Novel advanced hydrogels can provide a versatile platform for controlled delivery and release of various cargos, with a myriad of biomedical applications. These gel-based nanostructures possess good biocompatibility, biodegradability, flexibility, multifunctionality, can respond to internal or external stimuli, and can adapt to their surrounding environment. This new generation of hydrogels is not only capable of serving as targeted drug delivery vehicles, but they can also perform a variety of tasks within living cells and organisms. In this review, advanced hydrogels are classified as static, dynamic, multistage, or bioinspired. They can be used as cell-free gene expression platforms for gene therapy. Administration of nanogel-based sprays can act as an immunovaccine priming macrophages toward the M1 phenotype to avoid cancer recurrence following surgery. Nanogels can also serve as a dual biosensing and capture platform for liquid biopsies, and can recognize and remove circulating cancer cells from the blood of cancer patients.
Thanks to the synthetic biology, the laborious and restrictive procedure for producing a target protein in living microorganisms by biotechnological approaches can now experience a robust, pliant yet efficient alternative. The new system combined with lab‐on‐chip microfluidic devices and nanotechnology offers a tremendous potential envisioning novel cell‐free formats such as DNA brushes, hydrogels, vesicular particles, droplets, as well as solid surfaces. Acting as robust microreactors/microcompartments/minimal cells, the new platforms can be tuned to perform various tasks in a parallel and integrated manner encompassing gene expression, protein synthesis, purification, detection, and finally enabling cell‐cell signaling to bring a collective cell behavior, such as directing differentiation process, characteristics of higher order entities, and beyond. In this review, we issue an update on recent cell‐free protein synthesis (CFPS) formats. Furthermore, the latest advances and applications of CFPS for synthetic biology and biotechnology are highlighted. In the end, contemporary challenges and future opportunities of CFPS systems are discussed.
Advanced forms of hydrogels have many inherently desirable properties and can be designed with different structures and functions. In particular, bioresponsive multifunctional hydrogels can carry out sophisticated biological functions. These include in situ single-cell approaches, capturing, analysis, and release of living cells, biomimetics of cell, tissue, and tumor-specific niches. They can allow in vivo cell manipulation and act as novel drug delivery systems, allowing diagnostic, therapeutic, vaccination, and immunotherapy methods. In the present review of multitasking hydrogels, new approaches and devices classified into point-of-care testing (POCT), microarrays, single-cell/rare cell approaches, artificial membranes, biomimetic modeling systems, nanodoctors, and microneedle patches are summarized. The potentials and application of each format are critically discussed, and some limitations are highlighted. Finally, how hydrogels can enable an "all-in-one platform" to play a key role in cancer therapy, regenerative medicine, and the treatment of inflammatory, degenerative, genetic, and metabolic diseases is being looked forward to.
As many investigations have reported, there is a complicated relation between fermented foods, lactic acid bacteria (LAB), and human health. It seems that bioactive components such as prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics are key mediators of the complex and direct association between these factors. LAB activity in the matrix of fermented foods and improving their growth by prebiotic compounds ultimately results in the production of bioactive molecules (postbiotics), which possess specific biological and physiological properties. The term "postbiotics" refers to a complex of biological micro-and macromolecules, if consumed in adequate amounts, provides the host with different health-promoting effects. Different reports have suggested that postbiotics possess the ability to moderate the effectiveness of cancer treatment and reduce the side-effects of conventional therapies in cancer patients due to their anti-proliferative, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. Consequently, postbiotics, for their unique characteristics, have gained great scientific attention and are considered as a novel approach for adjuvant therapy in patients with cancer.
Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an organ-specific autoimmune disorder with remarkable heritability. For MS disorder, interleukin 2 receptor α subunit (IL2RA) is regarded as a genetic risk factor. Results: There was a statistically significant association between alleles and genotypes of rs12722489 SNP and MS risk. The levels of mRNA expression and serum IL-2RA were higher in MS patients than in healthy controls. mRNA expression and serum concentrations of IL-2RA were higher in MS patients with CC genotype for rs12722489 compared with the rest of patients. Conclusion: Our result demonstrate that the rs12722489 SNP within IL2RA gene might be associated with MS pathogenesis through regulating the levels of IL-2RA (or CD25), which is important in the regulation of T cells. Background Being a chronic disease, multiple sclerosis (MS) causes the central nervous system (CNS) to demyelinate (1). MS is principally diagnosed in adults who are in their twenties and thirties, and the frequency of the observation of this pathogenesis in women is higher than in men (2). According to the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation, MS affects almost 2.5 million people worldwide. Although many studies have been carried out on the subject, MS etiology has remained unidentified. Epidemiological data not only suggest that MS is an intricate disease, but they also demonstrate the role of environmental and genetic risk factors in its onset and progress (3). Hence, the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) locus may not describe the entire genetic constituent of this disease. Recently, non-HLA genetic risk factors have been recognized for MS, which have enticed remarkable attention for further investigations (4). Interleukin 2 receptor (IL-2R), especially α subunit (IL-2RA or CD25), is expressed on many immune cells, namely natural killer cells, activated T cells and monocytes, as well as regulatory T (Treg) cells (5). Recent studies revealed that the soluble form of IL-2R subunit α (sIL-2RA) aggravated the MS conditions in an animal model not only by stimulating the differentiation of T helper (Th) 17 periphery cells, but also through augmenting the infiltration of both Th17 and Th1 cell subsets into the CNS.
Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an organ-specific autoimmune disorder with remarkable heritability. For MS disorder, interleukin 2 receptor α subunit (IL2RA) is regarded as a genetic risk factor. Results: There was a statistically significant association between alleles and genotypes of rs12722489 SNP and MS risk. The levels of mRNA expression and serum IL-2RA were higher in MS patients than in healthy controls. mRNA expression and serum concentrations of IL-2RA were higher in MS patients with CC genotype for rs12722489 compared with the rest of patients. Conclusion: Our result demonstrate that the rs12722489 SNP within IL2RA gene might be associated with MS pathogenesis through regulating the levels of IL-2RA (or CD25), which is important in the regulation of T cells.
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