Fungal Diseases Caused by Serious Contamination of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices, and Rapid Fungal Detection Using Nano-Diagnostic Tools: A Critical Review.

Fungal-contaminated compounded pharmaceuticals and medical devices pose a public health problem. This review aimed to provide an organized overview of the literature on that critical issue. Firstly, it was found that compounding pharmacies can produce drugs that are contaminated with fungi, leading to outbreaks of severe fungal diseases. Secondly, inadequate sterile compounding techniques or storage conditions, or exceeding the limit of a fungal count, can result in fungal contamination. Lastly, nanotools can be used to rapidly detect fungi, thus improving fungal diagnostic procedures. To achieve this goal, we have reviewed the published data on PubMed, the CDC, and FDA Web sites, and a literature search was undertaken to identify severe fungal infections associated with compounding pharmacies outside of hospitals, limited by the dates 2003 to 2021. The "Preferred Reporting Items for Critical Reviews" were followed in searching, including, and excluding papers. Fungal outbreaks have been documented due to contaminated pharmaceuticals and medical devices. In 2013, 55 people died from fungal meningitis caused by contaminated steroid injections containing methylprednisolone acetate. Additionally, in 2021, Aspergillus penicillioides contamination was reported in ChloraPrep drugs, which was attributed to the storage conditions that were conducive to the growth of this fungus. These incidents have resulted in severe infectious diseases, such as invasive mycoses, cornea infections, Endophthalmitis, and intestinal and gastric mycosis. By implementing preventive measures and policies, it is possible to avoid these outbreaks. Creating Nano-diagnostics presents a major challenge, where promptly diagnosing fungal infections is required to determine the proper corrective and preventive measures.

Mechanisms of Antimicrobial Resistance: Highlights on Current Advance Methods for Detection of Drug Resistance and Current Pipeline Antitubercular Agents.

BACKGROUND: Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered antibiotics in 1928. Antibiotics have played a significant role in treating infectious diseases. The extensive use of antibiotics has enabled the microorganisms to develop resistance against the antibiotics given, which has become a global concern. This review aims to examine some of the mechanisms behind resistance and advanced methods for detecting drug-resistant and antibacterial drugs in the clinical pipeline. METHODS: An extensive search was carried out in different databases, viz. Scopus, Embase, Cochrane, and PubMed. The keywords used in the search were antimicrobial resistance, antibiotic resistance, antimicrobial tolerance, antibiotic tolerance, and methods to reduce antimicrobial resistance. All the studies published in the English language and studies focusing on antibiotic resistance were included in the analysis. RESULTS: The most common mechanisms involved in antimicrobial resistance are reflux pumping, antibiotic inactivation, acquired resistance, intrinsic resistance, mutation, bio-film resistance, etc. Antibacterial medicinal products for multidrug resistance (MDR) infections are active against pathogens, which are registered in the World Health Organization (WHO) priority pathogen list (PPL). CONCLUSION: Furthermore, their innovativeness was assessed by their lack of cross-resistance. Finally, novel antibacterial drugs without pre-existing inter-resistance, especially those with highresistance gram-negative bacteria and tuberculosis (TB), are understated and urgently required.

Adsorption behavior of mercaptopurine and 6-thioguanine drugs on the B12N12, AlB11N12 and GaB11N12 nanoclusters, a comparative DFT study.

Lately, drug delivery systems established on nanostructures have become the most proficient to be studied. There are different studies suggested that the BN nanoclusters can be used as drug carriers and transport drugs in the target cell. Therefore, the interactions and adsorption behavior of Mercaptopurine (MC) and 6-thioguanine (TG) as anti-cancer drugs on the B12N12 (BN), AlB11N12 (AlBN) and GaB11N12 (GaBN) nanoclusters were studied by density functional theory (DFT) and quantum mechanics atoms in molecules (QMAIM) methods to find a new drug delivery system. Our results showed strong adsorption obtained in BN-MC/TG and AlBN-MC/TG complexes can be decomposed by the BN and AlBN indicating that these nanostructures are not suitable in drug efficiency of MC and TG drugs. Unlike the BN and AlBN nanoclusters, GaBN significantly makes the MC and TG drugs adsorption energetically favorable. The high solvation energy of GaBN when interacting with MC and TG drugs led it to applicability as nanocarriers for these drugs in the drug delivery systems. Furthermore, GaBN has a short recovery time for MC, and TG drugs desorption compared to BN and AlBN nanoclusters. It is predicted that the MC, and TG drugs over GaBN can be used as a drug delivery system.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Cytotoxicity and antimicrobial efficiency of selenium nanoparticles biosynthesized by Spirulina platensis.

Nanotechnology has been exploited as a great scientific area especially in stating scenarios in drug discovery. In the present study, biosynthesized selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) were prepared by the filtrate of Spirulina platensis after ultrasonication of their biomass. The biosynthesized SeNPs was characterized by using ultra-violet visible, Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The zeta potential of Biogenic SeNPs was -32.9 ± 8.12 mv that caused their stability. TEM micrographs elucidated the spherical shape of Biogenic SeNPs with a mean average size of 79.40 ± 44.26 nm. Biogenic SeNPs showed potential antimicrobial activity against gram-negative bacteria and yeast fungi C. albicans ATCC10231. No toxic effect was observed for SeNPs on normal kidney and liver cell lines. Biogenic SeNPs could be considered as a hopeful choice for future therapeutic applications because of their good biocompatibility and reactivity.