Determination of chemical components of the endemic species Allium turcicum L. plant extract by LC-MS/MS and evaluation of medicinal potentials.

The Allium turcicum L. (Zuzubak) plant as a cultivated vegetable have various health benefits and consumed as a food. Due to the shortcoming evidence in literature and the importance of this plant in folk medicine, in the present study, for the first time, we evaluated the bioactive profile of components (using LC-MS/MS), cytotoxicity, anticancer, antioxidant, and antibacterial prospectives of Zuzubak methanol extract. Reported results show that the extract is rich in bioactive compounds and has anticancer activity with breast cancer cells (MCF-7), human prostate cancer cells (DU-145), and Human osteosarcoma cancer Cell lines of (IC50) in dose dependent manner in the concentration range of 31.25 µg/mL and 2000 µg/mL for 24 and 48 h. Western blotting results determined that the extract significantly suppressed the growth of U2OS, MCF-7, and DU-145 cancer cells by down expression of Ang-1 (angiogenic protein) and Beclin-1 (autophagy protein) and overexpression of Bax (a proapoptotic protein). The oxidative stress indices showed a reduction in RPE-1 and MCF-7 cells and an upsurge in U2OS and DU-145 cells. Additionally, the antimicrobial assay showed suppression of the growth of various pathogenic microorganisms in 4.00-8.00 µg/concentrations of Zuzubak extract using the microdilution method. The phytochemicals identified showed promising anticancer, antioxidant effects, and antimicrobial properties, representing a valuable herbal source for drug development studies.

Comparing the efficacy of various methods for sulfate radical generation for antibiotics degradation in synthetic wastewater: degradation mechanism, kinetics study, and toxicity assessment.

In the present study the aim was to investigate and compare various activation processes for amoxicillin degradation. UV radiation, ultrasound, heat, and hydrogen peroxide were selected as the persulfate activation methods. The effects of various parameters such as pH, persulfate concentration, reaction time, AMX concentration, radical scavengers, and anions were thoroughly investigated. The results showed that AMX degradation was following the pseudo-first order kinetic model. The reaction rate of 0.114 min-1 was calculated for the UV/PS process, which was higher than that of the other investigated processes. The AMX degradation mechanism and pathway investigations revealed that sulfate and hydroxyl radicals were responsible for the degradation of AMX by two degradation pathways of hydroxylation and the opening of the ß-lactam ring. Competition kinetic analysis showed that the second-order rate constant of AMX with sulfate radicals was 8.56 × 109 L mol-1 s-1 in the UV/PS process. Cost analysis was conducted for the four investigated processes and it was found that 1.9 $m-3 per order is required in the UV/PS process for the complete destruction of AMX. Finally, cytotoxic assessment of the treated effluent on human embryonic kidney cells showed a considerable reduction in AMX-induced cell cytotoxicity, proving that the investigated process is sufficiently capable of completely destroying AMX molecules to nontoxic compounds. Therefore, it can be concluded that UV radiation is much more effective than other methods for persulfate activation and can be considered as a reliable technique for antibiotic removal.

Air pollution-related asthma profiles among children/adolescents: A multi-group latent class analysis.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to investigate the asthma profile among children/adolescents and the relationship of the prevalence of air pollution profiles using latent class analysis (LCA). OBJECTIVES: In this cross-sectional study, a case rural community was selected in an industrial area, and two rural control communities were selected in unexposed areas. METHODS: Hourly concentrations of PM10, SO2, NO2, and total volatile organic compounds were obtained from the records of a fixed air quality monitoring station, and the concentrations of benzene, toluene, xylenes styrene were measured during six campaigns. Asthma data was collected using the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood in 7-18 years old children/adolescents. The modeling was conducted using LCA. RESULTS: A higher amount of air pollution indices were observed in the case than both control communities. LCA divided the participants into three clusters; "healthy" (92.8%), "moderate" (2.8%), and "severe" (4.4%). A higher probability of severe asthma (6.8%) was observed in the case than control communities (2.6% and 1.8%). Additionally, after adjusting for possible confounders, the odds of asthma was lower in the control communities than the case in both moderate and sever classes (Odds Ratios in the range of 0.135-0.697). CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates asthma profiles of children/adolescents and the higher prevalence of severe class in the area, explaining the possible effect of air pollution.

The implementation of data reconciliation for evaluating a full-scale petrochemical wastewater treatment plant.

Data reconciliation and mass balance analysis were conducted for the first time to improve the data obtained from a petrochemical wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), and the results were applied to evaluate the performance of the plant. Daily average values for 209 days from the inlet and outlet of the plant obtained from WWTP documentation center along with the results of four sampling runs in this work were used for data reconciliation and performance evaluation of the plant. Results showed that standard deviation and relative errors in the balanced data of each measurement decreased, especially for the process wastewater from 24.5 to 8.6 % for flow and 24.5 to 1.5 % for chemical oxygen demand (COD). The errors of measured data were -137 m3/day (-4.41 %) and 281 kg/day (7.92 %) for flow and COD, respectively. According to the balanced data, the removal rates of COD and 5-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5) through the aeration unit were equal to 37 and 46 %, respectively. In addition, the COD and BOD5 concentrations were reduced by about 61.9 % (2137 kg/day) and 78.1 % (1976 kg/day), respectively, prior to the biological process. At the same time, the removal rates of benzene, toluene, and styrene were 56, 38, and 69 %, respectively. The results revealed that about 40 % of influent benzene (75.5 kg/day) is emitted to the ambient air at the overhead of the equalization basin. It can be concluded that the volatilization of organic compounds is the basic mechanism for the removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and it corresponds to the main part of total COD removal from the WWTP.