Laura Escuder-Gilabert

A 21st century technique for food control: Electronic noses

This work examines the main features of modern electronic noses (e-noses) and their most important applications in food control in this new century. The three components of an electronic nose (sample handling system, detection system, and data processing system) are described. Special attention is devoted to the promising mass spectrometry based e-noses, due to their advantages over the more classical gas sensors. Applications described include process monitoring, shelf-life investigation, freshness evaluation, authenticity assessment, as well as other general aspects of the utilization of electronic noses in food control. Finally, some interesting remarks concerning the strengths and weaknesses of electronic noses in food control are also mentioned.

Review: Highlights in recent applications of electronic tongues in food analysis

This paper examines the main features of modern electronic tongues (e-tongues) and their most important applications in food analysis in this new century. The components of an e-tongue (automatic sampler, array of chemical sensors, and data processing system) are described. Applications commented include process monitoring, freshness evaluation and shelf-life investigation, authenticity assessment, foodstuff recognition, quantitative analysis, and other quality control studies. Finally, some interesting remarks concerning the strengths and weaknesses of e-tongues in food analysis are also mentioned.

Biopartitioning micellar chromatography : an in vitro technique for predicting human drug absorption

The main oral drug absorption barriers are fluid cell membranes and generally drugs are absorbed by a passive diffusion mechanism. Biopartitioning micellar chromatography (BMC) is a mode of micellar liquid chromatography that uses micellar mobile phases of Brij35 under adequate experimental conditions and can be useful to mimic the drug partitioning process in biological systems. In this paper the usefulness of BMC for predicting oral drug absorption in humans is demonstrated. A hyperbolic model has been obtained using the retention data of a heterogeneous set of 74 compounds, which shows predictive ability for drugs absorbed by passive diffusion. The model obtained in BMC is compared with those obtained using the well-known systems (Caco-2 and TC-7) that use intestinal epithelium cell lines. The use of BMC is simple, reproducible and can provide key information about the transport properties of new compounds during the drug discovery process.

Biopartitioning micellar separation methods: modelling drug absorption.

The search for new pharmacologically active compounds in drug discovery programmes often neglects biopharmaceutical properties as drug absorption. As a result, poor biopharmaceutical characteristics constitute a major reason for the low success rate for candidates in clinical development. Since the cost of drug development is many times larger than the cost of drug discovery, predictive methodologies aiding the selection of bioavailable drug candidates are of profound significance. This paper has been focussed on recent developments and applications of chromatographic systems, particularly those systems based on amphiphilic structures, in the frame of alternative approaches for estimating the transport properties of new drugs. The aim of this review is to take a critical look at the separations methods proposed for describing and predicting drug passive permeability across gastrointestinal tract and the skin.

On-line monitoring of food fermentation processes using electronic noses and electronic tongues: A review

Fermentation processes are often sensitive to even slight changes of conditions that may result in unacceptable end-product quality. Thus, close follow-up of this type of processes is critical for detecting unfavorable deviations as early as possible in order to save downtime, materials and resources. Nevertheless the use of traditional analytical techniques is often hindered by the need for expensive instrumentation and experienced operators and complex sample preparation. In this sense, one of the most promising ways of developing rapid and relatively inexpensive methods for quality control in fermentation processes is the use of chemical multisensor systems. In this work we present an overview of the most important contributions dealing with the monitoring of fermentation processes using electronic noses and electronic tongues. After a brief description of the fundamentals of both types of devices, the different approaches are critically commented, their strengths and weaknesses being highlighted. Finally, future trends in this field are also mentioned in the last section of the article.

Quantitative retention-structure and retention-activity relationship studies of local anesthetics by micellar liquid chromatography.

The retention of compounds in micellar liquid chromatography (MLC) is governed by hydrophobic and electrostatic forces. For ionic compounds, both interactions should be considered. The present report offers a novel retention model that includes the hydrophobicity of compounds and the molar fraction of the charged form of compounds and compares it with other previously reported models. High correlations between the logarithm of capacity factors and these structural parameters were obtained for local anesthetics with different degrees of ionization using a nonionic surfactant solution as mobile phase. Modeling the retention of compounds as a function of physicochemical parameters and experimental variables is established by means of multiple linear regression. In addition, a predictive model for estimating the hydrophobicity of local anesthetics is proposed. Finally, quantitative and qualitative retention-activity relationships in MLC are also investigated for these compounds. An excellent correlation between the capacity factors in MLC and the anesthetic potency of local anesthetics was obtained.

Cyclodextrins in capillary electrophoresis: Recent developments and new trends

Despite the fact that extensive research in the field of separations by capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been carried out and many reviews have been published in the last years, a specific review on the use and future potential of cyclodextrins (CDs) in CE is not available. This review focuses the attention in the CD-CE topic over the January 2013-February 2014 period (not covered by previous more general CE-reviews). Recent contributions (reviews and research articles) including practical uses (e.g. solute-CD binding constant estimation and further potentials; 19% of publications), developments and applications (mainly chiral and achiral analysis; 38 and 24% of publications, respectively) are summarized in nine comprehensive tables and are commented. Statistics and predictions related to the CD-CE publications are highlighted in order to infer the current and expected research interests. Finally, trends and initiatives on CD-CE attending to real needs or practical criteria are outlined.

Characterization of interactions between polyphenolic compounds and human serum proteins by capillary electrophoresis

The interaction of ten natural polyphenolic compounds (chlorogenic acid, apigenin, catechin, epicatechin, flavanone, flavone, quercetin, rutin, vicenin-2 and vitexin) with human serum albumin and mixtures of human serum albumin and α1-acid glycoprotein under near physiological conditions is studied by capillary electrophoresis–frontal analysis. Furthermore, the binding of these polyphenolic compounds to total plasmatic proteins is evaluated using ultrafiltration and capillary electrophoresis. In spite of the relatively small differences in the chemical structures of the compounds studied, large differences were observed in their binding behaviours to plasmatic proteins. The hydrophobicity, the presence/absence of some functional groups, steric hindrance and spatial arrangement seem to be key factors in the affinity of natural polyphenols towards plasmatic proteins.

Chromatographic quantitation of the hydrophobicity of ionic compounds by the use of micellar mobile phases

Abstract Many biologically active compounds of interest in structure–activity relationships are ionic at physiological pH. However, ionic organic compounds are only weakly or not retained in conventional RPLC which impedes the chromatographic estimation of their hydrophobicity and the development of quantitative retention–activity relationship studies. The use of micellar mobile phases allows the retention of ionic compounds. Hydrophobic and electrostatic forces govern the retention of ionic compounds in micellar liquid chromatography. In this paper three different retention models log k–log P for ionic compounds are tested (P=partition coefficient). The retention model (log k=a log P+bα+c) which includes the hydrophobicity and the molar total charge of compound at a given pH value has proven to be valid for all types of compounds tested, catecholamines, local anesthetics, diuretics and o-phthalaldehyde–N-acetyl- l -cysteine amino acid derivatives.

Development of predictive retention–activity relationship models of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs by micellar liquid chromatography: comparison with immobilized artificial membrane columns

The predictive and interpretative capability of quantitative chromatographic retention-biological activity models is supported by the fact that under adequate experimental conditions the solute partitioning into chromatographic system can emulate the solute partitioning into lipid bilayers of biological membranes, which is the basis for drug and metabolite uptake, passive transport across membranes and bioaccumulation. The use of micellar solutions of Brij35 as mobile phases in reversed-phase liquid chromatography has proven to be valid to predict some biological activities of different kinds of drugs. In this study, quantitative retention-activity relationship (QRAR) models to describe some of the biological activities and pharmacokinetic properties of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) with predictive and interpretative ability are obtained. These models are compared with those obtained using immobilized artificial membrane (IAM) column data taken from the literature. For NSAIDs, the statistical characteristics of the micellar liquid chromatography (MLC) QRAR models were better than or at least comparable to those of the IAM-QRAR models.