Magnetic Parkia pendula seed gum as matrix for Concanavalin A lectin immobilization and its application in affinity purification

Seed coat mucilages: Structural, functional/bioactive properties, and genetic information

Seed coat mucilages are mainly polysaccharides covering the outer layer of the seeds to facilitate seed hydration and germination, thereby improving seedling emergence and reducing seedling mortality. Four types of polysaccharides are found in mucilages including xylan, pectin, glucomannan, and cellulose. Recently, mucilages from flaxseed, yellow mustard seed, chia seed, and so on, have been used extensively in the areas of food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics contributing to stability, texture, and appearance. This review, for the first time, addresses the similarities and differences in physicochemical properties, molecular structure, and functional/bioactive properties of mucilages among different sources; highlights their structure and function relationships; and systematically summarizes the related genetic information, aiming with the intent to explore the potential functions thereby extending their future industrial applications.

Chemoenzymatic Synthesis of Branched Glycopolymer Brushes as the Artificial Glycocalyx for Lectin Specific Binding

The artificial glycocalyx fabricated by carbohydrates is of interest because it provides a platform to simulate the cell membranes that widely exist in the nature, and thus enable extensive applications to be implantable in bioengineering. Here, we present a green strategy combining two polymerization techniques, surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) and enzyme-catalyzed elongation of polysaccharide, for fabricating densely packed branched glycopolymer brushes on the gold surface as the artificial glycocalyx. In this strategy, SI-ATRP is first performed to graft a linear polymer chain for anchoring maltose, which can be used as an enzyme acceptor for dextransucrase (DSase). Under DSase, a branched polysaccharide is efficiently formed through elongation of a sucrose substrate. Undoubtedly, enzymatic transglycosylation has unique advantages, such as being green, regio-, and stereo-selective, etc. The process of DSase-catalyzed polysaccharide is well monitored by a quartz crystal microbalance, and the grafting density of the glycopolymer brushes is estimated to be 0.7 chain nm^-2 with 23.0 nm dry thickness. The polysaccharide brushes display a branched structure consisting of α-d-glucose residues with 5% of α-1,3-linked shorter chain branches, and the branched structure is well characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared/mirror reflection, water contact angle analysis, and atomic force microscopy. Compared with the linear maltose-anchored brushes, the branched glycopolymer analog prepared here shows high specific binding capacity of concanavalin A recognition, which should be of use in biomedical application.

An aqueous method for the controlled manganese (Mn2+) substitution in superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for contrast enhancement in MRI

Despite the success in the use of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION) for various scientific applications, its potential in biomedical fields has not been exploited to its full potential.