Protein misfolding and aggregation into highly ordered fibrillar structures have been traditionally associated with pathological processes. Nevertheless, nature has taken advantage of the particular properties of amyloids for functional purposes, like in the protection of organisms against environmental changing conditions. Over the last decades, these fibrillar structures have inspired the design of new nanomaterials with intriguing applications in biomedicine and nanotechnology such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, adhesive materials, biodegradable nanocomposites, nanowires or biosensors. Prion and prion-like proteins, which are considered a subclass of amyloids, are becoming ideal candidates for the design of new and tunable nanomaterials. In this review, we discuss the particular properties of this kind of proteins, and the current advances on the design of new materials based on prion sequences.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19336896.2018.1521235 | DOI Listing |
3 Biotech
February 2025
Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh, Gujarat 362001 India.
Unlabelled: is the causal agent of stem rot of many crops, a highly destructive disease of groundnut ( L). Based on evidence that many groundnut genotypes have an inherent ability to tolerate the pathogenicity of species, twenty-two genotypes of groundnut were screened against infection in sick plot field experiment; four genotypes, namely CS19, GG16, GG20 and TG37A, were selected as being the most tolerant, moderately tolerant, susceptible and highly susceptible to stem rot, respectively. Stem tissues (1cm from the collar region) from infected and healthy plants of four selected genotypes differing in susceptibility were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Omega
January 2025
Department of Applied Chemistry, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu 30050, Taiwan, ROC.
Here, we report the design, synthesis, and comprehensive characterization of the bis-cholesterol supramolecular gelator, which contains photochromic stiff-stilbene as a bridging unit. The -isomer of stiff-stilbene bridged bis-cholesterol (-) was first synthesized with a systematic design, which can be further converted into its -isomer (-) with a high degree of efficiency (ca. 100%) upon exposure to 385 nm UV light.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
NMR Based Structural Biology, Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen, Germany.
Aggregation intermediates play a pivotal role in the assembly of amyloid fibrils, which are central to the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. The structures of filamentous intermediates and mature fibrils are now efficiently determined by single-particle cryo-electron microscopy. By contrast, smaller pre-fibrillar α-Synuclein (αS) oligomers, crucial for initiating amyloidogenesis, remain largely uncharacterized.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdv Mater
January 2025
Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Geelong Waurn Ponds Campus, Pigdons Road, Geelong, VIC, 3216, Australia.
The remarkable toughness (>70 MJ m) of silkworm silk is largely attributed to its hierarchically arranged nanofibrillar nanostructure. Recreating such tough fibers through artificial spinning is often challenging, in part because degummed, dissolved silk is drastically different to the unspun native feedstock found in the spinning gland. The present work demonstrates a method to dissolve silk without degumming to produce a solution containing undegraded fibroin and sericin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiofabrication
January 2025
Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials (PBM) Group, Centre of Macromolecular Chemistry (CMaC), Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281, Gent, 9000, BELGIUM.
Volumetric bioprinting has revolutionized the field of biofabrication by enabling the creation of cubic centimeter-scale living constructs at faster printing times (in the order of seconds). However, a key challenge remains: developing a wider variety of available osteogenic bioinks that allow osteogenic maturation of the encapsulated cells within the construct. Herein, the bioink exploiting a step-growth mechanism (norbornene-norbornene functionalized gelatin in combination with thiolated gelatin - GelNBNBSH) outperformed the bioink exploiting a chain-growth mechanism (gelatin methacryloyl - GelMA), as the necessary photo-initiator concentration was three times lower combined with a more than 50 % reduction in required light exposure dose resulting in an improved positive and negative resolution.
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