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The discrimination and determination of small organics may be employed for baijiu identification. A single nanoparticle was designed as a fluorescence sensor to address this issue. Via specific host-guest interactions, small organics may significantly disrupt the energy transmission of nanoparticles, resulting in sharp changes in characteristic fluorescence peaks, thus allowing the discrimination of single substances or mixtures by principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The system was characterized by transmission electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry and fluorescence spectroscopy. 15 small flavor organics in baijiu were successfully discriminated. Moreover, the linear relationship between the concentrations of tryptophan and ethyl butyrate with the corresponding responsiveness demonstrated the capabilities of the sensor. The reported device was successfully applied to distinguish 16 baijiu brands. This simple and rapid method has outstanding potential for the characterization of alcoholic beverages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anti-infection ability and skin regeneration are important aspects on the progress of wound healing, which needs an ideal wound dressing that not only resists bacteria but also promotes skin regeneration. In this study, zinc oxide/silver/polyvinylpyrrolidone/polycaprolactone (ZnO/Ag/PVP/PCL) nanofibres were prepared through electrospinning. Firstly, zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs) and silver nanoparticle (AgNPs) were synthesized respectively. Secondly, the two nanoparticles were mixed with polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and polycaprolactone (PCL) to obtain the nanofibres. The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that ZnONPs and AgNPs were 40.07 ± 9.70 nm and 37.46 ± 12.02 nm, respectively. After electrospinning, the nanofibres were 368.22 ± 123.96 nm in diameter. Infrared spectroscopy revealed that ZnONPs/AgNPs bimetallic nanomaterials were physically embedded in the nanofibres. The antibacterial effects against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli of ZnO/Ag/PVP/PCL nanofibres were significantly better than these of the single metal material-loaded nanofibres. More importantly, the combination of ZnO and Ag reduced the cytotoxicity of ZnO/Ag/PVP/PCL bimetallic nanofibres toward fibroblasts. These findings demonstrated that ZnO/Ag/PVP/PCL bimetallic nanofibres should be of greater interest than the single metal nanomaterial-loaded nanofibres in inhibiting growth of bacteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A co-loaded drug delivery system based on ascorbyl palmitate that can transport various functional drugs to their targets within a tumor represents an attractive strategy for increasing the efficiency of anticancer treatment. In this study, we developed a dual drug delivery system to encapsulate ascorbyl palmitate (AP) and paclitaxel (PTX) for synergistic cancer therapy. AP, which is a vitamin C derivative, and PTX were incorporated into solid lipid nanoparticles (AP/PTX-SLNs), which were used to treat murine B16F10 melanoma that had metastasized to the lungs of mice. These nanoparticles were spherical with an average size of 223 nm as measured by transmission electron microscope and dynamic light scattering.In vitrocytotoxicity assays indicated that the AP/PTX-SLNs with an AP/PTX mass ratio of 2/1 provided the optimal synergistic anticancer efficacy.In vivo, AP/PTX-SLNs were revealed to be much more effective in suppressing tumor growth in B16F10-bearing mice and in eliminating cancer cells in the lungs than single drug (AP or PTX)-loaded SLNs via a synergistic effect through reducing the Bcl-2/Bax ratio. Furthermore, no marked side effects were observed during the treatment with the AP/PTX-SLNs, indicating that the co-delivery system with ascorbyl palmitate holds promising clinical potential in cancer therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on the performance of sodium alginate (SA)/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/moxifloxacin hydrochloride (MH) nanofibrous membranes (NFM) capable of providing antibacterial agent delivery for wound-dressing applications. The aim of this work was to prepare antibacterial NFM with good permeability properties by employing PVA and SA as carriers. A group of 12% PVA/2% SA solutions blended in various ratios (8:2, 7:3, 6:4, 5:5 and 4:6, v/v) and containing 0.5, 1, 2 or 4 wt% MH were studied for electrospinning into nanoscale fibermats. The optimum ratio found to form smooth fibers with uniform fibrous features was 6:4. The drug release behavior of the electrospun, the antibacterial effects onPseudomonas aeruginosaandStaphylococcus aureusand the animal wound dressing capabilities were also investigated. As much as 80% of the MH was released from the electrospun after 10 h of incubation at 37 °C. In addition, the NFM with 0.5 MH exhibited less activity, whereas those with higher concentrations of MH exhibited greater antibacterial effect. Furthermore, the MH-loaded electrospun accelerated the rate of wound dressing compared to other groups. The results of thein vitroandin vivoexperiments suggest that MH/PVA/SA nanofibers might be an interesting bioactive wound dressing for clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A new diketopiperazine (DKP) derivative, (6R,3Z)-3-benzylidene-6-isobutyl-1-methyl piperazine-2,5-dione (1), as well as five known DKPs 2–6 was isolated from a deep sea-derived Streptomyces sp. SCSIO 04496. The structure of 1 was elucidated using a combination of 1D and 2D NMR, HR-ESI-MS and chiral-phase HPLC techniques. Compounds 1–6 did not show cytotoxic activity at a concentration of 100 μM in bioactivity assay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]