Sulfur quantum dots as sustainable materials for biomedical applications: Current trends and future perspectives

Discovered over a decade ago, sulfur quantum dots (SQDs) have rapidly emerged as a sustainable, safe, and inexpensive quantum material. Sustainably synthesizing SQDs using sublimed sulfur powders, typically produced as waste in industrial petrochemical refining processes, has attracted researchers to use these functional quantum materials in various research fields. SQDs quickly found applications in various research fields, such as electronics, environmental sensing, food packaging, and biomedical engineering. Although low production yields, time-consuming and energy-intensive synthetic methods, and low photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) have been some problems, researchers have found ways to improve synthetic methods, develop passivating agents, and systematically modify reaction schemes and energy sources to achieve large-scale synthesis of stable SQDs with high PLQY. Nonetheless, SQDs have succeeded tremendously in biomedical and related applications due to their low toxicity, antibacterial and antioxidant properties, biocompatibility, appropriate cellular uptake, and photoluminescent properties. Although the bioimaging applications of SQDs have been extensively studied, their other reported properties indicate their suitability for use as antimicrobial agents, free radical scavengers, and drug carriers in other biomedical applications, such as tissue regeneration, wound healing, and targeted drug delivery.

ON donor tethered copper (II) and vanadium (V) complexes as efficacious anti-TB and anti-fungal agents with spectroscopic approached HSA interactions

Antimicrobial drug resistance poses a significant threat worldwide, hence triggering an urgent situation for developing feasible drugs. 3D-transition metal coordination complexes being multifaceted, offer tremendous potency as drug candidates. However, there are fewer reports on non-toxic and safe transition metal complexes; therefore, we hereby attempted to develop novel copper and vanadium-based therapeutic agents. We have synthesised six metal complexes viz., [V^VO₂(Quibal-INH)] (1), [Cu^II(Quibal-INH)₂] (2), [V^VO(Quibal-INH) (cat)] (3), [Cu^II(Quibal-INH) (cat)] (4), [V^VO(Quibal-INH) (bha)] (5) and [Cu^II(Quibal-INH) (bha)] (6). Quibal-INH (L) is an ON bidentate donor ligand synthesized from Schiff base reaction between 4-(2-(7-chloroquinolin-3-yl)vinyl)benzaldehyde (Quibal) and Isoniazid (INH). The synthesized compounds were characterized using analytical techniques involving ATR-IR, UV-Vis, EPR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, and ⁵¹V NMR. Ligand (L) and compound 3 exhibited moderate growth inhibitory activity towards Candida albicans and Cryptococcus neoformans fungal species. Compound 6 has been identified as active against the above fungal species with no toxicity and hemolysis activity on the healthy cells. Compound 5 exhibited significant activity against the Mycobacterium tuberculosis H ₃₇ R _v strain. Further, compounds 4, 5 and 6 exhibited excellent free radical scavenging activity. All the developed compounds were found to exhibit stability over a wide range of pH conditions. The complexes were additionally studied for their interaction with human serum albumin (HSA) with the UV-vis spectroscopic technique.

Bioprospecting of exopolysaccharide from marine Sphingobium yanoikuyae BBL01: Production, characterization, and metal chelation activity

In the present study, an exopolysaccharide (EPS)-producing bacterial strain was isolated from the Eastern Sea (Sokcho Beach) of South Korea and identified as Sphingobium yanoikuyae BBL01. Media optimization was performed using response surface design, and a yield of 2.63 ± 0.02 g/L EPS was achieved. Purified EPS produced using lactose as the main carbon source was analyzed by GC-MS and found to be composed of α-D-xylopyranose (28.6 ± 2.0%), β-D-glucopyranose (21.0 ± 1.6%), α-D-mannopyranose (18.5 ± 1.2%), β-d-mannopyranose (13.1 ± 1.4%), β-D-xylopyranose (10.2 ± 2.1%), α-d-talopyranose (5.9 ± 1.1%), and β-d-galacturonic acid (2.43 ± 0.8%). Interestingly, different carbon sources (glucose, galactose, glycerol, lactose, sucrose, and xylose) showed no effect on EPS monomer composition, with a slight change in the mass percentage of various monosaccharides. Purified EPS was stable up to 233 °C, indicating its possible suitability as a thickening and gelling agent for food-related applications. EPS also showed considerable emulsifying, flocculating, free-radical scavenging, and metal-complexion activity, suggesting various biotechnological applications.