Search

In tissue engineering, coating biomaterial’s surface with extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins can promote many biological activities, including cellular responses, wound healing, and rejection reduction. Several interactions occur upon binding proteins onto the surfaces, leading to changes in the protein structural conformation, directly affecting the cell-host interactions. Therefore, this study investigates the impacts of surfaces’ wettability on protein conformation. In order to get the insights, organosilicate (OGS) was utilized to modify the tissue culture plate, resulting in surfaces with different wettability, followed by fibronectin (FN) immobilization. Then, the surfaces were used to study the fibrinogen interaction, cell attachment, and spreading. The results showed that OGS-modified surfaces produced four different wettability, ranging from super-hydrophilic (OGS150), hydrophilic (OGS100), hydrophobic (OGS60), to super-hydrophobic (OGS5). Each surface possessed particular nature, resulting in the variation of FN molecules' structural change. The amount of FN adsorbed on the OGS-coated surfaces was shown not to be perfectly proportional to the results of fibrinogen interaction, cell attachment, and spreading. The super-hydrophobic surfaces (OGS5) were highest in the amount of immobilized FN and the efficiency in subsequent experiments among the OGS-coated surfaces group. Notably, the hydrophobic surface adsorbed the lowest amount of FN but achieved remarkable results in the following experiments. Thus, this study holds a promising potential in producing biocompatible materials in tissue engineering.

Herein, the effect of three types of capping polymers, mercaptopropionic acid (MPA), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and starch on the photoluminescence of Mn(2+)-doped ZnSe (ZnSe:Mn) nanoparticles, has been investigated. ZnSe:Mn nanoparticles were successfully prepared with a green method of precipitation in aqueous solutions containing MPA, PEG, or starch as stabilizers. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy had proved the formation of ZnSe:Mn particles and the interaction between them and the capping agents. The resultant nanoparticles with different capping polymers were identical in optical property; however, photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQY) as well as the photoluminescence lifetime varied by capping agents. Starch-capped ZnSe:Mn nanoparticles had the biggest size compared to others, which was confirmed using transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, UV-Vis absorbance and Raman spectroscopy. Also, the PL intensity was significantly enhanced with starch-capped ZnSe:Mn nanoparticles. The PLQYs of starch archived 26%, which was 1.23 or 1.8 times lower than that of ZnSe:Mn nanoparticles capping with MPA or PEG, respectively. Furthermore, the highest decline of PL intensity was detected in PEG, which completely diminished in the 19th week, while both MPA and starch endowed ZnSe:Mn nanoparticles with outstanding PL lifetimes diminished over seven weeks.

In this study, the hydrodistillation process of lemon peel essential oil was modeled and the obtained essential oil was determined for chemical composition. The modeling was done through non-stationary diffusion model and first-order kinetic model (i.e., fixed diffusion model). The results revealed that the extraction process seemed to closely follow the simultaneous washing and diffusion model (non-stationary diffusion) and the highest yield was obtained at extraction conditions including 3: 1 mL/g of water-to-materials ratio, 204 W of heating capacity and extraction time of 60 min. At optimum conditions, essential oils obtained at the yield of 3.9% (v/w) and its composition was analyzed by GC–MS. The composition of lemon peel essential oil was predominated with Limonene (62.17%) and ϒ-Terpinene (12.356%), which characterizes the scent of this essential oil as well as its increased commercial value.

In this study, we investigated two formulations of chitosan-Pluronic P123 with different folate ligand designation for targeted delivery of Paclitaxel (PTX), in which folic acid (FA) was directly conjugated to chitosan (FA-Cs-P123) or substituted onto P123 (Cs-P123-FA). The results showed that the FA content of Cs-P123-FA was determined at 0.71 wt/wt% which was significantly higher than that of FA-Cs-P123 (0.31 wt/wt%). Two copolymers were low critical gel concentrations (CGC). FA-Cs-P123 and Cs-P123-FA nanogels performed high PTX encapsulation efficiency reaching 95.57 ± 5.51 and 92.51 ± 6.68 wt/wt%, respectively. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and zeta potential analysis indicated that the PTX-loaded nanogels were spherically formed around 60 nm in diameter along with positive charge. Furthermore, the PTX release profile was slow and it was controlled by the pH of the medium. In particular, in vitro biocompatibility assays indicated that both FA-Cs-P123 and Cs-P123-FA exhibited good biological compatibility with a human foreskin fibroblast cell line and well uptake efficiency into MCF-7 cancer cells. Cs-P123-FA nanogel significantly enhanced the cytotoxicity of PTX in comparison with FA-Cs-P123. The result indicates that Cs-P123-FA nanogels with a higher decorated FA content perform a better targeting efficiency; therefore, they could have great potential application towards breast cancer treatment.

Hematin has been used as an alternative enzyme catalyst to horseradish peroxidase (HRP) due to its iron-containing activity center. Although hematin and it derivatives have been widely used for polymerization of phenol/analine compounds, it has some drawbacks such as the limited solubility and reaction only at high pH condition. Herein, we report a nanosized biomimetic catalyst, hematin-decorated polyamidoamine dendrimer (G3.0-He) that can effectively catalyze the in situ hydrogelation of phenol-conjugated polymers under neutral pH condition. We demonstrate that G3.0-He particles are smaller than 100 nm and have excellent enzyme-mimetic functions. Interestingly, the nanosized catalyst is not inactivated at high H2O2 concentration. Compared to pure hematin, G3.0-He has significantly higher dispersion in acidic and neutral media, and preserves the percentage of survival of fibroblasts over 90%. Notably, G3.0-He possesses an exquisite HRP-mimicking activity in gelation of gelatin derivative with phenolic hydroxyl (tyamine) moieties under mild physiological conditions. The in vitro study demonstrated that Gel-Tyr hydrogel by G3.0-He catalyzed reaction had excellent cytocompatibility and an excellent scaffold for adhesion to fibroblast cells. Therefore, the designed minimalistic G3.0-He catalyst could serve as an effective catalytic alternative for HRP enzyme in the preparation of biomedical hydrogels.

In this study, we report that an enzyme-mimicking biocatalyst polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimer G2.0-hematin (G2.0-He) was fabricated successfully. The chemical structure of G2.0-He was verified by 1H NMR and FT-IR spectroscopy. G2.0-He exhibited a size distribution from 11.6 ± 1.7 nm to 12.5 ± 2.9 nm and a zeta potential from 32.5 mV to 25.6 mV along with the enhancement of the hematin conjugation degree. The relative activity of G2.0-He was evaluated based on pyrogallol oxidation reactions at pH = 7 . The results showed that G2.0-He was more stable than horseradish peroxidase (HRP) enzyme in high H2O2 concentrations. The HRP-mimic ability of G2.0-He was also confirmed by the catalyzation when preparing catecholic gelatin hydrogels under mild conditions. Moreover, our results also revealed that these hydrogels performed with excellent cytocompatibility in an in vitro study and could be used as a potential scaffold for adhesion and proliferation of fibroblast cells. The obtained results indicated that G2.0-He is a suitable platform for altering the HRP enzyme in several biomedical applications.

The structural and magnetic properties of Bi0.5La0.5Fe1−xCrxO3−δ (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, and 0.40) compounds synthesized by a solid-state reaction method have been investigated. Rietveld refinement of x-ray and neutron powder diffraction data revealed a nonpolar orthorhombically distorted perovskite Pnma structure with long-range G-type antiferromagnetic (AFM) order in the studied samples. It was observed that substitution by Cr strongly influenced the morphology, crystalline, and magnetic properties of the samples. Interestingly, Cr doping led to an abrupt increase in the crystallite size from 31 nm for x = 0 to 740 nm for x = 0.40. This size change was accompanied by a decrease of microstrain by about twofold and a sudden change of the structural parameters. Magnetization measurements indicated the coexistence of ferromagnetic (FM) clusters with long-range AFM order. It was established that Cr doping leads to a suppression of the magnetic states. More interestingly, all of the samples demonstrated a spontaneous large exchange bias (EB) effect at room temperature, which is of great interest from the viewpoint of practical applications. The EB effect originates from pinning of uncompensated spins at the interfaces between FM clusters and the AFM matrix.

To mimic the function of HRP enzyme and improve the catalytic effectiveness of hematin in neutral media, a molecule was conjugated onto gelatin to overcome the solubility drawback of hematin. The obtained results have shown that hematin-conjugated gelatin (Ge–He) performed a catalytic peroxidase-like function that was more effective than that of free hematin. At a suitable conjugated amount, Ge–He showed superior catalytic efficiency in the oxidation reaction of guaiacol under neutral conditions as compared to other hematin-based biocatalysts. The activity of Ge–He exhibited higher stability under harsh conditions (higher concentration of H2O2) than natural HRP enzyme. When the Ge–He biocatalyst was applied in the preparation of hydrogels, the gelation time of phenolic gelatin (Gel–Tyr) was as rapid as that of HRP-mediated hydrogels. Furthermore, the Ge–He biocatalyst is highly compatible with cells, with 100% viability of human fibroblast cells in vitro. Therefore, the designed Ge–He provides feasible strategies for mimicking HRP enzyme for biomedical applications.

Polycaprolactone (PCL) is a versatile biomaterial with a wide range of medical applications, but its use in blood-contacting devices is hampered due to insufficient hemocompatibility. In this work, electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) membranes were chemically grafted with conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) to prevent induced blood coagulation. The density of grafted CLA and its effects on the morphology and wettability of the membranes were examined. The study also investigated how the membrane interacted with human whole blood and platelets to determine its antithrombotic properties. As the results suggested, the grafting caused a negligible effect on the physical properties of the membrane but greatly improved its compatibility with blood, showing that the approach can be investigated further for blood-contacting applications.

Quantum dots are nanometer-sized semiconductor crystals that exhibit distinct optical and electronic properties. These nanocrystals have been used in a variety of fields, including optoelectronics, sensing, energy conversion, and biomedicine. In many of these applications, polymers are used to coat the quantum dots to improve their solubility and stability while also decreasing their inherent toxicity, making them more environmentally and biologically compatible. Among the many remarkable properties of these polymer–quantum dot hybrids, their excellent absorption properties that are readily tunable make them good candidates as photothermal agents for targeted cancer cell therapy. In this chapter, we present different strategies for the synthesis of polymer–quantum dot hybrids, providing some examples for each approach. We also highlight how polymer–quantum dot hybrids are applied in photothermal therapy.

Nanosized multi-drug delivery systems provide synergistic effects between drugs and bioactive compounds, resulting in increased overall efficiency and restricted side effects compared to conventional single-drug chemotherapy. In this study, we develop an amphiphilic heparin-poloxamer P403 (HP403) nanogel that could effectively co-load curcuminoid (Cur) and cisplatin hydrate (CisOH) (HP403@CisOH@Cur) via two loading mechanisms. The HP403 nanogels and HP403@CisOH@Cur nanogels were closely analyzed with 1H-NMR spectroscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy, TEM, and DLS, exhibiting high stability in spherical forms. In drug release profiles, accelerated behavior of Cur and CisOH at pH 5.5 compared with neutral pH was observed, suggesting effective delivery of the compounds in tumor sites. In vitro studies showed high antitumor activity of HP403@CisOH@Cur nanogels, while in vivo assays showed that the dual-drug platform prolonged the survival time of mice and prevented tail necrosis. In summary, HP403@CisOH@Cur offers an intriguing strategy to achieve the cisplatin and curcumin synergistic effect in a well-designed delivery platform that increases antitumor effectiveness and overcomes undesired consequences caused by cisplatin in breast cancer treatment.

In this work, the multilayer of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor was optimized to achieve the maximum sensor sensitivity. By optimizing the thickness of the silver layer (Ag) and dielectric films (TiO2 and AlAs), the optimum sensitivity of the SPR sensor could be obtained. The performance of the SPR sensor proposed was compared with control simulations utilizing zinc oxide (ZnO) and molybdenum oxide (MoO3). The numerical results indicate that the figure-of-merits (FOM) of the SPR sensor was achieved around 150/RIU, corresponding to the sensor sensitivity of 162.79°/RIU with the optimized thicknesses of the TiO2, Ag, and AlAs layers of 140 nm, 60 nm, and 25 nm, respectively. This refractive index sensor shows the FOM to have high detection accuracy and high sensitivity that lead to finding potential application in bio-chemical detection with a small volume of liquid used in biological diagnosis.

A facile and simple chemical precipitation method was utilized to synthesize FeFe2O4 magnetic nanomaterial for removing methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution. Characterizations of this material were examined by using XRD, SEM, FT-IR, TGA-DTG and BET methods. Factors affecting the uptake of methylene blue, including pH, adsorption time, and MB initial concentration were also studied. The measured data were fitted by using four isotherm models including Langmuir, Freundlich, Sips and Temkin. Results showed that the Sips model offers the best fit to the data. In addition, the monolayer MB adsorption capacity obtained from the Langmuir model was 42.35 mg g−1 under the optimal conditions of pH = 10 and adsorption time = 80 min. In particular, the uptake of MB onto FeFe2O4 magnetic nanomaterial obtained from the kinetic and mechanism studies of the adsorption was in good agreement with prediction of the pseudo-first-order model, whereas the electrostatic interaction was found to play a primary mechanism. Keywords: FeFe2O4 magnetic nanomaterial, Adsorption, Methylene blue, Adsorption mechanism

In this work, SiO2 nanoparticles were prepared by the sol-gel method after sodium silicate was extracted from rice husk ash (RHA) under various experimental conditions such as types of acids, NaOH concentration, dissolved time, and temperature and used for removal of Fe2+ ions from aqueous solutions. The extracted SiO2 was morphologically and chemically characterized and showed a surface area of 78 m2/g and uniform pores of 2.71 nm, offering high adsorption capacity for Fe2+ ions. The influence of pH, contact time, and amount of adsorbent was studied in order to establish the best conditions for the Fe2+ adsorption and removal. Furthermore, the adsorption data were fitted with an exponential shape curve for all the three variable parameters that affect the adsorption process. The best results were obtained for pH 5, 20 min contact time, and 0.5 g adsorbent dose. The loading adsorption capacity was 9 mg of Fe2+ ions/g SiO2 in the concentration range 0.1–1.0 mgL−1. In addition, the synthesized SiO2 with the size of around 50 nm can be used for specific heavy metal removal and drug delivery, after modification of the SiO2 surface with various functional groups.

Self-assembly of the amphiphilic copolymer into core–shell-like nanoparticles is the new tactic to tailor carriers toward rationalization in the field of drug-delivery systems. Herein, a facile route for examining how the entrapment of a hydrophobic and negative-charge drug affects the micellar structure of a positive-charged copolymer and its biological behavior was developed. In this study, Pluronic F127-grafted chitosan (CF127) was utilized as a positive-charged copolymer for in situ loading of nanocurcumin in a cosolvent condition. Ultrasonication was found to be an effective method to control the self-assembly of phosphocasein and its interaction with curcumin. The superstructure of the incorporated nanoparticles was fabricated in the medium under unimolecular micelles as vesicular structure (SV) at lower ultrasonic condition while large complex micelles (multimicelle aggregates, LCMs) at higher ultrasonic power density. According to transmission electron microscopy, variable UV–visible spectrophotom...

Red mud modified by chitosan (RM/CS) was utilized as an adsorbent to effectively remove Pb(II) from aqueous solution. The surface area of RM/CS was found to significantly increase by more than 50% compared to that of original red mud. Different factors that affected the Pb(II) removal on this material, such as initial Pb(II) concentration, pH, and contact time, were investigated. The pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and intra-diffusion models were used to fit the experimental data to investigate the Pb(II)'s removal kinetics. The Pb(II) removal followed the intra-diffusion model. Additionally, the non-zero C value obtained from this model indicates that the removal was controlled by many different mechanisms. We also found that the interaction of Pb(II) and carbonate group on the material's surface played a primary role once the adsorption equilibrium was reached. Finally, the maximum adsorptive capacity was found to be about 209 mg/g. This obtained value is higher than those obtained for some other materials. Therefore, the present RM/CS should be a potential material for removing Pb(II) from aqueous solution.

Platinum complexes have paid much attention to develop new drugs for cancer therapy due to its inhibitory activity against cancerous cell growth. In the study, the strategically programming cationic PAMAM G4.0 with carboxylate motifs was introduced as a delivery platform for cisplatin. Partial amino groups on the surface of PAMAM G4.0 had coupled with active carboxylate groups on polyacrylic acid (PAA) in order to reduce the remaining problem of cationic dendrimer and improve delivery effectiveness of aquated cisplatin. Our results show that the full cationic PAMAM G4.0 was toxic against both breast cancer (MCF7) and human dermal fibroblast (HuDF) cell lines at 100 ppm concentration. In the contract, the PAA-conjugated PAMAM G4.0 significantly improved their cytocompatibility of the cationic dendrimer. In addition, the modified PAMAM dendrimers G4.0 showed high affinity with the aquated cisplatin due to the presence of abundant carboxylic groups. Notably, the aquated cisplatin-complexed PAA-G4.0 showed 2.94-folded reduction in the toxicity against NCI H460 in comparison to free cisplatin drugs. Hence, the G4.0-PAA/aquated cisplatin nano-complex may become a promising versatile strategy for improving antitumour efficacy and reducing the side effects of platinum-based drugs.

This paper presents a new thermal sensitive hydrogel system based on cystamine-functionalised sodium alginate-g-pluronic F127 (ACP). The introduction of cystamine to the alginate backbone not only creates a covalent bond with pluronic F127 but also provides intrinsic anti-bacterial activity for the resultant hydrogel. The amount of water uptake inside the hydrogel remained ~200% for 6 days and the degradation was completed in 12 days in physiological media. The ACP copolymer solution could form a hydrogel at body temperature (~37 °C) and could return to the solution phase if the temperature decreased below 25o °C. Fibroblast encapsulated in situ in the ACP hydrogel maintained their viability (≥90% based on the live/dead assay) for 7 days, demonstrating the good biocompatibility of the ACP hydrogel for long-term cell cultivation. In addition, three-dimensional (3D) culture showed that fibroblast attached to the hydrogels and successfully mimicked the porous structure of the ACP hydrogel after 5 days of culture. Fibroblast cells could migrate from the cell-ACP clusters and form a confluent cell layer on the surface of the culture dish. Altogether, the obtained results indicate that the thermal-responsive ACP hydrogel synthesised in this study may serve as a cellular delivery platform for diverse tissue engineering applications.

Chromolaena odorata is a medicinal herb with prominent pharmacological properties. The therapeutic efficiency of Chromolaena odorata extracts and its ingredients have, however, been limited by various factors, including the lack of targeting capacity and poor bioavailability. To approach this drawback, ethyl acetate fraction extract of Chromolaena odorata- (EA.ChO-) encapsulated pluronic-based nanocarriers was disclosed herein. The most common pluronic triblock copolymer micelles (pluronic F127) was used for the nanosized formulation of Chromolaena odorata extract. The obtained results show that EA.ChO-encapsulated nanoparticles have a spherical morphology with a designed hydrodynamic size was about 183.7 nm and zeta potential -39.5 mV. The EA.ChO nanoparticles are stable in different aqueous solutions (water, PBS 2.8, and PBS 7.4). The lyophilized form of the EA.ChO nanoparticles exhibited excellent stability for long-term storage. Notably, the EA.ChO nanoparticles were 1.3-1.4 fold more effective in the growth of fibroblast than the free EA.ChO, verifying the potential of pluronic F127 nanoparticles to the increased function of EA.ChO in the proliferation of fibroblast cell. In addition, bleeding stopped within 55 ± 6 s which was 20 s faster than that of free EA.ChO and 38-44 s faster than that of negative control treatments. The EA.ChO nanoencapsulation processed a rapid blood clot formation compared to control, free EA.ChO, pluronic F127, and water, suggesting the excellent bioavailability of EA.ChO nanoencapsulation. The obtained results thus provided a promising prospect for raising the activity Chromolaena odorata extract in wound healing application.

The requirements for an alternative to toxic localized corrosion inhibitors have always been high-performance with localized corrosion inhibition, availability, ease of manufacturing, cost-effectiveness and ecological safety. Due to its reputation in South East Asian countries as a vegetable of low-cost and environmental friendliness, Aganonerion polymorphum, or rather its leaf extract, can be a source of environmentally friendly and high-performing inhibitors. The effect of water extract of Aganonerion polymorphum leaf (APLWE) on carbon steel in 0.1 M naturally-aerated HCl solution was studied as a potential corrosion inhibitor using electrochemical techniques and surface analyses. The outcome demonstrated the mixed inhibition behavior of APLWE on the steel surface in holding back the electrochemical corrosion reactions by the establishment of a highly resistive layer, resulting in a reduction of the corrosion penetration rate. Surface appraisals indicated the existence of an adsorbed film as a complex between metal ions and an organic film of APLWE components, thereby preventing a case of corrosive degradation on the steel. The details of theoretical methods are in close agreement with experimental results, which confirmed the role of APLWE as an inhibitor through adsorption activities, providing corrosion resistance for steel in a hydrochloric environment.

The present work investigates the primary adsorption mechanisms of lead (II) and cadmium (II) cations onto pomelo fruit peel (PFP) from aqueous solution. pH, adsorption time, ion strength, and initial metal cation concentrations, which are factors affecting the uptake of these cations, are investigated. Results show that pH and ion strengths strongly affect the removal of these cations from aqueous solution. Different isotherm adsorption models, such as Langmuir, Freundlich, and Sips, are utilized to fit the experimental data in order to determine the adsorption in nature. The Langmuir monolayer adsorption capacities are found to be 47.18 mg/g for lead (II) and 13.35 mg/g for cadmium (II). Kinetic and thermodynamic studies based on a combination of FT-IR and TG-DSC spectroscopies demonstrate that electrostatic attraction plays a primary adsorption mechanism of lead (II) and cadmium (II) cations onto pomelo fruit peel.

Studies on "smart" polymeric material performing environmental stimuli such as temperature, pH, magnetic field, enzyme and photo-sensation have recently paid much attention to practical applications. Among of them, thermo-responsive grafted copolymers, amphiphilic steroids as well as polyester molecules have been utilized in the fabrication of several multifunctional platforms. Indeed, they performed a strikingly functional improvement comparing to some original materials and exhibited a holistic approach for biomedical applications. In case of drug delivery systems (DDS), there has been some successful proof of thermal-responsive grafted platforms on clinical trials such as ThermoDox®, BIND-014, Cynviloq IG-001, Genexol-PM, etc. This review would detail the recent progress and highlights of some temperature-responsive polymer-grafted nanomaterials or hydrogels in the 'smart' DDS that covered from synthetic polymers to nature-driven biomaterials and novel generations of some amphiphilic functional platforms. These approaches could produce several types of smart biomaterials for human health care in future.

Objectives Shear stress can activate platelet integrin-mediated signaling that leads to shear-induced platelet aggregation (SIPA) and eventually contribute to acute myocardial infarction. The major platelet integrin αIIbβ3 is polymorphic at residue 33 [Leu33Pro (PlA) polymorphism]. The Pro33 isoform has been shown to have a prothrombotic phenotype. In this work, we studied the impact of Leu33/Pro33 polymorphism on the shear-induced integrin-mediated Src and FAK activation in platelets. Methods Platelets of both genotypes were placed on immobilized fibrinogen or heat activated BSA and were exposed to physiological (500/s) or abnormally high (5000/s) shear rates for 2-10 min. Platelets after exposure to shear were analysed for Src pY418 and FAK pY397 activities. Results Whereas physiological shear stress does not affect platelet signaling, abnormally high-shear stress considerably elevates Src and FAK phosphorylation in both Pro33 and Leu33 platelets. Both under static and flow conditions, Pro33 platelets exhibited a significantly higher Src and FAK activities than Leu33 platelets. Interestingly, even in the absence of the αIIbβ3-fibrinogen interaction, we could detect a shear-induced integrin-mediated signaling of Src and FAK in platelets. In parallel experiments in which platelets were pretreated with abciximab, an integrin αIIbβ3 antagonist, activation of both kinases by shear was inhibited. Conclusion Taken together, our data indicates an important role of αIIbβ3 and shows that Leu33Pro polymorphism modulates the integrin-mediated Src and FAK signaling in platelets in response to shear stress.

In this work, we presents the refractometric sensor based multimode optical fiber with titanium dioxide (TiO2) coating for measurement of the refractive index change of bulk media. The phase retardation, which is induced by the TiO2 coated optical fiber, was measured by homodyne detection system. The results show that the sensor detection limit was experimentally achieved around 5.67 × 10−8 (RIU) with an operating refractive index range of 7.5 × 10−5 (RIU), obtained at single operating wavelength of 632.8 nm without using spectroscopic techniques. Those features, with the sensor merits of highly sensitive device, have led to potential applications for biomedical and biochemical detection in label-free manner.

Targeted chemotherapy is a current research trend in cancer treatment that aims to improve the effectiveness of drug access to cancer cells. Among the vitamins, biotin has been identified as an effective targeting agent in drug delivery to cancer cells. In this work, novel biotin-conjugated chitosan-Pluronic P123, termed Cs–P123-Bio, was developed as a carrier vehicle for delivering paclitaxel (PTX) to the tumour target. The results show that Cs–P123-Bio was stable with a low critical micelle concentration (31.83 ± 4.25 μg/mL), and the encapsulation efficacy and drug loading of Cs–P123-Bio were around 94.67 ± 3.67% and 1.89 ± 0.07%, respectively. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and electrophoretic light scattering (ELS) analysis indicated that the Cs–P123-Bio nanoparticles loaded with PTX formed as a spherical shape with an average diameter of 63.4 ± 0.6 nm and a positive charge. Furthermore, the PTX release profile was slow and controlled by the pH of the medium. In particular, in vitro biocompatibility assays indicated that Cs–P123-Bio exhibited good biological compatibility with a human foreskin fibroblast cell line and Cs–P123-Bio manifested good internalization efficiency in MCF-7 cells. Cs–P123-Bio also enhanced the cytotoxicity of PTX in comparison with Cs–P123. Therefore, our approach could suggest excellent potential for tumour targeting in cancer therapy.

In this report, poly(amide amine) (PAMAM) dendrimer and Heparin-grafted-monomethoxy polyethylene glycol (HEP-mPEG) were synthesized and characterized. In aqueous solution, the generation 4 PAMAM dendrimers (G4.0-PAMAM) existed as nanoparticles with particle size of 5.63 nm. However, after electrostatic complexation with HEP-mPEG to form a core@shell structure G4.0-PAMAM@HEP-mPEG, the size of nanoparticles was significantly increased (73.82 nm). The G4.0-PAMAM@HEP-mPEG nanoparticles showed their ability to effectively encapsulate doxorubicin (DOX) for prolonged and controlled release. The cytocompatibility of G4.0-PAMAM@HEP-mPEG nanocarriers was significantly increased compared with its parentally G4.0-PAMAM dendrimer in both mouse fibroblast NIH3T3 and the human tumor HeLa cell lines. DOX was effectively encapsulated into G4.0-PAMAM@HEP-mPEG nanoparticles to form DOX-loaded nanocarriers (DOX/G4.0-PAMAM@HEP-mPEG) with high loading efficiency (73.2%). The release of DOX from DOX/G4.0-PAMAM@HEP-mPEG nanocarriers was controlled and prolonged up to 96 h compared with less than 24 h from their parentally G4.0-PAMAM nanocarriers. Importantly, the released DOX retained its bioactivity by inhibiting the proliferation of monolayer-cultured cancer HeLa cells with the same degree of fresh DOX. This prepared G4.0-PAMAM@HEP-mPEG nanocarrier can be a potential candidate for drug delivery systems with high loading capacity and low systemic toxicity in cancer therapy.

Leaf extracts are widely used to mitigate the steel corrosion in an acidic environment. This work focuses on the effective acidic inhibition of a Piper Betle leaf extract (PBLE) that can be added to a green corrosion inhibitor system, giving a high corrosion inhibition performance of steel in a 0.1 M HCl solution. The relatively destructive potentiodynamic (PD) and potentiostatic (PS) polarizations combined with some non-destructive electrochemical techniques, including linear polarization resistance (LPR) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), perform the high corrosion inhibition likely a mixed behavior for steel in investigated solution. Surface analysis demonstrates that the nano porous film formation is PBLE concentration dependent. The results indicate that the inhibition efficiency is increased by the addition of PBLE at a concentration up to 2000 ppm due to a compact, robust, and uniform protective film formation. Moreover, an increase in PBLE concentration up to 2500 ppm decreased the inhibition efficiency due to a decrease of the PBLE species’ activity in the solution that significantly affects the nano porous film formation. This work suggests a new inhibitor that can be added to a green corrosion inhibitor system for delivering high corrosion resistance of steel through a controlled surface treatment.

Fibrillar fibronectin (FFN), an active form of fibronectin (FN), plays important roles in various cellular processes. Our goal is to investigate effect of FFN morphology on cellular behaviors. Plasma FN at two concentrations was cross-linked into FFN by dialysis against 2 M urea followed by morphological analysis under Scanning Electron Microscopy. To evaluate effect of FFN morphology, fibroblasts were cultured on FN or different FFNs. Fibroblast behaviors including adhesion, spreading, and migration were evaluated. Our data showed that FN fibrillogenesis was dependent on FN concentration. At high concentrations (0.75 mg/mL), large FFN approximately 2.167 + 0.875 µm in diameter were formed with attached nodular structures and rough surface. In contrast, smooth surface FFN fibrils with diameter of 1.886 + 0.412 µm were formed from FN at 0.25 mg/mL. Cellular assays revealed morphological dependent biological effects of different FFNs. Fibroblast separately adhered to native FN and remained spherical while on FFN, cells attached with higher quantity and showed spreading morphology. A synergistic ligand interaction of integrin α5β1 and αvβ3 was observed in cell adhering on FFN. Cell migration results showed that large FFN decreased migration rate while small FFN did not. Taken together, our data draws new attention towards controlling biological function of FN by its fibrillar structure.

Herein, a new process to manufacture multicore micelles nanoparticles reinforced with co-assembly via hydrophobic interaction and electrostatic interaction under the help of ultrasonication was developed. The precise co-assembly between negative/hydrophobic drug and positive charged amphiphilic copolymer based pluronic platform allows the formation of complex micelles structures as the multicore motif with predefined functions. In this study, curcumin was selected as a drug model while positively charged copolymer was based on a pluronic-conjugated gelatin with different hydrophobicity length of Pluronic F87 and Pluronic F127. Under impact of dual hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions, the nCur-encapsulated core&ndash, shell micelles formed ranging from 40 nm to 70 nm and 40&ndash, 100 nm by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), respectively. It is found that the structures emerged depended on the relative lengths of the hydrophobic blocks in pluronic. Regarding g2(&tau, ) behavior from DLS measurement, the nanogels showed a high stability in spherical form. Surprisingly, the release profiles showed a sustainable behavior of Cur from this system for drug delivery approaches. In vitro study exhibited that nCur-encapsulated complex micelles increased inhibitory activity against cancer cells growth with IC50 is 4.02 &plusmn, 0.11 mg/L (10.92 &plusmn, 0.3 &micro, M) which is higher than of free curcumin at 9.40 &plusmn, 0.17 mg/L (25.54 &plusmn, 0.18 &micro, M). The results obtained can provide the new method to generate the hierarchical assembly of copolymers with incorporated loading with the same property.