Tissue engineering and nanotechnology have developed polymeric nanofibrous scaffolds for tissue regeneration. Propolis is a featured natural product due to its biological properties, including ...enhancement of the wound healing process. This study developed a polymeric nanofibrous wound dressing of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and propolis, and evaluated both in vitro
and
in vivo its potential in the wound healing process. The optimization of the experimental conditions was performed based on the evaluation of electrospinning process stability and morphology of the resulting nanofibers. The resulting scaffolds were evaluated through cell culture studies, using murine NIH/3T3 fibroblasts as study model, and then in vivo in a diabetic non-contractile wound healing model. PVA scaffolds associated with nanoparticles showed an adequate fiber morphology and did not present any cytotoxicity to fibroblasts in vitro. Furthermore, PVA scaffold with propolis nanoparticles showed the best wound closure rate (68%) after 7 days in comparison with treated (54%) and untreated controls (20%). Withal, preliminary results showed that PVA scaffold associated with propolis nanoparticles has potential to be applied in tissue regeneration. Furthermore, this work features as innovation the development of a nanoscaffold/nanoparticles system, which can be used not only for propolis, but for any natural extract, especially for those insoluble in water.
Banana is a fruit with nutritional properties and also with acclaimed therapeutic uses, cultivated widely throughout the tropics as source of food and income for people. Banana peel is known by its ...local and traditional use to promote wound healing mainly from burns and to help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses, as depression.
This review critically assessed the phytochemical properties and biological activities of Musa spp fruit pulp and peel.
A survey on the literature on banana (Musa spp, Musaceae) covering its botanical classification and nomenclature, as well as the local and traditional use of its pulp and peel was performed. Besides, the current state of art on banana fruit pulp and peel as interesting complex matrices sources of high-value compounds from secondary metabolism was also approached.
Dessert bananas and plantains are systematic classified into four sections, Eumusa, Rhodochlamys, Australimusa, and Callimusa, according to the number of chromosomes. The fruits differ only in their ploidy arrangement and a single scientific name can be given to all the edible bananas, i.e., Musa spp. The chemical composition of banana’s peel and pulp comprise mostly carotenoids, phenolic compounds, and biogenic amines. The biological potential of those biomasses is directly related to their chemical composition, particularly as pro-vitamin A supplementation, as potential antioxidants attributed to their phenolic constituents, as well as in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease considering their contents in l-dopa and dopamine.
Banana’s pulp and peel can be used as natural sources of antioxidants and pro-vitamin A due to their contents in carotenoids, phenolics, and amine compounds, for instance. For the development of a phytomedicine or even an allopathic medicine, e.g., banana fruit pulp and peel could be of interest as raw materials riches in beneficial bioactive compounds.
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Introduction
Methods for the automated and accurate identification of metabolites in 1D
1
H-NMR samples are crucial, but this is still an unsolved problem. Most available tools are mainly focused on ...metabolite quantification, thus limiting the number of metabolites that can be identified. Also, most only use reference spectra obtained under the same specific conditions of the target sample, limiting the use of available knowledge.
Objectives
The main goal of this work was to develop novel methods to perform metabolite annotation from 1D
1
H-NMR peaks with enhanced reliability, to aid the users in metabolite identification. An essential step was to construct a vast and up-do-date library of reference 1D
1
H-NMR peak lists collected under distinct experimental conditions.
Methods
Three different algorithms were evaluated for their capacity to correctly annotate metabolites present in both synthetic and real samples and compared to publicly available tools. The best proposed method was evaluated in a plethora of scenarios, including missing references, missing peaks and peak shifts, to assess its annotation accuracy, precision and recall.
Results
We gathered 1816 peak lists for 1387 different metabolites from several sources across different conditions for our reference library. A new method,
NMRFinder
, is proposed and allows matching 1D
1
H-NMR samples with all the reference peak lists in the library, regardless of acquisition conditions. Metabolites are scored according to the number of peaks matching the samples, how unique their peaks are in the library and how close the spectrum acquisition conditions are in relation to those of the samples. Results show a true positive rate of 0.984 when analysing computationally created samples, while 71.8% of the metabolites were annotated when analysing samples from previously identified public datasets.
Conclusion
NMRFinder
performs metabolite annotation reliably and outperforms previous methods, being of great value in helping the user to ultimately identify metabolites. It is implemented in the R package
specmine
.
Extreme temperature events are becoming more recurrent and are more frequent with major impacts on coastal ecosystems, which are additionally impacted by increasing urbanization, resulting in high ...nutrient load. So far little is known about cumulative and/or interactive effects of global and local stressors on species’ performance. Here, we evaluated the single and combined effects of simulated heatwaves and eutrophication on the ecophysiology of Laurencia catarinensis in a bi-factorial mesocosm experiment. The algae were exposed for 30 d to three different temperatures (20°C, 24°C, 28°C) and nutrient concentrations (low, intermediate, high) and their nutrient uptake rates, photosynthetic performance, growth rates, pigment and phenolic compound concentrations, as well as antioxidant capacity was determined and compared between treatments. Under low nutrient concentration, physiological performance and growth decreased with increasing temperatures. In contrast, they increased with higher nutrient availability and moderate temperature increase close to the summer average temperature, but largely declined upon exposure to higher temperature (28°C). This decline seemed to be related to oxidative stress, as indicated by an increase of compounds with antioxidant properties (lutein, zeaxanthin, phenols). Our data show that all measured parameters were affected by temperature and nutrient availability, with an interactive effect between these two factors, indicating that increasing temperature will influence macroalgal performance, and even more dramatically in coastal systems that are highly impacted by urbanization. However, the direction of the response will be determined by nutrient availability and will also depend on the magnitude of the temperature increase, that is, whether it surpasses the thermal threshold of the species.
Multipotent stromal cells stimulate skin regeneration after acute or chronic injuries. However, many stem cell therapy protocols are limited by the elevated number of cells required and poor cell ...survival after transplantation. Considering that the beneficial effects of multipotent stromal cells on wound healing are typically mediated by paracrine mechanisms, we examined whether the conditioned medium from skin-derived multipotent stromal cells would be beneficial for restoring the skin structure of mice after wounding. A proteomic characterization of skin-derived multipotent stromal cell-conditioned medium was performed, and the angiogenic function of this secretome was investigated in vitro using an endothelial cell tube formation assay. We then applied the skin-derived multipotent stromal cell-conditioned medium directly to full-thickness excisional wounds or embedded it into carrageenan or poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogels to monitor tissue regeneration in mice. Biological processes related to wound healing and angiogenesis were highlighted by the analysis of the skin-derived multipotent stromal cell secretome, and a pro-angiogenic capacity for promoting tubule-like structures was first confirmed in vitro. Skin wounds treated with skin-derived multipotent stromal cell-conditioned medium also displayed increased angiogenesis, independently of the association of the conditioned medium with hydrogels. However, improvements in wound closure and epidermis or decreased inflammatory cell presence were not observed. Hence, the use of the secretome obtained from human skin-derived multipotent stromal cells may be a potential strategy to aid the natural skin repair of full-thickness lesions mainly based on its pro-angiogenic properties.
Nanotechnology is an exciting emerging field with multiple applications in skin regeneration. Nanofibers have gained special attention in skin regeneration based on their structural similarity to the ...extracellular matrix. A wide variety of polymeric nanofibers with distinct properties have been developed and tested as scaffolds for skin regeneration. Besides providing support for tissue repair, nanofibrous materials can act as delivery systems for drugs, proteins, growth factors, and other molecules. Moreover, the morphology, biodegradability, and other functionalities of nanofibrous materials can be controlled towards specific conditions of wound healing. Other nanostructured drug delivery systems, such as nanoparticles, micelles, nanoemulsions, and liposomes, have been used to improve wound healing at different stages. These nanoscale delivery systems have demonstrated several benefits for the wound healing process, including reduced cytotoxicity of drugs, administration of poorly water-soluble drugs, improved skin penetration, controlled release properties, antimicrobial activity, and protection of drugs against light, temperature, enzymes or pH degradation, as well as stimulation of fibroblast proliferation and reduced inflammation.
Metabolomics data analysis is an important task in biomedical research. The available tools do not provide a wide variety of methods and data types, nor ways to store and share data and results ...generated. Thus, we have developed WebSpecmine to overcome the aforementioned limitations. WebSpecmine is a web-based application designed to perform the analysis of metabolomics data based on spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques (NMR, Infrared, UV-visible, and Raman, and LC/GC-MS) and compound concentrations. Users, even those not possessing programming skills, can access several analysis methods including univariate, unsupervised and supervised multivariate statistical analysis, as well as metabolite identification and pathway analysis, also being able to create accounts to store their data and results, either privately or publicly. The tool’s implementation is based in the R project, including its shiny web-based framework. Webspecmine is freely available, supporting all major browsers. We provide abundant documentation, including tutorials and a user guide with case studies.
Mycosporine‐like amino acids (MAA) are ultraviolet screen substances synthesized by marine algae. The physiological function of these substances is related to cellular protection against UV radiation ...and as a protective mechanism against oxidative stress. These substances can be found mainly in the ocean, among red seaweeds. Its concentration in organisms has been related to ultraviolet radiation and availability of inorganic nitrogen in the environment. We start our study of MAA content in different species to understand if environmental conditions influence the concentration of MAAs in red seaweeds. The Brazilian coast presents abiotic factors that interact to create different physical‐chemical features in the environment. We collected 441 samples from 39 species of red seaweed easily found in the intertidal zone, in low tide, during the summer of 2015. The sampling encompassed a latitudinal gradient (3° S to 28°5′ S) at 23 points along the coast. We quantified and identified the content of MAAs in species through the method of high performance liquid chromatography. We detected for the first time the occurrence of MAAs in certain species of red algae that have not been reported to contain MAAs before. We confirmed that some environmental factors influenced the content of MAAs. Enhanced MAA contents, for example, were found in environments with a basic pH, a high ultraviolet index, and high concentrations of phosphate and nitrate. Salinity, dissolved oxygen and variations of sea surface temperature also influenced, in a secondary way, MAA content in algae in their natural environments.
Both genetic and environmental factors create significant variation in the amount and quality of maize landrace constituents. Details on the flours and starch characteristics have not been fully ...investigated. The physicochemical, pasting and thermal properties of 8 promising cultivars were assessed in this study and those properties were correlated. Higher values of swelling and solubility (RJ – 13.14%; 14.39%), lipid content (MG – 5.53%), WBC (PR – 18.89%), and amylose content (PR – 27.43%) were found for those genotypes. Lower onset temperatures of gelatinization (To) were observed for RX-F1 (66.1 °C) as RX-F1 (68.7 °C) genotype showed the lower pasting temperatures. A wide range of viscosity values was found among the maize landraces (MG-F0, 343 mPa s and RJ-F1, 175 mPa s) as well as for the retrogradation (R8C-F1, 796 mPa s and RX-F1, 22 mPa s). ATR-FTIR spectroscopy revealed amylose, amylopectin, lipids, and proteins as major flours constituents and their differences were discriminated by PCA analysis.
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► 8 Brazilian maize landraces were surveyed. ► The genotypes RJ, RXE, and PR exhibited lower viscosities. ► ATR–FTIR combined with chemometrics (PCAs) revealed discrepancies for the chemical profile of the genotypes. ► High viscosity, low pasting temperature, high lipid concentration, and medium amylose content were found.
This work aimed to establish the nutrient fertilization regime for indoor maintenance of
Kappaphycus alvarezii
seedlings during periods of low sea temperatures using biofloc effluent as a fertilizer. ...Moreover, we evaluated the development of seaweed seedlings after transplantation into the sea cultivation in Santa Catarina, Brazil. Seedlings were fertilized with biofloc effluent diluted by 25% in three different nutrient fertilization regimes for 4 weeks: single fertilization (SF): seedlings were fertilized for 1 week and remained in seawater for the following 3 weeks; alternating fertilization (AF): alternated 1 week with nutrient fertilization and 1 week without, and continuous fertilization (CF): seedlings were cultivated continuously with biofloc effluent. After this period, samples of each treatment were transferred into the sea cultivation and kept for 5 more weeks. The daily growth rates of plants cultivated in SF and AF were significantly higher than CF in indoor maintenance. However, in sea cultivation, the daily growth rates from AF and CF were significantly higher than SF. In both cases, there were no differences in the carrageenan yield between treatments. Light microscopy and quantification of floridean starch and pigments showed that after the sea cultivation period, floridean starch presence changed from cortical to medullar cells depending on the treatment, but no significant difference in the quantity was observed. Also, seedlings of SF treatment showed a significantly higher phycocyanin content compared to CF treatment. Based on the results, we suggest the continuous fertilization for indoor maintenance in tanks of seaweed seedlings with biofloc effluent.
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