The synthesis and characterisation of new hydrogen-bond-rich ionic liquids and studies of their catalytic performance in Diels–Alder reactions are described. An increase in the number of hydroxyl groups present in the ionic liquid structure resulted in higher efficiency.

Agriculture is an important sector of the economy, but this industry consumes significant amounts of water, which is a precious and limited natural resource. Irrigation techniques and efforts to mitigate water usage influence the growth, survival, and yield of crops. However, superabsorbent polymers in combination with fertilizers can be employed to obtain sustained release of nutrients and improved water retention capacity of the soil. Despite significant recent progress in this area involving synthetic polyacrylate hydrogels, there are no industrially applicable solutions exhibiting similar performance using natural biopolymers or synthetic polymers enriched with natural components. This review focuses on biodegradable chitosan-based hydrogels (both natural and semi-synthetic), and discusses their potential agricultural and horticultural applications. The methods for synthesizing hydrogels via physical or chemical crosslinking, and the resulting functional properties of recently reported hydrogels, such as water retention and release of active ingredients, are presented herein.

A B S T R A C T Nucleos(t)ide analogues play pivotal roles as antiviral, cytotoxic or immunosuppressive agents. Here, we review recent reports of nucleoside analogues that exhibit broad-spectrum activity towards multiple life-threatening RNA and DNA viruses. We also present a discussion about nucleoside antimetabolites-approved antineoplastic agents-that have recently been shown to have antiviral and/or antibacterial activity. The approved drugs and drug combinations, as well as recently identified candidates for investigation and/or experimentation, are discussed. Several examples of repurposed drugs that have already been approved for use are presented. This strategy can be crucial for the first-line treatment of acute infections or coinfections and for the management of drug-resistant strains.T against viral infections of great medical importance (e.g., herpes simplex virus (HSV), varicella zoster virus (VZV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV)) and/or that are known antineoplastic agents used to treat cancer. Approved nucleos(t)ide-based drugs with multi-target activity and compounds being tested in clinical trials or evaluated in preclinical assays are listed in Table 1. In this paper, the term "approval date" means the date on which the drug was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unless otherwise stated. G. Pastuch-Gawołek, et al. Multi-target nucleos(t)ide-based drugs in the treatment and prophylaxis of HIV, HBV and HCV infections

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Influenza virus infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Due to the limited ability of currently available treatments, there is an urgent need for new anti-influenza drugs with broad spectrum protection. We have previously shown that two 2-deoxy sugar derivatives of uridine (designated IW3 and IW7) targeting the glycan processing steps during maturation of viral glycoproteins show good anti-influenza virus activity and may be a promising alternative approach for the development of new anti-influenza therapy. In this study, a number of IW3 and IW7 analogues with different structural modifications in 2-deoxy sugar or uridine parts were synthesized and evaluated for their ability to inhibit influenza A virus infection in vitro. Using the cytopathic effect (CPE) inhibition assay and viral plaque reduction assay in vitro, we showed that compounds 2, 3, and 4 exerted the most inhibitory effect on influenza virus A/ostrich/Denmark/725/96 (H5N2) infection in Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells, with 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC50) for virus growth ranging from 82 to 100 (μM) without significant toxicity for the cells. The most active compound (2) showed activity of 82 μM with a selectivity index value of 5.27 against type A (H5N2) virus. Additionally, compound 2 reduced the formation of HA glycoprotein in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, an analysis of physicochemical properties of studied compounds demonstrated a significant linear correlation between lipophilicity and antiviral activity. Therefore, inhibition of influenza A virus infection by conjugates of uridine and 2-deoxy sugars is a new promising approach for the development of new derivatives with anti-influenza activities.

Novel crosslinkers based on trehalose diacetals were synthesized and applied to the fabrication of degradable polyacrylamide-type hydrogels with pH-dependent degradation characteristics at around physiological pH.

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