Twisted stainless steel wires are used as wire electrodes for electrospinning the polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/zinc citrate nanofiber mats. The morphology and diameter of the nanofibers in PVA/zinc citrate nanofiber mats are evaluated. We measured the antibacterial efficacy against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) of the nanofiber mats. We also examined the cell adhes...

We examined the mechanism of attachment of the marine bacterium Vibrio harveyi to chitin. Wheat germ agglutinin and chitinase bind to chitin and competitively inhibited the attachment of V. harveyi to chitin, but not to cellulose. Bovine serum albumin and cellulase do not bind to chitin and had no effect on bacterial attachment to chitin. These data suggest that this bacterium recognizes specif...

We implemented a photonic crystal nanofiber device by reversibly combining an optical nanofiber and a nanofabricated grating. Using the finite-difference time-domain method, we designed the system for minimal optical loss while tailoring the resonant wavelength and bandwidth of the device. Experimentally, we demonstrated that the combined system shows a strong photonic stop band in good agreeme...

Chitin ranks next to cellulose as the most important bio-polysaccharide which can primarily be extracted from crustacean shells. However, the emergence of new areas of the application of chitin and its derivatives are on the increase and there is growing demand for new chitin sources. In this study, therefore, an attempt was made to extract chitin from the house cricket (Brachytrupes portentosu...

background: chitin is an abundant natural polysaccharide found in fungi, algae, and exoskeleton of insects. several bacterial species are capable of utilizing chitin as their carbon source. these bacteria produce chitinases for degradation of chitin into n-acetyl-d-glucosamine. so far, regulation of the chitinase encoding genes has been studied in different bacterial species. among bacillus spe...

We have investigated the effects of sulfated chitin derivatives and heparin on the invasion of B16-BL6 melanoma cells through reconstituted basement membrane Matrigel which contains laminin, type IV collagen, heparin sulfate proteoglycan, and entactin. 6-O-sulfated chitin (S-chitin) and 6-O-sulfated and carboxymethyl chitin (SCM-chitin) significantly inhibited the penetration of tumor cells thr...

We have investigated the effects of sulfated chitin derivatives and heparin on the invasion of B16-BL6 melanoma cells through reconstituted basement membrane Matrigel which contains laminin, type IV collagen, heparan sulfate proteoglycan, and entactin. 6-O-sulfated chitin (S-chitin) and 6-O-sulfated and carboxymethyl chitin (SCM-chitin) significantly inhibited the penetration of tumor cells thr...

Previous work has shown that attachment of Vibrio harveyi to chitin is specific and involves at least two chitin-binding peptides. However, the roles and regulation of these chitin-binding peptides in attachment are still unclear. Here we show that preincubation with the oligomeric sugars composing chitin stimulated chitinase activity, cellular attachment to chitin, and production of chitin-bin...

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