Sharif Digital Repository

Background: Ligament reconstruction is a common procedure in orthopedic surgery. Although several popular techniques are currently in use, new methods are proposed for secure fixation of the tendon graft into the bone tunnel. Purposes: We sought to introduce our new technique of Bashti bone plug for fixation of soft tissue graft in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction and to compare its biomechanical features with conventional absorbable interference screw technique in a bovine model. Methods: Twenty pairs of bovine knees were harvested after death. Soft tissue was removed and the Achilles tendon was harvested to be used as an ACL graft. It was secured into the bone tunnel on the... 

Introduction: One of the biggest impacts that the nanotechnology has made on medicine and biology, has been in the area of drug delivery systems (DDSs). Many drugs suffer from serious problems concerning insolubility, instability in biological environments, poor uptake into cells and tissues, sub-optimal selectivity for targets and unwanted side effects. Nanocarriers can be designed as DDSs to overcome many of these drawbacks. One of the most versatile building blocks to prepare these nanocarriers is the ubiquitous, readily available and inexpensive protein, serum albumin. Areas covered: This review covers the use of different types of albumin (human, bovine, rat, and chicken egg) to prepare... 

Proteins possess a variety of nucleophiles, which can carry out different reactions in the functioning cells. Proteins endogenously and synthetically can be modified through their nucleophilic sites. The roles of these chemical modifications have not been completely revealed. These modifications can alter the protein folding process. Protein folding directly affects the function of proteins. If an error in protein folding occurs, it may cause protein malfunction leading to several neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. In this study, Hen Egg White Lysozyme (HEWL) and bovine insulin, as model proteins for studying the amyloid formation, were covalently attached with... 

Due to the hopeful potential of nanoparticles in medicine, they have attracted much attention for various applications such as targeted drug/gene delivery, separation or imaging. Interaction of NPs with the biological environment can lead to a wide range of cellular responses. In order to have safe NPs for biomedical applications, the current biocompatibility researches are particularly focused on the severe toxic mechanisms which cause cells death. These mechanisms are apoptosis, autophagy and necrosis, which can also be intricately linked with the cell-life cycle, as there are various check-points and controls in a cell's life cycle to ensure appropriate division processes. Mechanisms by... 

A novel and cost effective method of bio-separation developed recently is magnetic separation technology. In this study, super paramagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles are used for separation of bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein from plasma/serum samples at optimized conditions. The synthesis of chitosan hydrogel networks by two variant approaches that involve (1) crosslinking of chitosan with formaldehyde and (2) formation of carboxy methyl chitosan mediated complex, was investigated and the percent of gelation, swelling ratio and equilibrium water content were calculated. The results revealed the formation of better quality hydrogel from the first approach. In step 1, to quantify the BSA... 

In conducting mechanical tests on the brain tissue, it is preferred to perform multiple tests on the same sample. In this study, we investigated the behavior of the bovine brain tissue in repeated compression tests wit h 0 recovery periods (namely, 10, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 s). Compression tests were performed on cylindrical samples with average diameter and height of 18.0 mm and 15.0 mm, respectively. Two testing protocols were employed; t he first one comprised experiments wit h 5, 25, and 125 mm/min loading speeds up to 33% strain and the second one consisted of tests with 25 and 125 mm/min loading speeds up to 17% strain. Each experiment was conducted in two cycles separated by a... 

In conducting mechanical tests on the brain tissue, it is preferred to perform multiple tests on the same sample. In this study, we investigated the behavior of the bovine brain tissue in repeated compression tests wit h 0 recovery periods (namely, 10, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 s). Compression tests were performed on cylindrical samples with average diameter and height of 18.0 mm and 15.0 mm, respectively. Two testing protocols were employed; t he first one comprised experiments wit h 5, 25, and 125 mm/min loading speeds up to 33% strain and the second one consisted of tests with 25 and 125 mm/min loading speeds up to 17% strain. Each experiment was conducted in two cycles separated by a... 

Bio-inspired Human Serum Albumin (HSA) imprinted polydopamine nano-layer was produced through oxidative polymerization of dopamine on the pore surface of HSA modified porous silica particles. The coating thickness was controlled by the reaction time and thereby varied within 0-12. nm. The samples were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, DSC, SEM, TEM, TGA, physisorption and thermoporometry. The characterization confirmed the success of evolution and deposition of polydopamine layer on the silica pore surface. Batch rebinding experiment showed that the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) with 8.7. nm coating thickness, in comparison with the thinner and thicker coatings, displays the... 

Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) were used to investigate the interaction between copper(II) complex of compartmental Schiff base ligand (L), N,N′-bis(3-hydroxysalicylidene)ethylenediamine, and bovine serum albumin (BSA) in 0.1 mol dm-3 phosphate buffer solution adjusted to physiological pH 7.0 containing 20% (w/w) dimethylsulfoxide at room temperature. CD spectra show that the interaction of the copper(II) complex with BSA leads to changes in the α-helical content of BSA and therefore changes in secondary structure of the protein with the slight red shift (2 nm) in CD spectra. From the voltammetric data, i.e. changes in... 

Graphene oxide nanoribbons (GONRs) were synthesized using an oxidative unzipping of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The interactions of the GONRs with various concentrations of fetal bovine serum or human plasma serum indicated that the GONRs were functionalized substantially by the albumin originated from the two different protein sources. Then, concentration-dependent cytotoxicity of the protein-functionalized GONRs on human epithelial cells was studied. Although the GONRs with concentrations ≤50 μg/mL did not exhibit significant cytotoxicity on the cells (with the cell viability >85%), the concentration of 100 μg/mL exhibited significant cytotoxicity including prevention of cell... 

Fluorescence spectroscopy in combination with circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy were used to investigate the interaction of water-soluble amino acid Schiff base complexes, [Zn(L1,2)(phen)] where phen is 1,10-phenanthroline and H2L1,2 is amino acid Schiff base ligands, with bovine serum albumin (BSA) under the physiological conditions in phosphate buffer solution adjusted to pH 7.0. The quenching mechanism of fluorescence was suggested as static quenching according to the Stern-Volmer equation. Quenching constants were determined using the Stern-Volmer equation to provide a measure of the binding affinity between amino acid Schiff base complexes and BSA. The thermodynamic parameters ΔG, ΔH... 

The cellular microenvironment can be engineered through the utilization of various nano-patterns and matrix-loaded bioactive molecules. In this study, a multilayer system of electrospun scaffold containing chitosan nanoparticles was introduced to overcome the common problems of instability and burst release of proteins from nanofibrous scaffolds. Bovine serum albumin (BSA)-loaded chitosan nanoparticles was fabricated based on ionic gelation interaction between chitosan and sodium tripolyphosphate. Suspension electrospinning was employed to fabricate poly-e{open}-caprolacton (PCL) containing protein-loaded chitosan nanoparticles with a core-shell structure. To obtain the desired scaffold... 

Single-layer reduced graphene oxide nanoribbons (rGONRs) were obtained through an oxidative unzipping of multi-walled carbon nanotubes and a subsequent deoxygenation by hydrazine and bovine serum albumin. Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) were isolated from umbilical cord blood and used for checking the concentration- and time-dependent cyto- and geno-toxic effects of the rGONRs and reduced graphene oxide sheets (rGOSs). The cell viability assay indicated significant cytotoxic effects of 10 μg/mL rGONRs after 1 h exposure time, while the rGOSs exhibited the same cytotoxicity at concentration of 100 μg/mL after 96 h. The oxidative stress was found as the main mechanism involved in the... 

In this work, energy absorption of ceramic tiles wrapped by aluminum foil on its impact face is experimentally and numerically studied. Penetration tests as well as numerical simulations are employed to obtain Ballistic Limit Velocity (BLV) of the tiles. Experimental and numerical results yield BLV of bare tiles as 145 ± 2 and 141.5 m/s, respectively. For the wrapped tiles, these values are increased to 168 ± 2 and 162 m/s, respectively. Therefore, 13% increase in BLV of the ceramic tiles is obtained by just 2.4% increase in its weight. Moreover, it is shown that energy absorption of the wrapped tiles is at least 11% greater than that of the bare ones. Based on the results, the increase in... 

Specific and sensitive electroanalysis of blood-circulating protein cancer biomarkers is often complicated by interference from serum proteins nonspecifically adsorbing at the biosensing interface and masking specific reactions of interest. Here, we have developed an electrocatalytically amplified assay for specific and sensitive analysis of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2/neu, a protein cancer biomarker over-expressed in breast cancers) that allows us to avoid both the interference from bovine serum albumin (BSA) and electrocatalytic amplification of the signal stemming from the specific aptamer−HER-2/neu binding. A HER-2/neu-specific thiolated aptamer sequence was... 

Owing to its dual role as a hormone and neurotransmitter, norepinephrine (NE) detection is of great significance to biomedical diagnosis. In the present work, we have explored intense green fluorescence of poly (norepinephrine) (PNE) nanoparticles synthesized by oxidizing NE in alkaline condition, in combination with red fluorescent bovine serum albumin-stabilized gold nanoclusters (BSA-AuNCs) for naked-eye detection of NE. The effect of sodium hydroxide on the emission behavior of NE was studied. The surface morphology and optical properties of PNE nanoparticles were characterized by UV–Vis, fluorescence, FTIR, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS)...