Sharif Digital Repository

The functionality of multi-stimuli-responsive hydrogels in physiological states is the reason for the increased attention of hydrogels nowadays. Multi-stimuli-responsive hydrogels exhibit tunable changes in swelling or mechanical properties in response to predetermined combinations of stimuli such as pH, temperature, ionic strength, electric field, magnetic field, light, chemical triggers, enzyme concentration, redox species, reactive oxygen species (ROS), and glucose levels. This review summarizes the recent advances in multi-stimuli-responsive hydrogels used in medical approaches. The first part of the review highlights the medical applications of polymer-based and supramolecular hydrogels... 

In this paper, immobilization of penicillin G aclylase onto non-porous ultrafine silica particles has been studied. The amount of penicillin G acylase immobilized was increased by increasing the free enzyme concentration and, at 0.45 mg/ml concentration of the free enzyme, 80% of the enzyme was immobilized. The optimum pH for immobilization was found to be 7.0, close to the pl of the enzyme. Although immobilization of the enzyme on ultrafine silica particles with and without glutaraldehyde showed almost the same activities, the enzyme immobilized with glutaraldehyde retained its initial activity much longer during 40 cycle-repeated batches with a half life of 163.2 h. © Sharif University of... 

The synthesis of amoxicillin with immobilized penicillin G acylase (PGA) in aqueous medium was investigated. The parameters studied were: time course of amoxicillin production, concentration of substrates: hydroxyphenylglycine methyl ester (HPGM) and 6-aminopeicillanic acid (6-APA) and the. effect of enzyme (PGA) content and pH, under variable and constant conditions and temperature variations. In the study of two substrate concentration on amoxicillin production, impressive results were obtained for a 1/3 ratio of 6-amino penicillanic acid (6-APA) and hydroxyl-phenylglycine methyl ester (HPGM). The. synthesis of amoxicillin was preferable at constant pH rather than a variable one. Other... 

The bioconversion of abundant and renewable cellulosic biomass into ethanol as an alternative to petroleum is gaining importance due to the realization of diminishing natural oil and gas resources. Agricultural and foresty plant residues are an abundant and renewable source of sugar substrates that could be fermented to ethanol. A thermochemical treatment of biomass in which both cellulose and hemicellulose are hydrolyzed to soluble sugar is necessary before yeast fermentation. After thermochemical treatment, cellulase enzymes must be introduced in the system to hydrolyze any remaining cellulose. The simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF), is a method which converts... 

Application of immobilized horseradish peroxidase (HRP) in porous calcium alginate (ca-alginate) for the purpose of phenol removal is reported. The optimal conditions for immobilization of HRP in ca-alginate were identified. Gelation (encapsulation) was optimized at 1.0% (w/v) sodium alginate in the presence of 5.5% (w/v) of calcium chloride. Upon immobilization, pH profile of enzyme activity changes as it shows higher value at basic and acidic solution. Increasing initial phenol concentration results in a decrease in % conversion. The highest conversion belongs to phenol concentration of 2 mM. Investigation into time course of phenol removal for both encapsulated and free enzymes showed... 

A label-free electrochemical biosensor was developed for the rapid detection of the matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) biomarker on the basis of antibody immobilizing on the zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle and ZnO nanorod electrodes. The charge transfer resistance (Rct) of the electrodes was used as the indicator for MMP-9 concentration, which was obtained through cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The ZnO nanorod-based biosensor exhibited linear behavior in the MMP-9 concentration range of 1–1000 ng/ml, which is a wider range than the available concentration ranges for most of the conventional methods. The biosensor sensitivity was 32.5 μA/(decade × cm2)...