To overcome the toxic nature of organic solvents, scientific interest in the use of green solvents, particularly natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES), has increased over the past decade, leading to new applications in the food, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. Understanding the physicochemical properties and molecular interactions of NADES is essential for uncovering new potential applications in these fields. In this study, several lactic and citric acid-based NADES, as well as chloride choline- and urea-based NADES, were evaluated for their physicochemical properties, including density, pH, viscosity, conductivity, and refractive index.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Racial Ethn Health Disparities
August 2024
Black women living with HIV (BWLWH) face barriers that impact health outcomes. However, positive psychosocial indicators may influence HIV care outcomes. Among this cross-sectional study of 119 BWLWH, a network analysis was utilized to examine relationships between positive psychosocial factors and HIV-related health outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe application of natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and food industries represents one of the fastest growing fields of green chemistry, as these mixtures can potentially replace traditional organic solvents. These advances are, however, limited by the development of new NADES which is today, almost exclusively empirically driven and often derivative from known mixtures. To overcome this limitation, we propose the use of a transformer-based machine learning approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomolecules
October 2023
Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a frequent complication in intensive care unit (ICU) patients that increases mortality and chronic kidney disease (CKD) development. AKI is associated with elevated plasma fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23), which can be modulated by erythropoietin (EPO) and Klotho. We aimed to evaluate whether a combined biomarker that includes these molecules predicted short-/long-term outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common adenocarcinoma in men >50 y of age. It has a long latency period, which provides time for preventive strategies like incorporating healthy eating habits. Yerba mate (YM) intake has been associated with numerous health benefits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the current context of climate change and water deficit, the selection of native beneficial microorganisms, such as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), has become a trend for sustainable agriculture due to their ability to improve plant-bacteria interaction with a minimal adverse effect on the soil microbiota compared to commercial PGPR. Until now, the production of phytohormones like melatonin (MT) by native PGPR and their effect on endogenous MT levels in plants have been poorly studied. MT is a ubiquitous phytohormone that protects plants against biotic and abiotic stress by improving the tolerance of stressed plants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this work, microwave-induced plasma optical emission spectrometry was applied for multielement determination in South American wine samples. The analytes were determined after acid digestion of 47 samples of Brazilian and Argentinian wines. Then, logistic regression, support vector machine, and decision tree for exploratory analysis and comparison of these algorithms in differentiating red wine samples by region of origin were carried out.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBioactive functional coatings constitute a trendy topic due to they reduce postharvest fruit losses worldwide. Also, they could be carriers of biocompounds providing health benefits to the consumer. In this work, an innovative natural bioactive coating based on Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES) and Larrea divaricata extract was optimized by mixture-mixture design for the management of postharvest diseases caused by Monilinia fructicola.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFand are the main genera of leaf-cutting ants present in North and South America, causing extensive damage to agroforestry. Control of the ants requires high handling costs with few effective methods available to decrease the losses. The symbiosis between the leaf-cutting ants and the fungus is essential for ant nest survival.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Urinary incontinence affects up to one third of women in Portugal. Exercise can be a precipitating/aggravating factor but also protective, if appropriate. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of urinary incontinence in women who practice recreational exercise, to assess its relationship with the type of exercise and other coexisting risk factors, and assess whether the topic is addressed in gyms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCOVID-19 infection causes a systemic inflammatory response, which mainly presents as a febrile syndrome with respiratory involvement. We report a 37-year-old male who consulted for myalgia, nausea and epigastric pain lasting three days. On admission, he had crepitations at the lung bases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNatural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NADES) are highly important for Green Chemistry principles and can be used instead of harmful organic solvents. Indeed, nowadays smartphone-based analytical devices can replace some traditional laboratory equipment. In the present work, a smartphone based dual spectrophotometer and spectrofluorometer device was designed, 3D manufactured, and validated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent trends in analytical chemistry encourage the use of innocuous solvents to develop modern methods aligned with green chemistry. In this sense, natural deep eutectic solvents (NADESs) have emerged as a novel generation of green solvents which can be employed in sample treatments as an alternative to the toxic organic solvents commonly used so far. In this work, a new extraction method employs dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction based on a solid floating organic droplet (DLLME-SFO), by using a mixture composed of a less dense than water extraction solvent, 1-dodecanol, and a novel dispersive solvent, NADES.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFood Chem
January 2022
Basil is an edible, aromatic plant, which makes the study of the ecotoxicity of metals in plant metabolism relevant. Given the above, the objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of metals, aluminum, lead, and cadmium, in the synthesis of phenolic compounds and in the dry mass of basil plants (O. basilicum L.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHealthy human aging is associated with a deterioration of visual acuity, retinal thinning, visual field map shrinkage and increasing population receptive field sizes. Here we ask how these changes are related to each other in a cross-sectional sample of fifty healthy adults aged 20-80 years. We hypothesized that age-related loss of macular retinal ganglion cells may lead to decreased visual field map sizes, and both may lead to increased pRF sizes in the cortical central visual field representation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe last 10 years have witnessed the growth of artificial intelligence into different research areas, emerging as a vibrant discipline with the capacity to process large amounts of information and even intuitively interact with humans. In the chemical world, these innovations in both hardware and algorithms have allowed the development of revolutionary approaches in organic synthesis, drug discovery, and materials' design. Despite these advances, the use of AI to support analytical purposes has been mostly limited to data-intensive methodologies linked to image recognition, vibrational spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry but not to other technologies that, albeit simpler, offer promise of greatly enhanced analytics now that AI is becoming mature enough to take advantage of them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe combination of chemometric and green metric tools adds up to synergistic effects at method development, being highly compatible with green analytical chemistry (GAC). In the present study, both strategies were applied for the development of an ultrasound-assisted extraction mediated by Natural Deep Eutectic Solvent (UA-NADES). The Box-Behnken Design combined with multiple responses and desirability functions allowed the effective optimization of the proposed extractive methodology using an alternative green solvent.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCochliomyia hominivorax larvae cause myiasis in animals and humans. To register a commercial product to control this dipteran is necessary to experiment on animals. The in vitro test was standardized to evaluate the larvicidal efficacy of commercial topical products.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe conversion of CO into useful chemicals can lead to the production of carbon neutral fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A key technological challenge necessary to enable such a process is the development of substrates that are active, cost effective, and selective for this reaction. In this regard, the reduction of CO electrochemical means is one of the most attractive alternatives but still requires rather unique electrodes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCandida albicans is an opportunistic pathogenic yeast commonly found in mouth, gastrointestinal tract and vagina. Under certain conditions, it causes skin, mucosal and systemic infections. With growing concern over the emergence of resistant strains to conventional antifungals, the development of novel antifungal agents for the management of this pathogen is an urgent need.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrochip electrophoresis (ME) results from miniaturization of capillary electrophoresis (CE) to a microfabricated separation device. Both techniques have common characteristics, but in some aspects, the microfluidic separation device has unique features resulting from its planar miniaturized format. Here we describe the process to transfer of CE to ME and the benefits and drawbacks of the chip with respect to the capillary.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe concept of sustainable development has impacted in analytical chemistry changing the way of thinking processes and methods. It is important for analytical chemists to consider how sample preparation can integrate the basic concepts of Green Chemistry. In this sense, the replacement of traditional organic solvents is of utmost importance.
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