Plants have been in use in traditional medicine since antiquity, and many active metabolic products with biological significance are obtained from them. Recently, pharmaceutical industries have developed great interest in utilizing these products as an alternative to the chemically synthesized drugs. This is due to the discovery of important new medicines from the plants, because of studies on how people of different background use plants as cure and treatment for many diseases, and side effects of the synthesized drugs. Banana, an eatable fruit produced by some herbaceous flowering plants of the genus Musa, is one of the valuable fruits with proven pharmacological potentials. Bananas are spread almost all over the world. Different chemical constituents like apigenin glycosides, myricetin-3-O-rutinoside, kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside, dopamine, and serotonin have been reported in different parts and varieties of banana. The presence of carbohydrate, proteins as well as flavonoids, makes bananas useful in both nutrition and therapeutics. Pharmacologically, bananas have been shown to possess antiulcer, antimicrobial, and antioxidant activities. This chapter discusses the essential information on banana, including its varieties, distribution, pharmacological actions, and its relevance in pharmaceutical industries. This will be beneficial for researchers to further harness the robustness of this fruit in controlling many diseases and modification of drugs.
Fluorescent Carbon dots (CDs) derived from biologically active sources have shown enhanced activities compared to their precursors. With their prominent potentiality, these small-sized (<10nm) nanomaterials could be easily synthesized from organic sources either by bottom-up or green approach. Their sources could influence the functional groups present on the CDs surfaces. A crude source of organic molecules has been used to develop fluorescent CDs. In addition, pure organic molecules were also valuable in developing practical CDs. Physiologically responsive interaction of CDs with various cellular receptors is possible due to the robust functionalization on their surface. In this review, we studied various literatures from the past ten years that reported the potential application of carbon dots as alternatives in cancer chemotherapy. The selective cytotoxic nature of some of the CDs towards cancer cell lines suggests the role of surface functional groups towards selective interaction, which results in over-expressed proteins characteristic of cancer cell lines. It could be inferred that cheaply sourced CDs could selectively bind to overexpressed proteins in cancer cells with the ultimate effect of cell death induced by apoptosis. In most cases, CDs-induced apoptosis directly or indirectly follows the mitochondrial pathway. Therefore, these nanosized CDs could serve as alternatives to the current kinds of cancer treatments that are expensive and have numerous side effects.
Nanohybrid magnetite carbon dots (Fe3O4@CDs) were successfully synthesized to improve their applicability in multi-response bioimaging.
The fluorescent imaging and drug delivery utilizing carbon dots nanomaterials (CDs) have attracted tremendously due to their unique optical ability and outstanding biocompatibility. Herein, we reported a new design of chalcone-loaded carbon dots (Chalcone-APBA-CDs) to serve chalcone transport onto cancer cells and enhance the CDs bioimaging and antitumor activity. The boronic acid was directly introduced to carbon dots (CDs) via pyrolysis process to drive CDs specifically to the cancer cell, and chalcone was mediated on CDs by ultrasonication to perform facile release of the drug delivery model. The successfully synthesized Chalcone-APBA-CDs were proved by their chemical structure, fluorescent activities, in vitro and in vivo analyses, and drug release systems using different pH. In addition, flow cytometry and confocal fluorescent imaging proved CDs' cellular uptake and imaging performance. In vitro analyses further proved that the Chalcone-APBA-CDs exhibited a higher toxicity value than bare CDs and efficiently inhibited the proliferation of the HeLa cells depending on their dose-response. Finally, the performance of Chalcone-APBA-CDs on cancer healing capability was examined in vivo with fibrosarcoma cancer-bearing mice, which showed a remarkable ability to reduce the tumor volume compared with saline (control). This result strongly suggested that the Chalcone-APBA-CDs appear promising simultaneously as cancer cell imaging and drug delivery.
The improvement in the design of mordenite-based catalysts focuses on the present study to fulfill the massive demand for bio-aviation fuel (BAF) as renewable energy. Modification of the mordenite through ionic impregnation of Fe, Cu, and Cr, has supported the mordenite to perform with better efficiency and activity in catalyzing the cracking process of stearic acid. The adjustment on catalytic activity was carried out by simply reacting the catalyst with stearic acid at 190 °C and investigating cracking products with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy. The results of the GC-MS test of the cracking product showed the formation of alkane-alkene and aromatic compounds. BAF was selectively obtained (30.27%) when the reaction was catalyzed by FeCuCr/mordenite catalyst. The BAF derived from FeCuCr/mordenite contained hydrocarbons that include xylene, mesitylene, dodecane, tridecane, tetradecane, and pentadecane. However, reduced selectivity was realized (19.85%) when the reaction was catalyzed by nano FeCuCr/mordenite. Its hydrocarbon constituents include benzene, tetradecane, and pentadecane compounds.
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