Single-Component Starch-Based Hydrogels for Therapeutic Delivery.

Hydrogels are interesting materials as delivery systems of various therapeutic agents, mainly due to the water-swollen network and the localized and sustained drug release. Herein, single-component starch-based hydrogels with enhanced degradation rates were produced by applying a facile synthesis and proposed for a novel delivery system of therapeutic molecules. Starch was oxidized with sodium periodate in water and mild conditions to generate aldehyde derivatives that, after a freeze-thaw procedure, were allowed to compact and stable hydrogels.

Syndiotactic Polyolefins by Hydrogenation of Highly Stereoregular 1,2 Polydienes: Synthesis and Structural Characterization.

Some syndiotactic-rich polyolefins, generally difficult to synthesize through stereospecific polymerization of the corresponding monomers, were prepared by homogeneous non-catalytic hydrogenation of syndiotactic 1,2 poly(1,3-diene)s with diimide, arising from thermal decomposition of p-toluene-sulfonyl-hydrazide. All the polymers synthesized were structurally characterized by means of several analytical techniques, such as FT-IR, NMR (H, C and 2D), DSC, and GPC, and herein illustrated.

Antimicrobial starch-based cryogels and hydrogels for dual-active food packaging applications.

The present study reports on the valorisation of starch waste biomass to produce dual-active cryogels and hydrogels able to adsorb water and deliver antimicrobial substances for fresh food packaging applications. Starch hydrogels were prepared by oxidation with sodium metaperiodate in water and mild conditions, while cryogels were obtained by freeze-drying process. To explore the role of starch composition on the final properties of materials, two starches differing in amylose/amylopectin ratio, were evaluated.

Reactivity of a Morita-Baylis-Hillman Adduct Derivative Bearing a Triphenylamine Moiety with Lysine Models.

The reactivity of Morita-Baylis-Hillman Adduct (MBHA) derivative 7 was studied with different primary amine derivatives such as n-butylamine, Nα-acetyl-L-lysine methyl ester, and a poly-(L-lysine) derivative as lysine models to obtain information about the possible reactions in complex protein environments. MBHA derivative 7 reacted with n-butylamine or Nα-acetyl-L-lysine methyl ester producing monoadducts 9a or 9c, which showed bright emission features in the green region at 526-535 nm with photoluminescence quantum yield values in solutions of 73 % and 51 %, respectively. Based on these results, MBHA derivative 7 can be considered an interesting new fluorogenic probe potentially useful in the labelling of basic amino acid residues.