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Background: Emerging virus infections provoke health problems in people and animals, which generate social and economic issues worldwide. This has spurred the search for new pharmacological strategies to confront them., Summary: The purpose of this review is to draw the reader's attention to pharmacological evaluations of glycyrrhizic acid (GA) and its analogs on the broad range of viruses known in human and veterinary medicine. GA is the main water-soluble constituent extracted from the roots of plants from the genus Glycyrrhiza, commonly known as licorice root. It has long been used due to its broad spectrum of bioactivities, including anti-inflammatory, antiulcer, and antitumor properties. It has also been proposed as an antiviral agent. Medicines derived from GA are currently being used to combat acute and chronic hepatitis and herpes viruses., Key Messages: This review suggests that GA could be a new broad-spectrum antiviral due to its ability to inhibit DNA or RNA viruses both in vitro and in vivo. GA could be a potential drug for preventing and/or treating various viral diseases., (© 2022 The Author(s). Published by S. Karger AG, Basel.)

In this study, a Venturi tube is proposed as an efficient static mixer incorporated into a continuous recirculation system for obtaining solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) of monoolein. The device's operating principle consists of producing a turbulent flux in the throat of a Venturi tube. Taking advantage of this effect SLN of monoolein were obtained by rapid diffusion of the organic phase into the aqueous phase (stabilizer), causing lipid aggregation on the nanometric particles. The main aim of the present study was to evaluate the critical factors for obtaining the SLN of monoolein in order to control the independent variables of this methodology. A Box-Behnken design was used to study such independent variables (factors) as injection rate (X1), recirculation rate (X2), and stabilizer (X3) on the dependent variables; namely, process yield (Y1), particle size (Y2), polydispersity index (Y3) and zeta potential (Y4). The optimum operating conditions for preparing SLN were: injection rate, 1.6 mL/min; recirculation rate, 4.2 L/min; and stabilizer concentration, 1.0 w/v, with a value of D  = 0.84. The predicted responses of the particle size were 212.0 nm, with a polydispersity index of 0.21, a zeta potential of -19.9 mV, and a process yield of 96.0%. Under the same operating condition, SLN formed with different lipids and stabilizers were obtained with nanometric size and zeta potential of ∼ -30.0 mV. Results show that the Venturi tube method is an innovative and versatile technique for preparing SLN of nanometric size with high process yields through a turbulent flow.

The Venturi tube (VT) is an apparatus that produces turbulence which is taken advantage of to produce nanoparticles (NP) by solvent displacement. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of this device for preparing NP of poly-ε-caprolactone. Response Surface Methodology was used to determine the effect of the operating conditions and optimization. The NP produced by VT were characterized by Dynamic Light-Scattering to determine their particle size distribution (PS) and polydispersity index (PDI). Results showed that the Reynolds number (Re) has a strong effect on both PS and process yield (PY).The turbulence regime is key to the efficient formation of NP. The optimal conditions for obtaining NP were a polymer concentration of 1.6 w/v, a recirculation rate of 4.8 L/min, and a stabilizer concentration of 1.1 w/v. The predicted response of the PY was 99.7%, with a PS of 333 nm, and a PDI of 0.2. Maintaining the same preparation conditions will make it possible to obtain NP using other polymers with similar properties. Our results show that VT is a reproducible and versatile method for manufacturing NP, and so may be a feasible method for industrial-scale nanoprecipitation production., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)