A Novel G-Quadruplex Structure within Apolipoprotein E Promoter: A New Promising Target in Cancer and Dementia Fight?

Human apolipoprotein E (APOE) is a crucial lipid transport glycoprotein involved in various biological processes, including lipid metabolism, immune response, and neurodegeneration. Elevated APOE levels are linked to poor prognosis in several cancers and increased risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Therefore, modulating APOE expression presents a promising therapeutic strategy for both cancer and AD.

Silver nanoparticles from orange peel extract: Colorimetric detection of Pb and Cd ions with a chemometric approach.

Green silver nanoparticles (AgNPs@OPE) were obtained by using orange (citrus sinensis) peel water extract (OPE) that acts as a reducing and capping agent. This procedure permits the valorisation of waste as orange peel, and lowers the environmental impact of the process, with respect to the conventional synthetic procedure. The OPE extract reduced Ag(I) to Ag(0) in alkaline conditions, and stabilised the produced nanoparticles as a capping agent.

The colorful world of sulfonephthaleins: Current applications in analytical chemistry for "old but gold" molecules.

Sulfonephthaleins represent one of the most common and widely employed reactive dyes in analytical chemistry, thanks to their stability, low-cost, well-visible colors, reactivity and possibilities of chemical modification. Despite being first proposed in 1916, nowadays, these molecules play a fundamental role in biological and medical applications, environmental analyses, food quality monitoring and other fields, with a particular focus on low-cost and disposable devices or methods for practical applications. Since up to our knowledge, no reviews or book chapters focused explicitly on sulfonephthaleins have ever been published, in this review, we will briefly describe sulfonephthaleins history, their acid-base properties will be discussed, and the most recent applications in different fields will be presented, focusing on the last ten years literature (2014-2023).

Exploring albumin-sulfonephthalein dyes interactions by a chemometric-assisted and multi-technique equilibria analysis in solution.

Albumin is undoubtedly the most studied protein thanks to its widespread diffusion and biochemistry; despite its binding ability towards different dyes, provoking dye's colour change, has been exploited for decades for quantification purposes, the joint effect of working pH, ionic strength, and dye's pK still remains only sporadically discussed. In the present study, the interaction of Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) with five dyes belonging to the sulfonephthalein group, Bromophenol Blue (BPB, pK = 3.75), Bromocresol Green (BCG, pK = 4.

Exploiting Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to reveal temperature, buffer and metal ions' role in neuromelanin (NM) synthesis by dopamine (DA) oxidative polymerization.

Neuromelanin (NM) plays a well-established role in neurological disorders pathogenesis; the mechanism of action is still discussed and the investigations in this field are limited by NM's complex and heterogeneous composition, insolubility, and low availability from human brains. An alternative can be offered by synthetic NM obtained from dopamine (DA) oxidative polymerization; however, a deep knowledge of the influence of both physicochemical parameters (T, pH, ionic strength) and other compounds in the reaction media (buffer, metal ions, other catecholamines) on DA oxidation process and, consequently, on synthetic NM features is mandatory to develop reliable NM preparation methodologies. To partially fulfill this aim, the present work focuses on defining the role of temperature, buffer and metal ions on both DA oxidation rate and DA oligomer size.