Publications by authors named "Alexandre F Leitao"

In view of the growing industrial use of Bacterial cellulose (BC), and taking into account that it might become airborne and be inhaled after industrial processing, assessing its potential pulmonary toxic effects assumes high relevance. In this work, the murine model was used to assess the effects of exposure to respirable BC nanofibrils (nBC), obtained by disintegration of BC produced by . Murine bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMMΦ) were treated with different doses of nBC (0.

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Vascular grafts are used to bypass damaged or diseased blood vessels. Bacterial cellulose (BC) has been studied for use as an off-the-shelf graft. Herein, we present a novel, cost-effective, method for the production of small caliber BC grafts with minimal processing or requirements.

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Bacterial cellulose (BC) has been suggested to be a suitable biomaterial for the development of cardiovascular grafts. The combination of BC with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) results in nanocomposites with improved properties. Surprisingly, there are very few studies on the BC-blood interaction.

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Bacterial cellulose (BC) is characterized for its high water holding capacity, high crystallinity, an ultrafine fiber network and high tensile strength. This work demonstrates the production of a new interpenetrated polymer network nanocomposite obtained through the incorporation of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) on the BC matrix and evaluates the effect of oven drying on the morphological, mechanical and mass transfer properties of the composite membranes. Both the addition of PVA and oven drying induce the appearance of larger pores ( 1-3 µm in average diameter) in dried BC/PVA membranes.

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The recovery of cellulases from lignin, lignocellulosic hydrolysates and cellulose by alkaline washes at pH 9 and 10 was examined. The effect of the pH on the structural stability of purified Cel7A was analyzed by circular dichroism. Purified Cel7A showed conformational changes at pH 9 and 10 that were reversible at pH 4.

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