Recent advancements in multifaceted roles of flavonoids in plant-rhizomicrobiome interactions.

The rhizosphere consists of a plethora of microbes, interacting with each other as well as with the plants present in proximity. The root exudates consist of a variety of secondary metabolites such as strigolactones and other phenolic compounds such as coumarin that helps in facilitating communication and forming associations with beneficial microbes in the rhizosphere. Among different secondary metabolites flavonoids (natural polyphenolic compounds) continuously increasing attention in scientific fields for showing several slews of biological activities. Flavonoids possess a benzo-γ-pyrone skeleton and several classes of flavonoids have been reported on the basis of their basic structure such as flavanones, flavonols, anthocyanins, etc. The mutualistic association between plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and plants have been reported to help the host plants in surviving various biotic and abiotic stresses such as low nitrogen and phosphorus, drought and salinity stress, pathogen attack, and herbivory. This review sheds light upon one such component of root exudate known as flavonoids, which is well known for nodulation in legume plants. Apart from the well-known role in inducing nodulation in legumes, this group of compounds has anti-microbial and antifungal properties helping in establishing defensive mechanisms and playing a major role in forming mycorrhizal associations for the enhanced acquisition of nutrients such as iron and phosphorus. Further, this review highlights the role of flavonoids in plants for recruiting non-mutualistic microbes under stress and other important aspects regarding recent findings on the functions of this secondary metabolite in guiding the plant-microbe interaction and how organic matter affects its functionality in soil.

Valorization of wastewater to recover value-added products: A comprehensive insight and perspective on different technologies.

In recent years, due to rapid globalization and urbanization, the demand for fuels, energy, water and nutrients has been continuously increasing. To meet the future need of the society, wastewater is a prominent and emerging source for resource recovery. It provides an opportunity to recover valuable resources in the form of energy, fertilizers, electricity, nutrients and other products. The aim of this review is to elaborate the scientific literature on the valorization of wastewater using wide range of treatment technologies and reduce the existing knowledge gap in the field of resource recovery and water reuse. Several versatile, resilient environmental techniques/technologies such as ion exchange, bioelectrochemical, adsorption, electrodialysis, solvent extraction, etc. are employed for the extraction of value-added products from waste matrices. Since the last two decades, valuable resources such as polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), matrix or polymers, cellulosic fibers, syngas, biodiesel, electricity, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, enzymes and a wide range of platform chemicals have been recovered from wastewater. In this review, the aspects related to the persisting global water issues, the technologies used for the recovery of different products and/or by-products, economic sustainability of the technologies and the challenges encountered during the valorization of wastewater are discussed comprehensively.

Decentralized systems for the treatment of antimicrobial compounds released from hospital aquatic wastes.

In many developing countries, untreated hospital effluents are discharged and treated simultaneously with municipal wastewater. However, if the hospital effluents are not treated separately, they pose concerning health risks due to the possible transport of the antimicrobial genes and microbes in the environment. Such effluent is considered as a point source for a number of potentially infectious microorganisms, waste antimicrobial compounds and other contaminants that could promote antimicrobial resistance development. The removal of these contaminants prior to discharge reduces the exposure of antimicrobials to the environment and this should lower the risk of superbug development. At an effluent discharge site, suitable pre-treatment of wastewater containing antimicrobials could maximise the ecological impact with potentially reduced risk to human health. In addressing these points, this paper reviews the applications of decentralized treatment systems toward reducing the concentration of antimicrobials in wastewater. The most commonly used techniques in decentralized wastewater treatment systems for onsite removal of antimicrobials were discussed and evidence suggests that hybrid techniques should be more useful for the efficient removal of antimicrobials. It is concluded that alongside the cooperation of administration departments, health industries, water treatment authorities and general public, decentralized treatment technology can efficiently enhance the removal of antimicrobial compounds, thereby decreasing the concentration of contaminants released to the environment that could pose risks to human and ecological health due to development of antimicrobial resistance in microbes.

Molecular docking and ADMET study of bioactive compounds of Glycyrrhiza glabra against main protease of SARS-CoV2.

Recent pandemic situation of COVID-19 is caused due to SARS-CoV2 and almost all the countries of the world have been affected by this highly contagious virus. Main protease (Mpro) of this virus is a highly attractive drug target among various other enzymes due to its ability to process poly-protein that is the translated product of the SARS-CoV2 RNA. The present study demonstrates molecular docking study of Glycyrrhiza glabra (Gg) active compounds such as Glycyrrhizic acid (GA), Liquiritigenin (L) and Glabridin (G) against the Mpro. Docking studies shows that these active compounds bind strongly with some of the amino acid residues in the active site of Mpro and inhibits the enzyme strongly. GA, L, and G are proposed to be strong inhibitors of the enzyme and the amino acids: His41, Gly143, Gln189, Glu 166, Cys 145, Thr25, Asn142, Met49, Cys44, Thr45 and pro168 present in the active site of Mpro were shown to make non-covalent interaction with these compounds. In silico ADMET properties prediction also shows that Gg active compounds had good solubility, absorption, permeation, non-toxic, and non- carcinogenic characteristics. Our finding concludes that all of the three active compounds of Gg have the potential to be strong inhibitors for Mpro of SARS-CoV2 but glycyrrhizic acid has a high binding affinity and a good ADMET properties than the other two.

Biodegradation of cyclophosphamide and etoposide by white rot fungi and their degradation kinetics.

The biodegradation of cyclophosphamide and etoposide by Trametes versicolor (AH05), Ganoderma lucidum (MTCC-1039), and Phanerochaete chrysosporium (MTCC-787) were tested for 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 days, respectively. G. lucidum achieved the highest degradation efficiency of cyclophosphamide (71.5%) and etoposide (98.4%) after 6 days of treatment. The degradation efficiency of T. versicolor and P. chrysosporium for etoposide was 79.8% and 76.8%, respectively. However, no degradation of cyclophosphamide was achieved with P. chrysosporium, although it showed the highest sorption efficiency for cyclophosphamide (23.7%). Trametes versicolor achieved only 1.4% degradation of cyclophosphamide, that includes both biodegradation and biosorption. The pseudo first-order degradation kinetics explained the degradation of etoposide and cyclophosphamide with t1/2 values of 1.32 and 4.43 days and 'k' constant of 0.16 and 0.54 day-1, respectively.

Threat and sustainable technological solution for antineoplastic drugs pollution: Review on a persisting global issue.

In the past 20 years, the discharge of pharmaceuticals and their presence in the aquatic environment have been continuously increasing and this has caused serious public health and environmental concerns. Antineoplastic drugs are used in chemotherapy, in large quantities worldwide, for the treatment of continuously increasing cancer cases. Antineoplastic drugs also contaminate water sources and possess mutagenic, cytostatic and eco-toxicological effects on microorganisms present in the aquatic environment as well as on human health. Due to the recalcitrant nature of antineoplastic drugs, the commonly used wastewater treatment processes are not able to eliminate these drugs. Globally, various anticancer drugs are being consumed during chemotherapy in hospitals and households by out-patients. These anti-cancer agents enter the water bodies in their original form or as metabolites via urine and faeces of the out-patients or the patients admitted in hospitals. Due to its high lipid solubility, the antineoplastic drugs accumulate in the fatty tissues of the organisms. These drugs enter through the food chain and cause adverse health effects on humans due to their cytotoxic and genotoxic properties. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) elucidated new regulations for the management of hazardous pharmaceuticals in the water environment. In this paper, the role of antineoplastic agents as emerging water contaminants, its transfer through the food chain, its eco-toxicological properties and effects, technological solutions and management aspects were reviewed.

In Vitro Cytotoxicity Study of Cyclophosphamide, Etoposide and Paclitaxel on Monocyte Macrophage Cell Line Raw 264.7.

The presence of antineoplastic compounds in aquatic ecosystem is an emerging challenge for the society. Antineoplastic compounds released into the aquatic environment exhibit a potential threat to normal aquatic life. Particularly, antineoplastic compounds are responsible for direct or indirect interference with the cellular DNA of an organism and cause toxicity to cells. The present study focused on the assessment of in vitro toxic effect of cyclophosphamide, etoposide and paclitaxel on Raw 264.7 cell line (mouse monocyte macrophage cells). The inhibitory concentration of cyclophosphamide, etoposide, and paclitaxel was determined. The IC50 values of these compounds were 145.44, 5.40, and 69.76 µg ml-1 respectively. This is the first report on toxicity analysis of cyclophosphamide, paclitaxel and etoposide on Raw 264.7 cell line by reducing cell viability and indicating the cell cytotoxicity i.e., 69.58% for cyclophosphamide, 92.01% for etoposide and 88.85% for paclitaxel on concentration 250 µg ml-1. The results of their cytotoxicity assessment highlight the need of improvement in sewage treatment technology for the efficient removal of these compounds from aquatic environment.

Improved Pullulan Production and Process Optimization Using Novel GA-ANN and GA-ANFIS Hybrid Statistical Tools.

Pullulan production from Aureobasidiumpullulans was explored to increase yield. Non-linear hybrid mathematical tools for optimization of process variables as well as the pullulan yield were analyzed. The one variable at a time (OVAT) approach was used to optimize the maximum pullulan yield of 35.16 ± 0.29 g/L. The tools predicted maximum pullulan yields of 39.4918 g/L (genetic algorithm coupled with artificial neural network (GA-ANN)) and 36.0788 g/L (GA coupled with adaptive network based fuzzy inference system (GA-ANFIS)). The best regression value (0.94799) of the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm for ANN and the epoch error (6.1055 × 10-5) for GA-ANFIS point towards prediction precision and potentiality of data training models. The process parameters provided by both the tools corresponding to their predicted yield were revalidated by experiments. Among the two of them GA-ANFIS results were replicated with 98.82% accuracy. Thus GA-ANFIS predicted an optimum pullulan yield of 36.0788 g/L with a substrate concentration of 49.94 g/L, incubation period of 182.39 h, temperature of 27.41 °C, pH of 6.99, and agitation speed of 190.08 rpm.