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This study aims to determine the effect of nanoparticles (NPs), namely graphene oxide (GO), multilayer carbon tubes (MWCNTs + Fe), magnetite (Fe3O4) and in situ forming brushite (DCPD) in chitosan (CS) based matrices on the cytotoxicity, Pregabalin (PG) release, and in vivo behavior of mechanically stabilized conductive nerve conduits (NCs). NPs change the composites’ hydrophilicity in the order: DCPD (46.8) < MWCNT (54.21) ∼ Fe3O4 (54.44) < GO (65.99) and the water contact angle (47–66°) corresponds to the conditions of cell adhesion. NPs of ≤ 150 μg/ml reduce cell adhesion but don't trigger oxidative stress and toxic effects. Magnetite NPs of 300 µg/ml promote apoptosis in nerve cells. The introduction of PG at stage b during the DCPD formation provides the drug release kinetics closest to the zero-order kinetic model. The most electrically conductive GO- and MWCNTs + Fe - containing NCs have a prolonged biodegradation period of about 6 months, which makes them promising for the regeneration of damaged peripheral nerves in humans.

Summary: Persistent liver injury triggers a fibrogenic program that causes pathologic remodeling of the hepatic microenvironment (i.e., liver fibrosis) and portal hypertension. The dynamics of gene regulation during liver disease progression and early regression remain understudied. Here, we generated hepatic transcriptome profiles in two well-established liver disease models at peak fibrosis and during spontaneous regression after the removal of the inducing agents. We linked the dynamics of key disease readouts, such as portal pressure, collagen area, and transaminase levels, to differentially expressed genes, enabling the identification of transcriptomic signatures of progressive vs. regressive liver fibrosis and portal hypertension. These candidate biomarkers (e.g., Tcf4, Mmp7, Trem2, Spp1, Scube1, Islr) were validated in RNA sequencing datasets of patients with cirrhosis and portal hypertension, and those cured from hepatitis C infection. Finally, deconvolution identified major cell types and suggested an association of macrophage and portal hepatocyte signatures with portal hypertension and fibrosis area.

A ballean is a set X endowed with some family F of its subsets, called the balls, in such a way that (X,F) can be considered as an asymptotic counterpart of a uniform topological space. Given a cardinal k, we define F using a natural order structure on k. We characterize balleans up to coarse equivalence, give the criterions of metrizability and cellularity, calculate the basic cardinal invariant of these balleans. We conclude the paper with discussion of some special ultrafilters on cardinal balleans.