SDS-Based Biomembrane Mimetic Chromatography for Prediction of Human Drug Transport as an in Vitro Technique

The main oral drug absorption barriers are fluid cell membranes, and generally drugs are absorbed by a passive diffusion mechanism. On the other hand, the blood–brain barrier (BBB) is considered to be the main barrier to drug transport into the central nervous system (CNS). The BBB restricts the passive diffusion of many drugs from blood to brain. Biopartitioning micellar chromatography (BMC), a mode of micellar liquid chromatography that uses micellar mobile phases in adequate experimental conditions, can be useful as an in vitro system in mimicking the drug partitioning process into biological systems. In this study, relationships between the BMC retention data of a heterogeneous set of 12 drugs and their pharmacokinetics parameters (human oral drug absorption and BBB penetration ability) are studied and the predictive ability of the models is evaluated. Modeling of log k _BMC of these compounds was established by multiple linear regression in two different concentrations (0.07 and 0.09 M) of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The results showed a fair correlation between human oral drug absorption and BMC retention data in 0.09 M SDS (R ² = 0.864) and a good correlation between the blood–brain distribution coefficient and BMC retention data in 0.07 M of SDS (R ² = 0.887). Application of the developed models to a prediction set demonstrated that the model is also reliable with good predictive accuracy. The external and internal validation results showed that the predicted values are in good agreement with the experimental value.     

The Radical Cationic Repair Pathway of Cyclobutane Pyrimidine Dimer: The Effect of Sugar‐Phosphate Backbone

Radical cationic repair process of cis–syn thymine dimer has been investigated when (1) sugar‐phosphate backbones were substituted by hydrogen atoms, (2) phosphate group was substituted by two hydrogen atoms each on a sugar ring and (3) sugar‐phosphate backbone was taken into account. The effect of the interactions between N1 and N1′ lone pairs and the C6‐C6′ antibonding orbital are the most important evidences for the cleavage of the C6‐C6′ bond in the first step of radical cationic repair mechanism in the absence of the sugar‐phosphate backbone. The impact of the N1 and N1′ lone pairs on the C6‐C6′ bond cleavage decreases and the energy barrier of the cleavage of that bond significantly increases in the presence of the deoxynucleoside sugars and the sugar‐phosphate backbone.     

A Novel Scheme for Calculating Pressure Fluctuations Used in Lagrangian-Eulerian Particulate Dispersion Codes

A novel scheme for pressure fluctuations in turbulent flows is developed. The pressure fluctuations are sensitive parameter in some of the fluid phenomena. In the computational methods and modeling turbulence flow, the pressure fluctuations are eliminated after averaging of the Navier-Stokes equations, and only average pressure could be calculated. In this research, the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are computed using SIMPLE method. The Reynolds stress transport model (RSTM) is used to determine the Reynolds stresses and the flow details. The velocity fluctuations are simulated using the Kraichnan model. The Poisson equation for the pressure fluctuations is obtained by taking the divergence of the incompressible momentum equation and algebraic operations, and this equation is numerically solved by finite difference method. The effects of Reynolds number on the pressure fluctuations are studied.     

Activation cross-sections of longer lived products of proton induced nuclear reactions on cobalt up to 70 MeV

As a part of our series of studies on charged particle induced reactions on various target materials, proton induced excitation functions on natural cobalt have been determined by using the stacked-foil technique. In these measurements the radionuclides ^55,56,57,58Co, ⁵¹Cr, ^52,54,56Mn and ^56,57Ni have been identified. For the above mentioned nuclides the cross-sections were derived from the measured activities and were compared with the literature data and with the results of EMPIRE code calculations and tabulated values in the TENDL 2011 library (based on TALYS code calculations). The agreement with previous measurements and with theoretical values was acceptable.     

Effect of Phosphate on Glucosamine Production by Ethanolic Fungus Mucor indicus

In this study, the effect of phosphorous compound concentration on the production of glucosamine by Mucor indicus was investigated. Changes in the yield of ethanol, the major metabolite of the fungus, were also followed besides. The alkali insoluble material of the biomass of the fungus mainly contained phosphates and polymers of glucosamine and N-acetyl glucosamine, i.e., chitin and chitosan. Yields of glucosamine (78–113 g/kg dry fungal biomass) and ethanol (200–370 g/kg glucose) were significantly affected by the phosphorous concentration. The results showed that lower concentrations of phosphorous favored the production of glucosamine while higher ethanol as well as biomass yields was obtained at higher concentrations. The best concentration was 0.5 g/l where glucosamine yield was 0.37 g/l (11 % of the biomass). At this phosphate concentration, ethanol and biomass yields were 360 and 76 g/kg glucose, respectively. On average, proteins comprised 51.5 % of the biomass. Glycerol was the second important metabolite during the fermentation by the fungus which appeared at lower yields (20–34 g/kg glucose).     

Magnetic solid-phase extraction using Schiff base ligand supported on magnetic nanoparticles as sorbent combined with dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction for the extraction of phenols from water samples

ABSTRACT

In this work, the magnetic sorbent was developed by covalent binding of a Schiff base ligand, N,N’-bis(3-salicyliden aminopropyl)amine (salpr), on the surface of silica coated magnetic nanoparticles (Salpr@SCMNPs). The core-shell nanoparticle was applied for the magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) combined with dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) of phenolic compounds from water samples prior to gas chromatography-flame ionisation detector (GC?FID). Characterisation of the Salpr@SCMNPs was performed with different physicochemical methods such as Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). Variables affecting the performance of both extraction steps such as pH of the water sample, the sorbent amount, the desorption conditions, the extraction time; and extraction solvent were studied. Under the optimised conditions, the analytical performances were determined with a linear range of 0.01–100 ng mL^?1 and a limit of detection at 0.003–0.02 ng mL^?1 for all of the analytes studied. The intra-day (n = 5) and inter-day (n = 3) relative standard deviations (RSD%) of three replicates were each demonstrated in the range of 6.9–8.9% and 7.3–10.1%, respectively. The proposed method was executed for the analysis of real water samples, whereby recoveries in the range of 92.9–99.0% and RSD% lower than 6.1% were attained.     

Pertraction of methylene blue using a mixture of D2EHPA/M2EHPA and sesame oil as a liquid membrane

An experimental study on the pertraction of methylene blue (MB) through a supported liquid membrane (SLM) using a mixture of mono-(2-etylhexyl) ester of phosphoric acid (M2EHPA) and bis-(2-etylhexyl) ester of phosphoric acid (D2EHPA) and sesame oil as the liquid membrane (LM) was performed. Parameters affecting the pertraction of MB such as initial MB concentration, carrier concentration, feed phase pH, and stripping phase concentration were analyzed. Optimal experimental conditions for MB pertraction (permeability of 5.63 × 10^?6) were obtained after a 7 h separation with the MB concentration in the feed phase of 80 mg L^?1, D2EHPA/M2EHPA concentration in membrane phase of 40 vol. %, feed pH of 6, and acetic acid concentration in the stripping phase of 0.4 mol L^?1. Kinetics of transport and stability of the SLM system were also studied and the mass transfer coefficient for this system was evaluated. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to morphologically characterize the membrane surface.     

Synthesis of highly pure nanocrystalline and mesoporous CaTiO3 by a particulate sol–gel route at the low temperature

The low temperature perovskite-type calcium titanate (CaTiO₃) thin films and powders with nanocrystalline and mesoporous structure were prepared by a straightforward particulate sol–gel route. The prepared sol had a narrow particle size distribution about 17 nm. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed that, the synthesized powders had highly pure and crystallized CaTiO₃ structure with preferable orientation growth along (1 2 1) direction at 400–800 °C. The activation energy of crystal growth was calculated 5.73 kJ/mol. Furthermore, transmission electron microscope images showed that the average crystallite size of the powders annealed at 400 °C was around 3.5 nm. Field emission scanning electron microscope analysis and atomic force microscope images revealed that, the deposited thin films had uniform, mesoporous and nanocrystalline structure with the average grain size in the range 33–39 nm depending on annealing temperature. Based on Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis, the synthesized powders showed mesoporous structure with BET surface area in the range 51–21 m²/g at 400–800 °C. One of the smallest crystallite size and one of the highest surface areas reported in the literature is obtained which can be used in many applications, such as photocatalysts.     

Solid Particle Distribution in Centrifugal Impeller Contactors

The recently developed centrifugal impeller is examined to investigate the solid–liquid mixing in a mechanically agitated contactor. Using the sample withdrawal method, the effects of impeller geometrical parameters, impeller rotational speed (200–700 rpm), solid particle size (500–1100 µm), and solid loading (2–10 vol%) on the degree of homogeneity are studied. The axial and the radial solid concentration profiles and the minimum impeller speed for the complete homogenization are also determined. In comparison with a widely used propeller impeller, considerably higher homogeneity values in lower impeller speeds are obtained (90% homogeneity against 16% homogeneity at 200 rpm at the same conditions). Having also lower power consumption makes this a superior impeller in solid–liquid mixing processes especially in shear-sensitive systems.      

A simple and clean method for multicomponent synthesis of spiro [indole-tetrahydropyrano(2,3-d)pyrimidine] derivatives using SBA-Pr-SO3H as catalyst under solvent-free conditions

Sulfonic acid functionalized SBA-15 (SBA-Pr-SO₃H) as a new nanoporous solid acid catalyst was applied in the green one-pot synthesis of spiro[indole-tetrahydropyrano(2,3-d)pyrimidine] derivatives via three-component reaction of isatins, malononitrile or cyanoacetic esters and barbituric acids under solvent-free conditions. SBA-Pr-SO₃H was proved to be an efficient heterogeneous nanoporous solid acid catalyst with a pore size of 6 nm, which could be easily handled and removed from the reaction mixture by simple filtration and can be recovered and reused several times without any loss of activity. The advantages of this methodology are high product yields, being environmentally benign, short reaction times, and easy handling.