Nigella sativa oil entrapped polycaprolactone nanoparticles for leishmaniasis treatment

This study is the first to investigate the antileishmanial activities of Nigella sativa oil (NSO) entrapped poly‐ɛ ‐caprolactone (PCL) nanoparticles on Leishmania infantum promastigotes and amastigotes in vitro. NSO molecules with variable initial doses of 50, 100, 150, and 200 mg were successfully encapsulated into PCL nanoparticles identified as formulations NSO1, NSO2, NSO3, and NSO4, respectively. This process was characterised by scanning electron microscope, dynamic light scattering, Fourier transform infrared, encapsulation efficiency measurements, and release profile evaluations. The resulting synthetised nanoparticles had sizes ranging between 200 and 390 nm. PCL nanoparticles encapsulated 98% to 80% of initial doses of NSO and after incubation released approximately 85% of entrapped oil molecules after 288 h. All investigated formulations demonstrated strong antileishmanial effects on L. infantum promastigotes by inhibiting up to 90% of parasites after 192 h. The tested formulations decreased infection indexes of macrophages in a range between 2.4‐ and 4.1‐fold in contrast to control, thus indicating the strong anti‐amastigote activities of NSO encapsulated PCL nanoparticles. Furthermore, NSO‐loaded PCL nanoparticles showed immunomodulatory effects by increasing produced nitric oxide amounts within macrophages by 2–3.5‐fold in contrast to use of free oil. The obtained data showed significant antileishmanial effects of NSO encapsulated PCL nanoparticles on L. infantum promastigotes and amastigotes.Inspec keywords: antibacterial activity, drug delivery systems, nanofabrication, nitrogen compounds, nanomedicine, microorganisms, cellular biophysics, diseases, scanning electron microscopy, oils, polymers, biomedical materials, nanoparticles, encapsulation, Fourier transform infrared spectraOther keywords: encapsulation efficiency measurements, entrapped oil molecules, investigated formulations, NSO‐loaded PCL nanoparticles, Nigella sativa oil entrapped polycaprolactone nanoparticles, antileishmanial activities, poly‐ε‐caprolactone nanoparticles, scanning electron microscope, DLS, Fourier transform infrared, release profile evaluations, Leishmania infantum promastigotes, Leishmania infantum amastigotes, parasites, infection, infection indexes, macrophages, immunomodulatory effects, time 288.0 hour, time 192.0 hour, mass 50.0 mg, mass 100.0 mg, mass 150.0 mg, mass 200.0 mg, size 200.0 nm to 390.0 nm     

Wideband Extended Range-Doppler Imaging and Waveform Design in the Presence of Clutter and Noise

This paper presents a group-theoretic approach to address the wideband extended range-Doppler target imaging and design of clutter rejecting waveforms. An exact imaging method based on the inverse Fourier transform of the affine group is presented. A Wiener filter is designed in the affine group Fourier transform domain to minimize wideband clutter range-Doppler reflectivity. The Wiener filter is then used to form an operator to precondition transmitted waveforms to reject clutter. Alternatively, the imaging and clutter rejection methods are equivalently re-expressed to perform clutter suppression upon reception. These methods are coupled with noise suppression upon reception. Numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach. Our study shows that the framework introduced in this paper can address the joint design of receive and transmit processing, design of clutter rejecting waveforms, suppression of noise, and reduction of computational complexity in receive processing     

Proton Transport in Electrospun Hybrid Organic–Inorganic Membranes: An Illuminating Paradox

Chemistry and processing have to be judiciously combined to structure the membranes at various length scales to achieve efficient properties for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell to make it competitive for transport. Characterizing the proton transport at various length and space scales and understanding the interplays between the nanostructuration, the confinement effect, the interactions, and connectivity are consequently needed. The goal here is to study the proton transport in multiscale, electrospun hybrid membranes (EHMs) at length scales ranging from molecular to macroscopic by using complementary techniques, i.e., electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, pulsed field gradient‐NMR spectroscopy, and quasielastic neutron scattering. Highly conductive hybrid membranes (EHMs) are produced and their performances are rationalized taken into account the balances existing between local interaction driven mobility and large‐scale connectivity effects. It is found that the water diffusion coefficient can be locally decreased (2 × 10^?6 cm² s^?1) due to weak interactions with the silica network, but the macroscopic diffusion coefficient is still high (9.6 × 10^?6 cm² s^?1). These results highlight that EHMs have slow dynamics at the local scale without being detrimental for long‐range proton transport. This is possible through the nanostructuration of the membranes, controlled via processing and chemistry.     

Physical elution in phage display selection of inorganic-binding peptides

Phage display is a commonly utilized in vivo approach in selecting peptides specific to solid inorganic materials. In this process, traditionally, high affinity peptides are recovered by a chemical elution method, which involves contacting the phage library with the desired inorganic, washing the weak binders, and eluting the tight binders under harsh buffer conditions. This process may result in incomplete removal of all strong binders, separation of the phage from the display protein, or may modify the material surface. To overcome these potential limitations, we developed a physical elution technique based on ultrasonication. Here, we report two optimized ultrasonication protocols by which we selected peptides specific to natural mineral mica. We first performed a 30-s physical elution after the chemical elution step and increased the efficiency of screening strong binders by about 100%. Encouraged by the results, we applied physical elution-only protocol where we obtained 45% of the selected sequences as strong binders. The approach has a far shorter total elution time, i.e., seconds compared to hours in traditional chemical elution. The novel physical elution approach using ultrasonication reported herein can be a highly efficient alternate step in the screening of solid material specific peptides.     

The Expression of Active CD11b Monocytes in Blood and Disease Progression in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Monocytes expressing the inflammation suppressing active CD11b, a beta2 integrin, may regulate neuroinflammation and modify clinical outcomes in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In this single site, retrospective study, peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 38 individuals living with ALS and 20 non-neurological controls (NNC) were investigated using flow cytometry to study active CD11b integrin classical (CM), intermediate (IM) and non-classical (NCM) monocytes during ALS progression. Seventeen ALS participants were sampled at the baseline (V1) and at two additional time points (V2 and V3) for longitudinal analysis. Active CD11b+ CM frequencies increased steeply between the baseline and V3 (ANOVA repeated measurement, p < 0.001), and the V2/V1 ratio negatively correlated with the disease progression rate, similar to higher frequencies of active CD11b+ NCM at the baseline (R = −0.6567; p = 0.0031 and R = 0.3862; p = 0.0168, respectively). CD11b NCM, clinical covariates and neurofilament light-chain plasma concentration at the baseline predicted shorter survival in a multivariable and univariate analysis (CD11b NCM—HR: 1.05, CI: 1.01–1.11, p = 0.013. Log rank: above median: 43 months and below median: 21.22 months; p = 0.0022). Blood samples with the highest frequencies of active CD11b+ IM and NCM contained the lowest concentrations of soluble CD11b. Our preliminary data suggest that the levels of active CD11b+ monocytes and NCM in the blood predict different clinical outcomes in ALS.     

Preconditioning of AISI 304 stainless steel surfaces in the presence of flavins—Part II: Effect on biofilm formation and microbially influenced corrosion processes

Biofilm formation and microbially influenced corrosion of the iron-reducing microorganism Shewanella putrefaciens were investigated on stainless steel surfaces preconditioned in the absence and presence of flavin molecules by means of XANES (X-ray absorption near-edge structure) analysis and electrochemical methods. The results indicate that biofilm formation was promoted on samples preconditioned in electrolytes containing minute amounts of flavins. On the basis of the XANES results, the corrosion processes are controlled by the iron-rich outer layer of the passive film. Biofilm formation resulted in a cathodic shift of the open circuit potential and a protective effect in terms of pitting corrosion. The samples preconditioned in the absence of flavins have shown delayed pitting and the samples preconditioned in the presence of flavins did not show any pitting in a window of −0.3- to +0.0-V overpotential in the bacterial medium. The results indicate that changes in the passive film chemistry induced by the presence of minute amounts of flavins during a mild anodic polarization can change the susceptibility of stainless steel surfaces to microbially influenced corrosion.     

Improvement of enzymatic xylooligosaccharides production by the co-utilization of xylans from different origins

This study aimed to improve XOs production by enzymatic hydrolysis of xylans from various lignocellulosic waste biomasses namely corn cob, cotton and sunflower stalks, rice hull, wheat straw by using two commercial xylanase preparations, Shearzyme 500L and Veron 191. Shearzyme 500L showed better xylan hydrolysis capacity with high amount of xylose liberation. Xylobiose was the main hydrolysis product in each case. Even though the enzymatic hydrolyses using Shearzyme 500L resulted higher reducing sugar production compared to those of Veron 191, the hydrolysis of complex xylan structures was improved and the production of undesirable xylose was lowered by the co-utilization of xylanase preparations. By the co-utilization of xylanase preparations, the reducing sugar production from wheat straw, corn cob and sunflower stalk originated xylans was increased by 36%, 33% and 13%, respectively, compared to the expected reducing sugar yields. The highest reducing sugar production was obtained from complex corn cob xylan. The depolymerization of cotton and sunflower stalk xylan was poorest even though they have simple structures. Poor utilization of these xylans might be related to their high residual lignin content which might hinder the accessibility of xylan by the xylanases. However, the utilization of sunflower and cotton stalk xylan was improved when they were hydrolyzed within a xylan mixture containing equal amounts of each of five different xylans. In short, XOs production efficiency from agricultural waste materials was improved by the co-utilization of suitable xylanase and/or xylan mixtures considering the heterogeneous structures of xylan and different substrate specificities of xylanases.