Chemical Composition Analysis,Cytotoxic, Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Activities of Physalis angulata L.: A Comparative Study of Leaves and Fruit

Physalis angulata L. belongs to the family Solanaceae and is distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions. Physalis angulata leaf and fruit extracts were assessed for in vitro anticancer, antioxidant activity, and total phenolic and flavonoid content. The GC-MS technique investigated the chemical composition and structure of bioactive chemicals reported in extracts. The anticancer activity results revealed a decrease in the percentage of anticancer cells’ viability in a concentration- and time-dependent way. We also noticed morphological alterations in the cells, which we believe are related to Physalis angulata extracts. Under light microscopy, we observed that as the concentration of ethanolic extract (fruit and leaves) treated HeLa cells increased, the number of cells began to decrease.     

Deep Learning and Structure-Based Virtual Screening for Drug Discovery against NEK7: A Novel Target for the Treatment of Cancer

NIMA-related kinase7 (NEK7) plays a multifunctional role in cell division and NLRP3 inflammasone activation. A typical expression or any mutation in the genetic makeup of NEK7 leads to the development of cancer malignancies and fatal inflammatory disease, i.e., breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, gout, rheumatoid arthritis, and liver cirrhosis. Therefore, NEK7 is a promising target for drug development against various cancer malignancies. The combination of drug repurposing and structure-based virtual screening of large libraries of compounds has dramatically improved the development of anticancer drugs. The current study focused on the virtual screening of 1200 benzene sulphonamide derivatives retrieved from the PubChem database by selecting and docking validation of the crystal structure of NEK7 protein (PDB ID: 2WQN). The compounds library was subjected to virtual screening using Auto Dock Vina. The binding energies of screened compounds were compared to standard Dabrafenib. In particular, compound 762 exhibited excellent binding energy of −42.67 kJ/mol, better than Dabrafenib (−33.89 kJ/mol). Selected drug candidates showed a reactive profile that was comparable to standard Dabrafenib. To characterize the stability of protein–ligand complexes, molecular dynamic simulations were performed, providing insight into the molecular interactions. The NEK7–Dabrafenib complex showed stability throughout the simulated trajectory. In addition, binding affinities, pIC50, and ADMET profiles of drug candidates were predicted using deep learning models. Deep learning models predicted the binding affinity of compound 762 best among all derivatives, which supports the findings of virtual screening. These findings suggest that top hits can serve as potential inhibitors of NEK7. Moreover, it is recommended to explore the inhibitory potential of identified hits compounds through in-vitro and in-vivo approaches.     

Magnetic solid-phase extraction of rose bengal using iron oxide nanoparticles modified with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide

Magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) based on cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)-coated magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (C-MIONPs) was investigated for the separation, preconcentration and determination of Rose Bengal (RB) in aqueous solutions. The influences of different analytical parameters such as pH, temperature, ionic strength, volume of desorbent solvent, amount of adsorbent and interfering ions in the adsorption of RB on C-MIONPs were investigated. The RB adsorption on C-MIONPs follows Langmuir isotherm. The sizes of C-MIONPs were in the range of 20–80 nm. The method was capable of determining RB concentration in the range of 0.01–1.20 μg ml^?1. The limit of detection (LOD) of RB based on three times the standard deviation of the blank (3Sb) was found to be 5.91 × 10–3 μg ml^?1 (n = 8). The relative standard deviation (RSD) for 0.3 μg ml^?1 and 0.8 μg ml^?1 of RB were 4.1% and 1.1%, respectively. The proposed method was applied to the determination of RB in Brucella Antigen solution and water samples from the Karoon River.     

Fast Removal and Recovery of Methylene Blue by Activated Carbon Modified with Magnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

A magnetic adsorbent was synthesized by modification of activated carbons with magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (AC‐MIONs). The preparation method is fast and could be carried out in an ordinary condition. The AC‐MIONs were used as quite efficient adsorbents for separation of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution in a batch process. The effect of different parameters such as pH, temperature, electrolyte concentration, contact time and interfering ions on the removal of MB were studied. The adsorption data were analyzed by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models and a maximum adsorption amount of 47.62 mg g^‐1 and a langmuir adsorption equilibrium constant of 3.0 L mg^‐1 were obtained. The obtained results revealed that AC‐MIONs were effective adsorbents for fast removal of MB from different aqueous solutions. This adsorbent was successfully used for removal of MB from Karoon River water.     

Some refinements of Enestrom-Kakeya theorem

In this paper we present certain interesting refinements of a well-known Enestrom-Kakeya theorem in the theory of distribution of zeros of polynomials which among other things also improve upon some results of Aziz and Mohammad, Govil and Rehman and others.     

Dependence structure and test of independence for some well-known bivariate distributions

In this paper, we study the dependence structure of some bivariate distribution functions based on dependence measures of Kochar and Gupta (Biometrika 74(3):664–666, 1987) and Shetty and Pandit (Stat Methods Appl 12:5–17, 2003) and then compare these measures with Spearman’s rho and Kendall’s tau. Moreover, the empirical power of the class of distribution-free tests introduced by Kochar and Gupta (1987) and Shetty and Pandit (2003) is computed based on exact and asymptotic distribution of U-statistics. Our results are obtained from simulation work in some continuous bivariate distributions for the sample of sizes \(n=6,8,15,20\) and 50. Also, we apply some examples to illustrate the results. Finally, we compare the common estimators of dependence parameter based on empirical MSE.     

Maximum Modulus of Polynomials

Let P(z) =n∑j=0 a_jz~j be a polynomial of degree n and let M(P, r) = max|z|=r|P(z)|. If P(z) ≠ 0 in |z| 1, then M( P, r) ≥ ((1 + r)/ (1 + ρ))~ n M( P, ρ).The result is best possible. In this paper we shall present a refinement of this result and some other related results.     

Validation of the Wiedemann–Franz law in a granular s-wave superconductor in the nanometer scale

The present study tries to evaluate the validity of the Wiedemann–Franz law in a granular s-wave superconductor in the presence of concentrated impurities. By using Green's function method and the Kubo formula technique, three distinct contributions of the Aslamazov–Larkin, the Maki–Thompson and, the density of states are calculated for both the electrical conductivity and the thermal conductivity in a granular s-wave superconductor. It is demonstrated that these different contributions to the fluctuation conductivity depend differently on the tunneling because of their different natures. This study examines the transport in a granular superconductor system in three dimensions in the limit of large tunneling conductance,which makes it possible to ignore all localization effects and the Coulomb interaction. We find that the tunneling is efficient near the critical temperature and that there is a crossover to the characteristic behavior of a homogeneous system.When it is far from the critical temperature, the tunneling is not effective and the system behaves as an ensemble of real zero-dimensional grains. The results show that the Wiedemann–Franz law is violated in both temperature regions.     

Evaluation of Gaussian hypergeometric series using Huff’s models of elliptic curves

The Ramanujan Journal - A Huff curve over a field K is an elliptic curve defined by the equation $$ax(y^2-1)=by(x^2-1)$$ where $$a,b\in K$$ are such that $$a^2\ne b^2$$ . In a similar fashion, a...     

Fabrication of Polypropylene/Poly (Trimethylene Terephthalate) Blend Fibers with Highly Improved Resiliency and Preserved Mechanical Properties

The main aim of this study was to deal with one of the major drawbacks of polypropylene (PP) fibers, i.e. low resiliency, by incorporating poly (trimethylene terephthalate) (PTT) nano-fibrils as a dispersed material into the PP polymer matrix. Thanks to the special helical shape of the PTT polymer backbone, the incorporated nano-fibrils of the PTT polymer strengthened the resiliency of the blend fibers. The presence of 10 and 15?wt% of PTT in the blend fibers led to an approximately 20% increase in the resilience behavior, compared to pure PP fibers, with the mechanical properties of the PP matrix preserved. The development of the fibrillar structures during the different steps of the melt spinning process was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the lowest mean diameter of the nano-fibrils was 64?nm for the hot drawn blend fiber samples consisting of 10?wt% of PTT. In summary, we suggest the optimized blend fiber samples produced in this research will be a promising candidate for a wide range of engineering applications.