Resveratrol-Mediated Gold-Nanoceria Synthesis as Green Nanomedicine for Phytotherapy of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

In the present study, resveratrol was used to prepare complexes of cerium and nanoceria, also coated with gold (CeO2@Au core-shells) to improve the surface interactions in physiological conditions.The CeO2@Au core-shells were characterized using powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and ζ potential.The experiment was led to the successful synthesis of nanosized CeO2@Au core-shells, although agglomeration of particles caused the distribution of the larger particles. The TEM analysis demonstrated the particles sizes ranged from 20 nm to 170 nm. Moreover, the PXRD analysis showed that both nanoceria and gold with the same crystal systems and space groups. To investigate the anticancer activity of the CeO2@Au core-shells, the cytotoxicity of the nanoparticles was investigated against liver cancerous cell lines (HepG2).The results indicated biosynthesized NCs have significant cellular toxicity properties against HepG2 and could be utilized in hepatocarcinoma therapy. Furthe

Does Protein Similarity of Pluripotency Factors Mean Their Gene Ontology Semantic Similarity?

Recognition and prediction of biological function of proteins based on amino acid sequencesis a simple method employed in so many software and operators. However, the sequence similarity does not always imply to similarity of biological function. The aim of this study was to determine the semantic similarity of gene ontology (GO) of six pluripotency factors, Oct4, Sox2, C-Myc, Klf-4, Lin28 and Nanog in six species and evaluate their conformity with their protein sequence similarity and phylogenetic distance. C-myc factor exhibited a significant correlation between phylogenetic distance and protein similarity. The other factors like Sox2, Klf-4 and Lin-28 showed the correct changes of phylogenetic distance and protein similarity, but Nanog and Oct4 factors did not display a correct correlation between two indices because, the increase of protein similarity was not followed with the decrease of phylogenetic distance. Following the study, the protein or nucleotide similarity was assumed as dependent variable and GO similarity in three categories of biological process (BP), molecular function (MF) and, cell component (CC) were expected as the independent variables. With this assumption, regression analysis was accomplished to determine the best model for protein and nucleotide similarity estimation. The protein or nucleotide similarity also displayed a significant regression with GO similarity for C-myc factor and category of BP and CC were selected to estimate protein or nucleotide similarity by model, but a significant regression was not observed for other pluripotency factors for estimation of protein or nucleotide similarity. It means that except of C-myc, GO similarity of other studied pluripotency factors didn’t reflect the protein or nucleotide similarity. It is suggested that related data for five pluripotency factors, including Oct-4, Sox2, Klf4, Lin28 and Nanog in the six studied species should be reviewed

Icariin: A Promising Natural Product in Biomedicine and Tissue Engineering

Among scaffolds used in tissue engineering, natural biomaterials such as plant-based materials show a crucial role in cellular function due to their biocompatibility and chemical indicators. Because of environmentally friendly behavior and safety, green methods are so important in designing scaffolds. A key bioactive flavonoid of the Epimedium plant, Icariin (ICRN), has a broad range of applications in improving scaffolds as a constant and non-immunogenic material, and in stimulating the cell growth, differentiation of chondrocytes as well as differentiation of embryonic stem cells towards cardiomyocytes. Moreover, fusion of ICRN into the hydrogel scaffolds or chemical crosslinking can enhance the secretion of the collagen matrix and proteoglycan in bone and cartilage tissue engineering. To scrutinize, in various types of cancer cells, ICRN plays a decisive role through increasing cytochrome c secretion, Bax/Bcl2 ratio, poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase as well as caspase stimulations. Surprisingly, ICRN can induce apoptosis, reduce viability and inhibit proliferation of cancer cells, and repress tumorigenesis as well as metastasis. Moreover, cancer cells no longer grow by halting the cell cycle at two checkpoints, G0/G1 and G2/M, through the inhibition of NF-κB by ICRN. Besides, improving nephrotoxicity occurring due to cisplatin and inhibiting multidrug resistance are the other applications of this biomaterial