0000000000244883
AUTHOR
Emanuela Muscolino
Smart hydrogels with Spheroids of Adipose stem cells for minimally invasive bone and cartilage regeneration
Design, synthesis and characterization of a theranostic nanoplatform for tumor site-specific delivery of doxorubicin
Hydrogel scaffolds based on k-Carrageenan/xyloglucan blends to host spheroids from human adipose stem cells
Hydrogels are water-swollen networks of hydrophilic polymer. They can be fabricated in various shapes and swell in water or aqueous solutions maintaining their original shape or undergo progressive erosion; can exibit large volume phase transitions with the change of one environmental parameter (stimuli-responsivness), shock absorption and low sliding friction properties (1). The morphology and mechanical properties of hydrogels are strongly affected by the network composition, the nature and degree of crosslinking and the degree of swelling. Indeed, when hydrogels are designed as scaffolds for human tissues remodeling, they must have sufficient mechanical integrity to provide support to th…
Devices for the capture of rare cells from biological samples for diagnostic purposes
The chance of surviving to a disease often depends on early diagnosis and effective therapy. In the field of early prenatal diagnosis, micromanipulation is a reliable technique for manual selection and isolation of rare fetal cells in maternal biological fluids for molecular or cytogenetic analysis. This technique allows obtaining pure cell populations for analysis, but it is expensive and time consuming, as it requires qualified and experienced staff and specific equipment [1]. This research aims at making the prenatal diagnosis more economical and reproducible in the hospital environment, by creating a device that allows selecting rare cells from biological samples in a semi-automated way…
Recovery from Food Waste-Biscuit Doughs Enriched with Pomegranate Peel Powder as a Model of Fortified Aliment
This research was funded by the "IEV Programme de Cooperation Italie-Tunisie 2014-2020, Re-lancer une nouvelle economie (Re-Ne)". EU project code C-5-3.1-39.
Polysaccharide hydrogels for regenerative medicine applications
Poly(vinyl alcohol)/κ-Carrageenan-based hydrogels enriched with the adhesive mussel protein Pvfp5β as 3D cell culture scaffold for tissue engineering applications
Many marine organisms such as sandcastle worms, barnacles and mussels, produce natural adhesives to attach to wet surfaces in aqueous tidal environments. In mussels, the adhesion is possible through the secretion of a protein-based water-resistant glue, composed of a mixture of proteins called mussel adhesive proteins (MAPs) or mussel foot proteins (mfps), that allow anchoring to almost any kind of surface in wet conditions [1]. The proteins confined to adhesive plaques are mfp-2, -3, -4, -5, and -6. All these proteins contain an atypically high concentration of the catecholic amino acid 3,4- dihydroxy-l-phenylalanine (DOPA), obtained by the post-translational enzymatic hydroxylation of tyr…
Radiation-tailored xyloglucan-doxorubicin nanoparticles for cancer therapy
Polysaccharides are long chains of monosaccharides linked by glycosidic bonds. They are widely utilized in biomedical applications, for tissue engineering and wound management, and as excipients of pharmaceutical formulations. In cancer therapy, the development of nanoscale drug delivery systems aims at addressing issues related to the low efficacy of chemotherapeutics and protein drugs due to poor solubility and stability, and to off-target effects that severely affect patients’ body conditions. Biocompatibility, availability of functional groups, amenability of chemical derivatisation and multifunctional conjugation with drugs and targeting ligands make polysaccharide nanoparticles intere…
Recombinant mussel protein Pvfp5β enhances cell adhesion of poly(vinyl alcohol)/k-carrageenan hydrogel scaffolds
Polymeric hydrogels are increasingly being considered as a scaffold for tissue engineering because they show similarity to the extracellular matrix (ECM) of many tissues. To control various cellular processes, hydrogels are often functionalized or loaded with various bioactive molecules such as: specific ligands for adhesion receptors, growth factors, hormones, enzymes, and other natural or synthetic regulators of cellular behavior [1]. Cell adhesion is essential for cell communication and regulation of the cell cycle and is therefore of vital importance in tissue engineering. Biomimetic approaches have been investigated to facilitate cell-scaffold adhesion interactions. In particular, the …
Rare cell capture platforms based on antibody-conjugated electrospun nanofiber mats for noninvasive prenatal diagnostics
The chance of surviving to a disease often depends on early diagnosis and effective therapy. In the field of early prenatal diagnosis, micromanipulation is a reliable technique for manual selection and isolation of rare fetal cells in maternal biological fluids for molecular or cytogenetic analysis. This technique allows obtaining pure cell populations for analysis, but it is expensive and time consuming, as it requires qualified and experienced staff and specific equipment [1]. The aim of this study is to make the prenatal diagnosis more economical and reproducible in the hospital environment, by creating a device that allows selecting rare cells from biological samples in a semi-automated…
Recombinant mussel protein Pvfp5β enhances cell adhesion of poly(vinyl alcohol)/k-carrageenan hydrogel scaffolds
Polymeric hydrogels are increasingly considered as scaffolds for tissue engineering due to their extraordinary resemblance with the extracellular matrix (ECM) of many tissues. As cell adhesion is a key factor in regulating important cell functions, hydrogel scaffolds are often functionalized or loaded with a variety of bioactive molecules that can promote adhesion. Interesting biomimetic approaches exploit the properties of mussel-inspired recombinant adhesive proteins. In this work, we prepared hydrogel scaffolds with a 50%w mixture of k-carrageenan (kC) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), by a two-step physical gelation process, and we coated them with Perna viridis foot protein-5 beta (Pvfp5 be…
From Small Peptides to Large Proteins against Alzheimer'sDisease.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder in the elderly. The two cardinal neuropathological hallmarks of AD are the senile plaques, which are extracellular deposits mainly constituted by beta-amyloids, and neurofibrillary tangles formed by abnormally phosphorylated Tau (p-Tau) located in the cytoplasm of neurons. Although the research has made relevant progress in the management of the disease, the treatment is still lacking. Only symptomatic medications exist for the disease, and, in the meantime, laboratories worldwide are investigating disease-modifying treatments for AD. In the present review, results centered on the use of peptides of different sizes invol…
κ-Carrageenan and PVA blends as bioinks to 3D print scaffolds for cartilage reconstruction.
3D printing of polymeric scaffolds and autologous stem cells is a promising tool for damaged facial cartilage reconstruction surgeries. To this end, suitable bioinks are needed to generate scaffolds with the required morphological and functional features. We formulated hydrogel bioinks using k-Carrageen (kC) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) in three different weight ratios. The kC gives the systems the ability to undergo rapid sol-to-gel transitions upon cooling from 60 °C and above to body temperature, while the PVA is used as rheology modifier and porogen. The latter is crosslinked after molding or printing by freeze-thaw cycling for 1 day (FT1) or 5 days (FT5). To select the most suitable f…
Inorganic/organic hybrid nanoparticles synthesized in a two-step radiation-driven process
In this work, we have synthesized inorganic-organic hybrid nanoparticles via radiation synthesis of inorganic nanoparticles (Ag and CeO2) in aqueous dispersions containing radiation-synthesized poly(N-vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) nanogels (NG). The experiments show that there are strong interactions between the inorganic precursors (Ag+ and Ce3+) and the nanogel prior to irradiation. The two hybrid systems (Ag/NG and CeO2/NG) were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). XRD confirms the formation of crystalline Ag and CeO2. TEM reveals that the inorganic nanoparticles are evenly distributed in/on the nanogel. Both XRD and TEM show that size of the…