Cool and hot chitosan/platelet-derived growth factor nanofibers for outdoors burns.

Burns and scalds are thermal injuries caused by a large amount of heat accumulation in local tissues. The first cooling emergency is a key step. However, it is hard that in outdoors to find clean water to cool the scald tissue sites. Moreover, most dressings are concentrated on the treatment process today, neglecting the emergency treatment of temperature reduction. In this study, we imported refrigeration in the electrospinning process while using dirty water, rainwater and even urine of outdoors, so that the cooled sterile fibers were directly deposited on the burn and scald wounds, and the cooling emergency was achieved through the dual cooling mechanism. Since this fiber which is made up of cheap fish gelatin contains CuS adopting the green method, it can generate heat and effectively kill bacteria under the irradiation of an illumination lamp at the front end of a spinning device. As a result of the direct deposition, there is an excellent fit between the fibrous membrane and the skin, which reduces the air gap to achieve a better and quick cooling and heating effects. On the same Chitosan/Platelet-derived Growth Factor fiber membrane, this method of cooling first and heating second can shorten the recovery time from 30 days to 21 days. Thus, this treatment strategy has a great potential application prospect in the field of outdoor burn treatment.

A nanofiber hydrogel derived entirely from ocean biomass for wound healing.

Crustaceans and fish scales in the marine food industry are basically thrown away as waste. This not only wastes resources but also causes environmental pollution. While reducing pollution and waste, biological activity and storage of materials are urgent issues to be solved. In this study, by first preparing dry fibers and then making hydrogels, we prepared a fish scale/sodium alginate/chitosan nanofiber hydrogel (FS-P) by cross-linking the nanofibers in situ. From fish and other organisms, fish gelatin (FG), collagen and CaCO3 were extracted. Fish scale (FS)/sodium alginate/chitosan nanofibers were cross-linked with copper sulfide nanoparticles prepared by a one-step green method to obtain FS-P nanofiber hydrogels under mild conditions without catalyst and additional procedures. These fiber hydrogels not only have good tissue adhesion and tensile properties, but also have the antibacterial effect of natural antibacterial and CuS photothermal synergism, which can achieve 51.32% and 49.96% of the antibacterial effect against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli respectively, avoiding the generation of superbacteria. The nanofiber hydrogels have 87.56% voidage and 52.68% degradability after 14 days. The combined strategy of using marine bio-based fibers to prepare gels promoted angiogenesis and tissue repair.

Pyruvate-Enriched Oral Rehydration Solution Improves Glucometabolic Disorders in the Kidneys of Diabetic db/db Mice.

Diabetes is prevalent worldwide, but ideally intensive therapeutic strategy in clinical diabetes and diabetic nephropathy (DN) is still lack. Pyruvate is protective from glucometabolic disturbances and kidney dysfunction in various pathogenic insults. Present studies focused on oral pyruvate effects on diabetes status and DN with 0.35% pyruvate in pyruvate-enriched oral rehydration solution (Pyr-ORS) and 1% pyruvate as drinking water for 8 weeks, using the model of diabetic db/db mice. Both Pyr-ORS and 1% pyruvate showed comparable therapeutic effectiveness with controls of body weight and blood sugar, increases of blood insulin levels, and improvement of renal function and pathological changes. Aberrant key enzyme activities in glucometabolic pathways, AR, PK, and PDK/PDH, were also restored; indexes of oxidative stress and inflammation, NAD+/NADH ratio, and AGEs in the kidneys were mostly significantly preserved after pyruvate treatments. We concluded that oral pyruvate delayed DN progression in db/db mice and the modified Pyr-ORS formula might be an ideal novel therapeutic drink in clinical prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes and DN.

Pyruvate alleviates high glucose-induced endoplasmic reticulum stress and apoptosis in HK-2 cells.

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress plays a critical role in the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN). We previously demonstrated that pyruvate (Pyr)-enriched oral rehydration solution improved glucometabolic disorders and ameliorated DN outcome in db/db mice. Here, we investigated the effects of Pyr on high glucose-induced ER stress and apoptosis in HK-2 cells. Our results suggest that high glucose can induce reactive oxygen species production, apoptosis and ER stress in HK-2 cells, and that Pyr treatment can ameliorate these effects and restore the expression of key proteins involved in ER stress. Thus, Pyr may have potential for the development of novel strategies for the prevention and treatment of clinical DN.