Search

Daljeet Singh Dhanjal,1,* Parul Mehra,2,* Sonali Bhardwaj,1,* Reena Singh,1 Parvarish Sharma,3 Eugenie Nepovimova,4 Chirag Chopra,1 Kamil Kuca4,5 1School of Bioengineering and Biosciences, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India; 2Central Research Institute, Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, India; 3School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India; 4Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, 50003, Czech Republic; 5Biomedical Research Center, University Hospital Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, 50005, Czech Republic*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Kamil Kuca, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, 50003, Czech Republic, Tel +420 603 289 166, Email kamil.kuca@uhk.cz Chirag Chopra, School of Bioengineering and Biosciences, Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar-Delhi GT Road, Phagwara, Punjab, 144411, India, +91-7837815676, Email chirag.18298@lpu.co.inAbstract: In today’s time, nanotechnology is being utilized to develop efficient products in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. The application of nanotechnology in transforming bioactive material into nanoscale products substantially improves their biocompatibility and enhances their effectiveness, even when used in lower quantities. There is a significant global market potential for these nanoparticles because of which research teams around the world are interested in the advancements in nanotechnology. These recent advances have shown that fungi can synthesize metallic nanoparticles via extra- and intracellular mechanisms. Moreover, the chemical and physical properties of novel metallic nanoparticles synthesised by fungi are improved by regulating the surface chemistry, size, and surface morphology of the nanoparticles. Compared to chemical synthesis, the green synthesis of nanoparticles offers a safe and sustainable approach for developing nanoparticles. Biosynthesised nanoparticles can potentially enhance the bioactivities of different cellular fractions, such as plant extracts, fungal extracts, and metabolites. The nanoparticles synthesised by fungi offer a wide range of applications. Recently, the biosynthesis of nanoparticles using fungi has become popular, and various ways are being explored to maximize nanoparticles synthesis. This manuscript reviews the characteristics and applications of the nanoparticles synthesised using the different taxa of fungi. The key focus is given to the applications of these nanoparticles in medicine and cosmetology.Keywords: fungi, biological application, biosynthesis, nanoparticles, nanotechnology

Metal nanoparticles (MNPs) are popular in different research fields due to their unique physical and chemical properties and superior antimicrobial, anticancer, antioxidant, larvicidal, and catalytic potentials. Although conventional wet methods like colloidal synthesis, calcination, and spark ablation for synthesizing MNPs are effective, their synthesis uses an array of reducing and stabilizing agents and gases, making the process tedious. Additionally, metal nanoparticles induce oxidative stress through reactive oxygen species (ROS), showing high toxicity. Research and development in green chemistry have gained momentum and massive attention because of being efficient, clean, economical, environment-friendly, and free of hazardous byproducts. Recently, seed extracts in-lieu of chemical stabilizers and reducing agents have become popular because of the single-step green synthesis of MNPs. Seeds provide the researchers with a cost-effective alternate to other biological methods due to low maintenance costs, culture/growth independence for biomass, and diversity of phytochemicals as reducing and capping agents. Thus, effective green synthesis approaches are considered sustainable for MNP synthesis. This review depicts the literature on the challenges associated with metal and metal oxide nanoparticles and discusses their synthesis using seed extracts. The application section of the review discusses the antimicrobial, anticancer, and larvicidal activities of seed extracted-synthesized metallic nanoparticles. Furthermore, insights into the different biological potentials of the synthesized green MNPs have also been discussed.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are highly utilized commodities by health-conscious consumers and represent a prominent segment in the functional and nutritional food sector. However, food processing is causing significant loss of nutritional components, and the generation of waste is creating serious economic and environmental problems. Fruit and vegetables encompass husk, peels, pods, pomace, seeds, and stems, which are usually discarded, despite being known to contain potentially beneficial compounds, such as carotenoids, dietary fibers, enzymes, and polyphenols. The emerging interest in the food industry in the nutritional and biofunctional constituents of polyphenols has prompted the utilization of fruit and vegetable waste for developing enriched and functional foods, with applications in the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, the utilization of waste for developing diverse and crucial bioactive commodities is a fundamental step in sustainable development. Furthermore, it provides evidence regarding the applicability of fruit and vegetable waste in different food formulations especially bakery, jam, and meat based products.

Quantification and detection of various contaminants in the ecosystem have become critically important in the past few decades due to their exhaustive use in soil and aquatic ecosystems. The contamination by both organic and inorganic contaminants in the ecosystem has drawn attention due to their persistence, biological accumulation, and toxicity. Organic contaminants reach the air, water, food, soil, and other systems through drift mechanism and have detrimental effect on various life systems after entering the food chain, thus interfering the normal biological process of the ecosystem. Inorganic contaminants have less solubility, primarily get adsorbed, and accumulate on lower sediments. The sources of both organic and inorganic contaminants include anthropogenic activities which dispose industrial and sewage effluent directly into water bodies. Most of the contaminants are very much toxic and have tumorigenic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic effect on various life-forms. Biosensors have various prospective and existing applications in the detection of these compounds in the environment by transducing a signal. It also has immense applications in the detection of different contaminants in the food industry, environmental monitoring, disease diagnosis, etc. where reliable and precise analyses are required. This chapter points out a comprehensive glimpse on different biosensors and their characteristics, operating principles, and their designs, based on transduction types and biological components. Efforts have been made to summarize various applications of biosensors in food industry, environmental monitoring, drug delivery systems, and clinical diagnostics etc.

Forensic science deals with the scientific investigation of evidence collected from crime scenes. Since decades, forensic scientists have solved complex and sophisticated crimes using biological evidence. The forensic analyses include the biochemical profiling, physicochemical profiling and molecular analysis of the evidence. The biochemical profiling involves the analysis of the lipid-profile, the presence of toxins in the visceral fluids and enzyme activity analyses. However, it has come to light that detailed molecular evidence, besides the conventional DNA-evidence, is required for the accurate implication of an individual in a crime. Pre-meditated crimes with cadavers found in outbound locations are especially challenging. Many times, the biological samples do not provide enough DNA to carry out the molecular analysis. Metagenomics has paved a way to explore the microbiome of the biological evidence from which the DNA-evidence cannot be extracted. Using high-throughput sequencing methods followed by sequence analysis, the environmental samples of evidence can give valuable insights into the detailed molecular patterns. These patterns can make the identification or comparison of subjects easier. The chapter discusses the genomic analysis, proteome analysis and the metagenomic approaches for investigating a crime scene.

Detection of pathogenic microbes as well as antibiotic residues in food animals, especially in chicken, has become a matter of food security worldwide. The association of various pathogenic bacteria in different diseases and selective pressure induced by accumulated antibiotic residue to develop antibiotic resistance is also emerging as the threat to human health. These challenges have made the containment of pathogenic bacteria and early detection of antibiotic residue highly crucial for robust and precise detection. However, the traditional culture-based approaches are well-comprehended for identifying microbes. Nevertheless, because they are inadequate, time-consuming and laborious, these conventional methods are not predominantly used. Therefore, it has become essential to explore alternatives for the easy and robust detection of pathogenic microbes and antibiotic residue in the food source. Presently, different monitoring, as well as detection techniques like PCR-based, assay (nucleic acid)-based, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA)-based, aptamer-based, biosensor-based, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry-based and electronic nose-based methods, have been developed for detecting the presence of bacterial contaminants and antibiotic residues. The current review intends to summarize the different techniques and underline the potential of every method used for the detection of bacterial pathogens and antibiotic residue in chicken meat.