大豆磷脂软胶囊中铅、铬、镉、砷4种微量重金属的检测方法研究

为了方便、快速、准确地检测大豆磷脂软胶囊中铅、铬、镉、砷4种微量重金属元素的含量,建立了一种冷冻快速粉碎-微波消解的前处理方式,采用电感耦合等离子体质谱仪(ICP-MS)进行测定。试验结果表明:经冷冻快速粉碎后的软胶囊壳颗粒均一;微波消解耗时短、操作简便、耗费试剂少,ICP-MS测定结果显示铅、铬、镉、砷4种重金属的平均回收率在82. 6%～92. 9%之间。试验结果满意,可为日常工作中测定软胶囊类产品中重金属前处理作参考。     

现场双经纬仪三维坐标测量系统

分析了经纬仪透视投影模型以及双经纬仪三维坐标测量模型。采用线性与非线性相结合的方法来求解双经纬仪坐标测量系统的参数,首先由8个以上空间点在两台经纬仪投影平面内对应的投影坐标计算出本质矩阵E,通过本质矩阵E的奇异值分解以及空间绝对距离的约束采用线性方法求出右经纬仪的投影矩阵,然后建立包含空间点在两台经纬仪投影平面内投影点固有约束以及空间点三维坐标在内的目标函数,并以线性方法求出的参数为初值,采用非线性优化的方法求解最优测量系统的参数。该方法保证了求解参数为全局最优,且求解速度快。试验结果表明,该方法切实可行。     

Antifungal activity of five different essential oils in vapour phase for the control of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides and Lasiodiplodia theobromae in vitro and on mango

Mango fruit has high commercial value; however, major postharvest losses are encountered throughout the supply chain due to postharvest diseases. These results lead to the search for natural fungicide for postharvest diseases control. The antifungal effects of five essential oils (thyme, clove, cinnamon, anise and vitex) were assessed by disc volatilisation method. Thyme oil vapours at 5 μL per Petriplate, and clove and cinnamon oil at 8 μL per Petriplate showed 100% growth inhibition of mango pathogens in vitro. GC/MS analysis of essential oil showed thymol (23.88), o‐cymol (23.88) and terpinolene (23.88) as the major constituents of thyme oil. Clove and cinnamon oils contain 3‐allyl‐2‐methoxyphenol (37.42%) and benzofuran 3‐methyl (17.97%), respectively. Thyme oil as a fumigant at 66.7 μL L^?1 showed a significant (P < 0.05) inhibition on postharvest pathogens of mango fruits stored at 25 °C for 6 days. Results of our study suggest the possibility of using thyme oil as an alternate natural fungicide to manage postharvest diseases in mango.     

Extraction of Siphonochilus aethiopicus Essential Oil by Steam Distillation

Siphonochilus aethiopicus is an indigenous South African plant also known as African ginger. It has often been used for its medicinal properties to treat various ailments such as flu, colds, and so forth. The research aim of this study was to optimize the process parameters of steam distillation for the extraction of oil from African ginger rhizomes. This technology is the oldest and well known for extracting essential oils due to its economic viability and the higher final oil purity. The effects of operating parameters such as extraction duration, moisture content, particle size, and temperatures between 80°C and 100°C were studied for maximum oil recovery. The oil recovery of 0.61% (w/w) was achieved after 270?min of extraction time, using 6.37% (dry) moisture content of particle size 2.4?mm–4?mm at a maximum temperature of 100°C. Fick’s first law was used to mathematically model the experimental data of this study.     

Development of Phospholipids Vesicular Nanocarrier for Topical Delivery of Tea Tree Oil in Management of Atopic Dermatitis Using BALB/c Mice Model

This work aims to develop and evaluate the efficacy of tea tree oil (TTO) ethosomal cream with improved deposition in skin layers for treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD). Ethosomes of TTO are developed using phosphatidylcholine (2% and 3% w/v) and ethanol (20%, 30%, and 40% w/v). Ethosomes are evaluated for percent entrapment efficiency (%EE), vesicle size, zeta potential, and in vitro drug diffusion. Ethosomal creams with optimized ethosomal dispersion are developed and evaluated for physicochemical parameters, thermal stability, ex vivo permeation, skin retention, and in vitro cytotoxicity using HaCat skin cell lines in comparison to conventional creams of TTO. In vivo investigations of optimized creams are performed using BALB/c mice model. The %EE, vesicle size, and zeta potential for optimized ethosomes are found to be 76.19 ± 3.26%, 333.6 nm, and –35.3 mV, respectively. Ethosomal creams showed higher deposition in the epidermis and dermis. The optimized creams are non-cytotoxic to HaCat cell lines. The creams significantly reduce the inflammatory response by decreasing the clinical score and infiltration of white blood cells, eosinophils, and IgE antibodies. Overall efficacy of ethosomal cream is higher than conventional cream. In conclusion, optimized ethosomal cream of TTO shows good efficacy for treatment of AD. Practical applications : The method used for the formulation of ethosomes is simple and can be easily scaled up on the industrial level. The loading of TTO within ethosomes can increase the efficiency by enhanced drug deposition in the epidermis and might also improve its stability against oxidative degradation. Topical ethosomal cream of TTO can improve patient compliance by avoidance of adverse effects linked with corticosteroids and could be a possible complementary or alternative therapy in management of AD.     

Iron‐mediated lipid oxidation in 70% fish oil‐in‐water emulsions: effect of emulsifier type and pH

The objective of this study was to investigate the protective effect of five different emulsifiers on iron‐mediated lipid oxidation in 70% fish oil‐in‐water emulsions. The emulsifiers were either based on protein (whey protein isolate and sodium caseinate) or based on phospholipid (soy lecithin and two milk phospholipids with different phospholipid contents, MPL20 and MPL75). Lipid oxidation was studied at pH 4.5 and 7.0, and results were compared to lipid oxidation in neat fish oil. Results showed that all emulsions oxidised more than neat oil. Furthermore, emulsions prepared with proteins oxidised more at low pH than at high pH, and casein emulsions oxidised the least (Peroxide value (PV) at day 7 was 0.5–0.7 meq kg^?1). Among emulsions prepared with phospholipids, emulsions with MPL75 were the most oxidised followed by emulsions prepared with lecithin and MPL20. Thus, PV in MPL75 emulsions was 5.0–5.5 meq kg^?1 at day 7 compared with 0.9–1.9 meq kg^?1 in MPL20 emulsions.     

Impact of microfluidization or ultrasound processing on the antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli of lemongrass oil-loaded nanoemulsions

The effect of the ultrasonication and microfluidization processing conditions on the antimicrobial activity of lemongrass oil–alginate nanoemulsions was studied. Sonication led to less effective nanoemulsions against Escherichia coli, being the loss of antimicrobial potential dependent on the amplitude and treatment time applied. Namely, nanoemulsions sonicated at 100 μm for 180 s almost completely lost their bactericidal action, leading to 0.3 log-reductions of E. coli population after 30 min of contact time. On the contrary, nanoemulsions processed by microfluidization exhibited an enhanced antimicrobial activity, which was proportional to the number of cycles through the microfluidization chamber. In fact, whereas the coarse emulsion reduced the E. coli population up to 0.66, 2.25 and 5.85 log-units after 5, 15 and 30 min of contact time, the microfluidized nanoemulsions (10 cycles, 150 MPa) achieved 1.37, 5.29 and 7.07 log-reductions. Therefore, nanoemulsions with an improved functionally could be obtained by microfluidization, whereas ultrasounds seem to have a deleterious impact on the antimicrobial activity of lemongrass essential oil.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of mutated Mycobacterium tuberculosis l-alanine dehydrogenase to illuminate the role of key residues

l-Alanine dehydrogenase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (l-MtAlaDH) catalyzes the NADH-dependent interconversion of l-alanine and pyruvate, and it is considered to be a potential target for the treatment of tuberculosis. The experiment has verified that amino acid replacement of the conserved active-site residues which have strong stability and no great changes in biological evolutionary process, such as His96 and Asp270, could lead to inactive mutants [Ågren et al., J. Mol. Biol. 377 (2008) 1161–1173]. However, the role of these conserved residues in catalytic reaction still remains unclear. Based on the crystal structures, a series of mutant structures were constructed to investigate the role of the conserved residues in enzymatic reaction by using molecular dynamics simulations. The results show that whatever the conserved residues were mutated, the protein can still convert its conformation from open state to closed state as long as NADH is present in active site. Asp270 maintains the stability of nicotinamide ring and ribose of NADH through hydrogen bond interactions, and His96 is helpful to convert the protein conformation by interactions with Gln271, whereas, they would lead to the structural rearrangement in active site and lose the catalytic activity when they were mutated. Additionally, we deduce that Met301 plays a major role in catalytic reaction due to fixing the nicotinamide ring of NADH to prevent its rotation, and we propose that Met301 would be mutated to the hydrophobic residue with large steric hindrance in side chain to test the activity of the protein in future experiment.     

Improved oil treatment conditions for soft degumming

“Soft degumming” is a new physicochemical degumming process. It involves the complete elimination of phospholipids by using a chelating agent, EDTA, in the prescence of an emulsifying additive. To study the optimal cost of the process, a laboratory study was undertaken to find a method based on substituting the emulsifying additive by endogenous phospholipids. The phospholipids were first extracted from the oil by an initial hot-water treatment. In a second stage, a solution containing a chelating agent was incorporated. The mixture was then vigorously stirred to form an emulsion. The degummed oil was obtained after centrifugation. A comparative study carried out on several oils provided an indication of the efficiency of this alternative procedure. The phospholipid content of the processed oils was about 5 ppm phosphorus.