Selectivity and sensitivity of a reagentless electrochemical DNA sensor studied by square wave voltammetry and fluorescence

Poly(5-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone-co-5-hydroxy-3-thioacetic acid-1,4-naphthoquinone)-modified electrode is used for the direct electrochemical detection of oligonucleotide hybridization. The polymer film presents well-defined electroactivity in the cathodic potential domain (between 0 and -0.8 V/SCE), due to the quinone group embedded into the polymer structure. The detection can be performed simply by square wave voltammetry. This sensor is a "signal-on" device and works with different oligonucleotide lengths, from 10 to 30 bases. Quantitative results from fluorescence are consistent with electrochemical data. It is confirmed that the signal increase in square wave voltammetry is unambiguously due to hybridization. The biosensor presents a detection limit of target of ca. 25 nM and is highly selective as it can discriminate single mismatch base.     

Combined effects of pressure and temperature on enzyme stability

Abstract

The effect of high temperature and high hydrostatic pressure on the residual hydrolytic activity of a commercial Rhizomucor miehei lipase has been studied. Inactivation at high temperature and/or high pressure was carried out. Under non-denaturing pressure conditions, results showed that pressurisation protects enzymes against thermal deactivation. This is in accordance with previous results obtained with enzymes from mesophilic sources, such as invertase and galactosidases.     

Enhanced Electrocatalytic Activity of Ni‐CNT Nanocomposites for Simultaneous Determination of Epinephrine and Dopamine

A promising electrochemical sensor based nickel‐carbon nanotube (Ni‐CNT) modified on glassy carbon (GC) electrode had been developed and the properties of the modified electrode were characterized by multispectroscopic analysis. The fabricated sensor (GC/Ni‐CNT) electrode was utilized to determine the catecholamines such as epinephrine and dopamine simultaneously. Differential pulse voltammetry and amperometry were used to verify the electrochemical behavior of the studied compounds. The GC/Ni‐CNT based amperometric sensor showed a wide linear range and low detection limit with high analytical sensitivity of 8.31 and 6.61 μA μM^?1 for EP and DA, respectively which demonstrates better characteristics compared to other electrodes reported in the literature. Further, no significant change in amperometric current response was observed in presence of biological interference species such as glucose, cysteine, citric acid, uric acid and ascorbic acid in the detection of EP and DA. The utility of this GC/Ni‐CNT electrode was well established for the determination of EP and DA in human urine samples.     

Solvent‐free Liquid Crystals and Liquids from DNA

As DNA exhibits persistent structures with dimensions that exceed the range of their intermolecular forces, solid‐state DNA undergoes thermal degradation at elevated temperatures. Therefore, the realization of solvent‐free DNA fluids, including liquid crystals and liquids, still remains a significant challenge. To address this intriguing issue, we demonstrate that combining DNA with suitable cationic surfactants, followed by dehydration, can be a simple generic scheme for producing these solvent‐free DNA fluid systems. In the anhydrous smectic liquid crystalline phase, DNA sublayers are intercalated between aliphatic hydrocarbon sublayers. The lengths of the DNA and surfactant are found to be extremely important in tuning the physical properties of the fluids. Stable liquid‐crystalline and liquid phases are obtained in the ?20 °C to 200 °C temperature range without thermal degradation of the DNA. Thus, a new type of DNA‐based soft biomaterial has been achieved, which will promote the study and application of DNA in a much broader context.     

Pybel: a Python wrapper for the OpenBabel cheminformatics toolkit

Background  

Scripting languages such as Python are ideally suited to common programming tasks in cheminformatics such as data analysis and parsing information from files. However, for reasons of efficiency, cheminformatics toolkits such as the OpenBabel toolkit are often implemented in compiled languages such as C++. We describe Pybel, a Python module that provides access to the OpenBabel toolkit.     

Catanionic aggregates formed from drugs and lauric or capric acids enable prolonged release from gels

The aim of this study was to add to the range of charged surfactants that can be used to form catanionic aggregates with oppositely charged surface active drug substances; and to apply these aggregates to prolong drug release from gels. The surfactants used in this study, lauric and capric acids are of natural origin-unlike traditionally used, synthetic, surfactants. The mixtures of drug substances and oppositely charged surfactants were studied visually and with cryogenic transmission electron microscopy. Drug release from gels was studied with a modified USP paddle method. This study shows that lauric and capric acids are as, or even more, active in forming catanionic aggregates than traditionally used surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulfate. It is shown that the length of the hydrophobic part of the surfactant plays an important role in the formation of pharmaceutically interesting catanionic aggregates. As seen in previous studies, using catanionic vesicles prolongs the drug release from gels and decreases the apparent diffusion coefficient by a factor of 10-50, compared to a gel containing only drug substance.     

Design and Development of a Non-Enzymatic Electrochemical Biosensor for the Detection of Glutathione

Glutathione (GSH-reduced form) is a tripeptide that plays a vital role as an antioxidant to remove xenobiotics in the human body and changes in GSH levels are a marker for the progression of various diseases. In this context, a highly sensitive non-enzymatic electrochemical biosensor for the detection of GSH has been developed using reduced graphene oxide Manganese oxide (rGMnO) nanocomposite as the nano-interface. Initially, graphene oxide was synthesized by Hummer's method and then thermally reduced in the presence of MnO₂ in a blast furnace to obtain rGMnO nanocomposite. The nanocomposite was characterized to validate its structure and morphological properties via Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Cyclic voltammetry and amperometry studies showed that upon the addition of GSH, the Pt/rGMnO modified working electrode exhibited a linear response in the range of 1–100 μM at an input voltage of −0.62 V. The developed sensor was found to have a sensitivity of 0.3256 μA μM⁻¹ and LOD of 970 nM with a recovery of 92–104 % in real blood serum samples.     

Quantification of Puerarin in Pueraria tuberosa DC. by High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC -     

LC–MS–MS Method for Simultaneous Analysis of Abacavir and Lamivudine in Human Plasma, and Its Application to a Bioequivalence Study

A rapid and sensitive LC–MS–MS method has been developed and validated for simultaneous analysis of abacavir (ABA) and lamivudine (LAM) in human plasma. The analytes were extracted from human plasma by SPE. Nelfinavir (NEL) and emtricitabine (EMT) were used as the internal standards for ABA and LAM, respectively. An RP18 column enabled chromatographic separation of the analytes. The method involves simple isocratic chromatography and MS detection in positive-ionization mode. Validation of the method showed response was a linear function of concentration in the ranges 100.0–7000.0 ng mL^?1 for ABA and 80.0–5000.0 ng mL^?1 for LAM. At the LOQ levels, inter-run and intra-run precision were within 5.80 and 3.51%, respectively, for ABA and within 4.68 and 3.16%, respectively, for LAM. Overall recovery for ABA and LAM was 59.32 and 105.18%, respectively. Total elution time was 2 min only, which enabled quantification of more than 200 plasma samples per day. This validated method was used successfully for analysis of plasma samples from a bioequivalence study.