Dravidian University

Sustainable strategies for controlling aflatoxigenic fungi and their toxins are urgently needed to ensure food safety and reduce post-harvest losses. In this study, selenium nanoparticles were biosynthesized using Tribulus terrestris leaf extract (TT-SeNPs) and evaluated for their antifungal and antimycotoxigenic efficacy against Aspergillus flavus. Phytochemical profiling of the T. terrestris leaf extract by LC–MS/MS-QTOF revealed presence of gallic acid, epicatechin, acacetin, apigenin, chrysoeriol, quercetin, and kaempferol glycosides, which served as natural reducing and stabilizing agents during nanoparticle synthesis. The biosynthesized TT-SeNPs exhibited a characteristic UV–visible absorption peak at 328 nm, spherical morphology with sizes ranging from 60–105 nm, a highly negative zeta potential (−44 mV), and predominantly amorphous structural features confirmed by XRD and Raman analyses. The TT-SeNPs exhibited potent antifungal activity against Aspergillus flavus, with minimum inhibitory (MIC) and minimum fungicidal (MFC) concentrations of 28.56 ± 5.91 and 43.19 ± 7.84 µg/mL, respectively. The TT-SeNPs significantly suppressed spore germination, reduced mycelial biomass, and markedly inhibited aflatoxin B1 production in a dose-dependent manner. Mechanistic investigations revealed elevated intracellular reactive oxygen species generation, depletion of ergosterol content, and disruption of membrane integrity, indicating multi-targeted interference with fungal physiology. Cytotoxicity assays demonstrated selective toxicity toward MDA-MB-231 cancer cells, with minimal effects on HEK-293 non-cancerous cells, supporting the inherent redox-modulating behavior of the SeNPs. The safety assessment showed that TT-SeNPs exhibited low developmental toxicity in zebrafish embryos up to 100 µg/mL, with confirmed biocompatibility at biologically relevant concentrations. Overall, this study demonstrates that phytochemically capped TT-SeNPs function as a multi-mechanistic antifungal and anti-aflatoxigenic agent with favorable biocompatibility. The findings highlight their potential application as a sustainable, plant-derived nanotechnology platform for food preservation, crop protection, and safe post-harvest management of A. flavus contamination.

Aegle marmelos, commonly known as bael, is a medicinal plant widely recognized for its therapeutic properties. The leaf extract of A. marmelos has garnered significant attention in contemporary research due to its rich phytochemical composition and diverse biological activities. This research will investigate the phytochemical constituents of A. marmelos leaf extract, including alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolic compounds, and terpenoids, among others, which contribute to its pharmacological potential. The mechanisms underlying these activities are investigated, providing insights into the molecular pathways through which the leaf extract of A. marmelos exerts its beneficial effects. The leaf extract was obtained using methanol and water as solvents. Total phenol content, DPPH, FRAP, SOD, and total antioxidant activity were assessed using the phosphomolybdenum method. Compound identification was conducted using a UV-visible spectrophotometer, FTIR, TLC, and GCMS. The findings demonstrate that the leaf extract possesses antimicrobial and antioxidant potential. Molecular docking studies with PPARγ proteins further confirmed these findings, suggesting that these leaves may be useful in the treatment of microbial infections, anti-inflammatory responses, and metabolic disorders, including cancer. Our findings demonstrated the leaf extract was promising in medicinal applications due to its antimicrobial, antioxidant properties and wide applicability in the treatment of pathogenic infections and anti-inflammatory responses and metabolic disorders, including diabetes and cancer.

The aim of the present study is to demonstrate the isolation, identification and screening of bacteria with high cellulase activity from soil samples. Cellulase degrading bacteria were isolated from soil sample using serial dilution and pour plate method. It indicated that favourable fermentation conditions and the selection of a suitable growth medium played a key role in the production of cellulase from newly isolated Cellulase sp. Due to its particular characteristics this enzyme will be used in saccharification process for bioethanol production from plant biomasses. An accurate and precise method for the assay of cellulase activity in soil was developed. It involves determination of the reducing sugars produced when a soil sample is incubated with acetate buffer, carboxy methyl cellulase (CMC), and toluene.

Accelerating prevalence of non-communicable chronic diseases imposes urgent demand for intelligent, patientspecific treatment systems capable of continuous operation over heterogeneous physiological data streams. Conventional centralized reinforcement learning (RL) architectures face three compounding limitations when deployed in Internet of Things (IoT) healthcare environments: inability to accommodate non-identically distributed patient data across edge nodes, exposure of sensitive health records during model training, and slow policy adaptation when patient clusters evolve dynamically. This paper addresses all three limitations through a unified federated framework that integrates Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning (MAML) for rapid cluster-level policy initialization, Dynamic GraphSAGE for inductive construction of patient similarity graphs from continuous IoT streams, Federated Proximal Policy Optimization (FedPPO) for distributed policy refinement without raw data transmission, Multi-Agent Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (MADDPG) for cooperative inter-cluster treatment coordination, and SimCLR-based contrastive pre-training for robust physiological state encoding. Evaluated on synthetic datasets derived from MIMIC-III and UK Biobank distributions spanning 5,000 patient traces over 90-day windows, the proposed architecture converges 45-50% faster, improves treatment success by 20-25%, reduces chronic exacerbation incidence by 15-20%, and maintains communication overhead below 10% of centralized training bandwidth. These outcomes confirm that meta-learning-guided federated RL is a viable and privacy-compliant foundation for scalable chronic disease management over decentralized IoT infrastructure.

Green chemistry has emerged as a transformative scientific approach aimed at minimizing the environmental and human health impacts associated with chemical production and utilization. Conventional chemical processes often rely on hazardous reagents, generate substantial waste, consume large amounts of energy, and contribute to environmental pollution. The principles of green chemistry seek to redesign chemical products and processes to reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances while maintaining efficiency and economic viability. This study investigates the implementation of green chemistry principles in laboratory-scale chemical manufacturing processes and evaluates their effects on waste reduction, energy conservation, resource efficiency, and environmental sustainability. The research focuses on the replacement of traditional solvents with environmentally friendly alternatives, optimization of reaction conditions, enhancement of atom economy, and reduction of hazardous by-products. Experimental procedures were designed using renewable feedstocks, catalytic systems, and energy-efficient reaction pathways. Data obtained from laboratory investigations were compared with conventional chemical methods to assess sustainability indicators. The results demonstrated significant reductions in waste generation, lower energy requirements, improved product yields, and decreased toxicity levels. Furthermore, green chemistry approaches exhibited favorable economic outcomes through reduced material consumption and waste management costs. The findings highlight the potential of green chemistry to support sustainable industrial development and contribute to global environmental protection initiatives. The adoption of green chemistry principles not only improves chemical process efficiency but also aligns with international sustainability goals and regulatory requirements. This study emphasizes the importance of integrating green chemistry concepts into research, education, and industrial practice to promote a safer and more sustainable future.