Electrochemical quantification of mancozeb through tungsten oxide/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite: A potential method for environmental remediation.

The extensive use of pesticides for better yield of crops have become major human concern over the decades. Pesticides are widely used in the fields to kill weeds and pests on the vegetable and crops to improve the quality and yield of the food knowing the fact that pesticides residue in food are very lethal for human being. Amongst, the hazardous pesticides, mancozeb is widely applied in the protection of crops. Thus the quantification of mancozeb residue is of great importance. This study reports the electrochemical monitoring of mancozeb through tungsten oxide reduced graphene oxide (WO3/rGO) nanocomposite. The engineered nanocomposite was characterized though different analytical tools such as FTIR, XRD and TEM to examine crystallinity, internal texture and the size. The FTIR result confirm the functionalities of GO and WO3/rGO nanocomposite in finger print and functional group region. Through XRD analysis, the size of the WO3/rGO nanocomposite was calculated as 31.6 nm. While the TEM analysis was also exploited to examine the 2D texture of GO and nanometric size of the WO3/rGO. To ensure the conductive nature of the WO3/rGO nanocomposite, the glassy carbon electrode was modified and exploited for cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Under the optimal conditions, the modified sensor showed exceptional response for mancozeb. The linear dynamic range was set from 0.05 to 70 µM in BRB buffer of pH 4. The LOD and LOQ for proposed method was calculated as 0.0038 and 0.0115 µM. The analytical applicability of chemically modified sensor was investigated in real matrix of different vegetable samples and the recovery values were observed in acceptable range. The electrochemical examination of present work reveals that WO3/rGO nanocomposite can be an exceptional aspirant for the determination of mancozeb at commercial level.

Gold nanoparticle-lignan complexes inhibited MCF-7 cell proliferation in vitro: a novel conjugation for cancer therapy.

Nanoparticles, including gold nanoparticles (AuNP), have been used in imaging in cancer treatment and as therapeutic agents and drug delivery vehicles. Particularly lignans, also called phytoestrogens, have strong effects on the treatment of carcinomas due to their antiestrogenic, antiangiogenic and proapoptotic mechanism. The aim of this study is to investigate the antiproliferative effects of three lignans-AuNP conjugates, pinoresinol (PINO), lariciresinol (LARI) and secoisolariciresinol (SECO), on the MCF-7 cell lines. For this purpose, first, thiolated ß-cyclodextrin (ß-CD) was synthesized to achieve a surface modification of AuNP, and then the ß-CD modified AuNP was characterized using the transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-Visible and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Then, the selected lignans were conjugated to the ß-CD-modified AuNP, and the antiproliferative effect of these conjugates was monitored. The results suggest that when compared to their non-conjugated forms, the AuNP-bound lignan conjugates prevented the proliferation of the MCF-7 cells significantly. Therefore, these AuNP-conjugated derivatives can be new candidate agents for breast cancer therapy.