatives was designed and synthesized and for the first time, and both motifs were evaluated as potent inhibitors of alkaline phosphatases (APs). Structural identification of the target compounds (1-22) was accomplished using common spectroscopic techniques. The effect of the nature and position of the substituent was interestingly observed and justified based on the detailed structure-activity relationship (SAR) of the target compounds against AP. It was concluded from the obtained results that all the newly synthesized compounds exhibit high inhibitory potential against the AP enzyme. Among them, compounds 12 (IC50 = 2.163 ± 0.048 µM), 15 (IC50 = 2.146 ± 0.056 µM), 16 (IC50 = 2.132 ± 0.034 µM), 18 (IC50 = 1.154 ± 0.043 µM), 20 (IC50 = 1.055 ± 0.029 µM) and 21 (IC50 = 2.326 ± 0.059 µM) exhibited excellent inhibitory activity against AP, and even better/more active than KH2PO4 (standard) (IC50 = 2.80 ± 0.065 µM). Remarkably, compound 20 (IC50 = 1.055 ± 0.029 µM) may serve as a lead structure to design more potent inhibitors of alkaline phosphatase. To the best of our knowledge, these synthetic compounds are the most potent AP inhibitors with minimum IC50 values reported to date. Furthermore, a molecular modeling study was performed against the AP enzyme (1EW2) to check the binding interaction of the synthesized compounds 1-22 against the target protein. The Lineweaver-Burk plots demonstrated that most potential derivative 20 inhibited h-IAP via a non-competitive pathway. Finally, molecular dynamic (MD) simulations were performed to evaluate the dynamic behavior, stability of the protein-ligand complex, and binding affinity of the compounds, resulting in the identification of compound 20 as a potential inhibitor of AP. Accordingly, excellent correlation was observed between the experimental and theoretical results. The pharmacological studies revealed that the synthesized analogs 1-22 obey Lipinski's rule. The assessment of the ADMET parameters showed that these compounds possess considerable lead-like characteristics with low toxicity and can serve as templates in drug design.

Allylphenols as a new class of human 15-lipoxygenase-1 inhibitors.

In this study, a series of mono- and diallylphenol derivative were designed, synthesized, and evaluated as potential human 15-lipoxygenase-1 (15-hLOX-1) inhibitors. Radical scavenging potency of the synthetic allylphenol derivatives was assessed and the results were in accordance with lipoxygenase (LOX) inhibition potency. It was found that the electronic natures of allyl moiety and para substituents play the main role in radical scavenging activity and subsequently LOX inhibition potency of the synthetic inhibitors. Among the synthetic compounds, 2,6-diallyl-4-(hexyloxy)phenol (42) and 2,6-diallyl-4-aminophenol (47) showed the best results for LOX inhibition (IC50 = 0.88 and 0.80 µM, respectively).

Metabolic Profiling and Untargeted 1H-NMR-Based Metabolomics Study of Different Iranian Pomegranate (Punica granatum) Ecotypes.

Pomegranate (Punica granatum) is an ancient fruit that is widely consumed as fresh fruit and juice. The aim of the present study was to compare the metabolic profile of pomegranate ecotypes from different geographical origins of Iran, the largest producer of pomegranates in the world. 1H-NMR and 2D NMR spectroscopy were applied to investigate the ecotypic variation. Multivariate data analyses were used to identify overall metabolic differences. Mazandaran pomegranate samples were found to be different from the other ecotypes, having a high content of citric and succinic acids. Bajestan, Ferdows, and Yazd pomegranates contained comparatively higher amounts of anthocyanins and ellagic acid derivatives than other pomegranate ecotypes. The distribution of metabolites among different ecotypes of pomegranate is discussed on the basis of these findings.

A qHNMR method for simultaneous quantification of terpenoids from Ferula ovina (Boiss.) Boiss roots.

Ferula ovina (Boiss.) Boiss is one of the most important endemic medicinal plants in Iran, which has three main terpenoid compounds including ferutinin, stylosin and tschimgine. Ferutinin is the strongest natural phytoestrogen that has agonistic activity on estrogen receptors, particularly α-receptors. To determine the amount of ferutinin in F. ovina roots, we firstly used HPLC-UV method. In the HPLC method, the resolution of ferutinin from the two other compounds, stylosin and tshimgine, was poor. Therefore, we decided to use qHNMR method for simultaneous quantification of ferutinin, stylosin and tshimgine in the plant roots. Quantitative 1H-NMR (qHNMR) was carried out based on the relative ratio of signal integration of each compound [(H-1 for tschimgine (δH 4.94-5.03), OCH3 for stylosin (δH 3.8), and H-9 for ferutinin (δH 5.58)] to certain amount of the internal standard dimethyl sulfone (DMSO2). The qHNMR method showed good precision (intra-day RSD ≤ 2.31%, inter-day RSD ≤ 2.72%), linearity (in the ranges of 1.3-10.41, 1.2-9.7 and 1.1-9.02 mg/mL with correlation coefficients at 0.9991), repeatability (RSD ≤ 2.99%) and stability (RSD ≤ 2.4%) for the quantification of the compounds. This work confirmed that qHNMR represents a feasible alternative to high-performance liquid chromatography based methods for simultaneous quantification of ingredients in plant extracts.