Banana leaves as an alternative wound dressing

BACKGROUND: There is a need for cheap and efficacious wound dressings in developing countries. Banana leaves have been described as an excellent, inexpensive, easily available dressing material in tropical countries. As a natural product, banana leaves are heavily contaminated with various pathogens that must be removed before they can be used as wound dressings, but effective sterilization methods that do not affect the beneficial wound-dressing properties of banana leaves have not been described. OBJECTIVES: To study different sterilization methods and determine which can be used on banana leaves without affecting their beneficial wound-dressing properties. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We first compared the use of different decontamination techniques to reduce the natural microflora of the leaves and then tested the wound-dressing properties of the leaves in a mouse model of skin transplantation and in postsurgical patients in Uganda, Africa. RESULTS: Steam sterilization proved to be the optimal sterilization technique. Banana leaves displayed wound-dressing properties that equaled those of petroleum jelly gauze dressings and were tested successfully in a clinical setting in postsurgical patients in Uganda, Africa. CONCLUSION: We found banana leaves to be an excellent alternative wound dressing, combining the desirable properties of modern wound-dressing material with low cost

A new synthetic toll-like receptor 1/2 ligand is an efficient adjuvant for peptide vaccination in a human volunteer

Background: We previously showed that the bacterial lipopeptide Pam3Cys-Ser-Ser, meanwhile established as a toll-like receptor (TLR) 1/2 ligand, acts as a strong adjuvant for the induction of virus specific CD8+ T cells in mice, when covalently coupled to a synthetic peptide.Case presentation: We now designed a new water-soluble synthetic Pam3Cys-derivative, named XS15 and characterized it in vitro by a TLR2 NF-κB luciferase reporter assay. Further, the capacity of XS15 to activate immune cells and stimulate peptide-specific CD8+ T and NK cells by 6-sulfo LacNAc+ monocytes was assessed by flow cytometry as well as cytokine induction using immunoassays. The induction of a functional immune response after vaccination of a volunteer with viral peptides was assessed by ELISpot assay and flow cytometry in peripheral blood cells and infiltrating cells at the vaccination site, as well as by immunohistochemistry and imaging.XS15 induced strong ex vivo CD8+ and TH1 CD4+ responses in a human volunteer upon a single injection of XS15 mixed to uncoupled peptides in a water-in-oil emulsion (Montanide™ ISA51 VG). A granuloma formed locally at the injection site containing highly activated functional CD4+ and CD8+ effector memory T cells. The total number of vaccine peptide-specific functional T cells was experimentally assessed and estimated to be 3.0 × 105 in the granuloma and 20.5 × 106 in peripheral blood.Conclusion: Thus, in one volunteer we show a granuloma forming by peptides combined with an efficient adjuvant in a water-in-oil-emulsion, inducing antigen specific T cells detectable in circulation and at the vaccination site, after one single vaccination only. The ex vivo T cell responses in peripheral blood were detectable for more than one year and could be strongly boosted by a second vaccination. Hence, XS15 is a promising adjuvant candidate for peptide vaccination, in particular for tumor peptide vaccines in a personalized setting