Publications by authors named "Gheorghe Melinte"

Food contaminants represent possible threats to humans and animals as severe food safety hazards. Prolonged exposure to contaminated food often leads to chronic diseases such as cancer, kidney or liver failure, immunosuppression, or genotoxicity. Aflatoxins are naturally produced by strains of the fungi species , which is one of the most critical and poisonous food contaminants worldwide.

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  • Bioactive glasses (BGs), including new types containing boron (BG1) and boron plus vanadium (BG2), are being developed for applications in dentistry and tested on human keratinocytes.
  • The study evaluated their biological properties using various methods, revealing both glasses showed similar behavior in simulated fluids: rapid degradation and release of calcium and boron, with BG1 releasing more boron.
  • While normal doses of both BGs exhibited no cytotoxic effects, higher doses led to oxidative stress and cell damage; however, they also showed protective effects by down-regulating cell death pathways and improving DNA repair mechanisms.
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Allergies are defined as a hypersensitivity reaction, immunologically mediated, as a result to an external stimulus. Peanuts induced allergies are considered one of the most severe, life-threatening food sensitivities since they trigger the highest frequency of severe and fatal reactions, even in trace amounts. Therefore, it is imperative to develop fast, accurate and easy-to-use analytical methods to determine Ara h1, is a seed storage protein from Arachis hypogea and the main peanut derived allergen.

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Background: The bioactive glasses (BGs) are very attractive materials increasingly used in healing skin lesions due to their antibacterial effect and stimulation of collagen deposition and angiogenesis. In this study, three specimens of bioactive glasses (BG1, BG2 and BG3) have been synthesized and characterized.

Methods: In order to evaluate their in vitro bioactivity, the pH measurements, zeta potential and the concentration of Ca and fluor ions released after immersion in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) followed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and for BG1 and BG3, X-ray powder diffraction analysis, were performed.

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Lysozyme is an enzyme existing in multiple organisms where it plays various vital roles. The most important role is its antibacterial activity in the human body; in fact, it is also called "the body's own antibiotic". Despite its proven utility, lysozyme can potentially trigger allergic reactions in sensitive individuals, even in trace amounts.

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Despite the fact that the electrochemical biosensors based on glucose oxidase represent the golden standard for the management of diabetes, the elaboration of nonenzymatic sensors became extensively studied as an out-of-the-box concept that aims to simplify the existing approach. An important point of view is represented by the low price of the sensing device that has positive effects for both end-users and healthcare systems. The enzyme-free sensors based on low-cost materials such as transition metals have similar analytical properties to the commercial ones while eliminating the issues associated with the presence of the enzyme, such as the stability issues and limited shelf-life.

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  • Detecting folic acid is crucial for human health, particularly for fetal development and overall biological functions, with supplementation helping to address deficiencies.
  • Researchers are developing advanced sensing platforms using modified conductive polymers, which can be tailored in shape for better performance.
  • A new sensor made from carboxylic functionalized polypyrrole can detect folic acid levels between 2.5 μM and 200 μM, showing great accuracy when tested on human serum and pharmaceutical products, confirmed by additional spectrophotometric methods.
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Arsenic, one of the most abundant mineral and also one to the most toxic compounds. Due to its high toxicity sensitive analytical methods are highly important, taking into account that the admitted level is in the range of µg L. A novel and easy to use platform for As(III) detection from water samples is proposed, based on gold and platinum bi metallic nanoparticles and a conductive polymer (polyaniline).

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An important class of biosensors is immunosensors, affinity biosensors that are based on the specific interaction between antibodies and antigens. They are classified in four classes based on the type of employed transducer: electrochemical, optical, microgravimetric, and thermometric and depending on the type of recognition elements, antibodies, aptamers, microRNAs and recently peptides are integrating parts. Those analytical devices are able to detect peptides, antibodies and proteins in various sample matrices, without many steps of sample pretreatment.

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