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Advances in Nanonutraceuticals: Indian Scenario
Published in Harishkumar Madhyastha, Durgesh Nandini Chauhan, Nanopharmaceuticals in Regenerative Medicine, 2022
Amthul Azeez, Mubeen Sultana, Lucky, Noorjahan
Regularly used foodstuffs and beverages are considered to contain substantial amounts of natural ingredients that qualify them to regard as nutraceuticals, which are believed to promote robust growth and overall good health. Nutraceuticals are not some exotic compounds but naturally occurring phenols, abundantly found in food items, such as green tea, red berries and in different types of spices. Most of these active phenolic compounds are known to treat amyloid neurodegenerative disorders. Apart from these regular foods, a number of other routinely used in cuisine, such as flax seed oil (tocotrienols), carrots (carotenoids), turmeric (curcumin) all contain one or other form of bioactive compounds, which may be recognised as nutraceuticals. Fruits, vegetables, and seafood also contain abundant quantiles of omega fatty acids; allyl-sulphides found in garlic, beta-glucans of mushrooms/cereals are some of the examples of natural compounds that can be considered for the synthesis of nutraceuticals. Nuts contain fatty acids and are also rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) that can help limit cholesterol. Egg shells are a rich source of calcium carbonate and calcium powder that is derived from these shells can be used as a calcium supplement to treat calcium deficiency (Josef & Katarina 2019). There are quite a number of studies that show convincing results, illustrating that certain bioactive compounds present in soya bean, garlic, ginger, green tea and honey are known to have an apoptotic (programmed cell death) effect on cancer cells and hence these natural substances may aid in preventing chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer and therefore be recommended as an ancillary remedy along with standard cancer treatment protocols. As there are quite a number of valuable, active molecules being identified as anticancer agents in the commonly used food, these food-based nutraceuticals have caught the imagination of scientific researchers. The reason for this widespread clamor for nutraceuticals for cancer therapy is due to is their easy accessibility, high degree of absorption and transformation, which leads to the easy availability of the compound in the biological system. One such example is worth mentioning, wherein neem is used via cinnamon oil, which acts as a lipophilic agent to convey vitamin D to the lungs, where it has been identified to treat alveolar carcinoma cells in humans and hence vitamin D qualifies to be used in the food industry as well as processed to be an anticancer nutraceutical.
Laccase-catalyzed simultaneous dye synthesis and cotton dyeing by using plant extracts as dye precursor
Published in The Journal of The Textile Institute, 2022
Rıza Atav, Bürhan Buğdaycı, İsmail Yakın
Enzymatic catalysis with laccase has been regarded as an environmentally benign synthetic process, providing a new method for “green polymer chemistry” under milder reaction conditions (Bai et al., 2016). The laccase molecule, as an active holoenzyme form, is a dimeric or tetrameric glycoprotein usually containing four copper atoms per monomer, bound to three redox sites (Gianfreda et al., 1999). Laccases are enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of various aromatic compounds, specifically phenols, amino phenols, methoxy phenols and anilines (Gianfreda et al., 1999; Verneka & Lele, 2009). In particular, use of naturally occurring phenols such as flavonoids for polymer synthesis is attractive because such reactions fulfill the basic requirements of “green chemistry,” in which (i) little toxic waste is produced as the monomers are eco-friendly and an enzyme is a “green” catalyst; and (ii) polymer synthesis mimics a natural phenomenon responsible for synthesis of flavonoid polymers such as tannins and proanthocyanidins (Jeon et al., 2010). The reactions catalyzed by laccase can be divided into three groups, in all which colored products are formed:Direct oxidation of simple phenolic derivativesMediated oxidation of phenolic and non-phenolic substrates in the presence of mediatorsCoupling of reactive radicals formed by the action of laccase (Polak & Jarosz-Wilkolazka, 2012)