Nanobiocatalysis: Approach and Applications in Drug Development and Sensing.

Enzymes play a pivotal role in the human body, but their potential is not limited to just that. Scientists have successfully modified these enzymes as nanobiocatalysts or nanozymes for industrial or commercial use, either in the food, medicine, biotech or even textile industries. These nanobiocatalysts and nanozymes offer several advantages over enzymes, like better stability, improved shelf-life, increased percentage yield, and reuse potential, which is very difficult with normal enzymes. The various techniques of NBC synthesis using immobilization techniques like adsorption, covalent binding, affinity immobilization, and entrapment methods are briefly discussed. The enzymes are either entrapped or adsorbed on the nanocarrier matrices, which can be nanofibers, nanoporous carriers, or nanocontainers as nanobiocatalysts. We also highlight the challenges the nanobiocatalyst overcomes in the industrial production of some drugs like sitagliptin, montelukast, pregabalin, and atorvastatin. Also, the inactivation of an organophosphate or opioid poisoning treating agent, SSOPOX nanohybrid, is discussed in this paper. Nanozymes are intrinsic enzyme-like compounds, and they also show wide application in themselves. Their GQD/AGNP nanohybrid shows antibacterial potential; they can also be utilized in optical sensing to detect small molecules, ions, nucleic acids, proteins, and cancer cells. In this paper, various applications of these NBCs have been discussed, and their potential applications with examples are also mentioned. Nanoenzymes can address targeted drug delivery via the controlled release of drugs to increase the efficacy of anticancer drugs that minimize damage to healthy tissue or cells.

Unravelling the role of tumor microenvironment responsive nanobiomaterials in spatiotemporal controlled drug delivery for lung cancer therapy.

Design and development of efficient drug delivery technologies that impart site-specificity is the need of the hour for the effective treatment of lung cancer. The emergence of materials science and nanotechnology partially helped drug delivery scientists to achieve this objective. Various stimuli-responsive materials that undergo degradation at the pathological tumor microenvironment (TME) have been developed and explored for drug delivery applications using nanotechnological approaches. Nanoparticles (NPs), owing to their small size and high surface area to volume ratio, demonstrated enhanced cellular internalization, permeation, and retention at the tumor site. Such passive accumulation of stimuli-responsive materials helped to achieve spatiotemporally controlled and targeted drug delivery within the tumors. In this review, we discussed various stimuli-physical (interstitial pressure, temperature, and stiffness), chemical (pH, hypoxia, oxidative stress, and redox state), and biological (receptor expression, efflux transporters, immune cells, and their receptors or ligands)-that are characteristic to the TME. We mentioned an array of biomaterials-based nanoparticulate delivery systems that respond to these stimuli and control drug release at the TME. Further, we discussed nanoparticle-based combinatorial drug delivery strategies. Finally, we presented our perspectives on challenges related to scale-up, clinical translation, and regulatory approvals.

Molecular Phylogeny, DNA Barcoding, and ITS2 Secondary Structure Predictions in the Medicinally Important Eryngium Genotypes of East Coast Region of India.

Commercial interest in the culinary herb, Eryngium foetidum L., has increased worldwide due to its typical pungency, similar to coriander or cilantro, with immense pharmaceutical components. The molecular delimitation and taxonomic classification of this lesser-known medicinal plant are restricted to conventional phenotyping and DNA-based marker evaluation, which hinders accurate identification, genetic conservation, and safe utilization. This study focused on species discrimination using DNA sequencing with chloroplast-plastid genes (matK, Kim matK, and rbcL) and the nuclear ITS2 gene in two Eryngium genotypes collected from the east coast region of India. The results revealed that matK discriminated between two genotypes, however, Kim matK, rbcL, and ITS2 identified these genotypes as E. foetidum. The ribosomal nuclear ITS2 region exhibited significant inter- and intra-specific divergence, depicted in the DNA barcodes and the secondary structures derived based on the minimum free energy. Although the efficiency of matK genes is better in species discrimination, ITS2 demonstrated polyphyletic phylogeny, and could be used as a reliable marker for genetic divergence studies understanding the mechanisms of RNA molecules. The results of this study provide insights into the scientific basis of species identification, genetic conservation, and safe utilization of this important medicinal plant species.

Quantum-classical correspondence in the vicinity of periodic orbits.

Quantum-classical correspondence in chaotic systems is a long-standing problem. We describe a method to quantify Bohr's correspondence principle and calculate the size of quantum numbers for which we can expect to observe quantum-classical correspondence near periodic orbits of Floquet systems. Our method shows how the stability of classical periodic orbits affects quantum dynamics. We demonstrate our method by analyzing quantum-classical correspondence in the quantum kicked top (QKT), which exhibits both regular and chaotic behavior. We use our correspondence conditions to identify signatures of classical bifurcations even in a deep quantum regime. Our method can be used to explain the breakdown of quantum-classical correspondence in chaotic systems.