Protease-degradable hydrogels with multifunctional biomimetic peptides for bone tissue engineering

Mimicking bone extracellular matrix (ECM) is paramount to develop novel biomaterials for bone tissue engineering. In this regard, the combination of integrin-binding ligands together with osteogenic peptides represents a powerful approach to recapitulate the healing microenvironment of bone. In the present work, we designed polyethylene glycol (PEG)-based hydrogels functionalized with cell instructive multifunctional biomimetic peptides (either with cyclic RGD-DWIVA or cyclic RGD-cyclic DWIVA) and cross-linked with matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs)-degradable sequences to enable dynamic enzymatic biodegradation and cell spreading and differentiation. The analysis of the intrinsic properties of the hydrogel revealed relevant mechanical properties, porosity, swelling and degradability to engineer hydrogels for bone tissue engineering. Moreover, the engineered hydrogels were able to promote human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) spreading and significantly improve their osteogenic differentiation. Thus, these novel hydrogels could be a promising candidate for applications in bone tissue engineering, such as acellular systems to be implanted and regenerate bone or in stem cells therapy

Dynamic point location in general subdivisions

The dynamic planar point location problem is the task of maintaining a dynamic set S of n non-intersecting, except possibly at endpoints, line segments in the plane under the following operations: Locate (q: point): Report the segment immediately above q, i.e., the first segment intersected by an upward vertical ray starting at q; Insert (s: segment): Add segment s to the collection of S of segments; Delete (s: segment): Remove segment s from the collectection S of segments. We present a solution which requires space O(n), has query and insertion time O(log n log log n) and deletion time O(log"2n). A query below O(log"2n) was previously only known for monotone subdivisions and horizontal segments and required non-linear space. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 2036(16) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

TiO2 nanostructures synthesized by electrochemical anodization in green protic ionic liquids for photoelectrochemical applications

This work studies the influence of the 2-hydroxyethylammonium acetate (2-HEAA) ionic liquid (IL) as an electrolyte in the electrochemical anodization of titanium for the synthesis of nanostructures for photoelectrochemical water splitting. Different 2-HEAA IL concentrations were used ranging from 0 to 4% v/v (IL-0 to IL-4) in electrolytes containing NH4F, water and ethylene glycol. Morphological, structural and electrochemical characterization of the nanostructures was carried out by means of field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and Mott-Schottky (MS) analysis. Additionally, photoelectrochemical tests were carried out in order to evaluate the efficiency of these materials as catalysts for water splitting applications. According to the obtained results, the electrolyte used for electrochemical anodization should contain little amount of NH4F (0.05 M) in order to obtain efficient nanostructures for photoelectrochemical purposes. However, small concentrations of IL (IL-0.25) resulted in nanostructures with higher photocurrents than doubling the NH4F concentration to 0.1 M. Therefore, the IL addition contributes to a more sustainable electrolyte formulation. The best photoelectrochemical response for water splitting processes was obtained for the nanostructures anodized with 1% v/v of 2-HEAA IL (IL-1) due to their high surface/area (higher pore diameters, smaller nanotubes wall thickness and higher nanotubes lengths), better crystallinity and electrochemical response, showing photocurrents more than 100% higher than the ones obtained for the nanotubes anodized without IL