Carbon dots in drug delivery and therapeutic applications.

Carbon dots (CDs) are recently introduced carbon nanomaterials showing diverse properties. They show unique fluorescent behavior, low production cost, ecofriendliness, electron mobility, potent antioxidant and antibacterial capabilities, good biocompatibility, and abundant functional groups providing opportunities in functionalization for desired properties such as targeted drug delivery, diagnostics, and therapeutics. In this review, we provide a general overview of their synthesis processes, including top-down and bottom-up approaches and their associated benefits and drawbacks.

3D printed metamaterials: properties, fabrication, and drug delivery applications.

Drug delivery is a process to deliver the required amount of a drug to a target site within an appropriate timeframe, while minimizing possible side effects and maximizing efficiency. This is accomplished by drug delivery systems (DDSs), which are platforms composed of natural and/or synthetic materials that carry drugs or bioactive agents at a particular site or throughout a patient's body via oral, transdermal, topical, intravenous, or intramuscular routes to minimize the drug's toxicity and provide desired therapeutic effects without affecting the patient's healthy cells, tissues or organs. Despite significant advancements, drug delivery still faces numerous scientific, technological, and clinical challenges, such as poor drug bioavailability, unstable loading efficiency, lack of site-specificity, undesired prolonged delivery of drugs.

Clinical Perspectives and Novel Preclinical Models of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: A Critical Review.

Pleural mesothelioma (PM), a rare malignant tumor explicitly associated with asbestos and erionite exposures, has become a global health problem due to limited treatment options and a poor prognosis, in which the median life expectancy varies depending on the method of treatment. However, the importance of early diagnosis is emphasized, and the practical methods have not matured yet. This study provides a critical overview of PM, addressing various aspects like epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis, treatment options, and the potential use of advanced technologies like microfluidic chip-based models for research and diagnosis.

Convenient rapid prototyping microphysiological niche for mimicking liver native basement membrane: Liver sinusoid on a chip.

Liver is responsible for the metabolization processes of up to 90 % of compounds and toxins in the body. Therefore liver-on-a-chip systems, as an in vitro promising cell culture platform, have great importance for fundamental science and drug development. In most of the liver-on-a-chip studies, seeding cells on both sides of a porous membrane, which represents the basement membrane, fail to resemble the native characteristics of biochemical, biophysical, and mechanical properties.

The evaluation of X3 as a biodiesel feedstock based on triacylglycerol (TAG) production, lipid productivity, and fatty acid profile under nitrogen limitation and acidic pH conditions.

The effects of four initial culture pH values (3, 4, 5, and 6) and nitrogen limitation on growth, TAG accumulation, lipid production, fatty acid profile, and estimated biodiesel quality of X3 were investigated. TAG and lipid levels were measured by Nile Red fluorescence and sulfo-phospho-vanilin (SPV) techniques, respectively. The results showed that a combination of nitrogen limitation and acidic pH significantly ( < 0.

The analysis of boric acid effect on epithelial-mesenchymal transition of CD133 + CD117 + lung cancer stem cells.

Targeting lung cancer stem cells (LC-SCs) for metastasis may be an effective strategy against lung cancer. This study is the first on epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) properties of boric acid (BA) in LC-SCs. LC-SCs were isolated using the magnetic cell sorting (MACS) method.

Management of Priapism: Results of a Nationwide Survey and Comparison with International Guidelines.

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate current urologic practice regarding the management of priapism in Turkey and compare with international guidelines.

Methods: Urologists and urology residents were invited to an online survey consisting of 30 multiple-choice questions on priapism-related clinical practices that were consid- ered most important and relevant to practices by using Google Forms.

Results: Total number of responses was 340.

High-throughput microfluidic chip with silica gel-C18 channels for cyclotide separation.

Over the past two decades, microfluidic-based separations have been used for the purification, isolation, and separation of biomolecules to overcome difficulties encountered by conventional chromatography-based methods including high cost, long processing times, sample volumes, and low separation efficiency. Cyclotides, or cyclic peptides used by some plant families as defense agents, have attracted the interest of scientists because of their biological activities varying from antimicrobial to anticancer properties. The separation process has a critical impact in terms of obtaining pure cyclotides for drug development strategies.

On chip microfluidic separation of cyclotides.

Cyclotides as a cyclic peptide produced by different groups of plants have been a very attractive field of research due to their exceptional properties in biological activities and drug design applications. The importance of cyclotides as new biological activities from nature caused to attract researchers to develop new separation systems. Recent growth and development on chip-based technology for separation and bioassay especially for anticancer having sparklingly advantages comparison with common traditional methods.

Developing a Novel Platelet-Rich Plasma-Laden Bioadhesive Hydrogel Contact Lens for the Treatment of Ocular Surface Chemical Injuries.

Permanent injury to corneal limbal stem cells after ocular surface chemical and thermal injuries is a major cause of corneal blindness. In this study, a PRP-laden GelMA hydrogel contact lens is manufactured which is aimed to support the limbal niche after ocular surface insults thereby preventing limbal stem cell failure. GelMA with varying platelet-rich plasma (PRP) concentrations (5%, 10%, and 20%) is photopolymerized using a visible light crosslinking system followed by characterizations of mechanical properties, growth factor release, enzymatic degradation, and in vitro cytotoxicity.

Revealing the single-channel characteristics of OprD (OccAB1) porins from hospital strains of Acinetobacter baumannii.

Nowadays, reports of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) against many antibiotics are increasing because of their misapplication. With this rise, there is a serious decrease in the discovery and development of new types of antibiotics amid an increase in multi-drug resistance. Unfermented Acinetobacter baumannii from gram-negative bacteria, which is one of the main causes of nosocomial infections and multi-drug resistance, has 4 main kinds of antibiotic resistance mechanism: inactivating antibiotics by enzymes, reduced numbers of porins and changing of their target or cellular functions due to mutations, and efflux pumps.

A multifunctional sateen woven dressings for treatment of skin injuries.

Cutaneous wounds with impaired healing such as diabetic ulcers and burns constitute major and rapidly growing threat to healthcare systems worldwide. Accelerating wound healing requires the delivery of biological factors that induce angiogenesis, support cellular proliferation, and modulate inflammation while minimizing infection. In this study, we engineered a dressing made by weaving of composite fibers (CFs) carrying mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and a model antibiotic using a scalable sateen textile technique.

Simple and low-cost antibiotic susceptibility testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis using screen-printed electrodes.

One quarter of the global population is thought to be latently infected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) with it estimated that 1 in 10 of those people will go on to develop active disease. Due to the fact that M. tuberculosis (TB) is a disease most often associated with low- and middle-income countries, it is critical that low-cost and easy-to-use technological solutions are developed, which can have a direct impact on diagnosis and prescribing practice for TB.

Immunomodulating Hydrogels as Stealth Platform for Drug Delivery Applications.

Non-targeted persistent immune activation or suppression by different drug delivery platforms can cause adverse and chronic physiological effects including cancer and arthritis. Therefore, non-toxic materials that do not trigger an immunogenic response during delivery are crucial for safe and effective in vivo treatment. Hydrogels are excellent candidates that can be engineered to control immune responses by modulating biomolecule release/adsorption, improving regeneration of lymphoid tissues, and enhancing function during antigen presentation.

On-chip label-free impedance-based detection of antibiotic permeation.

Biosensors are analytical tools used for the analysis of biomaterial samples and provide an understanding about the biocomposition, structure, and function of biomolecules and/or biomechanisms by converting the biological response into an electrical and/or optical signal. In particular, with the rise in antibiotic resistance amongst pathogenic bacteria, the study of antibiotic activity and transport across cell membranes in the field of biosensors has been gaining widespread importance. Herein, for the rapid and label-free detection of antibiotic permeation across a membrane, a microelectrode integrated microfluidic device is presented.

Investigation of electrochemical behavior of potassium ferricyanide/ferrocyanide redox probes on screen printed carbon electrode through cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.

Potassium ferricyanide, potassium ferrocyanide, and their combination system are widely used redox probes for electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) characterization. In this work, electrochemical behavior of KFe(CN), KFe(CN), and KFe(CN)/KFe(CN) redox probes at five different concentrations using a screen printed carbon electrode (SPCE) by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and EIS methods was analyzed. Redox potentials were observed as a result of anodic and cathodic peak with CV analysis with determination 10 mM appropriate concentration through 0.

Determination of therapeutic agents efficiencies of microsatellite instability high colon cancer cells in post-metastatic liver biochip modeling.

Two distinct genetic mutational pathways characterized by either chromosomal instability or high-frequency microsatellite instability (MSI-H) are recognized in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC). Recently, it has been shown that patients with primary CRC that displays MSI-H have a significant, stage-independent, multivariate survival advantage. Biological properties of CMS1 (MSI-H type) can affect therapeutic efficiencies of agents used in the treatment of CRC, and therefore become a new predictive factor of the treatment.

Electrochemical-based ''antibiotsensor'' for the whole-cell detection of the vancomycin-susceptible bacteria.

In this study, we aim to develop an antibiotic-based biosensor platform 'Antibiotsensor' for the specific detection of gram-positive bacteria using vancomycin modified Screen Printed Gold Electrodes (SPGEs). Through this pathway, vancomycin molecules were first functionalized with thiol groups and characterized with quadrupole time of flight (q-TOF) mass spectroscopy analysis. Immobilization of thiolated vancomycin molecules (HS-Van) onto SPGEs was carried out based on self-assembled monolayer (SAM) phenomenon.

Current Strategies for the Regeneration of Skeletal Muscle Tissue.

Traumatic injuries, tumor resections, and degenerative diseases can damage skeletal muscle and lead to functional impairment and severe disability. Skeletal muscle regeneration is a complex process that depends on various cell types, signaling molecules, architectural cues, and physicochemical properties to be successful. To promote muscle repair and regeneration, various strategies for skeletal muscle tissue engineering have been developed in the last decades.

Customizable Composite Fibers for Engineering Skeletal Muscle Models.

Engineering tissue-like scaffolds that can mimic the microstructure, architecture, topology, and mechanical properties of native tissues while offering an excellent environment for cellular growth has remained an unmet need. To address these challenges, multicompartment composite fibers are fabricated. These fibers can be assembled through textile processes to tailor tissue-level mechanical and electrical properties independent of cellular level components.

Tissue Adhesives: From Research to Clinical Translation.

Sutures, staples, clips and skin closure strips are used as the gold standard to close wounds after an injury. In spite of being the present standard of care, the utilization of these conventional methods is precarious amid complicated and sensitive surgeries such as vascular anastomosis, ocular surgeries, nerve repair, or due to the high-risk components included. Tissue adhesives function as an interface to connect the surfaces of wound edges and prevent them from separation.

Label-free molecular detection of antibiotic susceptibility for Mycobacterium smegmatis using a low cost electrode format.

Today, the emergence of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria is considered an important problem for society. Excessive consumption of antibiotics, long-term treatments, and inappropriate prescriptions continually increase the severity of the problem. Improving antibiotic stewardship requires improved diagnostic testing, and, therefore, in vitro antibiotic susceptibility testing is becoming increasingly important.