Altered Cytokine Profile in Clinically Suspected Seronegative Autoimmune Associated Epilepsy.

Background And Objectives: Autoimmune-associated epilepsy (AAE), a condition which responds favorably to immune therapies but not traditional anti-seizure interventions, is emerging as a significant contributor to cases of drug-resistant epilepsy. Current standards for the diagnosis of AAE rely on screening for known neuronal autoantibodies in patient serum or cerebrospinal fluid. However, this diagnostic method fails to capture a subset of drug-resistant epilepsy patients with suspected AAE who respond to immunotherapy yet remain seronegative (snAAE) for known autoantibodies.

Melanin: Nature's 4th bioorganic polymer.

The pigments known as the melanins are widely recognized for their responsibility in the coloration of human skin, eyes, hair, and minimising the harmful effects of solar ultraviolet radiation. But specialists are aware that the melanins are present in all living kingdoms, barring viruses, and have functionality that extends beyond neutralizing ionising radiation. The ubiquitous presence of melanin in almost all human organs, recognized in recent years, as well as the presence of melanin in organisms that are evolutionarily distant from each other, indicate the fundamental importance of this class of material for all life forms.

Signatures of pancake bonding in hydrated eumelanin.

Pancake bonding phenomenology is applied for the first time in a bioorganic system, the pigment eumelanin, a hydration-induced decrease of the interplanar distance down to 3.19 Å. The observation explains the long-term inconsistency between electron paramagnetic resonance and muon spin relaxation data for eumelanin.

The influence of copper ions on the transport and relaxation properties of hydrated eumelanin.

Eumelanin, the human skin pigment, is a poly-indolequinone material possessing a unique combination of physical and chemical properties. For numerous applications, the conductivity of eumelanin is of paramount importance. However, its hydration dependent conductivity is not well studied using transport-relaxation methods.

Infrared fingerprints of water collective dynamics indicate proton transport in biological systems.

Recent publications on spectroscopy of water layers in water bridge structures revealed a significant enhancement of the proton mobility and the dielectric contribution of translational vibrations of water molecules in the interfacial layers compared to bulk water. Herewith, the results of long-term studies of proton dynamics in solid-state acids have shown that proton mobility increases significantly with the predominance of hydronium, but not Zundel, cations in the aqueous phase. In the present work, in the light of these data, we reanalyzed our previously published results on broadband dielectric spectroscopy of bovine heart cytochrome c, bovine serum albumin, and the extracellular matrix and filaments of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1.

Gentle Patterning Approaches toward Compatibility with Bio-Organic Materials and Their Environmental Aspects.

Advances in material science, bioelectronic, and implantable medicine combined with recent requests for eco-friendly materials and technologies inevitably formulate new challenges for nano- and micropatterning techniques. Overall, the importance of creating micro- and nanostructures is motivated by a large manifold of fundamental and applied properties accessible only at the nanoscale. Lithography is a crucial family of fabrication methods to create prototypes and produce devices on an industrial scale.

Water-Activated Semiquinone Formation and Carboxylic Acid Dissociation in Melanin Revealed by Infrared Spectroscopy.

Eumelanin is a widespread biomacromolecule pigment in the biosphere and has been widely investigated for numerous bioelectronics and energetic applications. Many of these applications depend on eumelanin's ability to conduct proton current at various levels of hydration. The origin of this behavior is connected to a comproportionation reaction between oxidized and reduced monomer moieties and water.

Interfacial water morphology in hydrated melanin.

The importance of electrically functional biomaterials is increasing as researchers explore ways to utilise them in novel sensing capacities. It has been recognised that for many of these materials the state of hydration is a key parameter that can heavily affect the conductivity, particularly those that rely upon ionic or proton transport as a key mechanism. However, thus far little attention has been paid to the nature of the water morphology in the hydrated state and the concomitant ionic conductivity.

Redox chemistry in the pigment eumelanin as a function of temperature using broadband dielectric spectroscopy.

Conductive biomolecular systems are investigated for their promise of new technologies. One biomolecular material that has garnered interest for device applications is eumelanin. Its unusual properties have led to its incorporation in a wide set of platforms including transistor devices and batteries.

Impedance spectroscopy of single bacterial nanofilament reveals water-mediated charge transfer.

For decades respiratory chain and photosystems were the main firing field of the studies devoted to mechanisms of electron transfer in proteins. The concept of conjugated lateral electron and transverse proton transport during cellular respiration and photosynthesis, which was formulated in the beginning of 1960-s, has been confirmed by thousands of experiments. However, charge transfer in recently discovered bacterial nanofilaments produced by various electrogenic bacteria is regarded currently outside of electron and proton conjugation concept.

Observation of dielectric universalities in albumin, cytochrome C and Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 extracellular matrix.

The electrodynamics of metals is well understood within the Drude conductivity model; properties of insulators and semiconductors are governed by a gap in the electronic states. But there is a great variety of disordered materials that do not fall in these categories and still respond to external field in an amazingly uniform manner. At radiofrequencies delocalized charges yield a frequency-independent conductivity σ (ν) whose magnitude exponentially decreases while cooling.

[Interaction of surface-active base with fraction of membrane-bound Williams's protons].

In the process of mitochondrial respiratory H(+)-pumps functioning, the fraction membrane-bound protons (R-protons), which have an excess of free energy is formed. According to R.J.

Molecular mechanisms of transformation of SkQ mitotropic quinones and the search for new approaches to creation of selective free radical traps.

Features of the mechanism of action of positively charged benzoquinone derivatives (SkQ), which are the analogs of coenzyme Q (I), plastoquinone (II), and tocopherol (III), are discussed. It is usually considered that the main target of these compounds is mitochondria, where they accumulate due to the positive charge of the molecule. In the present work, it is shown with model systems that the reduced forms of compounds (I-III) under certain conditions can transform into electrically neutral cyclic zwitterions, which theoretically can escape from the matrix of energized mitochondria against the concentration gradient.