We have employed a combination of cysteine mutagenesis and chemical crosslinking using a photoactivatable sulfhydryl reagent, benzophenone-4-maleimide, to obtain a covalent complex between human galectin-1 and a model glycoprotein ligand, asialofetuin. We previously obtained a crosslinked product when Lys(28) of the cysteine-less form of human galectin-1 was mutated to cysteine. To investigate ...

The success of all crosslinking reagents is idiosyncratic. In crosslinking experiments with bBBr, the bromomethyl group that remains in an activated monomer is a target for both intramolecular and intermolecular nucleophiles. Fortunately, thiolate is by far the most reactive biomolecular nucleophile toward bBBr (2). Indeed, the high specificity of bBBr for reaction with cysteine residues may ma...

A ternary phase-separation investigation of the ethyl silicate 40 (ES40) sol-gel process was conducted using ethanol and water as the solvent and hydrolysing agent, respectively. This oligomeric silica precursor underwent various degrees of phase separation behaviour in solution during the sol-gel reactions as a function of temperature and H2O/Si ratios. The solution composition within the immi...

Biocidal coatings that are based on quaternized ammonium copolymers were developed after blending and crosslinking and studied as a function of the ratio of reactive groups and the type of biocidal groups, after curing at room temperature or 120 ◦C. For this purpose, two series of copolymers with complementary reactive groups, poly(4-vinylbenzyl chloride-co-acrylic acid), P(VBC-co-AAx), and pol...

Contact sites in interaction between light-activated rhodopsin and transducin (T) have been investigated by using a chemically preactivated crosslinking reagent, N-succinimidyl 3-(2-pyridyldithio)propionate. The 3 propionyl-N-succinimidyl group in the reagent was attached by a disulfide exchange reaction to rhodopsin mutants containing single reactive cysteine groups in the cytoplasmic loops. C...

Recent research has identified genipin as a promising natural crosslinking agent for biocompatible hydrogels as genipin is significantly less cytotoxic than current synthetic crosslinking agents, such as glutaraldehyde. Conveniently, fluorophores can be produced when genipin crosslinks. In this study, fluorescence intensity measurements of genipin crosslinked chitosan-poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) hy...

The study was carried out to develop procedure for determining concentration of formaldehyde to be used for crosslinking of gelatin in the presence of drugs having amino groups. Gentamicin sulfate was used as a drug candidate due to its high content of amino acids. Gelatin crosslinking is accelerated by aldehyde-containing compounds and inhibited by amino group-containing compounds. The major m...

Silk fibroin (SF) has been widely investigated in biomedical applications due to its biodegradability and biocompatibility. The objective of this work was to prepare SF spheres for drug delivery application. Drug-loaded SF spheres with and without polyethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (PEGDE) crosslinking were prepared by a water-in-oil emulsion solvent diffusion method. Blue dextran was used as...

The present work was aimed to examine the effects of incorporation of each of two different types of nanoclay, i.e. Cloisite Na+ and Cloisite 30B, into PVA foam on cellular morphology and water absorption capacity. Foam samples containing 0.0-10.0 wt% of each of the two types of nanoclay alone were prepared using mechanical foaming. Accordingly, PVA/organoclay/water suspensions were prepare...