Jadavpur University

About: Jadavpur University is a education organization based out in Kolkata, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Fuzzy logic. The organization has 10856 authors who have published 27678 publications receiving 422069 citations. The organization is also known as: JU & Jadabpur University.

Evaluation of nitric oxide scavenging activity, In Vitro and Ex Vivo, of selected medicinal plants traditionally used in inflammatory diseases

Abstract: Steroidal and non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs, despite their various side effects, are in great demand worldwide. Alternatively, herbal formulations provide relief to a large percentage of the population suffering from inflammatory diseases. Therefore, such practices need to be rationalized through a mechanistic approach. Thus, four traditional medicinal plants, namely Ventilago madraspatana Gaertn., Rubia cordifolia Linn., Lantana camara Linn. and Morinda citrifolia Linn. were selected for a study on the inhibition of nitric oxide (NO*), a key mediator in the phenomenon of inflammation, signifying the presence of effective antiinflammatory constituents therein. Plant samples were extracted with different solvents for evaluation of their inhibitory activity on NO* produced in vitro from sodium nitroprusside, and in LPS-activated murine peritoneal macrophages, ex vivo. Further, the inhibition of NO* synthesis was correlated with the reduction of iNOS protein expression through Western blot. Notable NO* scavenging activity was exhibited in vitro by some extracts of V. madraspatana, R. cordifolia and L. camara (IC(50) < 0.2 mg/mL). Most of them showed marked inhibition (60%-80%), ex vivo, at a dose of 80 microg/mL without appreciable cytotoxic effect on the cultured macrophages. Immunoblot analysis confirmed that the modulatory effect of the samples had occurred through suppression of iNOS protein.

Nonlinear wave propagation in a strongly coupled collisional dusty plasma

Abstract: The propagation of a nonlinear low-frequency mode in a strongly coupled dusty plasma is investigated using a generalized hydrodynamical model. For the well-known longitudinal dust acoustic mode a standard perturbative approach leads to a Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) soliton. The strong viscoelastic effect, however, introduced a nonlinear forcing and a linear damping in the KdV equation. This novel equation is solved analytically to show a competition between nonlinear forcing and dissipative damping. The physical consequence of such a solution is also sketched.

One-pot synthesis of folic acid encapsulated upconversion nanoscale metal organic frameworks for targeting, imaging and pH responsive drug release

Abstract: In this work, a new theranostic nanoplatform is developed to construct an anticancer drug carrier by integrating the distinct advantages of upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) and metal organic frameworks (MOFs) encapsulated with a targeting ligand. Here NaYF4:Yb3+,Er3+ is chosen as an upconversion nanoparticle for its high luminescence properties. Then, folic acid encapsulated Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-8 (ZIF-8) is directly coated on UCNPs in one step to form a monodispersed core–shell structured nanocomposite (labeled as UCNPs@ZIF-8/FA). The synthesized upconversion nanoscale MOFs (NMOFs) are simultaneously used as a targeted anticancer drug carrier and in cellular imaging. The UCNP@ZIF-8/FA nanocomposites are found to be nontoxic towards the human cervix adenocarcinoma (HeLa) and mouse fibroblast (L929) cell lines via a cell viability assay. It is worthwhile noting that, the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is absorbed into UCNP@ZIF-8/FA nanocomposites (loading amount 685 mg g−1) and also pH responsive drug release is observed. The as-prepared 5-FU loaded UCNP@ZIF-8/FA nanocomposites exhibited greater cytotoxicity towards HeLa cells due to the folate receptor-mediated endocytosis. Our study highlights the potential of developing multifunctional upconversion NMOFs for simultaneous targeted cellular imaging with delivery of anticancer drugs.