Diabetic patients with foot ulcer showed 150-fold increased risk of amputation, which is primarily caused by microbial infection. Silver ions are commonly incorporated into wound dressing to enhance ...the antimicrobial property. However, concerns have been expressed about the development of bacterial resistance to heavy metals. In this study, we evaluate the in vitro and in vivo efficacy of cellulose nanocrystal film to be used as antimicrobial drug delivery system in a diabetic wound dressing. Cellulose nanocrystals were successfully isolated from medical grade cotton fibers. We observe needle-like cellulose nanocrystals with an average length of 159 nm under transmission electron microscope. The developed film with curcumin shows a uniform yellow color, with a thickness of 0.4 mm. The film obtained is soft and flexible, based on the mechanical characterization study of the film. For the curcumin release test, the release reaches plateau condition at 36 h with a total release of 98.9% from the cellulose nanocrystal film. No burst release effect was detected during the test period. The film exhibited significant inhibitory activity on 3 Gram positive bacteria, 2 Gram negative bacteria and 1 yeast. On Hohenstein challenge test, all test microorganisms showed significant growth reduction, with the treatment of curcumin loaded film. 5 of 6 test microorganisms showed 99% of growth reduction relative to growth control. We also notice that the antimicrobial activity of the film sustained even after 15 washes. In the in vivo study using diabetic rat models, a significant reduction of wound size was observed from Day 7 with the topical application of curcumin loaded film. At the end of the study, the lesion was covered by epithelial tissue and the hair started to grow from the skin. A bacterial growth reduction of 99.99% was observed from the skin sample excised from the animal models. The histological examination of skin sample also showed that curcumin loaded film significantly improved the regeneration of hair follicles and sebaceous glands of the skin. Our results indicate that the curcumin load cellulose nanocrystal films can be used for diabetic wound healing applications.
Essential oil of Homalomena pineodora inhibits diabetic pathogens; however, the activity was not sustainable when applied as wound dressing. This study aims to synthesise the essential oil ...nanoparticle using chitosan. The nanoparticles were synthesised with ion gelation method, confirmed by spectroscopic analysis. The spherical nanoparticles display a size of 70 nm, with strong surface charge of +24.10 mV. The nanoparticles showed an initial burst release followed by a slow release pattern for 72 h, following the first order of kinetic. The release behaviour was ideal for wound dressing. The antimicrobial activity was broad spectrum. The formation of nanoparticle enhanced the antimicrobial efficacy of the essential oil. The nanoparticle also showed a concentration-dependent killing behaviour on time-kill assay. In the 3D collagen wound models, the nanoparticles reduced the microbial growth by 60-80%. In conclusion, H. pineodora nanoparticles showed pharmaceutical potential in inhibiting microbial growth on diabetic ulcers.
Plant-derived terpenes are the prolific source of modern drugs such as taxol, chloroquine and artemisinin, which are widely used to treat cancer and malaria infections. There are research interests ...in recent years on terpene-derived metabolites (diterpenes, triterpenes and sesquiterpenes), which are believed to serve as excellent cholinesterase inhibitors. As cholinesterase inhibitors are the current treatment for Alzheimer's disease, terpene-derived metabolites will have the potential to be involved in the future drug development for Alzheimer's disease. Hence, a bibliographic search was conducted by using the keywords "terpene", "cholinesterase" and "Alzheimer's disease", along with cross-referencing from 2011 to 2020, to provide an overview of natural terpenes with potential anticholinesterase properties. This review focuses on the extraction, chemical structures and anti-cholinesterase mechanisms of terpenes, which support and encourage future research on drug discovery and development in treating Alzheimer's disease.
Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease that progresses in a relatively symptom-free manner; thus, is difficult to detect and treat. Essential oil is reported to exhibit pharmacological ...properties, besides its common and well-known function as aromatherapy. Therefore, this study herein aimed to investigate the anti-proliferative effect of essential oil extracted from leaves of Garcinia atroviridis (EO-L) against PANC-1 human pancreatic cancer cell line. The cell growth inhibitory concentration at 50% (IC50) and selective index (SI) values of EO-L analyses were determined as 78 µg/mL and 1.23, respectively. Combination index (CI) analysis revealed moderate synergism (CI values of 0.36 to 0.75) between EO-L and 2 deoxy-d-glucose (2-DG) treatments. The treatments of PANC-1 cells with EO-L, 2-DG and EOL+2DG showed evidence of depolarization of mitochondrial membrane potential, cell growth arrest and apoptosis. The molecular mechanism causing the anti-proliferative effect between EO-L and 2-DG is potentially through pronounced up-regulation of P53 (4.40-fold), HIF1α (1.92-fold), HK2 (2.88-fold) and down-regulation of CYP3A5 (0.11-fold), as supported by quantitative mRNA expression analysis. Collectively, the current data suggest that the combination of two anti-proliferative agents, EO-L and 2-DG, can potentially be explored as therapeutic treatments and as potentiating agents to conventional therapy against human pancreatic cancer.
Endophytic fungi are symbiotically related to plants and spend most of their life cycle within them. In nature, they have a crucial role in plant micro-ecosystem. They are harnessed for their ...bioactive compounds to counter human health problems and diseases. Endophytic
sp. is a widely distributed fungal genus that has garnered much interest within the scientific community. A substantial number of secondary metabolites have been detected from
sp. inhabited in various plants. As such, this minireview highlights the potential of
sp. as a rich source of bioactive compounds by emphasizing on their diverse chemical entities and potent biological properties. The bioactive compounds produced are of significant importance to act as new lead compounds for drug discovery and development.
Since ancient times, essential oils (EOs) derived from aromatic plants have played a significant role in promoting human health. EOs are widely used in biomedical applications due to their medicinal ...properties. EOs and their constituents have been extensively studied for treating various health-related disorders, including cancer. Nonetheless, their biomedical applications are limited due to several drawbacks. Recent advances in nanotechnology offer the potential for utilising EO-loaded nanoparticles in the treatment of various diseases. In this aspect, chitosan (CS) appears as an exceptional encapsulating agent owing to its beneficial attributes. This review highlights the use of bioactive EOs and their constituents against breast cancer cells. Challenges associated with the use of EOs in biomedical applications are addressed. Essential information on the benefits of CS as an encapsulant, the advantages of nanoencapsulated EOs, and the cytotoxic actions of CS-based nanoencapsulated EOs against breast cancer cells is emphasised. Overall, the nanodelivery of bioactive EOs employing polymeric CS represents a promising avenue against breast cancer cells in preclinical studies.
Alkaloids are a class of secondary metabolites that can be derived from plants, fungi and marine sponges. They are widely known as a continuous source of medicine for the management of chronic ...disease including cancer, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases. For example, galanthamine and huperzine A are alkaloid derivatives currently being used for the symptomatic management of neurodegenerative disease. The etiology of neurodegenerative diseases is polygenic and multifactorial including but not limited to inflammation, oxidative stress and protein aggregation. Therefore, natural-product-based alkaloids with polypharmacology modulation properties are potentially useful for further drug development or, to a lesser extent, as nutraceuticals to manage neurodegeneration. This review aims to discuss and summarise recent developments in relation to naturally derived alkaloids for neurodegenerative diseases.
Plastics are still the most popular food packaging material and many of them end up in the environment for a long period. Due to packaging material's inability to inhibit microbial growth, beef often ...contains microorganisms that affect its aroma, colour and texture. Cinnamic acid is categorized as generally recognised as safe and is permitted for use in food. The development of biodegradable food packaging film with cinnamic acid has never been conducted before. This present study was aimed to develop a biodegradable active packaging material for fresh beef using sodium alginate and pectin. The film was successfully developed with solution casting method. The films' thickness, colour, moisture level, dissolution, water vapour permeability, bending strength and elongation at break were comparable to those of polyethylene plastic film in terms of these attributes. The developed film also showed the degradability in soil of 43.26% in a duration of 15 days. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectra showed that cinnamic acid was successfully incorporated with the film. The developed film showed significant inhibitory activity on all test foodborne bacteria. On Hohenstein challenge test, a 51.28–70.45% reduction on bacterial growth was also observed. The antibacterial efficacy of the established film by using fresh beef as food model. The meats wrapped with the film showed significant reduction in bacterial load throughout the experimental period by 84.09%. The colour of the beef also showed significant different between control film and edible film during 5 days test. Beef with control film turned into dark brownish and beef with cinnamic acid turn into light brownish. Sodium alginate and pectin film with cinnamic acid showed good biodegradability and antibacterial activity. Further studies can be conducted to investigate the scalability and commercial viability of this environmental-friendly food packaging materials.
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•Sodium alginate-pectin with cinnamic acid showed 43.26% degradation in 15 days.•The film showed significant inhibitory activity all test foodborne bacteria.•The film showed 84.09% bacterial load reduction in beef.•The film also improved the colour quality of beef during storage.
The use of integrated anaerobic-aerobic bioreactor (IAAB) to treat the Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) showed promising results, which successfully overcome the limitation of a large space that is ...needed in the conventional method. The understanding of synergism between anaerobic digestion and aerobic process is required to achieve maximum biogas production and COD removal. Hence, this work presents the use of artificial neural network (ANN) to predict the COD removal (%), purity of methane (%), and methane yield (LCH4/gCODremoved) of anaerobic digestion and COD removal (%), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) removal (%), and total suspended solid (TSS) removal (%) of aerobic process in a pre-commercialized IAAB located at Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. MATLAB R2019b was used to develop the two ANN models. Bayesian regularization backpropagation (BR) showed the best performance among the 12 training algorithms. The trained ANN models showed high accuracy (R2 > 0.997) and demonstrated good alignment with the industrial data obtained from the pre-commercialized IAAB over a 6-month period. The developed ANN model is subsequently used to create the optimal operating conditions which maximize the output parameters. The COD removal (%) was improved by 33.9% (from 68.7% to 92%), while the methane yield was improved by 13.4% (from 0.23 LCH4/gCODremoved to 0.26 LCH4/gCODremoved). Sensitivity analysis shows that COD inlet is the most influential input parameters that affect the methane yield, anaerobic COD, BOD and TSS removals, while for aerobic process, COD removal is most affected by mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS). The trained ANN model can be utilized as a decision support system (DSS) for operators to predict the behavior of the IAAB system and solve the problems of instability and inconsistent biogas production in the anaerobic digestion process. This is of utmost importance for the successful commercialization of this IAAB technology. Additional input parameters such as the mixing time, reaction time, nutrients (ammonium nitrogen and total phosphorus) and concentration of microorganisms could be considered for the improvement of the ANN model.
A bottom-up approach for synthesizing silver nanoparticles (AgNPs-GA) phytomediated by
leaf extract is described. Under optimized conditions, the AgNPs-GA were synthesized at a concentration of 0.1 M ...silver salt and 10% (
/
) leaf extract, 1:4 mixing ratio of reactants, pH 3, temperature 32 °C and 72 h reaction time. The AgNPs-GA were characterized by various analytical techniques and their size was determined to be 5-30 nm. FTIR spectroscopy indicates the role of phenolic functional groups in the reduction of silver ions into AgNPs-GA and in supporting their subsequent stability. The UV-Visible spectrum showed an absorption peak at 450 nm which reflects the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of AgNPs-GA and further supports the stability of these biosynthesized nanoparticles. SEM, TEM and XRD diffractogram analyses indicate that AgNPs-GA were spherical and face-centered-cubic in shape. This study also describes the efficacy of biosynthesized AgNPs-GA as anti-proliferative agent against human breast cancer cell lines, MCF-7 and MCF-7/TAMR-1. Our findings indicate that AgNPs-GA possess significant anti-proliferative effects against both the MCF-7 and MCF-7/TAMR-1 cell lines, with inhibitory concentration at 50% (IC
values) of 2.0 and 34.0 µg/mL, respectively, after 72 h of treatment. An induction of apoptosis was evidenced by flow cytometry using Annexin V-FITC and propidium iodide staining. Therefore, AgNPs-GA exhibited its anti-proliferative activity via apoptosis on MCF-7 and MCF-7/TAMR-1 breast cancer cells in vitro. Taken together, the leaf extract from
was found to be highly capable of producing AgNPs-GA with favourable physicochemical and biological properties.
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