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ACS Applied Bio Materials Oct 2023A formate (HCOO) bioanode was developed by utilizing a phenothiazine-based electropolymerized layer deposited on sucrose-derived carbon. The electrode modified with...
A formate (HCOO) bioanode was developed by utilizing a phenothiazine-based electropolymerized layer deposited on sucrose-derived carbon. The electrode modified with NAD-dependent formate dehydrogenase and the electropolymerized layer synergistically catalyzed the oxidation of the coenzyme (NADH) and fuel (HCOO) to achieve efficient electron transfer. Further, the replacement of carbon nanotubes with water-dispersible sucrose-derived carbon used as the electrode base allowed the fabrication of a surfactant-free bioanode delivering a maximum current density of 1.96 mA cm in the fuel solution. Finally, a separator- and surfactant-free HCOO/O biofuel cell featuring the above bioanode and a gas-diffusion biocathode modified with bilirubin oxidase and 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate) was fabricated, delivering a maximum power density of 70 μW cm (at 0.24 V) and an open-circuit voltage of 0.59 V. Thus, this study demonstrates the potential of formic acid as a fuel and possibilities for the application of carbon materials in bioanodes.
Topics: Surface-Active Agents; Bioelectric Energy Sources; Nanotubes, Carbon; Formates; Phenothiazines; Sucrose
PubMed: 37750824
DOI: 10.1021/acsabm.3c00502 -
Viruses Jul 2023Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has brought an unprecedented...
Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has brought an unprecedented public health crisis and continues to threaten humanity due to the persistent emergence of new variants. Therefore, developing more effective and broad-spectrum therapeutic and prophylactic drugs against infection by SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, as well as future emerging CoVs, is urgently needed. In this study, we screened several US FDA-approved drugs and identified phenothiazine derivatives with the ability to potently inhibit the infection of pseudotyped SARS-CoV-2 and distinct variants of concern (VOCs), including B.1.617.2 (Delta) and currently circulating Omicron sublineages XBB and BQ.1.1, as well as pseudotyped SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. Mechanistic studies suggested that phenothiazines predominantly inhibited SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus (PsV) infection at the early stage and potentially bound to the spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2, which may prevent the proteolytic cleavage of the S protein, thereby exhibiting inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV-2 infection. In summary, our findings suggest that phenothiazines can serve as a potential broad-spectrum therapeutic drug for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection as well as the infection of future emerging human coronaviruses (HCoVs).
Topics: Humans; SARS-CoV-2; Phenothiazines; COVID-19; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus
PubMed: 37632009
DOI: 10.3390/v15081666 -
Brazilian Journal of Cardiovascular... Feb 2021
Topics: COVID-19; Humans; Methylene Blue; SARS-CoV-2
PubMed: 33355812
DOI: 10.21470/1678-9741-2020-0462 -
Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) Jul 2021The existence of more than 100 public Galaxy servers with service quotas is indicative of the need for an increased availability of compute resources for Galaxy to use....
SUMMARY
The existence of more than 100 public Galaxy servers with service quotas is indicative of the need for an increased availability of compute resources for Galaxy to use. The GalaxyCloudRunner enables a Galaxy server to easily expand its available compute capacity by sending user jobs to cloud resources. User jobs are routed to the acquired resources based on a set of configurable rules and the resources can be dynamically acquired from any of four popular cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP or OpenStack) in an automated fashion.
AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION
GalaxyCloudRunner is implemented in Python and leverages Docker containers. The source code is MIT licensed and available at https://github.com/cloudve/galaxycloudrunner. The documentation is available at http://gcr.cloudve.org/.
Topics: Azure Stains; Computational Biology; Documentation; Humans; Software
PubMed: 33104194
DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa860 -
Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Sep 2022Theranostics (bifunction of therapeutics and diagnostics) has attracted increasing attention due to its efficiency that can reduce the physical and financial burden on... (Review)
Review
Theranostics (bifunction of therapeutics and diagnostics) has attracted increasing attention due to its efficiency that can reduce the physical and financial burden on patients. One of the promising materials for theranostics is calcium phosphate (CP) and it is biocompatible and can be functionalized not only with drug molecules but also with rare earth ions to show photoluminescence that is necessary for the diagnostic purpose. Such the CP-based hybrids are formed in vivo by interacting between functional groups of organic molecules and inorganic ions. It is of great importance to elucidate the interaction of CP with the photofunctional species and the drug molecules to clarify the relationship between the existing state and function. Well-designed photofunctional CPs will contribute to biomedical fields as highly-functional ormultifunctional theranostic materials at the nanoscales. In this review, we describe the hybridization between CPs and heterogeneous species, mainly focusing on europium(III) ion and methylene blue molecule as the representative photofunctional species for theranostics applications.
Topics: Calcium Phosphates; Europium; Humans; Ions; Methylene Blue; Precision Medicine; Theranostic Nanomedicine
PubMed: 36144659
DOI: 10.3390/molecules27185916 -
Current Opinion in Genetics &... Aug 2021The order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) comprises diurnal insects with well-developed vision, showing diverse colors in adult wings and bodies. It is one of the... (Review)
Review
The order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) comprises diurnal insects with well-developed vision, showing diverse colors in adult wings and bodies. It is one of the most ancestral winged insect groups. Because Odonata species use visual cues to recognize each other, color patterns have been investigated from ecological and evolutionary viewpoints. Here we review the recent progress on molecular mechanisms of pigmentation, especially focused on light-blue coloration. Results from histology and pigment analysis showed that ommochrome pigments on the proximal layer and pteridine pigments on the distal layer of the epidermis are essential for light-blue coloration. We also summarize genes involved in the biosynthesis of three major insect pigments conserved across insects and discuss that gene-functional analysis deserves future studies.
Topics: Animals; Color; Odonata; Phenothiazines; Phenotype; Pigmentation; Wings, Animal
PubMed: 33482606
DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2020.12.014 -
Biosensors Nov 2022Simple staining of cells is a widely used method in basic medical diagnostics, education, and research laboratories. The stains are low-cost, but the extensive...
Simple staining of cells is a widely used method in basic medical diagnostics, education, and research laboratories. The stains are low-cost, but the extensive consumption results in excessive toxic waste generation. Thus, to decrease the amount of toxic waste resulting from the cell staining procedure is a need. In this study, we developed a magnetically driven and compartmentalized passive microfluidic chip to perform simple staining of human eukaryotic cells, K562 cells, and lymphocyte cells derived from patients. We demonstrated simple staining on cells with trypan blue, methylene blue, crystal violet, and safranin for high, medium, and low cell densities. The stained cells were imaged using a bright field optical microscope and a cell phone to count cells on the focal plane. The staining improved the color signal of the cell by 25-135-pixel intensity changes for the microscopic images. The validity of the protocol was determined using Jurkat and MDA-MB-231 cell lines as negative controls. In order to demonstrate the practicality of the system, lymphocyte cells derived from human blood samples were stained with trypan blue. The color intensity changes in the first and last compartments were analyzed to evaluate the performance of the chip. The developed method is ultra-low cost, significantly reduces the waste generated, and can be integrated with mobile imaging devices in terms of portability. By combining microfabrication technology with cell staining, this study reported a novel contribution to the field of microfluidic biosensors. In the future, we expect to demonstrate the detection of pathogens using this method.
Topics: Humans; Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; Staining and Labeling; Gentian Violet; Trypan Blue; Methylene Blue
PubMed: 36421132
DOI: 10.3390/bios12111013 -
Pharmaceutical Biology Dec 2023Diabetic wounds (DW) are a complication of diabetes and slow wound healing is the main manifestation. Methylene blue (MB) has been shown to exhibit therapeutic effects...
CONTEXT
Diabetic wounds (DW) are a complication of diabetes and slow wound healing is the main manifestation. Methylene blue (MB) has been shown to exhibit therapeutic effects on diabetes-related diseases.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the mechanisms of action of MB-nanoemulsion (NE) in the treatment of DW.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The concentration of MB-NE used in the and experiments was 0.1 mg/mL. Streptozocin-induced diabetic mice were used as models. The mice were separated into nondiabetic, diabetic, MB-NE treated, and NE-treated groups. Intervention of high glucose-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells using MB-NE. The mechanism by which MB-NE promotes DW healing is investigated by combining histological analysis, immunofluorescence analysis, TUNEL and ROS assays and western blotting.
RESULTS
In diabetic mice, the MB-NE accelerated DW healing ( < 0.05), promoted the expression of endothelial cell markers (α-SMA, CD31 and VEGF) ( < 0.05), and reduced TUNEL levels. , MB accelerated the migration rate of cells ( < 0.05); promoted the expression of CD31, VEGF, anti-apoptotic protein Bcl2 ( < 0.05) and decreased the expression of the pro-apoptotic proteins cleaved caspase-3 and Bax ( < 0.05). MB upregulated the expression of Nrf2, catalase, HO-1 and SOD2 ( < 0.05). In addition, MB reduced the immunofluorescence intensity of TUNEL and ROS in cells and reduced apoptosis. The therapeutic effect of MB was attenuated after treatment with an Nrf2 inhibitor (ML385).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This study provides a foundation for the application of MB-NE in the treatment of DW.
Topics: Humans; Animals; Mice; Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental; Methylene Blue; NF-E2-Related Factor 2; Reactive Oxygen Species; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A; Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells
PubMed: 37691404
DOI: 10.1080/13880209.2023.2254341 -
Biosensors Aug 2022Fast and reliable determination of enzyme inhibitors are of great importance in environmental monitoring and biomedicine because of the high biological activity and...
Fast and reliable determination of enzyme inhibitors are of great importance in environmental monitoring and biomedicine because of the high biological activity and toxicity of such species and the necessity of their reliable assessment in many media. In this work, a flow-through biosensor has been developed and produced by 3D printing from poly(lactic acid). Acetylcholinesterase from an electric eel was immobilized on the inner walls of the reactor cell. The concentration of thiocholine formed in enzymatic hydrolysis of the substrate was monitored amperometrically with a screen-printed carbon electrode modified with carbon black particles, pillar[5]arene, electropolymerized Methylene blue and thionine. In the presence of thiocholine, the cathodic current at -0.25 V decreased because of an alternative chemical reaction of the macrocycle. The conditions of enzyme immobilization and signal measurements were optimized and the performance of the biosensor was assessed in the determination of reversible (donepezil, berberine) and irreversible (carbofuran) inhibitors. In the optimal conditions, the flow-through biosensor made it possible to determine 1.0 nM-1.0 μM donepezil, 1.0 μM-1.0 mM berberine and 10 nM to 0.1 μM carbofuran. The AChE biosensor was tested on spiked samples of artificial urine for drugs and peanuts for carbofuran. Possible interference of the sample components was eliminated by dilution of the samples with phosphate buffer. Easy mounting, low cost of replaceable parts of the cell and satisfactory analytical and metrological characteristics made the biosensor a promising future application as a point-of-care or point-of-demand device outside of a chemical laboratory.
Topics: Acetylcholinesterase; Berberine; Biosensing Techniques; Carbofuran; Carbon; Donepezil; Electrodes; Enzymes, Immobilized; Methylene Blue; Phosphates; Soot; Thiocholine
PubMed: 36140061
DOI: 10.3390/bios12090676 -
The Journal of Thoracic and... Apr 2022
Topics: Angiotensin II; Cardiopulmonary Bypass; Humans; Methylene Blue; Vasoplegia
PubMed: 33985809
DOI: 10.1016/j.jtcvs.2021.04.014