Asterics: a simple tool for the ExploRation and Integration of omiCS data.

BACKGROUND: The rapid development of omics acquisition techniques has induced the production of a large volume of heterogeneous and multi-level omics datasets, which require specific and sometimes complex analyses to obtain relevant biological information. Here, we present ASTERICS (version 2.5), a publicly available web interface for the analyses of omics datasets. RESULTS: ASTERICS is designed to make both standard and complex exploratory and integration analysis workflows easily available to biologists and to provide high quality interactive plots. Special care has been taken to provide a comprehensive documentation of the implemented analyses and to guide users toward sound analysis choices regarding some specific omics data. Data and analyses are organized in a comprehensive graphical workflow within ASTERICS workspace to facilitate the understanding of successive data editions and analyses leading to a given result. CONCLUSION: ASTERICS provides an easy to use platform for omics data exploration and integration. The modular organization of its open source code makes it easy to incorporate new workflows and analyses by external contributors. ASTERICS is available at https://asterics.miat.inrae.fr and can also be deployed using provided docker images.

A practical method to predict physical stability of amorphous solid dispersions.

PURPOSE: To predict the crystallization time of amorphous solid dispersions by controlling the combined effect of temperature and moisture content. METHODS: The authors exposed amorphous samples of spray-dried API and Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose Phtalate to various temperature and humidity conditions below and above the glass transition temperature (Tg) until crystallization of the API was observed. The crystallization of API was detected by XRPD, while the T ( g ) and the water absorption by the amorphous dispersion are quantified by mDSC and water sorption analysis. RESULTS: Extrapolation of the data obtained at a temperature above T ( g ) to conditions below T ( g ) gives only a qualitative trend. By contrast, in conditions below T ( g ) the logarithm of onset of crystallization time was shown to vary linearly with the T ( g ) /T ratio. A statistical analysis shows that the data obtained in the highest temperature/humidity conditions, for which the onset of crystallization is below 3 months, can be extrapolated over 15 months. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed methodology can be used as a stress program to predict long-term stability from a relatively short observation period and to design appropriate temperature and humidity conditions for long-term storage to prevent crystallization.

Relationship between HPLC precision and number of significant figures when reporting impurities and when setting specifications.

The rounding of an analytical result is a process that should take into account the uncertainty of the result, which is in turn assessed during the validation exercise. Rounding rules are known in physical and analytical chemistry since a long time, but are often not used or misused in pharmaceutical analysis. The paper describes the theoretical background of the most common rules and their application to fix the rounding of results and specifications. The paper makes use of uncertainty values of impurity determination acquired during studies of reproducibility and intermediate precision with regards to 22 impurities of drug substances or drug products. As a general rule, authors propose the use of sound and well-established rounding rules to derive rounding from the results of the validation package.