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In this study, a copper-containing polyphenol oxidase (PPO) enzyme was extracted from the selected agricultural food products, i.e., Mangifera indica (L.), Solanum tuberosum (L.), and Luffa cylindrica (L.), which has efficiently degraded the azo dyes (Methylene blue, Reactive Black-5, and Toluidine Blue-O) into less toxic compounds. After preparing the dye solution at various concentrations, the PPO enzymes extracted with phosphate buffer were incubated with it for 2 hours. The percentage of decolorization was estimated by using the unprocessed dye solution. The degraded products were characterized by UV–vis and FT-IR. All sets of experiments followed pseudo-first-order kinetics. The highest kinetic degradation rate constant was observed at kt = 0.0213 min─1 (R2 = 0.9258) and kt = 0.0244 min─1 (R2 = 0.7627) in reactive black-5 from Mangifera indica (L.) and Solanum tuberosum (L.), respectively. The enzyme extracted from the peel of Solanum tuberosum (L.) decolorized Reactive Black-5 and Toluidine Blue-O dyes to a greater extent, i.e., 83.29 and 70.84% with reaction times of 120 and 90 min, respectively.

Polyphenolic compounds are vital components of plants. However, their analysis is particularly difficult and challenging due to their similar chemical and structural properties. In this study, we developed a simple and reproducible HPLC-DAD protocol for determining nineteen pharmacologically important polyphenols in plant-based food samples, including fruits (apple, banana, grapefruit, peach, grapes, plum, and pear), vegetables (onion, cabbage, capsicum, garlic, lemon, tomato, potato, and spinach), and other edible items (corn, kidney beans, green tea, black tea, and turmeric). The reference standards were pooled into four different groups based on logP values and expected retention time to avoid compound co-elution. These developed methods will be useful for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of biologically important polyphenolic compounds in various food samples and botanicals.

Metabolomics has been used as a powerful tool for the analysis, and drug-lead identification in medicinal plants and herbal medicines. For the coverage of a broader range of plant-based metabolites using LC-MS, one of the important parameters is the selection of analysis mode and data processing for identification. This paper describes the utility of two distinctive acquisition modes in combination, a classic data-dependent acquisition (DDA) mode and a data-independent acquisition (DIA) mode for obtaining the mass spectrometry data of plant extracts using LC-ESI-QTOF/MS. Tribulus terrestris plant was used as a case study. We have applied three-step data analysis pipeline 1-annotation and putative identification of metabolites, 2-validation, and relative quantification, and 3-multivariate analysis using open-access MS-DIAL, Skyline, and Perseus software. A total of four samples of T. terrestris (aqueous extracts), two fruits, and two whole plant samples, from two different regions, were used. By combining data analysis results of plant fruit samples from two different regions, a total of 95 and 77 metabolites were identified in positive and negative ionization modes, respectively. Similarly, in the analysis of the whole plant from two different regions, 75 and 76 metabolites were identified in positive and negative ionization modes, respectively. We suggested the use of DDA mode for annotation, identification of metabolites, and generation of transition lists in MS-DIAL, furthermore, the use of DIA acquisition mode for enhancing metabolites sensitivity in complex samples, deconvolute MS1/MS2 spectra in Skyline for the quantitative performance and analytical reliability. The developed protocol can be used for the broader coverage of plant-based metabolites.

The continuous development of resistance to antibiotic drugs by microorganisms causes high mortality and morbidity. Pathogens with distinct features and biochemical abilities make them destructive to human health. Therefore, early identification of the pathogen is of substantial importance for quick ailments and healthcare outcomes. Several phenotype methods are used for the identification and resistance determination but most of the conventional procedures are time-consuming, costly, and give qualitative results. Recently, great focus has been made on the utilization of advanced techniques for microbial identification. This review is focused on the research studies performed in the last five years for the identification of microorganisms particularly, bacteria using advanced spectroscopic techniques including mass spectrometry (MS), infrared (IR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy (RS), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Among all the techniques, MS techniques, particularly MALDI-TOF/MS have been widely utilized for microbial identification. A total of 44 bacteria i.e., 6 Staphylococcus spp., 3 Enterococcus spp., 6 Bacillus spp., 4 Streptococcus spp., 6 Salmonella spp., and one from each genus including Escherichia, Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Proteus, Clostridioides, Candida, Brucella, Burkholderia, Francisella, Yersinia, Moraxella, Vibrio, Shigella, Serratia, Citrobacter, and Haemophilus (spp.) were discussed in the review for their identification using the above-mentioned techniques. Among all the identified microorganisms, 21% of studies have been conducted for the identification of E. coli, 14% for S. aureus followed by 37% for other microorganisms.

In this study, we have investigated the fragmentation of the widely used steroidal pharmaceutical drugs (n = 14), complexed by a singly charged proton or alkali metal ion (Li+, Na+, K+) using Ion trap and quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometers. Spectra were collected by LC-MS/MS analysis using system automated collision energy i.e., of 25–60 eV. Theoretical calculations were also calculated using DFT software. The metal complexes showed different fragmentation pathways not commonly observed for protonated compounds. There was a distinct difference observed in the relative intensities of some common fragments for free vs. metallated drugs. Some major fragments from protonated and lithium adducts showed close resemblance, while sodium and potassium adducts showed different fragments. Theoretical calculations showed a distinct difference in the position of attachment of proton and metals. This adducts ion fragmentation information will be helpful for the identification of these compounds in complex samples.

Drinking water is the main source of fluoride intake for the human body and its regulated consumption helps in decreasing dental caries. However, excessive fluoride consumption over a prolonged time period causes fluorosis disease which adversely affects many tissues and organs of the body. This paper describes the evaluation of chronic intoxication of fluoride on human serum metabolome. The untargeted metabolomics approach using UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS is applied for metabolomic profiling, whereas the estimation of fluoride in serum samples was carried out using the ion-selective electrode (ISE). Fluoride concentration was found to be 0.16–1.25 mg/L in serum samples of 39 fluorosis patients and 0.008–0.045 mg/L in 20 healthy samples. A total of 47 metabolites were identified based on the high-resolution mass spectrometry analysis. A volcano plot was generated to discriminate features that are significantly different between the fluorosis and healthy groups at the probability of 0.05 and fold change ≥ 2. Among all identified metabolites, intensities of ten differential identified metabolites including inosine, α-linolenic acid, guanosine, octanoyl-L-carnitine, His-Trp, phytosphingosine, lauroyl-L-carnitine, hydrocortisone, deoxyinosine and dodecanedioic acid have been found altered in disease samples compared to healthy controls. Major pathways identified based on these metabolites include energy metabolism, fatty acid oxidation, purine degradation pathway, elevated protein degradation, and increased ω-6 fatty acid linoleate signatures were observed.

Natural product screening in plants has always been a difficult task due to the complex nature of the plant material and diverse structures of the compounds present in them. Flavonoids are important and diverse class of plant secondary metabolites with numerous medicinal activities. The present study focuses on the development of a high-resolution tandem mass spectral library for the rapid and authentic identification of common flavonoids. A total of forty flavonoid standards belong to class flavones, isoflavones, flavanones, flavanols and anthocyanins were pooled into two solutions applying logP-based strategy. The flavonoids were analyzed using LC-QTOF-MS high-resolution mass spectrometer with optimization of different instrumental parameters to achieve good sensitivity. The library was built by incorporating names, molecular formulae, exact masses, and MS, and MS/MS spectra of analyzed flavonoids using Bruker Library Editor tool. The fragmentation pattern observed for the standard compounds were compared to the fragments reported in the literature. To assess the practical implications, an extract of tea sample was analyzed and screened using the developed library, which resulted in the identification of three common flavonoids based on their HR-ESI-MS/MS spectral features. The established LC-HR-MS/MS method can be used for the targeted identification of flavonoids in complex samples like food material from different botanical families.

Chicken meat is among the common and relatively inexpensive source of protein consumed worldwide from the poultry industry. Many communities show concern regarding the procedure of slaughtering animals for meat consumption due to ethical, religious, or cultural reasons. Liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) based untargeted metabolomics of 40 chicken meat samples were evaluated to differentiate meat samples based on slaughtering methods. Samples were grouped into, Zabiha (cutting neck without detaching spinal cord) and Non-Zabiha (completely detaching neck). A volcano plot reveals at least 150 features found significantly different between the two groups having ≥ 2-fold changes in intensities with p-values ≤ 0.05. Among them 05 identified and 25 unidentified metabolites have clear differences in peak intensities. The identified features can be employed to differentiate meat obtained from different slaughtering methods. A characteristic pattern based on principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least square-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was observed among the groups. The results will benefit Halal certification, food safety, and security agencies to curb food fraud.

This study is based on an environmental assessment of acetylsalicylic acid and naproxen in waste and tap water samples of twenty different locations of municipal area of Sukkur city, Sindh, Pakistan. Both drugs belong to the most frequently used Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) group. The specified pharmaceuticals were extracted from the wastewater and tap water samples by Solid Phase Extraction (SPE) method using Waters Oasis hydrophilic lipophilic balance (HLB) cartridges. Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) technique was applied for the detection and quantification of selected drugs. Negative Electron Spray Ionization (ESI) was used along with Multi Reaction Monitoring (MRM) mode. Pharmaceuticals concentration were found 7.38-827 µg/L and 5.47-328.95 µg/L in waste and tap water samples, respectively. The results obtained are comparable with the data reported in literature. Human health risk assessment caused by acetylsalicylic acid and naproxen in aquatic media was observed by applying Risk Quotient (RQ) approach. The calculated RQ values are low enough (order of 10-3 to 10-5) to cause a direct risk for consumers, but their presence in water may pose a danger synergistically.

Poisonous plants are widely distributed and may have risk of phytotoxicity upon mixing with medicinal plants. Several species of Cestrum genus are poisonous and linked with many serious health issues. In the present study, cross-mixing of a toxic plant, Cestrum diurnum with morphologically resembling medicinal plant, Adhatoda vasica was studied using chemical fingerprinting approach. LC-ESI-MS/MS tool was used to develop the chemical fingerprints of three toxic species of Cestrum, including, C. diurnum, C. nocturnum and C. parqui. Total forty-three compounds were identified using high-resolution LC-ESI-MS/MS data comparison. Chemometric analyses were done to compare the distribution of identified compounds present in these Cestrum species. One of the identified compounds, nornicotine (a toxic compound) was also quantified using LC-IT-MS/MS. Adulteration study was conducted by mixing toxic C. diurnum in A. vasica with various ratios (w/w) and five differentiable compounds were identified to detect the adulteration. The method was able to detect up to the limit of 5% mixing of toxic C. diurnum. Moreover, cytotoxicity of the methanolic extracts of these three species were also studied on normal human PBMC (peripheral blood mononuclear cells) and all found to be toxic, while the C. nocturnum showed the highest level of toxicity with the IC50 12.5 μg/mL.

Dereplication of crude plant extracts through liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry is a powerful technique for the discovery of novel natural products. Unfortunately, this technique is often plagued by a low level of confidence in natural product identification. This is mainly due to the lack of extensive chromatographic and mass spectrometric optimizations that result in improper and incomplete MS/MS fragmentation data. This study proposes a solution to this problem by the optimization of chromatographic separation and mass spectrometry parameters. We report herein a direct and high-throughput strategy for natural product dereplication in five Salvia species using high-resolution ESI-QTOF-MS/MS data. In the present study, we were able to identify a total of forty-seven natural products in crude extracts of five Salvia species using MS/MS fragmentation data. In addition to dereplication of Salvia species, quantitative profiling of twenty-one bioactive constituents of the genus was also performed on an ion trap mass spectrometer. For the quantitation study, method development focused on chromatographic optimizations to achieve maximum sensitivity. The developed dereplication and quantitation strategy can be extended to develop comprehensive metabolic profiles of other plant genera and species and thus can prove useful in the field of drug discovery from plants.

Fetal hemoglobin (HbF) is a potent genetic modifier, and the γ-globin gene induction has proven to be a sustainable therapeutic approach for the management of β-thalassemia. In this study, we have evaluated the HbF induction ability of A. vasica in vitro and in vivo, and the identification of potential therapeutic compounds through a bioassay-guided approach. In vitro benzidine-Hb assay demonstrated strong erythroid differentiation of K562 cells by A. vasica extracts. Subsequently, an in vivo study with an aqueous extract of A. vasica (100 mg/kg) showed significant induction of the γ-globin gene and HbF production. While in the acute study, the hematological and biochemical indices were found to be unaltered at the lower dose of A. vasica. Following the bioassay-guided approach, two isolated compounds, vasicinol (1) and vasicine (2) strongly enhanced HbF levels and showed prominent cellular growth kinetics with ample accumulation of total hemoglobin in K562 cultures. High HbF levels were examined by immunofluorescence and flow cytometry analysis, concomitant with the overexpression in the γ-globin gene level. Compound 1 (0.1 µM) and compound 2 (1 µM) resulted in a greater increase in F-cells (90 and 83%) with marked up (8-fold and 5.1-fold) expression of the γ-globin gene, respectively. Molecular docking studies indicated strong binding affinities of (1) and (2) with HDAC2 and KDM1 protein that predict the possible mechanism of compounds in inhibition of these epigenetic regulators in the γ-globin gene reactivation. Altogether, these observations demonstrated the therapeutic usefulness of A. vasica for fostering HbF production in clinical implications for blood disorders.

The inaccessibility of clean water is one of the growing issues of this era. Indeed, cost-effective and sustainable methods for recycling wastewater are essential. Although membrane separation is an efficient technology for the recycling and purification of water, membrane fouling is still a major drawback of this technology. This work is aimed to develop a dynamic method to form gel layer membranes (GLMs) by manipulating the irreversible fouling process itself as a problem-solving approach. A microporous polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) support is subjected to gel layer formation by applying a supernatant of industrial aerobic sludge (containing soluble extracellular polymeric substances EPS) as a feed. Retention of polysaccharides and calcium during the filtration and the topographical analysis after the filtration show that EPS uniformly formed a gel layer on the PVDF support. No further decline in permeability is observed (i.e. remained around 27–33 L/m2 hr) when the formed GLM is subjected to fouling under similar conditions. Moreover, the percent flux recovery ratio (FRR) of the GLM is also significant (i.e. 90.1 ± 2.71). The retention ability, hydrophilicity, porosity, and water uptake capability of the formed GLM also increased significantly. The optimal performance and stability of GLMs are observed at room temperature (RT) under neutral pH and sub-critical trance membrane pressures (TMP). Based on these results it is suggested that the in-situ manipulation of gel layer fouling is a viable approach for preparing fouling resistant GLMs with high retention efficiency, potentially applicable to wastewater treatment under normal conditions.

The present research aims to propose a simple and accurate technique for the analysis of Rifaximin in the presence of its stress degradation products and analysis of degradation products by LC-MS/MS analysis. Rifaximin was submitted to forced degradation under the acid hydrolysis condition as prescribed by the ICH. The extract was prepared by firstly treated with HCl and heated about 4 to 8 h. The filtrate was collected and separated using dichloromethane followed by evaporation in rotary evaporator to obtain a solid crude extract which was then stored under refrigeration at -80 °C. Liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS/MS) was utilized to identify products in the drug sample. The data processing results revealed the presence of 9 products in the degraded sample of Rifaximin. This data article contains the m/z [M + H +] values, molecular formula, retention times and the comprehensive list of m/z values detected during the LC- QTOF- MS/MS analysis.

Organic foods gaining popularity due its connection with the health, high nutritional value, and high quality. Therefore, it is of prime importance to develop the analytical methods to combat with food authentication and protect consumer from the food fraud. Conventional soy sauce (CS) and organic soy sauce (OS) were characterized and differentiate for the first time using 1H NMR-based metabolomics approach. Classification methods like orthogonal partial least squares of discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) showed a significant (p

This paper describes eight new triterpenoid saponins, including afzeliioside A (1), four acetylated afzeliiosides as pairs of inseparable regioisomers, called afzeliiosides B/C (2/3) and D/E (4/5), afzeliiosides F-H (6–8), and a known impatiprin C (9), which were isolated from the n-BuOH fraction of the liana of Microglossa afzelii. Their structures were established mainly by extensive spectroscopic analysis, including 1D and 2D NMR, HRFAB-MS, tandem ESI-MS/MS, and chemical methods, as well as a comparison of their spectral data with those of related compounds. All the isolates were screened for their cytotoxic activity against the CAL-27 oral squamous carcinoma cell line. Only compounds 4/5 (EC50 = 36.0 μg/mL (32.7 μM)) exhibited moderate cytotoxic activity. This work presents the first chemical and biological investigation of Microglossa afzelii and reports, for the first time, on the isolation of saponins in the genus Microglossa.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) plays an important role in regulating blood pressure in the body by converting angiotensin-I into angiotensin-II. It is the basic component of Renin angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS), imbalance of RAAS may leads to many cardiovascular and renal diseases. There are many marketed available drugs for the inhibition of ACE, but prolonged use of some drugs may cause the progressive side effects. Repurposing of existing drugs can be a way to find new inhibitors of ACE. In this study, a high-throughput and sensitive method of HPLC-ESI-QqQ-MS with good reproducibility (%RSD

The adulteration of plant raw materials used for the preparation of herbal drugs with foreign plant material is one of the important issues in the quality control of herbal products. Chemical fingerprinting is a well-known approach for the characterization of secondary metabolites associated with the plant species and can be used for quality control of plant material. The current study centred on the development of chemical fingerprinting of three medicinal plants of genus Anemone including A. obtusiloba, A. falconeri and A tetrasepala through identification of their metabolites using LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS analysis. Thirty compounds were identified by using high-resolution positive and negative electrospray- ionization (ESI) modes and MS/MS analysis. The identified compounds belong to diterpenoids, alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids and other classes and their distribution among the analysed species was studied using different statistical tools. Moreover, an LC-HR-ESI-MS/MS method was developed to detect the cross mixing of A. obtusiloba with Ziziphus jujuba. Seven chromatographically differentiative peaks confined to A. obtusiloba were selected to detect its contamination in adulterated samples. The method was able to detect as low as 20% mixing of A. obtusiloba in Z. jujuba. This study can play a significant role to manage the quality control of herbal medicines and to identify lead natural products of these plants.

Data-independent acquisition (DIA) based strategies have been explored in recent years for improving quantitative analysis of metabolites. However, the data analysis is challenging for DIA methods as the resulting spectra are highly multiplexed. Thus, the DIA mode requires advanced software analysis to facilitate the data deconvolution process. We proposed a pipeline for quantitative profiling of pharmaceutical drugs and serum metabolites in DIA mode after comparing the results obtained from full-scan, Data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and DIA modes. using open-access software. Pharmaceutical drugs (10) were pooled in healthy human serum and analysed by LC-ESI-QTOF-MS. MS1 full-scan and Data-dependent (MS2) results were used for identification using MS-DIAL software while deconvolution of MS1/MS2 spectra in DIA mode was achieved by using Skyline software. The results of acquisition methods for quantitative analysis validated the remarkable analytical performance of the constructed workflow, proving it to be a sensitive and reproducible pipeline for biological complex fluids.

Food adulteration is a serious concern faced by the importers of various food products across the globe. In this study, a simple, sensitive and robust method for detecting pork in processed/complex food samples using next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) technology is described. The experimentation involves a generalized library preparation kit for performing shotgun sequencing of the genomic DNA irrespective of its intactness. The method was applied on different complex food samples containing pork along with other species (up to twelve) as well as without pork to test the specificity of the method. The DNA sequences were mapped with the online NCBI nucleotide database for their identification followed by a calculation of the relative abundance of the reads. The adulteration of pork was correctly identified in the analyzed samples. Although the relative abundance of pork DNA reads could not make a precise quantitative relevance with the contributed amount of the tissue sample, yet this method has the potential to determine extremely low as well as high contents of adulterating/contaminating species in complex food products.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a typical cancer that has region specified analysis with the incidence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. This study was conducted to improve the understanding of metabolic alterations associated with HCV induced HCC which can open up new strategies to monitor the high risk of HCC. Samples of the subjects with HCV, HCV induced chronic liver disease (CLD), HCV induced HCC, and healthy controls (HS) were collected after complete blood count (CBC), hepatitis viral load, α-fetoprotein (AFP), liver function tests, and albumin. A total of 147 serum samples including HCC (n = 11), CLD (n = 24), HCV (n = 71), and HS (n = 41) were analyzed by LC-ESI-MS/MS. The 21 compounds were found to be responsible for group discrimination after the application of chemometric tools. N-fructosyl tyrosine and hydroxyindoleacetic acid showed an increase in level whereas L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine and thyroxine showed a consistent decrease in the progression of HCV to HCC in comparison with HS indicating their importance for early detection. The biological pathways such as glycerophospholipid metabolism, phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan biosynthesis, phenylalanine metabolism and tryptophan metabolism showed alteration in some metabolites. The method was internally validated by ROC plot showing AUC value for HS, HCV, CLD, and HCC as 0.99, 1, 1, and 0.89, respectively; while 16 blind samples were also validated with 93% specificity. The untargeted metabolomics investigation of HCV, CLD, and HCC can help to understand the progression of HCV-induced HCC. It reveals significant differences in metabolites to predict prognostic and diagnostic markers.

Aquilegia fragrans (AF) and Aquilegia pubiflora (AP) are the two medicinally important species of genus Aquilegia used for the treatment of various diseases and infections. This paper describes the potential of fetal hemoglobin induction activity of the methanolic extracts of AF and AP in K562 cell line. AF and AP have shown 27.147 ± 1.376 and 32.786 ± 1.048 percent erythroid induction, respectively at 15.625 (µg/mL) concentration which suggested that both plants can be the source of potential fetal hemoglobin inducers and may be used for the treatment of β-thalassemia. Phytochemical analyses of both species were also evaluated by using high-resolution LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS techniques. A Total of thirty compounds were identified using positive and negative ionization modes. The identification was based on the matching of high-resolution masses, isotopic pattern, and MS/MS fragmentation. Several statistical analyses were performed to evaluate the distribution of compounds in both species. Identified compounds belong to various classes including flavonoids, steroids, lignans, terpenoids, benzofuran and coumarins. The established chemical fingerprints will be helpful in standardization and quality control of plant extracts.

Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) plays a crucial role in regulating blood pressure in the human body. Identification of potential ACE inhibitors from medicinal plants supported the idea of repurposing these medicinal plants against hypertension. A method based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with a diode array detector (DAD) was used for the rapid screening of plant extracts and purified compounds to determine their ACE inhibitory activity. Hippuryl-histidiyl-leucine (HHL) was used as a substrate, which is converted into hippuric acid (HA) by the action of ACE. A calibration curve of the substrate HHL was developed with the linear regression 0.999. The limits of detection and quantification of this method were found to be 0.134 and 0.4061 mM, respectively. Different parameters of ACE inhibitory assay were optimized, including concentration, incubation time and temperature. The ACE inhibition potential of Adhatoda vasica (methanolic-aqueous extract) and its isolated pyrroquinazoline alkaloids, vasicinol (1), vasicine (2) and vasicinone (3) was evaluated. Compounds 1–3 were characterized by various spectroscopic techniques. The IC50 values of vasicinol (1), vasicine (2) and vasicinone (3) were found to be 6.45, 2.60 and 13.49 mM, respectively. Molecular docking studies of compounds 1–3 were also performed. Among these compounds, vasicinol (1) binds as effectively as captopril, a standard drug of ACE inhibition.

The discovery and identification of novel natural products of medicinal importance in the herbal medicine industry becomes a challenge. The complexity of this process can be reduced by dereplication strategies. The current study includes a method based on high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), using the evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD) to identify the 12 most common secondary metabolites in plant extracts. Twelve compounds including rutin, taxifolin, quercetin, apigenin, kaempferol, betulinic acid, oleanolic acid, betulin, lupeol, stigmasterol, and β-sitosterol were analyzed simultaneously. The polarity of the compounds varied greatly from highly polar (flavonoids) to non-polar (triterpenes and sterols). This method was also tested for HPLC-DAD and HPLC-ESI-MS/MS analysis. Oleanolic acid and ursolic acid could not be separated in HPLC-ELSD analysis but were differentiated using LC-ESI-MS/MS analysis due to different fragment ions. The regression values (R2 > 0.996) showed good linearity in the range of 50–1000 µg/mL for all compounds. The range of LOD and LOQ values were 7.76–38.30 µg/mL and 23.52–116.06 µg/mL, respectively. %RSD and % trueness values of inter and intraday studies were mostly

Abstract Detection of metabolic signature for breast cancer (BC) has the potential to improve patient prognosis. This study identified potentially significant metabolites differentiating between breast cancer patients and healthy controls to help in diagnosis, grading, staging and determination of neoadjuvant status. Serum was collected from 152 pre-operative breast cancer (BC) patients and 155 healthy controls in this case-controlled study. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to obtain metabolic profiles followed by chemometric analysis with the identification of significantly differentiated metabolites including 7 for diagnosis, 18 for grading, 23 for staging, 15 for stage III subcategory and 10 for neoadjuvant status (p-value

Wasps, members of the order Hymenoptera, are distributed in different parts of the world, including Brazil, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and Argentina. The lifestyles of the wasps are solitary and social. Social wasps use venom as a defensive measure to protect their colonies, whereas solitary wasps use their venom to capture prey. Chemically, wasp venom possesses a wide variety of enzymes, proteins, peptides, volatile compounds, and bioactive constituents, which include phospholipase A2, antigen 5, mastoparan, and decoralin. The bioactive constituents have anticancer, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory effects. However, the limited quantities of wasp venom and the scarcity of advanced strategies for the synthesis of wasp venom’s bioactive compounds remain a challenge facing the effective usage of wasp venom. Solid-phase peptide synthesis is currently used to prepare wasp venom peptides and their analogs such as mastoparan, anoplin, decoralin, polybia-CP, and polydim-I. The goal of the current review is to highlight the medicinal value of the wasp venom compounds, as well as limitations and possibilities. Wasp venom could be a potential and novel natural source to develop innovative pharmaceuticals and new agents for drug discovery.

Bee venom (BV) is a rich source of secondary metabolites from honeybees (Apis mellifera L.). It contains a variety of bioactive ingredients including peptides, proteins, enzymes, and volatile metabolites. The compounds contribute to the venom’s observed biological functions as per its anti-inflammatory and anticancer effects. The antimicrobial action of BV has been shown in vitro and in vivo experiments against bacteria, viruses, and fungi. The synergistic therapeutic interactions of BV with antibiotics has been reported. The synergistic effect contributes to a decrease in the loading and maintenance dosage, a decrease in the side effects of chemotherapy, and a decrease in drug resistance. To our knowledge, there have been no reviews on the impact of BV and its antimicrobial constituents thus far. The purpose of this review is to address the antimicrobial properties of BV and its compounds.

The present study reports the synthesis of various new derivatives based on 5-aryl-2-bromo-3-hexylthiophene with moderate-to-good yields via a palladium-catalyzed Suzuki cross-coupling reaction. This coupling method involved the reaction of 2,5-dibromo-3-hexylthiophene with several arylboronic acids in order to synthesize corresponding thiophene derivatives under controlled and optimal reaction conditions. The different substituents (CH3, OCH3, Cl, F etc.) present on arylboronic acids are found to have significant electronic effects on the overall properties of new products. The synthesized thiophene molecules were studied for their haemolytic, biofilm inhibition and anti-thrombolytic activities, and almost all products showed potentially good properties. The compound 2-bromo-5-(3-chloro-4-fluorophenyl)-3-hexylthiophenein particular exhibited the highest values for haemolytic and bio-film inhibition activities among all newly synthesized derivatives. In addition, the compound 2-bromo-3-hexyl-5-(4-iodophenyl)thiophene also showed high anti-thrombolytic activity, suggesting the potential medicinal applications of these newly synthesized compounds.

A new series of N-(6-arylbenzo[d]thiazol-2-yl)acetamides were synthesized by C-C coupling methodology in the presence of Pd(0) using various aryl boronic pinacol ester/acids. The newly synthesized compounds were evaluated for various biological activities like antioxidant, haemolytic, antibacterial and urease inhibition. In bioassays these compounds were found to have moderate to good activities. Among the tested biological activities screened these compounds displayed the most significant activity for urease inhibition. In urease inhibition, all compounds were found more active than the standard used. The compound N-(6-(p-tolyl)benzo[d]thiazol-2-yl)acetamide was found to be the most active. To understand this urease inhibition, molecular docking studies were performed. The in silico studies showed that these acetamide derivatives bind to the non-metallic active site of the urease enzyme. Structure-activity studies revealed that H-bonding of compounds with the enzyme is important for its inhibition.