DMC is a more stable analogue of curcumin that can induce epigenetic changes not induced by curcumin. DMC induced the expression of promoter methylated genes. The combination of DMC with DNA methyltransferase inhibitors could harness their combined induced epigenetic changes for optimal re-expression of epigenetically silenced genes.

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Liquid-liquid extraction is a widely used technique of sample preparation in biomedical analysis. In spite of the high pre-concentration capacities of liquidliquid extraction, it suffers from a number of limitations including time and effort consumption, large organic solvent utilization, and poor performance in highly polar analytes. Homogeneous liquid-liquid extraction is an alternative sample preparation technique that overcomes some drawbacks of conventional liquid-liquid extraction, and allows employing greener organic solvents in sample treatment. In homogeneous liquid-liquid extraction, a homogeneous phase is formed between the aqueous sample and the water-miscible extractant, followed by chemically or physically induced phase separation. To form the homogeneous phase, aqueous samples are mixed with water-miscible organic solvents, waterimmiscible solvents/cosolvents, surfactants, or smart polymers. Then, phase separation is induced chemically (adding salt, sugar, or buffer) or physically (changing temperature or pH). This mode is rapid, sustainable, and cost-effective in comparison with other sample preparation techniques. Moreover, homogeneous liquid-liquid extraction is more suitable for the extraction of delicate macromolecules such as enzymes, hormones, and proteins and it is more compatible with liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry, which is a vital technique in metabolomics and proteomics. In this review, the principle, types, applications, automation, and technical aspects of homogeneous liquid-liquid extraction are discussed.

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The developed simple, sensitive and reliable UPLC analysis methods can be utilized in future in vitro and in vivo studies. The three alkaloids demonstrated minimal interaction with the drug efflux transporters Pgp and Bcrp, concordant with the ability of these alkaloids to cross the BBB. The relative metabolic stability of eburnamonine compared to the other alkaloids suggests the use of eburnamonine or its derivatives as lead compounds for the development of antitumor and nootropic agents that need to cross the BBB and produce their pharmacological effects in the CNS.

Salting-out induced liquid–liquid microextraction method has been developed for plasma sample treatment before determination of alogliptin by high performance liquid chromatography with UV detection. Several parameters were optimized to achieve maximum enrichment, including type of extractant, volume of extractant, type of anion, type of cation, salt amount and pH. The optimum conditions were attained using 500 µL of acetonitrile, added to 1 mL of aqueous sample containing 250 mg of sodium chloride at pH 12. An RP-HPLC method was developed and validated according to the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines M10. The method was linear in the concentration range of 0.1 to 50 µg/mL (correlation coefficient = 0.997). The limit of detection was 0.019 µg/mL and limit of quantitation was 0.06 µg/mL. The method was accurate and precise with an average % recovery of 99.7% and a % relative standard deviation ranging between 1.5 and 2.5. These results showed that the salting-out induced liquid–liquid microextraction methods could be better than other sample preparation protocols in terms of sensitivity, easiness, solvent consumption and waste reduction.

Background: Favipiravir is an antiviral drug that was recently approved for the management of COVID-19 infection. Aim: This work aimed to develop a new method, using sugaring-out induced homogeneous liquid–liquid microextraction followed by HPLC/UV for the determination of favipiravir in human plasma. Materials & methods: The optimum extraction conditions were attained using 500 μl of tetrahydrofuran as an extractant and 1400 mg of fructose as a phase-separating agent. Results: The developed method was validated according to the US FDA bioanalytical guidelines and was found linear in the range of 25-80,000 ng/ml with a correlation coefficient of 0.999. Conclusion: These results showed that the developed method was simple, easy, valid and adequately sensitive for determination of favipiravir in plasma for bioequivalence studies.

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