In pursuit of efficient antimicrobial agents, biomaterials
such
as hydrogels have drawn a considerable amount of attention due to
their numerous advantages such as a high degree of hydration, biocompatibility,
stability, and direct application at an infectious site. Particularly,
biomaterials such as hydrogels based on Fmoc-protected peptides and
amino acids have proven to be immensely advantageous. Such biomaterials
can undergo gelation by simple pH modulation and can be used for various
biological applications. Keeping this in mind, in this work, we reported
the synthesis of Fmoc-phenylalanine (Fmoc-F)-based hydrogels using
trisodium citrate as a pH modulator and compared them with the previously
reported pH modulator glucono-δ-lactone. The gels were compared
using various characterization techniques such as rheometry, field
emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), atomic force microscopy
(AFM), small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), FT-IR, thioflavin T (ThT)
binding assay, and zeta potential studies. These studies highlighted
the role of pH modulators in affecting various parameters such as
the ability to alter the zeta potential of the nanofibrils, improve
their bactericidal action, reduce the amyloidic characters, shift
the lattice packing from amorphous to crystalline, and introduce fluorescence
and thermoreversibility. Interestingly, this is the first report where
the Fmoc-F-based hydrogel has been shown to be effective against Gram-negative
bacteria along with Gram-positive bacteria as well. Additionally,
the mechanism of antimicrobial action was investigated using docking
and antioxidant studies.
The abnormal concentrations of organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) in agricultural residues have raised serious concerns regarding food safety and environmental pollution. The trace level detection of these toxic OPs has therefore garnered great attention in the past few decades. Herein, gold nanocrystals modified electrochemical aptasensor has been reported for the detection of a widely used organophosphorus pesticide, malathion. By virtue of the high specificity of the aptamer towards malathion and enhanced surface area provided by the nanocrystals, the designed probe exhibits excellent selectivity and sensitivity for malathion. The conformational changes of aptamer due to its specific binding to malathion induces a large variation in the electrochemical responses of the redox moiety, methylene blue. The gold nanocrystals@aptamer probe exhibits excellent sensitivity in the linear range from 1 pm to 100 nm with 1 pM as the detection limit. Owing to its high reliability and robustness in the spiked samples, the developed nanoprobe paves the way for ultra-trace level detection of malathion in environmental samples.
Bacterial biofilms are highly resilient microbial musters that are difficult to eradicate, driving the development of novel therapeutic strategies. The current study aims to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of cell‐penetrating peptide‐based targeted delivery of vancomycin functionalized quantum dots in eradicating biofilm formation in gram‐positive and gram‐negative bacterial strains. The conjugate was characterized using fluorimetry, UV–visible spectroscopy, gel electrophoresis, and zeta potential. The conjugate was then tested for antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli, and it demonstrated excellent antimicrobial as well as antibiofilm activity against all the tested strains. The findings indicated that the conjugate was capable of overcoming bacterial resistance of bacteria in addition to the eradication of biofilms at effective concentrations.
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