2-(4-Bromo-3,5-diphenyl-pyrazol-1-yl)-ethanol (BBB4) was synthetized and successfully evaluated concerning numerous biological activities, except for antimicrobial and cytotoxic effects. Due to the antimicrobial effects possessed by pyrazole nucleus, which have been widely reported, and the worldwide need for new antimicrobial agents, we thought it would be interesting to test BBB4 and to evaluate its possible antibacterial effects. Nevertheless, since it is water-insoluble, the future clinical application of BBB4 will remain utopic unless water-soluble BBB4 formulations are developed. To this end, before implementing biological evaluations, BBB4 was herein re-synthetized and characterized, and a new water-soluble BBB4-based nano-formulation was developed by its physical entrapment in a biodegradable non-cytotoxic cationic dendrimer (G4K), without recovering harmful solvents as DMSO or surfactants. The obtained BBB4 nanoparticles (BBB4-G4K NPs) showed good drug loading (DL%), satisfying encapsulation efficiency (EE%), and a biphasic quantitative release profile governed by first-order kinetics after 24 h. Additionally, BBB4-G4K was characterized by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, NMR, SEM, dynamic light scattering analysis (DLS), and potentiometric titration experiments. While, before the nanotechnological manipulation, BBB4 was completely water-insoluble, in the form of BBB4-G4K NPs, its water-solubility resulted in being 105-fold higher than that of the pristine form, thus establishing the feasibility of its clinical application.

The increasing emergence of bacteria producing β-lactamases enzymes (BLEs), able to inactivate the available β-lactam antibiotics (BLAs), causing the hydrolytic opening of their β-lactam ring, is one of the global major warnings. According to Ambler classification, BLEs are grouped in serine-BLEs (SBLEs) of class A, C, and D, and metal-BLEs (MBLEs) of class B. A current strategy to restore no longer functioning BLAs consists of associating them to β-lactamase enzymes inhibitors (BLEsIs), which, interacting with BLEs, prevent them hydrolyzing to the associated antibiotic. Worryingly, the inhibitors that are clinically approved are very few and inhibit only most of class A and C SBLEs, leaving several class D and all MBLEs of class B untouched. Numerous non-clinically approved new molecules are in development, which have shown broad and ultra-broad spectrum of action, some of them also being active on the New Delhi metal-β-lactamase-1 (NDM-1), which can hydrolyze all available BLAs except for aztreonam. To not duplicate the existing review concerning this topic, we have herein examined BLEsIs by a chemistry approach. To this end, we have reviewed both the long-established synthesis adopted to prepare the old BLEsIs, those proposed to achieve the BLEsIs that are newly approved, and those recently reported to prepare the most relevant molecules yet in development, which have shown high potency, providing for each synthesis the related reaction scheme.

This review focuses on the pathophysiology of OS; on EA and UROs chemical features and on the mechanisms of their antioxidant activity. A discussion on the clinical applicability of the debated UROs in place of EA and on the effectiveness of EA-enriched products is also included.

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Innovative antioxidant ellagic acid (EA) formulations suitable for oral and parenteral EA administration were achieved avoiding the use of harmful additives.

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Background: Neuroblastoma (NB) is an extra-cranial solid tumour of childhood. In spite of the good clinical response to first-line therapy, complete eradication of NB cells is rarely achieved. Thus, new therapeutic strategies are needed to eradicate surviving NB cells and prevent relapse. Sodium ascorbate has been recently reported to induce apoptosis of B16 melanoma cells through down-regulation of the transferrin receptor, CD71. Since NB and melanoma share the same embryologic neuroectodermal origin, we used different human NB cell lines to assess whether the same findings occurred.