Comprehensive Review on Fruit Seeds: Nutritional, Phytochemical, Nanotechnology, Toxicity, Food Biochemistry, and Biotechnology Perspective.

Fruit seeds are leftovers from a variety of culinary sectors. They are generally unutilized and contribute greatly to global disposals. These seeds not only possess various nutritional attributes but also have many heath-beneficial properties. One way to make use of these seeds is to extract their bioactive components and create fortified food items. Nowadays, researchers are highly interested in creating innovative functional meals and food components from these unconventional resources. The main objective of this manuscript was to determine the usefulness of seed powder from 70 highly consumed fruits, including Apple, Apricot, Avocado, Banana, Blackberry, Blackcurrant, Blueberry, Cherry, Common plum, Cranberry, Gooseberry, Jackfruit, Jamun, Kiwi, Lemon, Mahua, Mango, Melon, Olive, Orange, and many more have been presented. The nutritional attributes, phytochemical composition, health advantages, nanotechnology applications, and toxicity of these fruit seeds have been fully depicted. This study also goes into in-depth detailing on creating useful food items out of these seeds, such as bakery goods, milk products, cereal-based goods, and meat products. It also identifies enzymes purified from these seeds along with their biochemical applications and any research openings in this area.

Palm sap sugar an unconventional source of sugar exploration for bioactive compounds and its role on functional food development.

Palm sap sugar is a sweetener which is made from the sap or nectar collected from different varieties/species of palm trees. It has huge scope as an alternative sweetener in Indian market. It is a natural alternative to unhealthy cane sugar and is more beneficial for farmers as well. Some of its characteristic features are low GI value and its macro (Glucose: 0.49-86.90 g/100 ml, Fructose: 0.26-1.61, Sucrose: 5.30-27.00 g/100 ml) and micro (K: 65.28-1326.0, Na: 2.85-117.5, Mg: 0.54-31.00, Ca: 0.24-79.00 mg/100 ml) nutritional content. Palm sugar also has impact on colour, aroma and taste profile of the final product. The taste, sensory profile and nutritional attributes of palm sugar vary on the basis of its species, region of growth and climatic conditions. At present, traditional processing of palm sap leads to lower yield and higher expenses. There is huge potential in the field of development in processing techniques (Traditional processing, spray drying, membrane technology, and vacuum drying) to optimize the production of palm sugar. Palm sugar and other products from different parts of palm can be used to make a variety of other value-added products like toffees, chocolates, cola, toddy wine, candy, and palm vinegar etc. The purpose of this review paper is to summarise the composition of palm sap, distinctive qualities of the extracted sap, various production procedures, nutritional and physico-chemical properties of palm sugar, and the development of functional foods using palm sugar.

Underutilized green leafy vegetables: frontier in fortified food development and nutrition.

From the ancient period, Green leafy vegetables (GLV) are part of the daily diet and were believed to have several health beneficial properties. Later it has been proved that GLV has outstanding nutritional value and can be used for medicinal benefits. GLV is particularly rich in minerals like iron, calcium, and zinc. These are also rich in vitamins like beta carotene, vitamin E, K, B and vitamin C. In addition, some anti-nutritional elements in GLV can be reduced if it is grown properly and processed properly before consumption. Tropical countries have a wide variety of these green plants such as Red Spinach, Amaranth, Malabar Spinach, Taro Leaf, Fenugreek leaf, Bengal Gram Leaves, Radish Leaves, Mustard Leaves, and many more. This review focuses on listing this wide range of GLVs (in total 54 underutilized GLVs) and their compositions in a comparative manner. GLV also possesses medicinal activities due to its rich bioactive and nutritional potential. Different processing techniques may alter the nutritional and bioactive potential of the GLVs significantly. The GLVs have been considered a food fortification agent, though not explored widely. All of these findings suggest that increasing GLV consumption could provide nutritional requirements necessary for proper growth as well as adequate protection against diseases caused by malnutrition.

Groove Switching of Hydroxychloroquine Modulates the Efficacy of Binding and Induced Stability to DNA.

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is an important drug for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and malaria. HCQ targets specifically to nucleic acids for its action. However, the mechanism of HCQ binding and the effect of its binding on the stability of DNA are elusive. In this study, the binding mechanism of HCQ and the effect of binding on stability of different sequences of DNA have been investigated using spectroscopic and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation techniques. HCQ binds with all of the sequences of DNA and stabilizes them. However, binding efficacy of HCQ with DNA depends on its sequences as the binding constant is highest for pure guanine-cytosine (G-C) rich DNA and decreases with the increase of adenine-thymine (A-T) bases. HCQ prefers to interact with AT DNA through the minor groove whereas the major groove along with intercalation are the favorable binding mode in the case of GC DNA. The binding of HCQ in the major groove of GC DNA enhances the stacking between the bases compared to the case of AT DNA which leads to higher stability for GC DNA. It appears that the groove switching of HCQ is correlated with binding affinity as well as stability of different sequences of DNA.

Chirality sensitive binding of tryptophan enantiomers with pristine single wall carbon nanotubes.

We report the differential binding nature of pristine single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with tryptophan enantiomers. The differential co-operative response between the pristine SWNTs (topologically chiral) and L- and D-tryptophan (geometrically chiral) provides the insight that geometrical chirality itself manifests with topological chirality in a complex way.

Design of heat shock-resistant surfaces to prevent protein aggregation: Enhanced chaperone activity of immobilized α-Crystallin.

α-Crystallin is a multimeric protein belonging to the family of small heat shock proteins, which function as molecular chaperones by resisting heat and oxidative stress induced aggregation of other proteins. We immobilized α-Crystallin on a self-assembled monolayer on glass surface and studied its activity in terms of the prevention of aggregation of aldolase. We discovered that playing with grafted protein density led to interesting variations in the chaperone activity of immobilized α-Crystallin. This result is in accordance with the hypothesis that dynamicity of subunits plays a vital role in the functioning of α-Crystallin and might be able to throw light on the structure-activity relationship. We showed that the chaperone activity of a certain number of immobilized α-Crystallins was superior compared to a solution containing an equivalent number of the protein and 10 times the number of the protein at temperatures >60 °C. The α-Crystallin grafted surfaces retained activity on reuse. This could also lead to the design of potent heat-shock resistant surfaces that can find wide applications in storage and shipping of protein based biopharmaceuticals.

Mahanine, a DNA minor groove binding agent exerts cellular cytotoxicity with involvement of C-7-OH and -NH functional groups.

Mahanine, a carbazole alkaloid is a potent anticancer molecule. To recognize the structure-activity correlation, mahanine was chemically modified. Antiproliferative activity of these derivatives was determined in 19 cancer cell lines from 7 different origins. Mahanine showed enhanced apoptosis compared to dehydroxy-mahanine-treated cells, indicating significant contribution of the C-7-OH group. O-Methylated-mahanine and N-methylated dehydroxy-mahanine-treated cells exhibited apoptosis only at higher concentrations, suggesting additional contribution of 9-NH group. Using biophysical techniques, we demonstrated that mahanine interacts with DNA through strong association with phosphate backbone compared to other derivatives but is unable to induce any conformational change in DNA, hence suggesting the possibility of being a minor groove binder. This was corroborated by molecular modeling and isothermal titration calorimetry studies. Taken together, the results of the current study represent the first evidence of involvement of C-7-OH and 9-NH group of mahanine for its cytotoxicity and its minor groove binding ability with DNA.

Cellular response to chirality and amplified chirality.

In this paper we have explored how cancer cell line U87MG responds to drug penicillamine (PA) with reciprocal enantiomeric identities (i.e.l, d-forms). As nano-conjugation leads to amplification of chirality, cellular response to respective chiral forms is studied in the presence and absence of nano-conjugation. The l, d-forms of the drug (penicillamine) and their silver nanoparticle conjugated forms are used and characterized by circular dichroism and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. We report that cells discriminate between the chiral forms through various mechanisms e.g. by altering mitochondrial membrane potential and selected elements of the caspase pathway. The striking feature which we would like to report is that chirality and the amplified chirality induced reciprocal responses may be dissimilar and even reciprocal. The work shows that the cellular response to geometrical chirality is an evolved concept and an amplified chirality by processes like nano-conjugation may be translated into an altered message in the cell.

Covalent immobilization of active lysozyme on Si/glass surface using alkoxy Fischer carbene complex on SAM.

A cross-metathesis reaction between an alkene terminated self-assembled monolayer (SAM) on glass/Si wafer and an alkene tethered Fischer carbene complex yielded a functionalized surface. Rapid aminolysis of the Fischer carbene moieties permit efficient anchoring of amine containing molecules on such a surface. Attachment of 1-pyrenemethylamine was thus monitored by ATR-IR spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy. Similarly, BSA and lysozyme were individually grafted to such Fischer carbene modified surfaces using their pendant lysine residues. It has been demonstrated that the anchored lysozyme retains its bactericidal property.

Nanoparticle induced conformational change in DNA and chirality of silver nanoclusters.

Nano-clusters formed on macromolecular templates carry the symmetry information of the template. Templates with broken symmetry thus lead to formation of asymmetric clusters. In response, such clusters induce a compensatory stress on the embedded template. Silver nanoparticles grown on a covalently closed negatively supercoiled plasmid DNA (pUC19) exhibit chiral behavior and as a reciprocal response, one observes alteration in DNA conformation. The inference was drawn using gel mobility-shift studies in which a silver nanoparticle (but not ions) induces a mobility shift implying a drift from supercoiled to relaxed state of the plasmid. Supporting evidences for such structural alterations were obtained from circular dichroism (CD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Silver ion and silver nanoparticles induce differential FT-IR signals reflected in the fingerprint regions 1720, 1666, 1611, 1529 cm(-1) that respectively corresponds to binding in GT, ATGC, C, and AC (A, T, G, and C representing the four nucleotides). Existence of CD signal in the silver plasmon region (350-550 nm) suggests formation of a chiral clustering of nanoparticles. The reciprocal effect on the covalently closed circular (CCC) pUC19 DNA, namely the transition to a relaxed state, can be regarded as a mimicry of the topological enzyme acting on such CCC DNA.

Dual antiplatelet drug resistance in patients with acute coronary syndrome.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: Antiplatelet therapy is a cornerstone in the management of the atherosclerotic vascular disease. Aspirin and clopidogrel are the two most commonly used antiplatelet drugs in its management. Recently, there has been a concern about the development of resistance to one or both antiplatelet agents with potentially devastating consequences. In this study we tried to assess the in vitro resistance to antiplatelet agents in patients presenting with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: 144 patients presenting with ACS, who were not on any antiplatelet therapy prior to hospital admission were evaluated in this study. Baseline clinical data was obtained before giving the oral loading dose of aspirin and clopidogrel. Patients received a loading dose of 325 mg of aspirin and 300 mg of clopidogrel followed by a daily dose of 150 mg. of aspirin and 75 mg.of clopidogrel. After 7 days of dual antiplatelet therapy, platelet aggregation pattern was analyzed using optical aggregometer (chrono-log). Response to aspirin and clopidogrel was assessed by interaction with collagen (2microg/ml) and Adenosine diphosphate (ADP) (10micro/ml) respectively. The results were analyzed. Response to doubling the dose of antiplatelet agents was also observed in 6 aspirin resistant patients, 12 clopidogrel resistant patients and in 6 patients resistant to the effect of dual antiplatelet agents. RESULTS: There were 22 patients (15.27%) who showed poor response to aspirin, 28 patients (19.44%) to clopidogrel (primary non-responder) and 18 patients (12.5%) showed a primary non-responsiveness to both the antiplatelet agents in the usual doses. After dose doubling, all 6 aspirin resistant patients showed adequate response but 4 out of 12 clopidogrel resistant patients showed inadequate response. CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study brings out a disquieting picture of 12.5% patients suffering from ACS showing resistance to the antiplatelet effects of both aspirin and clopidogrel in the conventional dose. A long-term prospective randomized controlled trial is required to give an insight into this problem and its clinical consequences.

Platelet responsiveness to yohimbine hydrochloride and MRS2179 in the context of the interaction between collagen and epinephrine in acute coronary syndrome.

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) covers a spectrum of clinical conditions ranging from unstable angina, Non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), or ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). This study encompasses patients with acute coronary syndrome, who were receiving the dual antiplatelet therapy of aspirin and clopidogrel. The focus of the study was to gain insight into the role of selective P2Y1 antagonism using MRS2179 in such cases as well as its effects, if any, on collagen-epinephrine interaction. All the cases showed greater potency of inhibition of the interaction when yohimbine hydrochloride (YH), a blocker of alpha2A-adrenoreceptor, was used compared to MRS2179, a P2Y1 antagonist, although there was variability in responsiveness to the antiplatelet drugs. These findings indicate that alpha2A-adrenoreceptors of platelets in this group play a major role in precipitating the interactive effect of collagen and epinephrine. The dose-response effect as studied by platelet aggregometry showed that the required molar concentration to block the interactive effect in the case of YH was less than that of MRS2179. Hence, it is postulated that although there may be an impairment of collagen-induced aggregation by MRS2179, the interactive effect of collagen-epinephrine may not be impaired by MRS2179 as efficaciously as YH.