Assessment of plasma Catestatin in COVID-19 reveals a hitherto unknown inflammatory activity with impact on morbidity-mortality.

Introduction: Neuroendocrine cells release Catestatin (CST) from Chromogranin A (CgA) to regulate stress responses. As regards COVID-19 patients (COVID+) requiring oxygen supply, to date nobody has studied CST as a potential mediator in the regulation of immunity.

Patients & Methods: Admission plasma CST and CgA - its precursor - concentrations were measured (ELISA test) in 73 COVID+ and 27 controls.

Optimization of the Elasticity and Adhesion of Catechol- or Dopamine-Loaded Gelatin Gels under Oxidative Conditions.

The synthesis of surgical adhesives is based on the need to design glues that give rise to strong and fast bonds without cytotoxic side effects. A recent trend in surgical adhesives is to use gel-forming polymers modified with catechol groups, which can undergo oxidative crosslinking reactions and are strongly adhesive to all kinds on surfaces in wet conditions. We previously showed that blending gelatin with catechol can yield strong adhesion when the catechol is oxidized by a strong oxidant.

Polyelectrolyte multilayer films built from poly(L-lysine) and a two-component anionic polysaccharide blend.

The buildup of polyelectrolyte multilayer films made from poly(L-lysine) (PLL) as a polycation and from a blend of two anionic polysaccharides, namely, beta-1,3 glycan sulfate (GlyS) and alginate (Alg), was investigated as a function of the mass fraction, x, of GlyS in the blend, at a constant total weight concentration in polyanions. We find that the film thickness, after the deposition of a given number of layer pairs, reaches a minimum for x values lower than 0.1 (the position of this minimum could not be more precisely localized) and that the film thickness at intermediate values of x is the same as that of films built at the same concentration of GlyS in the absence of Alg (pure GlyS solution).

Relationship between the growth regime of polyelectrolyte multilayers and the polyanion/polycation complexation enthalpy.

The alternate deposition of polyanions and polycations leads to the formation of films called polyelectrolyte multilayer films (PEMs). Two types of growth processes are reported in the literature, leading to films that grow either linearly or exponentially with the number of deposition steps. In this article we try to establish a correlation between the nature of the growth process and the heat of complexation between the polyanions and the polycations constituting the PEM film.