Safety and efficacy of a biomimetic monolayer of permanently bound multiphosphonic acid molecules on dental implants: 3 years post-loading results from a pilot quadruple-blinded randomised controlled trial.

Purpose: To evaluate the safety and clinical efficacy of a novel surface treatment (SurfLink, Nano Bridging Molecules, Gland, Switzerland) on titanium dental implants. SurfLink consists of a monolayer of permanently bound multiphosphonic acid molecules, which mimics the surface of naturally occurring hydroxyapatite.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-three patients requiring at least two single dental implants had their sites randomised according to a split-mouth design to receive one titanium grade 4 implant treated with SurfLink and one untreated control implant.

A novel multi-phosphonate surface treatment of titanium dental implants: a study in sheep.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate a new multi-phosphonate surface treatment (SurfLink®) in an unloaded sheep model. Treated implants were compared to control implants in terms of bone to implant contact (BIC), bone formation, and biomechanical stability. The study used two types of implants (rough or machined surface finish) each with either the multi-phosphonate Wet or Dry treatment or no treatment (control) for a total of six groups.

Tuning mechanism-based inactivators of neuraminidases: mechanistic and structural insights.

3-Fluorosialosyl fluorides are inhibitors of sialidases that function by the formation of a long-lived covalent active-site adduct and have potential as therapeutics if made specific for the pathogen sialidase. Surprisingly, human Neu2 and the Trypanosoma cruzi trans-sialidase are inactivated more rapidly by the reagent with an equatorial fluorine at C3 than by its axial epimer, with reactivation following the same pattern. To explore a possible stereoelectronic basis for this, rate constants for spontaneous hydrolysis of the full series of four 3-fluorosialosyl fluorides were measured, and ground-state energies for each computed.

Safety and efficacy of a biomimetic monolayer of permanently bound multi-phosphonic acid molecules on dental implants: 1 year post-loading results from a pilot quadruple-blinded randomised controlled trial.

Purpose: To evaluate the safety and clinical efficacy of a novel surface treatment (SurfLink®, Nano Bridging Molecules, Gland, Switzerland) on titanium dental implants. SurfLink consists of a monolayer of permanently bound multi-phosphonic acid molecules, which mimics the surface of naturally occurring hydroxyapatite.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-three patients requiring at least two single dental implants had their sites randomised according to a split-mouth design to receive one titanium grade 4 implant treated with SurfLink and one untreated control implant.

Mechanism-based covalent neuraminidase inhibitors with broad-spectrum influenza antiviral activity.

Influenza antiviral agents play important roles in modulating disease severity and in controlling pandemics while vaccines are prepared, but the development of resistance to agents like the commonly used neuraminidase inhibitor oseltamivir may limit their future utility. We report here on a new class of specific, mechanism-based anti-influenza drugs that function through the formation of a stabilized covalent intermediate in the influenza neuraminidase enzyme, and we confirm this mode of action with structural and mechanistic studies. These compounds function in cell-based assays and in animal models, with efficacies comparable to that of the neuraminidase inhibitor zanamivir and with broad-spectrum activity against drug-resistant strains in vitro.

Kinetic and mechanistic analysis of Trypanosoma cruzi trans-sialidase reveals a classical ping-pong mechanism with acid/base catalysis.

The trans-sialidase from Trypanosoma cruzi catalyzes the transfer of a sialic acid moiety from sialylated donor substrates to the terminal galactose moiety of lactose and lactoside acceptors to yield alpha-(2,3)-sialyllactose or its derivatives with net retention of anomeric configuration. Through kinetic analyses in which the concentrations of two different donor aryl alpha-sialoside substrates and the acceptor substrate lactose were independently varied, we have demonstrated that this enzyme follows a ping-pong bi-bi kinetic mechanism. This is supported for both the native enzyme and a mutant (D59A) in which the putative acid/base catalyst has been replaced by the demonstration of the half-reaction in which a sialyl-enzyme intermediate is formed.

High-throughput screening methodology for the directed evolution of glycosyltransferases.

Engineering of glycosyltransferases (GTs) with desired substrate specificity for the synthesis of new oligosaccharides holds great potential for the development of the field of glycobiology. However, engineering of GTs by directed evolution methodologies is hampered by the lack of efficient screening systems for sugar-transfer activity. We report here the development of a new fluorescence-based high-throughput screening (HTS) methodology for the directed evolution of sialyltransferases (STs).

Recent improvements in antigene technology.

DNA triple-helix-based approaches to control and modulate cellular functions on the level of genomic DNA (antigene technology) suffered in the past from a stepmother-like treatment in comparison to the flourishing field of oligonucleotide-based control of translation (antisense technology). This was mostly due to lack of affinity of triplex-forming oligonucleotides to their DNA target, to sequence restriction constraints imposed by the triple helical recognition motifs and by open questions to the accessibility of the target DNA. Recent developments in the area have brought about new bases that specifically recognize pyrimidine-purine inversion sites as well as sugar modifications, for example, the 2'-aminoethoxy-oligonucleotides or oligonucleotides based on the locked nucleic acid sugar unit, which greatly enhance triplex stability and alleviate in part the sequence restriction constraints.

New nucleoside analogues for the recognition of pyrimidine-purine inversion sites.

A new nucleoside designed to enhance triplex stability has been synthesised in 15 steps starting from sugar 2. This pathway contains the sugar derivative 9 which is a useful intermediate for the introduction of other natural and unnatural bases into the 2'-aminoethoxy nucleoside containing scaffold.

A catalytic antibody programmed for torsional activation of amide bond hydrolysis.

Amidase antibody 312d6, obtained against the sulfonamide hapten 4 a that mimics the transition state for hydrolysis of a distorted amide, accelerates the hydrolysis of the corresponding amides 1 a-3 a by a factor of 10(3) at pH 8. The mechanisms of both the uncatalyzed and antibody-catalyzed reactions were studied. Between pH 8 and 12 the uncatalyzed hydrolysis of N-toluoylindoles 1 a and 3 a shows a simple first-order dependence on [OH(-)], while hydrolysis of 3 a is zeroth-order in [OH(-)] below pH 8.