Preparation and Activity of Hemostatic and Antibacterial Dressings with Greige Cotton/Zeolite Formularies Having Silver and Ascorbic Acid Finishes.

The need for prehospital hemostatic dressings that exert an antibacterial effect is of interest for prolonged field care. Here, we consider a series of antibacterial and zeolite formulary treatment approaches applied to a cotton-based dressing. The design of the fabric formulations was based on the hemostatic dressing TACGauze with zeolite Y incorporated as a procoagulant with calcium and pectin to facilitate fiber adherence utilizing silver nanoparticles, and cellulose-crosslinked ascorbic acid to confer antibacterial activity. Infra-red spectra were employed to characterize the chemical modifications on the dressings. Contact angle measurements were employed to document the surface hydrophobicity of the cotton fabric which plays a role in the contact activation of the coagulation cascade. Ammonium Y zeolite-treated dressings initiated fibrin equal to the accepted standard hemorrhage control dressing and showed similar improvement with antibacterial finishes. The antibacterial activity of cotton-based technology utilizing both citrate-linked ascorbate-cellulose conjugate analogs and silver nanoparticle-embedded cotton fibers was observed against Staphylococcus aureus and Klebsiella pneumoniae at a level of 99.99 percent in the AATCC 100 assay. The hydrogen peroxide levels of the ascorbic acid-based fabrics, measured over a time period from zero up to forty-eight hours, were in line with the antibacterial activities.

Thermal properties and surface chemistry of cotton varieties mineralized with calcium carbonate polymorphs by cyclic dipping.

In this study, hydroentangled cotton nonwovens were identified as effective hosts for mineralization of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) polymorphs to modify and improve their properties. All cotton varieties studied, including raw white cotton, scoured white cotton, and raw brown cotton, readily crystallized CaCO3 via a simple cyclic dipping process. A combination of analyses agreed that the surface chemistry of cotton fibers influenced the formation of different CaCO3 polymorphs. Scoured white cotton that consisted of almost pure cellulose predominantly produced the most stable calcite, whereas raw white and raw brown cottons that contain proteins facilitated the production of partial metastable vaterite. The morphology of calcite was better defined on the scoured cotton. The mineralization altered the hydrophobic surface of raw cottons to be hydrophilic, i.e., two-fold increase in moisture regain and decrease in water contact angle from 130 to 0 degrees. The mineralized cottons also exhibited improved thermal resistance, i.e., slower thermal decomposition with decreased activation energies and reduction in heat release capacity by up to 40%.

Synthesis of N-aryl and N-arylcarbamoylamino derivatives of 1,3-diazinane-5-carboxamide and their activity against glioblastoma LN-229 cell line.

Six structural motifs based on the initial (lead) structure of merbarone were designed, prepared, and tested against the glioblastoma LN-229 cell line. Three different structural moieties were modified in the search for optimal glioblastoma activity: the 1,3-diazinane moiety, the aryl moiety, and the heteroatom linker. Calculated molecular descriptors such as lipophilicity (ClogP), acidic strength (calculated pKa), and polar surface area (PSA) were used to design a diverse structural library of these compounds. From six different structural motifs and 136 compounds, a handful of examples with moderate (100µg/ml), good (10µg/ml) and excellent (1µg/ml) glioblastoma activity were elucidated.

CTCF occupation of the herpes simplex virus 1 genome is disrupted at early times postreactivation in a transcription-dependent manner.

In herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), binding clusters enriched in CTCF during latency have been previously identified. We hypothesized that CTCF binding to CTCF clusters in HSV-1 would be disrupted in a reactivation event. To investigate, CTCF occupation of three CTCF binding clusters in HSV-1 was analyzed following sodium butyrate (NaB)- and explant-induced reactivation in the mouse. Our data show that the CTCF domains positioned within the HSV-1 genome, specifically around the latency-associated transcript (LAT) and ICP0 and ICP4 regions of the genome, lose CTCF occupancy following the application of reactivation stimuli in wild-type virus. We also found that CTCF binding clusters upstream of the ICP0 and ICP4 promoters both function as classical insulators capable of acting as enhancer blockers of the LAT enhancer. Finally, our results suggest that CTCF occupation of domains in HSV-1 may be differentially regulated both during latency and at early times following reactivation by the presence of lytic transcripts and further implicate epigenetic regulation of HSV-1 as a critical component of the latency-reactivation transition.