Transdermal microneedle patches as a promising drug delivery system for anti-obesogenic molecules.

Obesity, characterized by excessive storage of lipids, has become a global pandemic with high incidence levels, and its forecast is not encouraging. Currently, there are different strategies to treat obesity; however, these conventional methods have various limitations. Lifestyle changes may result in poor outcomes due to the complexity of obesity causes, pharmaceutic treatments produce severe side effects, and bariatric surgery is highly invasive. In the search for alternative treatments to fight obesity, transdermal drug delivery systems of anti-obesogenic molecules have gained particular attention. However, the diffusion of molecules through the skin is the main drawback due to the characteristics of different layers of the skin, principally the stratum corneum and its barrier-like behavior. In this sense, microneedles patches (MP) have emerged to overcome this limitation by piercing the skin and allowing drug delivery inside the body. Although MP have been studied for some years, it was not until about 2017 that their potential as anti-obesogenic treatment was reported. This article aims to summarize and analyze the strategies employed to produce MP and to embed the active molecules against obesity. Special attention is focused on the microneedle's material, geometry, array, and additional delivery strategies, like nanoencapsulation. MP are a promising tool to develop an easy-access treatment, avoiding the digestive tract and with the capacity to enhance the anti-obesogenic activity by delivering one or more active molecules.

Strategies for surface coatings of implantable cardiac medical devices.

Cardiac medical devices (CMDs) are required when the patient's cardiac capacity or activity is compromised. To guarantee its correct functionality, the building materials in the development of CMDs must focus on several fundamental properties such as strength, stiffness, rigidity, corrosion resistance, etc. The challenge is more significant because CMDs are generally built with at least one metallic and one polymeric part. However, not only the properties of the materials need to be taken into consideration. The biocompatibility of the materials represents one of the major causes of the success of CMDs in the short and long term. Otherwise, the material will lead to several problems of hemocompatibility (e.g., protein adsorption, platelet aggregation, thrombus formation, bacterial infection, and finally, the rejection of the CMDs). To enhance the hemocompatibility of selected materials, surface modification represents a suitable solution. The surface modification involves the attachment of chemical compounds or bioactive compounds to the surface of the material. These coatings interact with the blood and avoid hemocompatibility and infection issues. This work reviews two main topics: 1) the materials employed in developing CMDs and their key characteristics, and 2) the surface modifications reported in the literature, clinical trials, and those that have reached the market. With the aim of providing to the research community, considerations regarding the choice of materials for CMDs, together with the advantages and disadvantages of the surface modifications and the limitations of the studies performed.

Laccase-luminol chemiluminescence system: an investigation of substrate inhibition.

Chemiluminescence (CL) reactions are widely used for the detection and quantification of many types of analytes. Laccase has previously been proposed in CL reactions; however, its light emission behaviour has not been characterized. This study was conducted to characterize the laccase-luminol system, determine its kinetic parameters, and analyze the effects of protein and OH- concentration on the CL signal. Laccase from Coriolopsis gallica was combined with different concentrations of luminol (125 nM to 4 mM), and the enzyme kinetics were evaluated using diverse kinetic models. The laccase-luminol system was able to produce CL without an intermediate molecule, but it exhibited substrate-inhibition behaviour. A two-site random model was used and suggested that when the first luminol molecule was bound to the active site, laccase affinity for the second luminol molecule was increased. This inhibition effect could be avoided using a low luminol concentration. At 5 µM luminol concentration, 1 mg/ml (0.13 U) laccase is needed to achieve nearly 90% of the maximum CL signal, suggesting that the available luminol could not bind to all active sites. Furthermore, the concentration of NaOH negatively affected the CL signal. The laccase-luminol system represents an alternative to existing CL systems, with potential uses in molecular detection and quantification.

Purification of Modified Therapeutic Proteins Available on the Market: An Analysis of Chromatography-Based Strategies.

Proteins, which have inherent biorecognition properties, have long been used as therapeutic agents for the treatment of a wide variety of clinical indications. Protein modification through covalent attachment to different moieties improves the therapeutic's pharmacokinetic properties, affinity, stability, confers protection against proteolytic degradation, and increases circulation half-life. Nowadays, several modified therapeutic proteins, including PEGylated, Fc-fused, lipidated, albumin-fused, and glycosylated proteins have obtained regulatory approval for commercialization. During its manufacturing, the purification steps of the therapeutic agent are decisive to ensure the quality, effectiveness, potency, and safety of the final product. Due to the robustness, selectivity, and high resolution of chromatographic methods, these are recognized as the gold standard in the downstream processing of therapeutic proteins. Moreover, depending on the modification strategy, the protein will suffer different physicochemical changes, which must be considered to define a purification approach. This review aims to deeply analyze the purification methods employed for modified therapeutic proteins that are currently available on the market, to understand why the selected strategies were successful. Emphasis is placed on chromatographic methods since they govern the purification processes within the pharmaceutical industry. Furthermore, to discuss how the modification type strongly influences the purification strategy, the purification processes of three different modified versions of coagulation factor IX are contrasted.

Structure and functional properties of Capto™ Core 700 core-shell particles.

Capto™ Core 700 is a core-shell chromatographic support with an adsorbing core contained within an inert shell layer designed to purify larger biomolecules and bioparticles in a flow-through mode. The present study aims to characterize the structure and functional properties of this resin using bovine serum albumin (BSA, Mr~65 kDa) and thyroglobulin (Tg, Mr~660 kDa) as model impurity proteins. The functionalized adsorbing core and the inert shell have the same fibrous structure typical of agarose-based beads. The resin average bead size is 90.7 µm with a range of 50-130 µm, the shell thickness is 4.18 µm with a range of 3-6 µm and a standard deviation of 0.55 µm, and the pore radius, obtained by inverse size exclusion chromatography, is 50.4 ± 1.3 nm. Both proteins present highly favorable binding isotherms with maximum binding capacities of 55 and 105 mg/mL of total bead volume for BSA and Tg, respectively. The addition of 500 mM NaCl reduces the binding capacity by less than 50%, showing the ability of the resin to operate at high salt conditions. For both proteins, the effective pore diffusivity in the core is smaller than in the shell due to additional hindrance by bound protein in the core area. Effective pore diffusivities values in the core are 1.6 × 10-7 and 0.16 × 10-7 cm2/s for BSA and Tg, respectively. The DBC10% at 2 min residence time are 24 and 2 mg/mL for BSA and Tg, respectively. This study provides qualitative and quantitative information about Capto™ Core 700 resin. This information could be used to predict and optimize the purification of large biomolecules and bioparticle in route to the establishment of more effective downstream processes.

Refolding of laccase from Trametes versicolor using aqueous two phase systems: Effect of different additives.

Protein refolding is a strategy used to obtain active forms of proteins from inclusion bodies. On its part, laccase is an enzyme with potential for different biotechnological applications but there are few reports regarding its refolding which in many cases is considered inefficient due to the poor obtained refolding yields. Aqueous Two-Phase Systems (ATPS) have been used for the refolding of proteins getting acceptable recovery percentages since PEG presents capacity to avoid protein aggregation. In this work, 48 PEG-phosphate ATPS were analyzed to study the impact of different parameters (i.e. tie line length (TLL), volume ratio (VR) and PEG molecular weight) upon the recovery and refolding of laccase. Additionally, since laccase is a metalloprotein, the use of additives (individually and in mixture) was studied with the aim of favoring refolding. Results showed that laccase presents a high affinity for the PEG-rich phase obtaining recovery values of up to 90%. Such affinity increases with increasing TLL and decreases when PEG molecular weight and VR increase. In denatured state, this PEG-rich phase affinity decreases drastically. However, the use of additives such as l-cysteine, glutathione oxidized, cysteamine and Cu+2 was critical in improving refolding yield values up to 100%. The best conditions for the refolding of laccase were obtained using the PEG 400gmol-1, TLL 45% w/w, VR 3 ATPS and a mixture of 2.5mM cysteamine with 1mM Cu+2. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the use of additives and the behavior of the mixture of such additives to enhance refolding performance in ATPS is reported.