An aluminum lining to the dark cloud of silver resistance: harnessing the power of potent antimicrobial activity of γ-alumina nanoparticles.

Although a biologically nonessential element in living organisms, aluminum is notably nontoxic to eukaryotic cells and has a venerable history of medicinal use. We demonstrate that polyethylene glycol-coated γ-alumina nanoparticles (AlO-NPs) with an average size of 15 nm prepared from a commercial bulk γ-alumina (γ-AlO) the top-down sonication technique exhibit antibacterial activity that is comparable to that of AgNPs against both the Gram-negative drug-susceptible (DSPA) and multidrug-resistant (DRPA) bacteria, while the antibacterial activity of such AlO-NPs considerably surpasses that of AgNPs against both the Gram-positive methicillin-susceptible (DSSA) and methicillin-resistant (MRSA) bacteria. We also demonstrate that the DSPA bacteria sequentially exposed to AlO-NPs for 30 days show no indication of resistance development.

K Mn [Fe (CN) ] NPs with High T -Relaxivity Attributable to Water Coordination on the Mn(II) Center for Gastrointestinal Tract MR Imaging.

The lack of acid stability in the stomach and of temporal stability when moving through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract has made the development of oral magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents based on the platform of Gd -complexes problematic.On the other hand, the negative contrast enhancement produced by the T -weighted magnetic metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) often renders the image readout difficult. Biocompatible NPs of the manganese Prussian blue analog K Mn [Fe (CN) ] exhibit extremely high stability under the acidic conditions of the gastric juice.

Polyvinyl pyrrolidone-assisted synthesis of size-tunable polymer spheres at elevated temperature and their conversion to nitrogen-containing carbon spheres.

Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP)-stabilized polymer spheres synthesized at elevated temperature by Stӧber-like method are carbonized to obtain carbon spheres. Their size is tunable in the range from 875 nm to 60 nm by adjusting the amount of PVP during synthesis at elevated temperature. These spheres are obtained by using resorcinol and formaldehyde as carbon precursors, ethylene diamine (EDA) as nitrogen source and basic catalyst, and PVP as stabilizer and an additional source of nitrogen dopant.

A potassium ion-dependent RNA structural switch regulates human pre-miRNA 92b maturation.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an important set of oligonucleotide sequences with a biogenesis that involves Dicer-mediated cleavage as a critical step. Dicer cleaves the precursor miRNA (pre-miRNA) stem-loop structure to produce the mature miRNA. Using bioinformatics analysis, we discovered the presence of putative G-quadruplex (GQ)-forming sequences in about 16% of pre-miRNAs.