Journal of Bioprocessing & Biotechniques

The biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by plant extracts is a preferred method because it is an environmentally safe, fast and low cost method. Therefore, this study aimed to use aqueous extracts from (Sonchus oleraceus and Cichorium pumilum) to synthesize AgNPs, and their evaluation antifungal activity and inhibitory impact on the production of aflatoxin B1 (AFB₁) produced by the new strain Aspergillus aflatoxiformans, and A. ochraceou that produce ochratoxin A (OTA). AgNPs synthesized by S. oleraceus give size ranged between 6 and 30 nm, While AgNPs synthesizedby C. pumilum sizes ranging from 3-36 nm. The inhibition zone with A. aflatoxiformans was 33.3±7.6, and 30.7±5.13mm at 400ppm from AgNPs synthesized by S. oleraceus and C. pumilum, respectively, while with A. ochraceus the inhibition zone increased to (35.0 ± 5.0 and 37.0 ± 4.3 mm). Finally, this study recorded for the first time, the impact of AgNPs on growth and ability of A. aflatoxiformans to produce AFB₁. The inhibition percentage of AFB₁ reached to 97%.

Background: An objective assessment of wounds carries both prognostic and diagnostic values thus determine treatment strategies and objectively examine the efficacy of emerging and novel wound therapies. Therefore, the aim of this article is to evaluate several objective imaging based wound assessment techniques.

Methods: Electronic databases were searched for all available publications on the use of wound assessment devices on human and artificial wounds using appropriate search terms. The primary outcome was the reliability and reproducibility of measurement whilst the secondary outcome was the feasibility of the instrument. All studies underwent quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS) to examine the quality of data.

Results: Forty-four articles were identified evaluating 11 instruments which were divided acute wound measuring devices and chronic wound measuring devices. Average QUADAS score was 11 with lowest at 9 and highest 14. The highest performing instrument for acute wound healing was multiphoton tomography. It provides morphological assessment at a histological level, and details physiological status through optical redox ratio autofluorescence. However, its current high cost would therefore limit its use to research rather than clinical setting. The 3D system is ideal for wound assessment of chronic wounds. The combination of portability and ease of use outperforms hyperspectral imaging, OCT and MPT, whilst its accuracy is superior to 2D imaging

Discussion/Conclusion: This was an article which compared the performance of instruments for chronic and acute wounds. The article provides an extension into three further articles which provide a more in-depth review of the performances of the described instrument.