Investigation of the potential of pomegranate peel as a treatment option for heavy metal contaminated wastewater: Experimental and modeling approaches.

Heavy metals can cause serious environmental and human health problems, and their removal from wastewater is critical to protect our planet and communities. This study investigated the ability of crushed pomegranate peel to remove mercury and cadmium ions from contaminated water as a function of different experimental parameters. The experimental results showed that the pH of the solution influenced the adsorptive removal of heavy metals, with the best performance observed at pH 4.8. Optimization studies and process balance modeling were performed to optimize the process for commercial use. The performance of pomegranate peel was compared with that of other materials, and the highest adsorption capacities for both cadmium (Ca (II)) and mercury (Hg (II)) ions were observed to be 89.59 and 42.125 mg/g, respectively. The results were interpreted using the Langmuir model, which provided the best fit to describe the behavior of the process.

Challenges and opportunities for cancer stem cell-targeted immunotherapies include immune checkpoint inhibitor, cancer stem cell-dendritic cell vaccine, chimeric antigen receptor immune cells, and modified exosomes.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are associated with the tumor microenvironment (TME). CSCs induce tumorigenesis, tumor recurrence and progression, and resistance to standard therapies. Indeed, CSCs pose an increasing challenge to current cancer therapy due to their stemness or self-renewal properties. The molecular and cellular interactions between heterogeneous CSCs and surrounding TME components and tumor-supporting immune cells show synergistic effects toward treatment failure. In the immunosuppressive TME, CSCs express various immunoregulatory proteins, growth factors, metabolites and cytokines, and also produce exosomes, a type of extracellular vesicles, to protect themselves from host immune surveillance. Among these, the identification and application of CSC-derived exosomes could be considered for the development of therapeutic approaches to eliminate CSCs or cancer, in addition to targeting the modulators that remodel the composition of the TME, as reviewed in this study. Here, we introduce the role of CSCs and how their interaction with TME complicates immunotherapies, and then present the CSC-based immunotherapy and the limitation of these therapies. We describe the biology and role of tumor/CSC-derived exosomes that induce immune suppression in the TME, and finally, introduce their potentials for the development of CSC-based targeted immunotherapy in the future.