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Currently, sample preparation is the most laborious part of the analytical process, requiring the most time and being susceptible to the most errors. In this context, numerous investigations have focused on the miniaturization of these techniques to reduce work time, costs, and errors. In this regard, microextraction by packed sorbent (MEPS) is a simple, fast, and robust sample preparation technique suitable for easy automation in several analytical systems and is applied to a wide variety of samples. Antibiotics are among the most commonly used drugs; however, their extensive and inappropriate use has garnered significant attention in the environment, human health, and food safety. This brief review is intended to provide an overview of recently reported antibiotic extraction methods based on MEPS, with a special interest in those applied to the analysis of biological, environmental, and food samples. In addition, the sample pretreatment step before extraction by the MEPS device was highlighted, as was the description of the sample-related steps within the MEPS procedure, such as extraction, washing, and elution.

Riolozatrione (RZ) is a diterpenoid compound isolated from a dichloromethane extract of the Jatropha dioica root. This compound has been shown to possess moderate antiherpetic activity in vitro. However, because of the poor solubility of this compound in aqueous vehicles, generating a stable formulation for potential use in the treatment of infection is challenging. The aim of this work was to optimize and physio-chemically characterize Eudragit® L100-55-based polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) loaded with RZ (NPR) for in vitro antiherpetic application. The NPs formulation was initially optimized using the dichloromethane extract of J. dioica, the major component of which was RZ. The optimized NPR formulation was stable, with a size of 263 nm, polydispersity index < 0.2, the zeta potential of –37 mV, and RZ encapsulation efficiency of 89 %. The NPR showed sustained release of RZ for 48 h with release percentages of 95 and 97 % at neutral and slightly acidic pH, respectively. Regarding in vitro antiherpetic activity, the optimized NPR showed a selectivity index for HSV-1 of ≈16 and for HSV-2 of 13.