Malignant inflammation in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma: a hostile takeover

Cutaneous T-cell lymphomas (CTCL) are characterized by the presence of chronically inflamed skin lesions containing malignant T cells. Early disease presents as limited skin patches or plaques and exhibits an indolent behavior. For many patients, the disease never progresses beyond this stage, but in approximately one third of patients, the disease becomes progressive, and the skin lesions start to expand and evolve. Eventually, overt tumors develop and the malignant T cells may disseminate to the blood, lymph nodes, bone marrow, and visceral organs, often with a fatal outcome. The transition from early indolent to progressive and advanced disease is accompanied by a significant shift in the nature of the tumor-associated inflammation. This shift does not appear to be an epiphenomenon but rather a critical step in disease progression. Emerging evidence supports that the malignant T cells take control of the inflammatory environment, suppressing cellular immunity and anti-tumor responses while promoting a chronic inflammatory milieu that fuels their own expansion. Here, we review the inflammatory changes associated with disease progression in CTCL and point to their wider relevance in other cancer contexts. We further define the term "malignant inflammation" as a pro-tumorigenic inflammatory environment orchestrated by the tumor cells and discuss some of the mechanisms driving the development of malignant inflammation in CTCL

Removal of volatile organic compounds using amphiphilic cyclodextrin-coated polypropylene

Polypropylene nonwovens were functionalised using a self-assembled, amphiphilic cyclodextrin coating and the potential for water purification by removal of pollutants was studied. As benzene is one of the problematic compounds in the Water Framework Directive, six volatile organic compounds (benzene and five benzene-based substances) were chosen as model compounds. The compounds were tested as a mixture in order to provide a more realistic situation since the wastewater will be a complex mixture containing multiple pollutants. The volatile organic compounds are known to form stable inclusion complexes with cyclodextrins. Six different amphiphilic cyclodextrin derivatives were synthesised in order to elucidate whether or not the uptake abilities of the coating depend on the structure of the derivative. Headspace gas chromatography was used for quantification of the uptake exploiting the volatile nature of benzene and its derivatives. The capacity was shown to increase beyond the expected stoichiometries of guest–host complexes with ratios of up to 16:1

Efficient Grafting of Cyclodextrin to Alginate and Performance of the Hydrogel for Release of Model Drug

Controlling the rate of release of molecules from a hydrogel is of high interest for various drug delivery systems and medical devices. A strategy to alter the release profiles of soluble and poorly soluble active ingredients from hydrogels can be to combine the hydrogel forming ability of alginate with the inclusion forming ability of cyclodextrins (CyD). Here, β-CyD was grafted to alginate in a three-step synthesis using periodate oxidation, reductive amination and copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition. A grafting degree of 4.7% mol β-CyD/mol sugar residues was obtained. The grafting degree was controlled by varying the reaction parameters where the amount of linker used in reductive amination was especially influential. Ca-alginate gel beads grafted with β-CyD showed increased uptake of the model molecule methyl orange. Release experiments showed that the grafted material had a prolonged release of methyl orange and an increased total amount of released methyl orange. These results show that the β-CyD grafted alginate is still able to form a hydrogel while the grafted cyclodextrins retain their ability to form inclusion complex with methyl orange. Further testing should be done with this system to investigate capability for drug delivery applications

Undefeated-Changing the phenamacril scaffold is not enough to beat resistant Fusarium.

Filamentous fungi belonging to the genus Fusarium are notorious plant-pathogens that infect, damage and contaminate a wide variety of important crops. Phenamacril is the first member of a novel class of single-site acting cyanoacrylate fungicides which has proven highly effective against important members of the genus Fusarium. However, the recent emergence of field-resistant strains exhibiting qualitative resistance poses a major obstacle for the continued use of phenamacril. In this study, we synthesized novel cyanoacrylate compounds based on the phenamacril-scaffold to test their growth-inhibitory potential against wild-type Fusarium and phenamacril-resistant strains. Our findings show that most chemical modifications to the phenamacril-scaffold are associated with almost complete loss of fungicidal activity and in vitro inhibition of myosin motor domain ATPase activity