• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.293-303
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• 2021

Separation membranes used in water filtration, protein purification or biomedical filtration device frequently undergo membrane fouling for several reasons. The formation of biofilm on the membrane surface by bacteria causes a severe problem for durability of the membrane. For the protein separation, the membrane pores get blocked due to surface hydrophobicity of the membrane. There are several approaches controlling the membrane fouling and one of them is the incorporation of silver nanoparticles. Antibacterial properties of silver nanoparticles are well known and thus widely used in several applications. In this review, we have focused on the membranes where silver nanoparticles or its derivatives are either incorporated in the active layer of thin film composite membranes or uniformly distributed throughout the whole membranes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.241-252
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• 2021

Rapid industrialization with growing population leads to environmental water pollution. Demand in generation of clean water from waste water is ever increasing by scarcity of rain water due to change in weather pattern. Colorimetric detection of heavy metal present in clean water is very simple and effective technique. In this review membrane based colorimetric detection of mercury (II) ions are discussed in details. Membrane such as cellulose, polycaprolactone, chitosan, polysulfone etc., are used as support for metal ion detection. Nanofiber based materials have wide range of applications in energy, environment and biomedical research. Membranes made up of nanofiber consist up plenty of functional groups available in the polymer along with large surface area and high porosity. As a result, it is easy for surface modification and grafting of ligand on the fiber surface enhanced nanoparticles attachment.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.550-564
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• 2022

Optical microscopy is a useful tool for study in the biological sciences. With an optical microscope, we can observe the micro world of life such as tissues, cells, and proteins. A fluorescent dye or a fluorescent protein provides an opportunity to mark a specific target in the crowd of biological samples, so that an image of a specific target can be observed by an optical microscope. The optical microscope, however, is constrained in resolution due to diffraction limit. Super-resolution microscopy made a breakthrough with this diffraction limit. Using a super-resolution microscope, many biomolecules are observed beyond the diffraction limit in cells. In the case of volumetric imaging, the super-resolution techniques are only applied to a limited area due to long imaging time, multiple scattering of photons, and sample-induced aberration in deep tissue. In this article, we review recent advances in super-resolution microscopy for volumetric imaging. The super-resolution techniques have been integrated with various modalities, such as a line-scan confocal microscope, a spinning disk confocal microscope, a light sheet microscope, and point spread function engineering. Super-resolution microscopy combined with adaptive optics by compensating for wave distortions is a promising method for deep tissue imaging and biomedical applications.

• Biomaterials Research
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.249-258
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• 2018

Background: Mucoadhesive polymers, which may increase the contact time between the polymer and the tissue, have been widely investigated for pharmaceutical formulations. In this study, we developed a new polysaccharide-based mucoadhesive polymer with thermogelling properties. Methods: Hexanoyl glycol chitosan (HGC), a new thermogelling polymer, was synthesized by the chemical modification of glycol chitosan using hexanoic anhydride. The HGC was further modified to include thiol groups to improve the mucoadhesive property of thermogelling HGC. The degree of thiolation of the thiolated HGCs (SH-HGCs) was controlled in the range of 5-10% by adjusting the feed molar ratio. The structure of the chemically modified polymers was characterized by $^1H$ NMR and ATR-FTIR. The sol-gel transition, mucoadhesiveness, and biocompatibility of the polymers were determined by a tube inverting method, rheological measurements, and in vitro cytotoxicity tests, respectively. Results: The aqueous solution (4 wt%) of HGC with approximately 33% substitution showed a sol-gel transition temperature of approximately $41^{\circ}C$. SH-HGCs demonstrated lower sol-gel transition temperatures ($34{\pm}1$ and $31{\pm}1^{\circ}C$) compared to that of HGC due to the introduction of thiol groups. Rheological studies of aqueous mixture solutions of SH-HGCs and mucin showed that SH-HGCs had stronger mucoadhesiveness than HGC due to the interaction between the thiol groups of SH-HGCs and mucin. Additionally, we confirmed that the thermogelling properties might improve the mucoadhesive force of polymers. Several in vitro cytotoxicity tests showed that SH-HGCs showed little toxicity at concentrations of 0.1-1.0 wt%, indicating good biocompatibility of the polymers. Conclusions: The resultant thiolated hexanoyl glycol chitosans may play a crucial role in mucoadhesive applications in biomedical areas.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.522-530
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• 2022

In this study we aimed to develop novel ZnO-NP/chitosan/β-glycerophosphate (ZnO-NP/CS/β-GP) antibacterial hydrogels for biomedical applications. According to the mass fraction ratio of ZnO-NPs to chitosan, mixtures of 1, 3, and 5% ZnO-NPs/CS/β-GP were prepared. Using the test-tube inversion method, scanning electron microscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, the influence of ZnO-NPs on gelation time, chemical composition, and cross-sectional microstructures were evaluated. Adding ZnO-NPs significantly improved the hydrogel's antibacterial activity as determined by bacteriostatic zone and colony counting. The hydrogel's bacteriostatic mechanism was investigated using live/dead fluorescent staining and scanning electron microscopy. In addition, crystal violet staining and MTT assay demonstrated that ZnO-NPs/CS/β-GP exhibited good antibacterial activity in inhibiting the formation of biofilms and eradicating existing biofilms. CCK-8 and live/dead cell staining methods revealed that the cell viability of gingival fibroblasts (L929) cocultured with hydrogel in each group was above 90% after 24, 48, and 72 h. These results suggest that ZnO-NPs improve the temperature sensitivity and bacteriostatic performance of chitosan/β-glycerophosphate (CS/β-GP), which could be injected into the periodontal pocket in solution form and quickly transformed into hydrogel adhesion on the gingiva, allowing for a straightforward and convenient procedure. In conclusion, ZnO-NP/CS/β-GP thermosensitive hydrogels could be expected to be utilized as adjuvant drugs for clinical prevention and treatment of peri-implant inflammation.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.170-176
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• 2022

Cell separation from a heterogenous mixture sample is an essential process for downstream analysis in biological, chemical, and clinical applications. This study demonstrates an integrated hybrid device of the viscoelastic focusing in a straight rectangular channel and subsequent size-based separation using acoustophoresis to attain high efficiency and separation tunability. For particle pre-alignment in a viscoelastic fluid, the flow rate higher than 10 μl/min was required. Surface acoustic wave-based lateral migration of particles with different sizes (13 and 27 ㎛) was examined at various applied voltages and flow rate conditions. Therefore, the flow rate of 100 μl/min and the applied voltage of 20 V_pp can be used for size-based particle separation.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.425-429
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• 2021

We have investigated the expression of early growth response protein 1 (EGR1) in INS-1 pancreatic β-cells treated with Allomyrina dichotoma hemolymph. The Korean rhinoceros beetle, A. dichotoma (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), is important in the insect industry for medical applications. We have already established a method for purification of A. dichotoma hemolymph that can be used in many experiments. EGR1 is reported as a multifunctional transcription factor that is implicated in virus infections. EGR1 has therefore been revealed as a major mediator and regulator in the physiological and pathological conditions of several cell and tissue types. New findings in this study are that A. dichotoma hemolymph, which promotes a dose- and time-dependent upregulation of EGR1 gene expression, shows an enhancement of this gene expression when combined with hypothermia or endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. These results suggest that A. dichotoma hemolymph may provide clues to EGR1-associated disease therapies involving gene regulation of EGR1.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.1421-1430
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• 2022

The computation of the solid angle and the detector efficiency is considering to be one of the most important factors during the measuring process for the radioactivity, especially the cylindrical γ-ray NaI(Tl) detectors nowadays have applications in several fields such as industry, hazardous for health, the gamma-ray radiation detectors grow to be the main essential instruments in radiation protection sector. In the present work, a generic numerical simulation method (NSM) for calculating the efficiency of the γ-ray spectrometry setup is established. The formulas are suitable for any type of source-to-detector shape and can be valuable to determine the full-energy peak and the total efficiencies and P/T ratio of cylindrical γ-ray NaI(Tl) detector setup concerning the truncated conical radioactive source. This methodology is based on estimate the path length of γ-ray radiation inside the detector active medium, inside the source itself, and the self-attenuation correction factors, which typically use to correct the sample attenuation of the original geometry source. The calculations can be completed in general by using extra reasonable and complicate analytical and numerical techniques than the standard models; especially the effective solid angle, and the detector efficiency have to be calculated in case of the truncated conical radioactive source studied condition. Moreover, the (NSM) can be used for the straight calculations of the γ-ray detector efficiency after the computation of improvement that need in the case of γ-γ coincidence summing (CS). The (NSM) confirmation of the development created by the efficiency transfer method has been achieved by comparing the results of the measuring truncated conical radioactive source with certified nuclide activities with the γ-ray NaI(Tl) detector, and a good agreement was obtained after corrections of (CS). The methodology can be unlimited to find the theoretical efficiencies and modifications equivalent to any geometry by essential sufficiently the physical selective considered situation.

• Journal of Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.239-245
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• 2022

Protein and peptide candidates are screened to apply therapeutic application as a drug. Ensuring that these candidates are delivered and maximized effectiveness is still challenging and a variety of studies are ongoing. As drug delivery system vehicles, cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) can deliver various kinds of cargo into the cell cytosol. In a previous study, we developed Ara27 CPP, which are a zinc knuckle family protein of Arabidopsis, and confirmed internalization in human dermal fibroblasts and human dental pulp stem cells at low concentration with short time treatment condition without any toxicity. Ara27, an amphipathic CPP, could be modified and utilized in the biomedical field excluding the risk of toxicity. Therefore, we would like to confirm the non-toxic induced penetrating ability of Ara27 in various cell lines. The purpose of this study was to screen the cell internalization ability of Ara27 in various cell lines and to confirm Ara27 as a promising core CPP structure. First, Ara27 was screened to confirm non-toxicity concentration. Then, fluorescence-labeled Ara27 was treated on human normal cell lines, cancer cell lines and animal cell lines to identify the cellular internalization of Ara27. Ara27 was well intracellular localized in all cell lines and the intensity of fluorescence was remarkably increased in time pass manner. These results indicate that Ara27 has the potential as a core structure for applications in various drug delivery systems.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.375-386
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• 2022

In the present study, four distinctly colored bacterial isolates that show intense pigmentation upon brief ultraviolet (UV) light exposure are chosen. The strains are identified as Micrococcus luteus (Milky yellow), Cryseobacterium pallidum (Yellow), Cryseobacterium spp. (Golden yellow), and Kocuria turfanensis (Pink) based on their morphological and 16S rDNA analysis. Moderate salinity (1.25%), 25-37℃ temperature, and pH of 7.2 are found to be the most favorable conditions of growth and pigment production for all the selected isolates. The pigments are extracted using methanol: chloroform (1:1) and the purity of the pigments are confirmed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and thin-layer chromatography (TLC). Further, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and UV-Visible spectroscopy indicate their resemblance with carotenoids and flexirubin family. The antioxidant activities of the pigments are estimated, and, all the pigments have shown significant antioxidant efficacy in 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH), and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. The UV protective property of the pigments is determined by cling-film assay, wherein, at least 25% of UV sensitive Escherichia coli survive with bio-pigments even after 90 seconds of UV exposure compared to control. The pigments also hold a good sun protective factor (SPF) value (1.5-4.9) which is calculated with the Mansur equation. Based on these results, it can be predicted that these bacterial pigments can be further developed into a promising antioxidant and UV-protectant for several biomedical applications.