Self-Assembly of Rhein and Matrine Nanoparticles for Enhanced Wound Healing.

Carrier-free self-assembly has gradually shifted the focus of research on natural products, which effectively improve the bioavailability and the drug-loading rate. However, in spite of the existing studies, the development of self-assembled natural phytochemicals that possess pharmacological effects still has scope for further exploration and enhancement. Herein, a nano-delivery system was fabricated through the direct self-assembly of Rhein and Matrine and was identified as a self-assembled Rhein-Matrine nanoparticles (RM NPs). The morphology of RM NPs was characterized by TEM. The molecular mechanisms of self-assembly were explored using FT-IR, 1H NMR, and molecular dynamics simulation analysis. Gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) hydrogel was used as a drug carrier for controlled release and targeted delivery of RM NPs. The potential wound repair properties of RM NPs were evaluated on a skin wound-healing model. TEM and dynamic light scattering study demonstrated that the RM NPs were close to spherical, and the average size was approximately 75 nm. 1H NMR of RM NPs demonstrated strong and weak changes in the interaction energies during self-assembly. Further molecular dynamics simulation analysis predicted the self-assembly behavior. An in vivo skin wound-healing model demonstrated that RM NPs present better protection effect against skin damages. Taken together, RM NPs are a new self-assembly system; this may provide new directions for natural product applications.

Income Inequality, Economic Complexity, and Renewable Energy Impacts in Controlling Consumption-Based Carbon Emissions.

Although many studies have been conducted on the role of renewable energy in the environment, literature has ignored the potential role of socioeconomic indicators in renewable energy and pollution nexus. Also, critical questions arose with the critical factors, such as income inequality and economic complexity, have not been answered properly. This study explores the nexus between income inequality, economic complexity, renewable energy consumption, GDP per capita, and pollution and thus aims to reach efficient policy strategies by revealing empirical evidence. The study follows an environmental impact model structure and conducts the panel-corrected standard errors and fixed effect regression. BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are selected to conduct our research. Annual data covering the period 1990-2017 for the sample countries are employed. Consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions as an indicator of environmental pollution are used since income inequality makes more sense in terms of the consumption side of an economy and is more related to consumers rather than the production sector. The obtained results reveal that income inequality has a positive and significant impact on consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions. However, GDP per capita, renewable energy, and economic complexity reduce pollution. It is also observed that the interaction term of inequality and renewable energy decreases emissions. Findings confirm that socioeconomic indicators, such as economic complexity and income inequality with the interaction of renewable energy, are crucial factors in reducing emissions and designing a greener future.

Investigation of the physicochemical properties of the thin slices of dried pork meat paper mixed with squid.

Globally, the Peruvian squid (Dosidicus gigas) has the highest productivity among squid species. However, due to its high-water content and astringent taste, it has limited fresh food value. This study used Peruvian squid meat as the primary material to prepare thin slices of dried squid meat paper mixed with pork. Here, different proportions (20, 40, 60, 80, and 100%, while 0% as the control group) of squid surimi have used to mix with pork for the meat paper preparation and the changes in physicochemical properties, microstructure, and sensory evaluation were analyzed. The results showed that the total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N) contents increased with the storage period, where 20% squid surimi substitution had the lowest TVB-N content. The 20% squid surimi substitution group had the highest expansion rate, the lowest peroxide value (PV), and moisture content. The food-borne microorganisms (E. coli, coliforms, and Salmonella spp.) were within the legal limits or negative. Hardness and crispiness, 20-40% squid surimi substitution were closely similar to the control group. This study has provided an effective investigation of the possibility of expanding the utilization of Peruvian squid resources by combining appropriate squid surimi with minced pork for high-quality thin slices of dried meat paper.

Application of egg white hydrolysate (EWH) to improve frothing functionality of pasteurized liquid egg in large quantity production.

Sterilized Liquid Eggs (SLE) are convenient for the baking process by minimizing the food safety risks of fresh eggs. Although these advantages were encouraging, the thermal effects of the pasteurization process had a negative impact on the functionality of the egg whites, thus making them unattractive to the food industry. Therefore, our previous study found that adding 1-5% egg white hydrolysate (EWH) contributed to the foaminess and stability in SLE. This primary purpose of this study was to confirm the feasibility of applying the optimum concentration of EWH for simultaneous evaluation and shelf life for batch production of SLE. The physical characteristics of the foam were analyzed by adding 1 ± 0.2% of EWH to SLE, and it was found that the foam with 1% EWH had better stability (low drainage), better viscosity, and similar distribution of foam bubbles size in the microstructure. No Salmonella infection has been found during the shelf life of 7 days. In addition, the highest overall acceptability has obtained using the large quantity produced SLE with 1% EWH to produce spoon cookies, followed by sensory evaluation. The cross-sectional height of the cookie and the distribution of holes in the structure were in line with those of the non-sterilized liquid egg white (NSLE). Hence, adding 1% EWH was found to the optimum concentration, which provides good foaming performance and stability of SLE. This study conveys a positive assessment to SLE producers and potential users, as it will increase their profitability economically while meeting the market challenges.

A Video Sequence Face Expression Recognition Method Based on Squeeze-and-Excitation and 3DPCA Network.

Expression recognition is a very important direction for computers to understand human emotions and human-computer interaction. However, for 3D data such as video sequences, the complex structure of traditional convolutional neural networks, which stretch the input 3D data into vectors, not only leads to a dimensional explosion, but also fails to retain structural information in 3D space, simultaneously leading to an increase in computational cost and a lower accuracy rate of expression recognition. This paper proposes a video sequence face expression recognition method based on Squeeze-and-Excitation and 3DPCA Network (SE-3DPCANet). The introduction of a 3DPCA algorithm in the convolution layer directly constructs tensor convolution kernels to extract the dynamic expression features of video sequences from the spatial and temporal dimensions, without weighting the convolution kernels of adjacent frames by shared weights. Squeeze-and-Excitation Network is introduced in the feature encoding layer, to automatically learn the weights of local channel features in the tensor features, thus increasing the representation capability of the model and further improving recognition accuracy. The proposed method is validated on three video face expression datasets. Comparisons were made with other common expression recognition methods, achieving higher recognition rates while significantly reducing the time required for training.

Color Occlusion Face Recognition Method Based on Quaternion Non-Convex Sparse Constraint Mechanism.

As the acquisition and application of color images become more and more extensive, color face recognition technology has also been vigorously developed, especially the recognition methods based on convolutional neural network, which have excellent performance. However, with the increasing depth and complexity of network models, the number of calculated parameters also increases, which means the training of most high-performance models depends on large-scale samples and expensive equipment. Therefore, the key to the current research is to realize a lightweight model while ensuring the recognition accuracy. At present, PCANet, a typical lightweight framework for deep learning, has achieved good results in most of the image recognition tasks, but its recognition accuracy for color face images, especially under occlusion, still needs to be improved. Therefore, a color occlusion face recognition method based on quaternion non-convex sparse constraint mechanism is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a quaternion non-convex sparse principal component analysis network model was constructed based on Lp regularization of strong sparsity. Secondly, the fixed point iteration method and coordinate descent method were established to solve the non-convex optimization problem. Finally, the occlusion recognition performance of the proposed method was verified on Georgia Tech, Color FERET, AR, and LFW-A Color face datasets.

Novel Antioxidant Collagen Peptides of Siberian Sturgeon (Acipenserbaerii) Cartilages: The Preparation, Characterization, and Cytoprotection of H2O2-Damaged Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs).

For making full use of aquatic by-products to produce high value-added products, Siberian sturgeon (Acipenser baerii) cartilages were degreased, mineralized, and separately hydrolyzed by five kinds of proteases. The collagen hydrolysate (SCH) generated by Alcalase showed the strongest 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH·) and hydroxide radical (HO·) scavenging activity. Subsequently, thirteen antioxidant peptides (SCP1-SCP3) were isolated from SCH, and they were identified as GPTGED, GEPGEQ, GPEGPAG, VPPQD, GLEDHA, GDRGAEG, PRGFRGPV, GEYGFE, GFIGFNG, PSVSLT, IELFPGLP, LRGEAGL, and RGEPGL with molecular weights of 574.55, 615.60, 583.60, 554.60, 640.64, 660.64, 885.04, 700.70, 710.79, 602.67, 942.12, 714.82, and 627.70 Da, respectively. GEYGFE, PSVSLT, and IELFPGLP showed the highest scavenging activity on DPPH· (EC50: 1.27, 1.05, and 1.38 mg/mL, respectively) and HO· (EC50: 1.16, 0.97, and 1.63 mg/mL, respectively), inhibiting capability of lipid peroxidation, and protective functions on H2O2-damaged plasmid DNA. More importantly, GEYGFE, PSVSLT, and IELFPGLP displayed significant cytoprotection on HUVECs against H2O2 injury by regulating the endogenous antioxidant enzymes of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) to decrease the contents of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA). Therefore, the research provided better technical assistance for a higher-value utilization of Siberian sturgeon cartilages and the thirteen isolated peptides-especially GEYGFE, PSVSLT, and IELFPGLP-which may serve as antioxidant additives for generating health-prone products to treat chronic diseases caused by oxidative stress.

Does energy innovation play a role in achieving sustainable development goals in BRICS countries?

It is widely discussed that greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the main culprit behind global warming. The conventional energy sources (oil, coal, and gas) mainly realize GHGs in the atmosphere. Due to this, the world's countries are switching towards clean energy sources and investing more in projects related to innovation in the energy sector. Thus, this study investigates the role of energy innovation in combating GHGs emissions by taking the environmental Kuznets curve for BRICS economies. The FMOLS and DOLS estimators are employed throughout 1996-2016. The findings documented that energy innovation plays an important role in mitigating GHGs emissions. Moreover, the result strongly approves the EKC hypothesis for BRICS countries in the significance of energy innovation. Finally, it is recommended that expanding the public budget in energy R&D expenditures can help to reduce GHG emissions and promote sustainable growth in BRICS countries.

Genome-Wide Transcription Analysis of Electroacupuncture Precondition-Induced Ischemic Tolerance on SD Rat With Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury.

Acupuncture promotes the recovery of neurological function by the overall improvement of ischemic brain injury. It is not only regarded as a rehabilitative treatment but also a pretreatment method for stroke. However, its mechanism has not been fully elucidated. In this study, rats were treated with electroacupuncture (EA) at Baihui (GV20) for 30 min/day for 6 days, ahead of conducting cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Infarction volume, Evans blue leakage, and neurological deficits were evaluated at 24 h after I/R injury. Then, the ipsilateral ischemic brain was isolated for RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) to identify molecular consequences. The results showed that EA pretreatment decreased blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability, reduced brain infarction volume, and improved neurological outcomes. EA pretreatment could upregulate expression of antivirus and immunity activity-associated genes (such as Ifit1, Ifit3, Irf7, and Oasla) and downregulate expression of matrix disruption-associated genes (Col24a1, Col11a1, Col27a1, etc.) in healthy rats. In addition, it could partially reverse or ameliorate genome-wide transcription changes of the ipsilateral ischemic brain. For the first time, this study provides insight into genomic network modulation of a healthy rat with EA treatment and a EA-preconditioned rat under subsequent I/R injury, which is helpful in explaining acupuncture precondition-induced ischemic tolerance of stroke. It also provides new strategies and targets for the prevention of ischemic stroke.

Improvement of Foaming Characteristics and Stability of Sterilized Liquid Egg with Egg White Hydrolysate (EWH).

A pasteurized liquid egg leads to protein denaturation and degradation of processing properties, whereas non-pasteurized eggs may have food safety risks. If the negative impact of the pasteurization process on liquid eggs can be reduced, for example, the loss of stability and foamability, companies will be willing to purchase pasteurized eggs, thereby reducing food safety risks. Therefore, in this study, specific hydrolyzation conditions were used to produce egg white hydrolysate (EWH) with a lower molecular mass of amino acid and peptide fragments, and the effects of various concentration of EWH refilling on pasteurized liquid egg properties were investigated. The results showed that up to 30.1% of EWH was hydrolyzed by protease A and papain. Adding 1% (w/w) EWH can improve the negative charge potential value, surface tension, viscosity, and weight loss analysis of the sample. In addition, the cake structure and the appearance was acceptable to consumers. Therefore, to ensure its efficient use in the baking industry and considering the cost and stability, 1% (w/w) EWH was chosen as the best concentration.

Three State Estimation Fusion Methods Based on the Characteristic Function Filtering.

There are three state estimation fusion methods for a class of strong nonlinear measurement systems, based on the characteristic function filter, namely the centralized filter, parallel filter, and sequential filter. Under ideal communication conditions, the centralized filter can obtain the best state estimation accuracy, and the parallel filter can simplify centralized calculation complexity and improve feasibility; in addition, the performance of the sequential filter is very close to that of the centralized filter and far better than that of the parallel filter. However, the sequential filter can tolerate non-ideal conditions, such as delay and packet loss, and the first two filters cannot operate normally online for delay and will be invalid for packet loss. The performance of the three designed fusion filters is illustrated by three typical cases, which are all better than that of the most popular Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) performance.

Microalgae carbon fixation integrated with organic matters recycling from soybean wastewater: Effect of pH on the performance of hybrid system.

Microalgae have been considered as promising alternative for CO2 fixation and wastewater purification. In our previous work, a hybrid microalgae CO2 fixation concept has been put forward, which initially used carbonate solution absorb CO2, and then provided obtained bicarbonate as nutrition for microalgae growth to avoid the challenge of low CO2 solubility and carbon fixation efficiency in the conventional process. In this work, the proposed hybrid system was further intensified via integrating soybean wastewater nutrition removal with bicarbonate-carbon (NH4HCO3 and KHCO3) conversion. The investigation results indicated that the maximum biomass productivity (0.74 g L-1) and carbon bioconversion efficiency (46.9%) were achieved in low-NH4HCO3 concentration system with pH adjusted to 7. pH adjustment of different bicarbonate systems also enhanced total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency up to 87.5%, 99.5% and 77.6%, respectively. In addition, maximum neutral lipid (14.4 mg L-1·d-1) and polysaccharide (14.5 mg L-1·d-1) productivities could be obtained in the KHCO3 systems, while higher crude protein productivity (48.1 mg L-1·d-1) was yielded in the NH4HCO3 systems.

Gelatin and Antioxidant Peptides from Gelatin Hydrolysate of Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) Scales: Preparation, Identification and Activity Evaluation.

For full use of fish by-products, scale gelatin (TG) and antioxidant peptides (APs) of skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) were prepared, and their properties were characterized using an amino acid analyzer, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), electrospray ionization mass spectrometers (ESI-MS), and radical scavenging assays. The results indicate that TG with a yield of 3.46 ± 0.27% contained Gly (327.9 ± 5.2 residues/1000 residues) as the major amino acid and its imino acid content was 196.1 residues/1000 residues. The structure of TG was more unstable than that of type I collagen from scales of skipjack tuna (TC) and TG was more suitable for preparation of hydrolysate by protease than mammalian gelatins. Therefore, TG was separately hydrolyzed under five proteases (pepsin, papain, trypsin, neutrase, and alcalase) and ten APs (TGP1-TGP10) were isolated from the alcalase-hydrolysate. Among them, TGP5, TGP7, and TGP9 with high antioxidant activity were identified as His-Gly-Pro-Hyp-Gly-Glu (TGP5), Asp-Gly-Pro-Lys-Gly-His (TGP7) and Met-Leu-Gly-Pro-Phe-Gly-Pro-Ser (TGP9), respectively. Furthermore, TGP5, TGP7, and TGP9 exhibited a high radical scavenging capability on 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical (EC50 values of 1.34, 0.54, and 0.67 mg/mL, respectively), hydroxyl radical (EC50 values of 1.03, 0.41, and 0.74 mg/mL, respectively), and superoxide anion radical (EC50 values of 1.19, 0.71, and 1.59 mg/mL, respectively). These results suggest that three APs (TGP5, TGP7, and TGP9), especially TGP7, have a strong antioxidant activity and could act as potential antioxidant ingredients applied in functional products.

Identification and Active Evaluation of Antioxidant Peptides from Protein Hydrolysates of Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) Head.

For the full use of fish by-products to produce antioxidant peptides, skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) heads generated during can processing were defatted and hydrolyzed using the in vitro gastrointestinal (GI) digestion (pepsin-trypsin system) method and six antioxidant peptides (P1 to P6) were purified from the head hydrolysate (KPH) using ultrafiltration and serial chromatography methods. Six isolated peptides (P1 to P6) were identified as Val-Glu-Glu (VEE, P1), Trp-Met-Phe-Asp-Trp (WMFDW, P2), Asp-Ala-Gly-Pro-Tyr-Gly-Pro-Ile (DAGPYGPI, P3), Trp-Met-Gly-Pro-Tyr (WMGPY, P4), Glu-Arg-Gly-Pro-Leu-Gly-Pro-His (ERGPLGPH, P5), and Glu-Met- Gly-Pro-Ala (EMGPA, P6), respectively, using a protein sequencer and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometer. Among skipjack tuna head hydrolysates, fractions, and six isolated peptides (P1 to P6), WMFDW (P2), WMGPY (P4), and EMGPA (P6) showed the highest radical scavenging activities on 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) (EC50 values of 0.31, 0.33, and 0.46 mg/mL for WMFDW, WMGPY, and EMGPA, respectively), hydroxyl (EC50 values of 0.30, 0.43, and 0.52 mg/mL for WMFDW, WMGPY, and EMGPA, respectively), and superoxide anion (EC50 values of 0.56, 0.38, and 0.71 mg/mL for WMFDW, WMGPY, and EMGPA, respectively). Moreover, WMFDW, WMGPY, and EMGPA showed strong capability in reducing power and lipd peroxidation inhibition in the linoleic acid system. In addition, WMFDW, WMGPY, and EMGPA can retain strong antioxidant activity at temperatures lower than 60 °C and pH values ranged from 5 to 9. The results showed that six isolated peptides (P1 to P6) from skipjack tuna heads, especially WMFDW, WMGPY, and EMGPA, might be applied in health care products acting as powerful antioxidant agents.

Bio-regeneration of different rich CO2 absorption solvent via microalgae cultivation.

As one of the most mature carbon capture technologies, thermal regeneration of rich CO2 absorption solvent is a crucial challenge due to its high energy consumption (typically in the range of 3-6 MJ/kg CO2). In this work, a concept of bio-regeneration was proposed using microalgae to convert bicarbonate (which is one of the dominant components in rich solution) into value-added biomass. To evaluate the performance of bio-regeneration, different rich solution (including NH4HCO3, KHCO3 and NaHCO3) were investigated. Experimental results indicated that NH4HCO3 could be a promising bicarbonate carrier for the proposed absorption-microalgae hybrid process, which had a higher biomass productivity (55.36 mg·L-1·d-1) compared to KHCO3 and NaHCO3 and carbon sequestration capacity could be up to 158.3 mg·L-1·d-1. Meanwhile, pH adjustment was an effective approach to further intensify the performance of hybrid process. As a result, bio-regeneration of solvents could be a promising alternative to the conventional thermal regeneration.

Purification and Characterization of Antioxidant Peptides Derived from Protein Hydrolysate of the Marine Bivalve Mollusk Tergillarca granosa.

In this report, protein hydrolysate (TGH) of blood cockle (Tegillarca granosa) was prepared using a two-enzyme system (Alcalase treatment for 1.5 h following Neutrase treatment for 1.5 h). Subsequently, six antioxidant peptides were isolated from TGH using ultrafiltration and chromatography methods, and their amino acid sequences were identified as EPLSD, WLDPDG, MDLFTE, WPPD, EPVV, and CYIE with molecular weights of 559.55, 701.69, 754.81, 513.50, 442.48, and 526.57 Da, respectively. In which, MDLFTE and WPPD exhibited strong scavenging activities on DPPH radical (EC50 values of 0.53 ± 0.02 and 0.36 ± 0.02 mg/mL, respectively), hydroxy radical (EC50 values of 0.47 ± 0.03 and 0.38 ± 0.04 mg/mL, respectively), superoxide anion radical (EC50 values of 0.75 ± 0.04 and 0.46 ± 0.05 mg/mL, respectively), and ABTS cation radical (EC50 values of 0.96 ± 0.08 and 0.54 ± 0.03 mg/mL, respectively). Moreover, MDLFTE and WPPD showed high inhibiting ability on lipid peroxidation. However, MDLFTE and WPPD were unstable and could not retain strong antioxidant activity at high temperatures (>80 °C for 0.5 h), basic pH conditions (pH > 9 for 2.5 h), or during simulated GI digestion. In addition, the effect of simulated gastrointestinal digestion on TGP4 was significantly weaker than that on MDLFTE. Therefore, MDLFTE and WPPD may be more suitable for serving as nutraceutical candidates in isolated forms than as food ingredient candidates in functional foods and products.

Preparation and Characterization of Gelatin and Antioxidant Peptides from Gelatin Hydrolysate of Skipjack Tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) Bone Stimulated by in vitro Gastrointestinal Digestion.

In China, a large amount of fish bones are produced during the processing of tuna cans production. For full use of those by-products, gelatin (STB-G) with a yield of 6.37 ± 0.64% was extracted from skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) bone using water at 60 °C for 8 h. Amino acid analysis showed that STB-G contained Gly (340.3 residues/1000 residues) as the major amino acid and its imino acid content was 177.3 residues/1000 residues. Amino acid composition, SDS-PAGE, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrum investigations confirmed that the physicochemical properties of STB-G were similar to those of type I collagen from skipjack tuna bone (STB-C), but partial high molecular weight components of STB-G were degraded during the extraction process, which induced that the gelatin was easier to be hydrolyzed by protease than mammalian gelatins and was suitable for preparation of hydrolysate. Therefore, STB-G was hydrolyzed under in vitro gastrointestinal digestion (pepsin-trypsin system) and five antioxidant peptides were purified from the resulted hydrolysate (STB-GH) and identified as GPDGR, GADIVA, GAPGPQMV, AGPK, and GAEGFIF, respectively. Among the gelatin hydrolysate, fractions, and isolated peptides, GADIVA and GAEGFIF exhibited the strongest scavenging activities on 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical (EC50 0.57 and 0.30 mg/mL), hydroxyl radical (EC50 0.25 and 0.32 mg/mL), superoxide anion radical (EC50 0.52 and 0.48 mg/mL), and 2,2'-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) radical (EC50 0.41 and 0.21 mg/mL). Moreover, GADIVA and GAEGFIF showed a high inhibiting ability on lipid peroxidation in a linoleic acid model system. The strong activities of five isolated peptides profited by their small molecular sizes and the antioxidant amino acid residues in their sequences. These results suggested that five isolated peptides (STP1⁻STP5), especially GADIVA and GAEGFIF, might serve as potential antioxidants applied in health food industries.

Biodegradability and mechanism of florfenicol via Chlorella sp. UTEX1602 and L38: Experimental study.

In this work, florfenicol removal via two kinds Chlorella sp. (UTEX1602 and L38) was investigated. The experimental results indicated that FF could be removed by biodegradation associated with microalgae growth. Compared to Chlorella sp. UTEX1602, L38 had a good self-adjustment capacity at the condition of high initial FF concentration. The biodegradation of FF followed the first order kinetic model with half-lives ranged from 3.53 to 7.63 days at different initial concentration. The removal efficiency of FF could achieve 97% when the FF concentration was set at 46 mg·L-1. While the FF concentration in the medium increased to 159 mg·L-1, more than 74% FF could still be purified via Chlorella sp. L38. Therefore, Chlorella sp. L38 could be promising alternative algae to be used for FF removal from different water sources.

Biomimetic reassembled chylomicrons as novel association model for the prediction of lymphatic transportation of highly lipophilic drugs via the oral route.

Drug association with isolated natural chylomicrons (nCM) can be used to predict the lymphatic transportation potential of highly lipophilic drugs. However, the nCM model is compromised by inter-group variations in isolated nCM samples and the need to sacrifice a large quantity of animals. In this study, reassembled chylomicrons (rCM) model was set up and evaluated with respect to mimicking the drug association capacity of nCMs. A thin-film dispersion method was used to prepare rCMs, whose compositions consisted of triglycerides, phospholipids, cholesterols and derivatives in a ratio similar to that of nCMs. Partial least squares (PLS) analysis was used to evaluate the influence of molecular descriptors on drug association with CMs and establish multivariable regression equations for prediction of drug association. Chemical descriptors affecting drug association with nCM are in the sequence of hydrogen binding acceptors (HBA)>polar surface area (PSA)>solubility in long-chain triglycerides (SLCT)>logP>melting point (MP)>logD>molar volume (MV)>density>pKa>molar weight (MW)>freely rotatable bonds (FRB)>hydrogen binding donors (HBD). HBA, PSA, HBD, MP, density, pKa, FRB, and HBD were found to reduce the degree of drug association with nCM, whereas all other descriptors increased it. Sequences of chemical descriptors affecting drug association with rCM was in the order of pKa>SLCT>FRB>HBA>MW>MV>HBD>logP>MP>PSA>logD>density. However, the degree of drug association with nCMs was closely correlated to that with rCMs. Drug association with both CMs could be predicted using pre-established equations and PLS. In conclusion, rCMs could be used as substitute for nCMs in prediction of lymphatic transportation of highly lipophilic drugs.