Natural compounds target programmed cell death (PCD) signaling mechanism to treat ulcerative colitis: a review.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a nonspecific inflammatory bowel disease characterized by abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea, weight loss, and colon shortening. However, UC is difficult to cure due to its high drug resistance rate and easy recurrence. Moreover, long-term inflammation and increased disease severity can lead to the development of colon cancer in some patients. Programmed cell death (PCD) is a gene-regulated cell death process that includes apoptosis, autophagy, necroptosis, ferroptosis, and pyroptosis. PCD plays a crucial role in maintaining body homeostasis and the development of organs and tissues. Abnormal PCD signaling is observed in the pathological process of UC, such as activating the apoptosis signaling pathway to promote the progression of UC. Targeting PCD may be a therapeutic strategy, and natural compounds have shown great potential in modulating key targets of PCD to treat UC. For instance, baicalin can regulate cell apoptosis to alleviate inflammatory infiltration and pathological damage. This review focuses on the specific expression of PCD and its interaction with multiple signaling pathways, such as NF-κB, Nrf2, MAPK, JAK/STAT, PI3K/AKT, NLRP3, GPX4, Bcl-2, etc., to elucidate the role of natural compounds in targeting PCD for the treatment of UC. This review used (ulcerative colitis) (programmed cell death) and (natural products) as keywords to search the related studies in PubMed and the Web of Science, and CNKI database of the past 10 years. This work retrieved 72 studies (65 from the past 5 years and 7 from the past 10 years), which aims to provide new treatment strategies for UC patients and serves as a foundation for the development of new drugs.

Effects of oxidative stress regulation in inflammation-associated gastric cancer progression treated using traditional Chinese medicines: A review.

Gastric cancer (GC) is a global public health concern that poses a serious threat to human health owing to its high morbidity and mortality rates. Due to the lack of specificity of symptoms, patients with GC tend to be diagnosed at an advanced stage with poor prognosis. Therefore, the development of new treatment methods is particularly urgent. Chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG), a precancerous GC lesion, plays a key role in its occurrence and development. Oxidative stress has been identified as an important factor driving the development and progression of the pathological processes of CAG and GC. Therefore, regulating oxidative stress pathways can not only intervene in CAG development but also prevent the occurrence and metastasis of GC and improve the prognosis of GC patients. In this study, PubMed, CNKI, and Web of Science were used to search for a large number of relevant studies. The review results suggested that the active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and TCM prescriptions could target and improve inflammation, pathological status, metastasis, and invasion of tumor cells, providing a potential new supplement for the treatment of CAG and GC.

Flexible electrodes with high areal capacity based on electrospun fiber mats.

The ever-growing portable, flexible, and wearable devices impose new requirements from power sources. In contrast to gravitational metrics, areal metrics are more reliable performance indicators of energy storage systems for portable and wearable devices. For energy storage devices with high areal metrics, a high mass loading of the active species is generally required, which imposes formidable challenges on the current electrode fabrication technology. In this regard, integrated electrodes made by electrospinning technology have attracted increasing attention due to their high controllability, excellent mechanical strength, and flexibility. In addition, electrospun electrodes avoid the use of current collectors, conductive additives, and polymer binders, which can essentially increase the content of the active species in the electrodes as well as reduce the unnecessary physically contacted interfaces. In this review, the electrospinning technology for fabricating flexible and high areal capacity electrodes is first highlighted by comparing with the typical methods for this purpose. Then, the principles of electrospinning technology and the recent progress of electrospun electrodes with high areal capacity and flexibility are elaborately discussed. Finally, we address the future perspectives for the construction of high areal capacity electrodes using electrospinning technology to meet the increasing demands of flexible energy storage systems.

Novel Strategy of Mussel-Inspired Immobilization of Naringinase with High Activity Using a Polyethylenimine/Dopamine Co-deposition Method.

Mussel-inspired surface chemistry is recognized as a simple, efficient, and mild surface modification method and has become a research hotspot in many fields. In this study, polyethylenimine/dopamine was coated on the surface of SBA-15 using a co-deposition method, making it possible to immobilize naringinase with high activity and operation stability. The optimal modification and immobilization conditions as well as enzyme properties were investigated. The naringinase activity can reach up to 753.78 U/g carrier, which was much higher than those of the previous works. Besides, the residual naringinase activity still kept 78.91% of the initial activity after one month of storage and maintained 60.79% after 8 cycles. Therefore, the strategy of mussel-inspired enzyme immobilization could be recognized as a promising and universal enzyme immobilization method, with the advantages of high relative enzyme activity, enzyme carrying rate, enzyme activity recovery rate, and good reusability and storage stability.

A facile preparation of immobilized naringinase on polyethyleneimine-modified Fe3O4 magnetic nanomaterials with high activity.

Polyethyleneimine-modified Fe3O4 nanoparticles (Fe3O4-PEI) were synthesized by the one-step co-precipitation method, and the resulting material was used to immobilize naringinase from the fermentation broth of Aspergillus niger FFCC uv-11. The immobilized naringinase activity could reach up to 690.74 U per g-support at the conditions of initial naringinase activity of 406.25 U mL-1, immobilization time of 4 h, glutaraldehyde concentration of 40% (w/v), immobilization temperature of 35 °C, and pH value of 5.5, with naringinase-carrying rate and naringinase activity recovery of 92.93% and 20.89%, respectively. In addition, the immobilized naringinase exhibited good pH and temperature stability in a pH range of 3.5-6.0 and temperature range of 40-70 °C, and the optimal reaction pH and reaction temperature were optimized as 5.5 and 60 °C, respectively. Besides, the immobilized naringinase could maintain 60.58% of the original activity after 10 reuse cycles, indicating that the immobilized naringinase had good reusability. Furthermore, the immobilized naringinase also performed excellent storage stability, 87.52% of enzyme activity still remained as stored at 4 °C for one month. In conclusion, the Fe3O4-PEI could be considered as a promising support for naringinase immobilization, with the advantages of high enzyme activity loading, good reusability, storage stability and rapid recovery.

The study of the characteristics and hydrolysis properties of naringinase immobilized by porous silica material.

Silica material has high specific surface area and excellent chemical stability, which make it useful for enzyme immobilization. In this work, naringinase was immobilized from fermentation broth of Aspergillus niger FFCC uv-11 by silica materials with different pore diameters of 2 nm (MCM-41), 7.7 nm (SBA-15) and 80 nm (silica gel). It was shown that SBA-15 had the highest naringinase activity, and this was chosen as a suitable carrier material for naringinase immobilization. First, SBA-15 was modified by glutaraldehyde at a concentration of 7% at 25 °C for 2 h, and it was then used for the immobilization of naringinase. At pH 3.5, the immobilized naringinase activity reached 467.62 U g-1 at 40 °C for 4 h when the initial naringinase activity was 89.04 U mL-1. Furthermore, at the optimal reaction temperature of 45 °C and pH of 4.5, the binding efficiency, activity recovery rate and specific activity of the immobilized naringinase were 63.66%, 87.64% and 517.43 U g-1, respectively. Compared with free naringinase, in naringin hydrolysis, the immobilized naringinase performed over a wide pH application range and had good thermal stability. Even more important, the immobilized naringinase retained 61.81% of the residual naringinase activity after eight consecutive cycles, and kept 80.95% of the residual naringinase activity after one month of storage. This study provides an ideal carrier material and some basic data for naringinase immobilization technology, which will greatly promote the application of naringinase in industrial fruit juice processing.

Glycopolymer Grafted Silica Gel as Chromatographic Packing Materials.

The modification of the surface of silica gel to prepare hydrophilic chromatographic fillers has recently become a research interest. Most researchers have grafted natural sugar-containing polymers onto chromatographic surfaces. The disadvantage of this approach is that the packing structure is singular and the application scope is limited. In this paper, we explore the innovative technique of grafting a sugar-containing polymer, 2-gluconamidoethyl methacrylamide (GAEMA), onto the surface of silica gel by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The SiO2-g-GAEMA with ATRP reaction time was characterized by Fourier infrared analysis, Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and elemental analysis. As the reaction time lengthened, the amount of GAEMA grafted on the surface of the silica gel gradually increased. The GAEMA is rich in amide bonds and hydroxyl groups and is a typical hydrophilic chromatography filler. Finally, SiO2-g-GAEMA (reaction time = 24 h) was chosen as the stationary phase of the chromatographic packing and evaluated with four polar compounds (uracil, cytosine, guanosine, and cytidine). Compared with unmodified silica gel, modified silica gel produces sharper peaks and better separation efficiency. This novel packing material may have a potential for application with highly isomerized sugar mixtures.

Mesoporous silica-carbon composites fabricated by a universal strategy of hydrothermal carbonization: controllable synthesis and applications.

Mesoporous silica-carbon composite materials, with homogeneous and thickness-controllable carbon coating, were synthesized by using a universal strategy of hydrothermal carbonization, and the carbon layer could be coated on the surface of ordered and disordered mesoporous silica. The electrostatic interaction between amino-modified silica and hydrothermal carbon was regarded as the main driving force for the formation of homogeneous carbon coverage on the silica surface. The obtained composites showed high graphitization degree, and controlled morphology (shape and particle size) and pore size by adjusting the species of carriers and hydrothermal conditions. The application results demonstrated that a thin carbon layer possessed high adsorption capacities for dyes, and the composite could be rapidly recovered by sedimentation (10 min) after adsorption with 30 µm spherical silica gel as the carrier. Besides, baseline chromatographic separation of oligosaccharide isomers could be achieved on the silica-carbon column. These results indicated that the silica-carbon composites should be promising functional materials for the large-molecule-involving processes such as adsorption and chromatographic separation.

Improved performance of Yarrowia lipolytica lipase-catalyzed kinetic resolution of (R,S)-2-octanol by an integrated strategy of interfacial activation, bioimprinting and immobilization.

Yarrowia lipolytica lipase (YLL) demonstrated an (R)-enantiopreference for efficient resolution of (R,S)-2-octanol. The activity, enantioselectivity, the ratio of substrate to enzyme, acetaldehyde tolerance, and operational stability of YLL were improved by an integrated strategy of interfacial activation, bioimprinting, and immobilization. In comparison with the control, both the enzymatic activity and enantioselectivity increased by a factor of 8.85 and 2.75 by the integrated strategy, respectively. Fifty-one percentage of conversion with 220 of enantioselectivity was obtained using the immobilized YLL prepared by the integrated strategy at a ratio of 104 of substrate to enzyme loaded. The immobilized YLL retained 97% of its initial activity without a decrease in enantioselectivity after 10 successive reuse cycles. Together these results will result in a promising strategy with the YYL for efficient resolution of (R,S)-2-octanol in practice.