Exploring a Solvent Dependent Strategy to Control Self-Assembling Behavior and Cellular Interaction in Laminin-Mimetic Short Peptide based Supramolecular Hydrogels.

Self-assembled hydrogels, fabricated through diverse non-covalent interactions, have been extensively studied in regenerative medicines. Inspired from bioactive functional motifs of ECM protein, short peptide sequences have shown remarkable abilities to replicate the intrinsic features of the natural extracellular milieu. In this direction, we have fabricated two short hydrophobic bioactive sequences derived from the laminin protein i.

Evaluation of Human Dental Plaque Lactic Acid Bacilli for Probiotic Potential and Functional Analysis in Relevance to Oral Health.

Unlabelled: Members of the lactic acid bacillus group are well-known probiotics and primarily isolated from fermented food, dairy products, intestinal and gut environment of human. Since probiotics from the human source are preferred, there exists a huge repertoire of lactobacilli in the human oral cavity which could prove a much better niche to be exploited for these beneficial microorganisms. Therefore, in this study, four lactobacilli strains, including strain DISK7, reported earlier, isolated from dental plaque samples of a healthy humans were evaluated for their probiotic potential.

Designing Cardin-Motif Peptide and Heparin-Based Multicomponent Advanced Bioactive Hydrogel Scaffolds to Control Cellular Behavior.

Recently, peptide and sugar-based multicomponent systems have gained much interest in attaining the sophisticated structure and biofunctional complexity of the extracellular matrix (ECM). To this direction, we have designed for the first time a biologically relevant minimalist Cardin-motif peptide capable of binding ECM-derived glycosaminoglycans. Herein, we explored Cardin-motif peptide and heparin-based biomolecular matrix by employing simple noncovalent interactions at the molecular level.

Exploring Supramolecular Interactions between the Extracellular-Matrix-Derived Minimalist Bioactive Peptide and Nanofibrillar Cellulose for the Development of an Advanced Biomolecular Scaffold.

It has been increasingly evident over the last few years that bioactive peptide hydrogels in conjugation with polymer hydrogels are emerging as a new class of supramolecular materials suitable for various biomedical applications owing to their specificity, tunability, and nontoxicity toward the biological system. Despite their unique biocompatible features, both polymer- and peptide-based scaffolds suffer from certain limitations, which restrict their use toward developing efficient matrices for controlling cellular behavior. The peptide hydrogels usually form soft matrices with low mechanical strength, whereas most of the polymer hydrogels lack biofunctionality.

Cooperative Calcium Phosphate Deposition on Collagen-Inspired Short Peptide Nanofibers for Application in Bone Tissue Engineering.

In recent years, immense attention has been devoted over the production of osteoinductive materials. To this direction, collagen has a dominant role in developing hard tissues and plays a crucial role in the biomineralization of these tissues. Here, we demonstrated for the first time the potential of the shortest molecular pentapeptide domain inspired from collagen toward mineralizing hydroxyapatite on peptide fibers to develop bone-filling material.

Exploring the TEMPO-Oxidized Nanofibrillar Cellulose and Short Ionic-Complementary Peptide Composite Hydrogel as Biofunctional Cellular Scaffolds.

Multicomponent self-assembly is an emerging approach in peptide nanotechnology to develop nanomaterials with superior physical and biological properties. Inspired by the multicomponent nature of the native extracellular matrix (ECM) and the well-established advantages of co-assembly in the field of nanotechnology, we have attempted to explore the noncovalent interactions among the sugar and peptide-based biomolecular building blocks as an approach to design and develop advanced tissue scaffolds. We utilized TEMPO-oxidized nanofibrillar cellulose (TO-NFC) and a short ionic complementary peptide, Nap-FEFK, to fabricate highly tunable supramolecular hydrogels.

Cooperative Metal Ion Coordination to the Short Self-Assembling Peptide Promotes Hydrogelation and Cellular Proliferation.

Noncovalent interactions among short peptides and proteins lead to their molecular self-assembly into supramolecular packaging, which provides the fundamental basis of life. These biomolecular assemblies are highly susceptible to the environmental conditions, including temperature, light, pH, and ionic concentration, and thus inspiring the fabrication of a new class of stimuli-responsive biomaterials. Here, for the first time the cooperative effect of the divalent metal ions to promote hydrogelation in the short collagen inspired self-assembling peptide for developing advanced biomaterials is reported.

Blunt cardiac rupture due to physical assault: An autopsy-based case series.

Background: The literature reports cases of ventricular rupture in blunt chest trauma following motor vehicle accidents. It rarely describes cardiac tamponade due to rupture of the heart following blunt thoracic trauma in a physical assault. There are rare cases where fatal cardiac tamponade results from a ruptured ventricle without externally visible injuries to the chest.

An overview of latest advances in exploring bioactive peptide hydrogels for neural tissue engineering.

Neural tissue engineering holds great potential in addressing current challenges faced by medical therapies employed for the functional recovery of the brain. In this context, self-assembling peptides have gained considerable interest owing to their diverse physicochemical properties, which enable them to closely mimic the biophysical characteristics of the native ECM. Additionally, in contrast to synthetic polymers, which lack inherent biological signaling, peptide-based nanomaterials could be easily designed to present essential biological cues to the cells to promote cellular adhesion.

Accessing Highly Tunable Nanostructured Hydrogels in a Short Ionic Complementary Peptide Sequence via pH Trigger.

Creating diverse nanostructures from a single gelator through modulating the self-assembly pathway has been gaining much attention in recent years. To this direction, we are exploring the effect of modulation of pH as a potential self-assembly pathway in governing the physicochemical properties of the final gel phase material. In this context, we used a classical nongelator with the ionic complementary sequence FEFK, which was rationally conjugated to an aromatic group naphthoxyacetic acid (Nap) at the N-terminal end to tune its gelation behavior.

Triggering Supramolecular Hydrogelation Using a Protein-Peptide Coassembly Approach.

In recent years, the molecular self-assembly approach has witnessed a sudden surge in coassembly strategy to achieve extensive control over accessing diverse nanostructures and functions. To this direction, peptide-peptide coassembly has been explored to some extent in the literature, but protein-peptide coassembly is still in its infancy for controlling the self-assembling properties. To the best of our knowledge, our study illustrated the merits of protein-peptide coassembly toward inducing gelation to a nongelator dipeptide sequence, for the first time.

Bacterial Populations in Subgingival Plaque Under Healthy and Diseased Conditions: Genomic Insights into Oral Adaptation Strategies by sp. Strain DISK7.

Human oral cavity is a complex habitat comprising about 700 microbial species and represents the most complex microbiota after gastrointestinal tract. In fact, oral microbiota directly influences health, metabolism and immune responses of the host. Metagenomic studies based on 16S rDNA profiling has reported the inhabitant bacteria mainly belonging to phyla , , , , and .

Tuning the Supramolecular Structure and Function of Collagen Mimetic Ionic Complementary Peptides via Electrostatic Interactions.

Collagen, the most abundant component of natural ECM, has attracted interest of scientific communities to replicate its multihierarchical self-assembling structure. Recent developments in collagen mimetic peptides were inclined toward the production of self-assembling short peptides capable of mimicking complex higher order structures with tunable mechanical properties. Here, we report for the first time, the crucial molecular design of oppositely charged collagen mimetic shortest bioactive pentapeptide sequences, as a minimalistic building block for development of next-generation biomaterials.

Biochemical and genome sequence analyses of Megasphaera sp. strain DISK18 from dental plaque of a healthy individual reveals commensal lifestyle.

Much of the work in periodontal microbiology in recent years has focused on identifying and understanding periodontal pathogens. As the majority of oral microbes have not yet been isolated in pure form, it is essential to understand the phenotypic characteristics of microbes to decipher their role in oral environment. In this study, strain DISK18 was isolated from gingival sulcus and identified as a Megasphaera species.

Methylobacterium indicum sp. nov., a facultative methylotrophic bacterium isolated from rice seed.

Two pink pigmented, Gram-negative, motile, aerobic, rod shaped endophytic bacteria designated as SE2.11(T) and SE3.6 were isolated in different experiments from surface sterilized rice seeds.

Detection of protective antigen, an anthrax specific toxin in human serum by using surface plasmon resonance.

In this study, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology was used for the sensitive detection of protective antigen (PA), an anthrax specific toxin in spiked human serum samples. A monoclonal antibody raised against Bacillus anthracis PA was immobilized on carboxymethyldextran-modified gold chip, and its interaction with PA was characterized in situ by SPR. By using kinetic evaluation software, KD (equilibrium constant) and Bmax (maximum binding capacity of analyte) were found to be 20 fM and 18.