Reversible Cavitation‐Induced Junctional Opening in an Artificial Endothelial Layer

Targeting pharmaceuticals through the endothelial barrier is crucial for drug delivery. In this context, cavitation‐assisted permeation shows promise for effective and reversible opening of intercellular junctions. A vessel‐on‐a‐chip is exploited to investigate and quantify the effect of ultrasound‐excited microbubbles—stable cavitation—on endothelial integrity. In the vessel‐on‐a‐chip, the endothelial cells form a complete lumen under physiological shear stress, resulting in intercellular junctions that exhibit barrier functionality. Immunofluorescence microscopy is exploited to monitor vascular integrity following vascular endothelial cadherin staining. It is shown that microbubbles amplify the ultrasound effect, leading to the formation of interendothelial gaps that cause barrier permeabilization. The total gap area significantly increases with pressure amplitude compared to the control. Gap opening is fully reversible with gap area distribution returning to the control levels 45 min after insonication. The proposed integrated platform allows for precise and repeatable in vitro measurements of cavitation‐enhanced endothelium permeability and shows potential for validating irradiation protocols for in vivo applications.     

Exogenous opioid peptides derived from food proteins and their possible uses as dietary supplements: A critical review

Endogenous opioid peptides are neuro-hormones and neurotransmitters involved in several physiological actions such as stress reactions, nociception control, sedation, breathing tone, depression, hypotension, appetite, digestion, etc. It is now clear that hydrolysis by the digestion of certain food-proteins can lead to the production of bioactive peptides. Commonly diffused foods like milk, wheat, meat, and spinach may produce after enzymatic digestion a variable amount of opioid peptides. The aim of this review is to provide arising perspectives on opioid peptides, focusing on their production from milk, their potential benefits, drawbacks, and safety issues related to infants’ feeding.     

Polyphenols of Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) Oil Samples and Geographical Differentiation by Principal Component Analysis

The phenolic compounds of Italian and Turkish pistachio oil samples were investigated by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) with the aim of identifying substances also present in very low concentration; 21 compounds were identified by means of the mass spectra of the trimethylsilyl (TMS) derivatives. Benzoic acid derivatives (protocatechuic acid, gallic acid, 4‐hydroxybenzoic acid) were the main components; 14 polyphenols were detected in pistachios for the first time. The concentrations of the compounds found were in the range 0.02–5.64 μg/g of fresh pistachio. No appreciable qualitative differences were found between samples of different origin; a multivariate approach was successfully tried to differentiate the samples according to their geographical origin, using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Finally, Canonical Discriminant Analysis (CDA) was further conducted to classify different pistachio samples.     

Delivery of drugs and biomolecules using carbon nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have emerged as one of the most advanced nanovectors for the highly efficient delivery of drugs and biomolecules. They offer several appealing features such as large surface areas with well defined physico-chemical properties as well as unique optical and electrical properties. They can be conjugated non-covalently or covalently with drugs, biomolecules and nanoparticles. Albeit some pending concerns about their toxicity in vitro and in vivo, functionalized CNTs appear to exhibit very low toxicity and are not immunogenic. Thus, they could be promising carriers with a great potential for the development of a new-generation delivery system for drugs and biomolecules. There have been significant advances in the field of CNT-based drug delivery, especially in the specific targeting of anticancer and anti-inflammatory drugs for tissues and organs in the body, where their therapeutic effect is highly required. Other promising applications are the delivery of DNA, RNA and proteins.     

A Microfabricated Sandwiching Assay for Nanoliter and High‐Throughput Biomarker Screening

Cells secrete substances that are essential to the understanding of numerous immunological phenomena and are extensively used in clinical diagnoses. Countless techniques for screening of biomarker secretion in living cells have generated valuable information on cell function and physiology, but low volume and real‐time analysis is a bottleneck for a range of approaches. Here, a simple, highly sensitive assay using a high‐throughput micropillar and microwell array chip (MIMIC) platform is presented for monitoring of biomarkers secreted by cancer cells. The sensing element is a micropillar array that uses the enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) mechanism to detect captured biomolecules. When integrated with a microwell array where few cells are localized, interleukin 8 (IL‐8) secretion can be monitored with nanoliter volume using multiple micropillar arrays. The trend of cell secretions measured using MIMICs matches the results from conventional ELISA well while it requires orders of magnitude less cells and volumes. Moreover, the proposed MIMIC is examined to be used as a drug screening platform by delivering drugs using micropillar arrays in combination with a microfluidic system and then detecting biomolecules from cells as exposed to drugs.     

Categorization of Above and Below Spatial Relations by Tufted Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella).

Using a matching-to-sample procedure, the researchers investigated tufted capuchins' (Cebus apella) ability to form categorical representations of above and below spatial relations. In Experiment 1, 5 capuchins correctly matched bar-dot stimuli on the basis of the relative above and below location of their constituent elements. The monkeys showed a positive transfer of performance both when the bar-dot distance in the two comparison stimuli differed from that of the sample and when the actual location of the matching stimulus and the nonmatching stimulus on the apparatus was modified. In Experiment 2, the researchers systematically changed the shapes of the located object (the dot) or the reference object (the horizontal bar). These manipulations did not affect the monkeys' performance. Overall, the data suggest that capuchins can form abstract, conceptual-like representations for above and below spatial relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)