Piperine is the major bio-active component of pepper, which imparts pungency and biting taste to it. This naturally occurring alkaloid has numerous demonstrated health effects and beneficial therapeutic properties; nevertheless, its biological applications are limited due to its poor solubility in aqueous environments. This emphasizes an implementation of advanced extraction approaches which could enhance the extraction yield of piperine from pepper and also the development of new formulations containing piperine to improve its in vivo bioavailability. This paper presents a review on the therapeutic and medicinal effects of piperine, its isolation from pepper fruit and the development of new formulations for its medicinal (pharmaceutical) applications. A thorough review on conventional and advanced separation techniques for the extraction of piperine from pepper is presented and an outline of the most significant conditions to improve the extraction yield is provided and discussed. Different methods used to measure and quantify the isolated piperine are also reviewed. An overview of biotechnological advancements for nanoparticle formulations of piperine or its incorporation in lipid formulations, which could enhance its bioavailability, is also presented.

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In this study, the capabilities of response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural networks (ANN) for modeling and optimization of ethanol production from glucoseusing Saccharomyces cerevisiae in batch fermentation process were investigated. Effect of three independent variables in a defined range of pH (4.2-5.8), temperature (20-40ºC) and glucose concentration (20-60 g/l) on the cell growth and ethanol production was evaluated. Results showed that prediction accuracy of ANN was apparently similar to RSM. At optimum condition of temperature (32°C), pH (5.2) and glucose concentration (50 g/l) suggested by the statistical methods, the maximum cell dry weight and ethanol concentration obtained from RSM were 12.06 and 16.2 g/l whereas experimental values were 12.09 and 16.53 g/l, respectively. The present study showed that using ANN as fitness function, the maximum cell dry weight and ethanol concentration were 12.05 and 16.16 g/l, respectively. Also, the coefficients of determination for biomass and ethanol concentration obtained from RSM were 0.9965 and 0.9853 and from ANN were 0.9975 and 0.9936, respectively. The process parameters optimization was successfully conducted using RSM and ANN; however prediction by ANN was slightly more precise than RSM. Based on experimental data maximum yield of ethanol production of 0.5 g ethanol/g substrate (97 % of theoretical yield) was obtained

Xanthan gum is an exo-polysaccharide industrially produced by fermentation using simple sugars. In this study, broomcorn stem was introduced as a low-cost- and widely available carbon source for xanthan gum fermentation. Broomcorn stem was hydrolyzed using sulphuric acid to liberate reducing sugar which was then used as a carbon source for biosynthesis of xanthan gum by . Effects of hydrolysis time (15, 30, 45 and 60 min), sulphuric acid concentration (2, 4, 6 and 8% v/v) and solid loading (3, 4, 5 and 6% w/v) on the yield of reducing sugar and consequent xanthan production were investigated. Maximum reducing sugar yield (55.2%) and xanthan concentration (8.9 g/L) were obtained from hydrolysis of 4% (w/v) broomcorn stem with 6% (v/v) sulphuric acid for 45 min. The fermentation product was identified and confirmed as xanthan gum using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis. Thermogrvimetric analysis showed that thermal stability of synthesized xanthan gum was similar to those reported in previous studies. The molecular weight of the produced xanthan (2.23 × 10 g/mol) was determined from the intrinsic viscosity. The pyruvate and acetyl contents in xanthan gum were 4.21 and 5.04%, respectively. The chemical composition results indicated that this biopolymer contained glucose, mannose and glucoronic acid with molecular ratio of 1.8:1.5:1.0. The kinetics of batch fermentation was also investigated. The kinetic parameters of the model were determined by fermentation results and evaluated. The results of this study are noteworthy for the sustainable xanthan gum production from low-value agricultural waste.