Publications by authors named "Alice Amitrano"
Article Synopsis
- Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) react to mechanical stimuli like stiffness and fluid viscosity, which impacts their behavior.
- In environments with high fluid viscosity, hMSCs favor an osteogenic (bone-forming) phenotype over an adipogenic (fat-forming) one by altering their actin structure and enhancing cellular activities.
- This research highlights fluid viscosity as an important factor that not only influences hMSC differentiation but also encourages a more immunosuppressive M2 macrophage phenotype.
Article Synopsis
- Cells in confined spaces face mechanical challenges that impact their migration, but the exact effects on their migration machinery are not fully understood.
- Research shows that a protein called anillin, which regulates cytokinesis, is retained in the cytoplasm during interphase and is recruited to the edges of cells when they migrate in confined environments.
- Anillin works alongside another protein, Ect2, to enhance muscle contractility inside cells, which is crucial for effective invasion and movement in cancer progression.
Article Synopsis
- Cells typically move through channel-like tracks, and while existing devices mimic these structures, they have limitations like being too stiff and impermeable.
- Researchers developed new polyacrylamide-based microchannels that have the right stiffness and dimensions for effectively studying cell movement at a high throughput.
- Their findings indicate that migration speed is influenced by both channel confinement and stiffness, with different stiffness levels affecting how cells move in confined versus unconfined spaces.
Lignin-derivable bisphenols are potential alternatives to bisphenol A (BPA), a suspected endocrine disruptor; however, a greater understanding of structure-activity relationships (SARs) associated with such lignin-derivable building blocks is necessary to move replacement efforts forward. This study focuses on the prediction of bisphenol estrogenic activity (EA) to inform the design of potentially safer BPA alternatives. To achieve this goal, the binding affinities to estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) of lignin-derivable bisphenols were calculated molecular docking simulations and correlated to median effective concentration (EC) values using an empirical correlation curve created from known EC values and binding affinities of commercial (bis)phenols.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChemocatalytic lignin valorization strategies are critical for a sustainable bioeconomy, as lignin, especially technical lignin, is one of the most available and underutilized aromatic feedstocks. Here, we provide the first report of an intensified reactive distillation–reductive catalytic deconstruction (RD-RCD) process to concurrently deconstruct technical lignins from diverse sources and purify the aromatic products at ambient pressure. We demonstrate the utility of RD-RCD bio-oils in high-performance additive manufacturing via stereolithography 3D printing and highlight its economic advantages over a conventional reductive catalytic fractionation/RCD process.
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