EMULSOMES: AN EMERGING VESICULAR DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM

The oral route is the easiest, cost effective, and most vital method for drug administration. Therefore, improvement of dosage forms, mainly for the prolonged release purpose has been a challenge for scientists. Vesicular drug delivery systems are developed with a purpose to overcome problems coupled with the drugs such a poor bioavailability, protection from harsh gastric environment, and from gastric enzymes, which degrade the drug. Vesicular drug delivery systems such as liposomes, emulsions, niosomes, proniosomes, solid lipid-nano particles, ethosomes, nanoparticles, and pharmacosomes, etc have gained much attention, but emulsomes have rouse as system, which bypasses many disadvantages associated with other systems, developed as novel lipoidal vesicular system with internal solid fat core surrounded by phospholipid bilayer. This technology is designed to act as vehicle for poorly soluble drugs. The drug is enclosed in the emulsomes and provide prolong existence of drug in systemic circulation. Furthermore, emulsomal-based formulations of genetic drugs such as antisense oligonucleotides and plasmids for gene therapy that have clear potential for systemic utility are increasingly available. This review addresses the concept of emulsomal drug delivery system, summarizes the success of emulsomes for the delivery of small molecules, and special attention has been paid to its formulation design, advantages, biopharmaceutical aspects, stability aspects, and various aspects related to drug delivery including future aspects. Keywords: Controlled oral drug delivery, emulsomes, oral bioavailability, vesicular drug deliver

MANUFACTURING DEFECTS OF TABLETS - A REVIEW

Tablet defects can come from any of the unit operation upstream and from the tablet press. The raw materials may be of poor quality or do not meet specification, causing excessive fines that lead to a host of defects. The formulation may be the source of defects if the material do not compress well or the processing step specified within the formulation fail to produce a powder a good flow, compressibility, and ejection properties. The processing and granulation of powder is often the source of defect. Every product behaves differently on a tablet press, even if it’s the same product run on a different day. The variation often stems from changes in the properties of the raw materials—active ingredients and excipients- from batch to batch. Naturally, the goal is to minimize these changes. Tablet press operators, however, don’t have any control over formulation and granulation. Tablet specifications are tight, and the list of possible defects is long: Variable weight, sticking, picking, capping, lamination, variable hardness, among others. This article focuses on these variations. It pinpoints the possible causes of these defects and offers advice on preventing and fixing the source of the problems. Key words: capping, mixing, granules, punches, compression, crackin

ROLE OF NIOSOMES AND PRONIOSOMES FOR ENHANCING BIOAVAILABILITY OF DRUGS

Niosome are non-ionic surfactant vesicles obtained on hydration of synthetic nonionic surfactants, with or without incorporation of cholesterol or their lipids. They are vesicular systems similar to liposomes that can be used as carriers of amphiphilic and lipophilic drugs. Noisome are promising vehicle for drug delivery and being non-ionic; and Niosomes are biodegradable, biocompatible nonimmunogenic and exhibit flexibility in their structural characterization. Niosomes can entrap both hydrophilic and lipophilic drugs and can prolong the circulation of the entrapped drug in body. Proniosomes are dry formulation of water soluble carrier particles that are coated with surfactant. They are rehydrated to form niosomal dispersion immediately before use on agitation in hot aqueous media within minutes. Proniosomes and niosomes are physically stable during the storage and transport. Drug encapsulated in the vesicular structure of proniosomes prolong the existence of drug in the systematic circulation and enhances the penetration into target tissue and reduce toxicity. From a technical point of view, niosomes and proniosomes are promising drug carriers as they possess greater chemical stability and lack of many disadvantages associated with liposomes, such as high- cost and variable purity problems of phospholipids. The present review emphasizes on overall methods of preparation characterization and applicability of niosomes and proniosomes in targeted drug delivery. KEYWORDS: proniosomes, targeted , Niosome

NANOTECHNOLOGY IN CANCER THERAPY

Cancer is caused by damage of genes which control the growth and division of cells. Detection/diagnose/treatment is possible by confirming the growth of the cells and treated by rectifying the damaging mechanism of the genes or by stopping the blood supply to the cells or by destroying it. The application of nanotechnology for cancer therapy has received considerable attention in recent years. Cancer nanotechnology (an interdisciplinary area of research in science, engineering and medicine) is an upcoming field with extensive applications. Recent developments in nanotechnology have provided researchers with new tools for cancer imaging and treatment. This technology has enabled the development of nanoscale devices that can be conjugated with several functional molecules simultaneously, including tumour-specific ligands, antibodies, anticancer drugs, and imaging probes. Since these nanodevices are 100 to 1,000-fold smaller than cancer cells, they can be easily transferred through leaky blood vessels and interact with targeted tumour-specific proteins both on the surface of and inside cancer cells. Keywords: tumour, chemotherapy, liposomes, nanoparticles, treatmen

Visualizing calcium flux in freely moving nematode embryos

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2017. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Cell Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Biophysical Journal 112 (2017): 1975-1983, doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2017.02.035.The lack of physiological recordings from Caenorhabditis elegans embryos stands in stark contrast to the comprehensive anatomical and gene expression datasets already available. Using light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) to address the challenges associated with functional imaging at this developmental stage, we recorded calcium dynamics in muscles and neurons and developed analysis strategies to relate activity and movement. In muscles, we found that the initiation of twitching was associated with a spreading calcium wave in a dorsal muscle bundle. Correlated activity in muscle bundles was linked with early twitching and eventual coordinated movement. To identify neuronal correlates of behavior, we monitored brain-wide activity with subcellular resolution and identified a particularly active cell associated with muscle contractions. Finally, imaging neurons of a well-defined adult motor circuit, we found that reversals in the eggshell correlated with calcium transients in AVA interneurons.E.A. and A.K. acknowledge support from the Grass Fellowship Program and D. C-R. and H.S. acknowledge the Whitman Fellowship program at MBL. This work was supported by the intramural research program of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and NIH grants U01 HD075602 and R24OD016474 to D.C-R and A.K.2018-05-0

Ameloblastic Fibroodontoma: Uncommon Case Presentation in a 6-Year-Old Child with Review of the Literature

Ameloblastic fibroodontoma is a benign mixed odontogenic neoplasm considered in patients with asymptomatic swelling and unerupted teeth that exhibit histologic features between ameloblastic fibroma and complex odontoma. Radiographically, this lesion appears as radiolucency admixed with focal radio opaque masses of irregular shapes and sizes. This lesion is confirmed by the presence of proliferating odontogenic epithelium, ectomesenchyme, and dental hard tissue formation on pathological analysis supplementing clinical and radiographic findings. As this tumour is less commonly seen in routine clinical practice, ameloblastic fibroodontoma with detailed orofacial features and periodic approach to its diagnosis is discussed. This paper reports a case of ameloblastic fibroodontoma of the mandible in a 6-year-old male patient with an uncommon case presentation and review of the literature

Assessment techniques, database design and software facilities for thermodynamics and diffusion

The purpose of this article is to give a set of recommendations to producers of assessed thermodynamic data, who may be involved in either the critical evaluation of limited chemical systems or the creation and dissemination of larger thermodynamic databases. Also, it is hoped that reviewers and editors of scientific publications in this field will find some of the information useful. Good practice in the assessment process is essential, particularly as datasets from many different sources may be combined together into a single database. With this in mind, we highlight some problems that can arise during the assessment process and we propose a quality assurance procedure. It is worth mentioning at this point, that the provision of reliable assessed thermodynamic data relies heavily on the availability of high quality experimental information. The different software packages for thermodynamics and diffusion are described here only briefly

Reflective imaging improves spatiotemporal resolution and collection efficiency in light sheet microscopy

© The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 8 (2017): 1452, doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01250-8.Light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) enables high-speed, high-resolution, and gentle imaging of live specimens over extended periods. Here we describe a technique that improves the spatiotemporal resolution and collection efficiency of LSFM without modifying the underlying microscope. By imaging samples on reflective coverslips, we enable simultaneous collection of four complementary views in 250 ms, doubling speed and improving information content relative to symmetric dual-view LSFM. We also report a modified deconvolution algorithm that removes associated epifluorescence contamination and fuses all views for resolution recovery. Furthermore, we enhance spatial resolution (to <300 nm in all three dimensions) by applying our method to single-view LSFM, permitting simultaneous acquisition of two high-resolution views otherwise difficult to obtain due to steric constraints at high numerical aperture. We demonstrate the broad applicability of our method in a variety of samples, studying mitochondrial, membrane, Golgi, and microtubule dynamics in cells and calcium activity in nematode embryos.This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health. P.L. and H.S. acknowledge summer support from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, through the Whitman- and Fellows- program. P.L. acknowledges support from NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under grant number R01EB017293. C.S. acknowledges funding from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of NIH under Award Number R25GM109439 (Project Title: University of Chicago Initiative for Maximizing Student Development [IMSD]) and NIBIB under grant number T32 EB002103. Partial funding for the computation in this work was provided by NIH grant numbers S10 RRO21039 and P30 CA14599. A.U. and I.R.-S. were supported by the NSF grant number 1607645

Marker-assisted selection for transfer of QTLs to a promising line for drought tolerance in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Wheat crop is subjected to various biotic and abiotic stresses, which affect crop productivity and yield. Among various abiotic stresses, drought stress is a major problem considering the current global climate change scenario. A high-yielding wheat variety, HD3086, has been released for commercial cultivation under timely sown irrigated conditions for the North Western Plain Zone (NWPZ) and North Eastern Plain Zone NEPZ of India. Presently, HD3086 is one of the highest breeder seed indented wheat varieties and has a stable yield over the years. However, under moisture deficit conditions, its potential yield cannot be achieved. The present study was undertaken to transfer drought-tolerant QTLs in the background of the variety HD3086 using marker-assisted backcross breeding. QTLs governing Biomass (BIO), Canopy Temperature (CT), Thousand Kernel Weight (TKW), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Yield (YLD) were transferred to improve performance under moisture deficit conditions. In BC1F1, BC2F1, and BC2F2 generations, the foreground selection was carried out to identify the plants with positive QTLs conferring drought tolerance and linked to traits NDVI, CT, TKW, and yield. The positive homozygous lines for targeted QTLs were advanced from BC2F2 to BC2F4via the pedigree-based phenotypic selection method. Background analysis was carried out in BC2F5 and obtained 78-91% recovery of the recurrent parent genome in the improved lines. Furthermore, the advanced lines were evaluated for 2 years under drought stress to assess improvement in MABB-derived lines. Increased GWPS, TKW, and NDVI and reduced CT was observed in improved lines. Seven improved lines were identified with significantly higher yields in comparison to HD3086 under stress conditions

A Novel Triterpenoid Isolated from the Root Bark of Ailanthus excelsa Roxb (Tree of Heaven), AECHL-1 as a Potential Anti-Cancer Agent

We report here the isolation and characterization of a new compound Ailanthus excelsa chloroform extract-1 (AECHL-1) (C(29)H(36)O(10); molecular weight 543.8) from the root bark of Ailanthus excelsa Roxb. The compound possesses anti-cancer activity against a variety of cancer cell lines of different origin.AECHL-1 treatment for 12 to 48 hr inhibited cell proliferation and induced death in B16F10, MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and PC3 cells with minimum growth inhibition in normal HEK 293. The antitumor effect of AECHL-1 was comparable with that of the conventional antitumor drugs paclitaxel and cisplatin. AECHL-1-induced growth inhibition was associated with S/G(2)-M arrests in MDA-MB-231, MCF-7, and PC3 cells and a G(1) arrest in B16F10 cells. We observed microtubule disruption in MCF-7 cells treated with AECHL-1 in vitro. Compared with control, subcutaneous injection of AECHL-1 to the sites of tumor of mouse melanoma B16F10 implanted in C57BL/6 mice and human breast cancer MCF-7 cells in athymic nude mice resulted in significant decrease in tumor volume. In B16F10 tumors, AECHL-1 at 50 microg/mouse/day dose for 15 days resulted in increased expression of tumor suppressor proteins P53/p21, reduction in the expression of the oncogene c-Myc, and downregulation of cyclin D1 and cdk4. Additionally, AECHL-1 treatment resulted in the phosphorylation of p53 at serine 15 in B16F10 tumors, which seems to exhibit p53-dependent growth inhibitory responses.The present data demonstrate the activity of a triterpenoid AECHL-1 which possess a broad spectrum of activity against cancer cells. We propose here that AECHL-1 is a futuristic anti-cancer drug whose therapeutic potential needs to be widely explored for chemotherapy against cancer