Wound dressing development is an area of active research. Traditional dressings lack antibacterial activity, biocompatibility, and tissue regeneration. Alginate is a heavily investigated polymer employed as wound dressings and can be combined with a wide range of additives.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompared to antimicrobial agents, anti-adhesive surfaces can reduce bacteria adhesion and biofilm formation in catheters, providing better selectivity, efficiency, and device life span. In this research, novel anionic surface biomaterials were created and tested to reduce microbial adhesion and colonization in medical device coating. Maleic anhydride (MA) was polymerized with 2-HEMA in varying amounts to produce a p(HEMA--MA) hydrogel copolymer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVitamin C (VIT C) is an antioxidant that prevents skin aging. Although dermal delivery is one of the most effective routes to transport VIT C to the skin, the impact of this route can be limited by the barrier function of the (SC). Additionally, VIT C rapidly oxidized and degraded under light and temperature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Glaucoma is considered the second most common cause of blindness in patients above the age of 50. Lack of adherence to glaucoma medications frequently results in undesirable complications, specifically blindness and disability.
Purpose: The study's objectives are to evaluate the level of adherence to glaucoma topical medications and factors associated with adherence to glaucoma medications.
Tamoxifen is commonly used in the treatment of hormonal-positive breast cancer. However, 30%-40% of tumors treated with tamoxifen develop resistance; therefore, an important step to overcome this resistance is to understand the underlying molecular and metabolic mechanisms. In the present work, we used metabolic profiling to determine potential biomarkers of tamoxifen resistance, and gene expression levels of enzymes important to these metabolites and then correlated the expression to the survival of patients receiving tamoxifen.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCigarette smoke withdrawal can cause anxiety-like behavior and modulate neurotransmitter-related proteins in the brain. We examined the effects of cigarette smoke with and without aspirin treatment on the concentrations of neurotransmitters, including dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, glutamine, and GABA in the amygdala and hippocampus. Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to four different groups: (1) control group exposed only to standard room air, (2) cigarette smoke exposed group treated with saline vehicle, (3) cigarette smoke exposed group treated with aspirin (30 mg/kg), and (4) control group treated only with aspirin (30 mg/kg).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTobacco smoking is a preventable main cause of fatal diseases. Accurate measurements of the effects it has on neurotransmitters are essential in developing new strategies for smoking cessation. Moreover, measurements of neurotransmitter levels can aid in developing drugs that counteract the effects of smoking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer. The first-line treatment of metastatic breast cancer in premenopausal women relies on tamoxifen. The development of tamoxifen resistance is not fully understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers worldwide usually treated with Tamoxifen. Tamoxifen resistance development is the most challenging issue in an initially responsive breast tumor, and mechanisms of resistance are still under investigation. The objective of this study is to develop and validate a selective, sensitive, and simultaneous high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method to explore the changes in substrates and metabolites in supernatant media of developed Tamoxifen resistance MCF-7 cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is a key enzyme in the last step of glycolysis, playing a role in the pyruvate-to-lactate reaction. It is associated with the prognosis and metastasis of many cancers, including breast cancer. In this study, we investigated the changes in gene expression and lactate concentrations in the culture media during tamoxifen resistance development in the MCF-7 cell line, and examined promoter methylation levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHerein, a library of gold nanorods (GNR) decorated with polyethylene glycol-thiol (PEG-SH) containing different functionalities were synthesized and characterized by optical absorption spectroscopy, zeta potential, dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance (H-NMR). The colloidal stability of GNR when exposed to skin, and their preferential accumulation into excised human skin layers were investigated. Confocal laser scanning microscopy, transmission electron microscope (TEM) and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) were utilized to track the penetration of GNR into different skin layers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEndophthalmitis, an intraocular infection, may lead to irreversible loss of vision. Antimicrobial chemotherapy is prescribed prior to ocular surgical procedures to avoid endophthalmitis. Fluoroquinolones are the most commonly prescribed and used antibiotics during such procedures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOne of the most cited limitations of capillary and microchip electrophoresis is the poor sensitivity. This review continues to update this series of biannual reviews, first published in Electrophoresis in 2007, on developments in the field of online/in-line concentration methods in capillaries and microchips, covering the period July 2016-June 2018. It includes developments in the field of stacking, covering all methods from field-amplified sample stacking and large-volume sample stacking, through to isotachophoresis, dynamic pH junction, and sweeping.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this study was to assess the levels of contamination by toxic metals (Pb, Al, Ni, Cd and As) that may be present in 25 infant pharmaceutical herbal products and 15 traditional herbs in Jordan. Both products and medicinal herbs are currently prescribed by paediatricians. They are available as over-the-counter medicines and are sold the in herbal market, ensuring easy accessibility for parents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly stage pharmacological studies rely on in vitro methodologies for screening and testing compounds. Conventional assays based on endpoint measurements provide limited information because the lack in temporal resolution may not determine the pharmacological effect at its maximum. We developed an on-line, automated system for near real-time monitoring of extracellular content from five parallel suspension cultures, combining cell density measurements with a high-resolution separations every 12 minutes for 4 days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreasingly stringent demands on the production of biopharmaceuticals demand monitoring of process parameters that impact on their quality. We developed an automated platform for on-line, near real-time monitoring of suspension cultures by integrating microfluidic components for cell counting and filtration with a high-resolution separation technique. This enabled the correlation of the growth of a human lymphocyte cell line with changes in the essential metabolic markers, glucose, glutamine, leucine/isoleucine and lactate, determined by Sequential Injection-Capillary Electrophoresis (SI-CE).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOne of the most cited limitations of capillary (and microchip) electrophoresis is the poor sensitivity. This review continues to update this series of biannual reviews, first published in Electrophoresis in 2007, on developments in the field of on-line/in-line concentration methods, covering the period July 2012-July 2014. It includes developments in the field of stacking, covering all methods from field-amplified sample stacking and large-volume sample stacking, through to ITP, dynamic pH junction, and sweeping.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChemical characterization and monitoring of fermentation broths and cell culture media provide significant information on the changes occurring within these complex and dynamic systems. Analytical methods based on CE in capillaries and microchips are attractive for integration in instrumental tools to obtain this critical data, improving the understanding and control of bioprocesses. In this review, the use of CE for chemical characterization and monitoring fermentations is discussed, organized by analyte class, including organic acids, pharmaceuticals, proteins, sugars, amino acids, and metabolites published between 1992 and October 2012.
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