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Biomedicines, Volume 6, Issue 3

2018 September - 21 articles

Cover Story: Spider venoms are rich in insecticidal peptides, but as venoms are usually injected, there has been no evolutionary pressure to produce venom peptides with oral activity. Nevertheless, some orally active venom peptides were recently reported, although their oral activity was significantly lower than by injection. Therefore, we systematically evaluated several chemical strategies to increase the oral potency of the insecticidal spider-venom peptide ω-HXTX-Hv1a (Hv1a). N- to C-terminal cyclisation and replacement of disulfide by diselenide bonds failed to improve oral activity. Cyclization of Hv1a dramatically reduced the translocation of Hv1a across the insect midgut, highlighting the importance of bioavailability for oral activity. Hadronyche versuta photo courtesy of Mike Gray (Australian Museum) View the paper here.
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Articles (21)

  • Article
  • Open Access
10 Citations
7,787 Views
14 Pages

Cancer treatment with specific chemotherapeutic agents has been well documented to have an adverse impact on female fertility leading to premature ovarian failure (POF). The objective of this study is to investigate if chemotherapeutic induced POF ca...

  • Article
  • Open Access
36 Citations
6,631 Views
9 Pages

Aflibercept Nanoformulation Inhibits VEGF Expression in Ocular In Vitro Model: A Preliminary Report

  • Shannon J. Kelly,
  • Anjali Hirani,
  • Vishal Shahidadpury,
  • Aum Solanki,
  • Kathleen Halasz,
  • Sheeba Varghese Gupta,
  • Brian Madow and
  • Vijaykumar Sutariya

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States, affecting approximately 11 million patients. AMD is caused primarily by an upregulation of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). In recent yea...

  • Review
  • Open Access
935 Citations
50,532 Views
20 Pages

Resveratrol: A Double-Edged Sword in Health Benefits

  • Bahare Salehi,
  • Abhay Prakash Mishra,
  • Manisha Nigam,
  • Bilge Sener,
  • Mehtap Kilic,
  • Mehdi Sharifi-Rad,
  • Patrick Valere Tsouh Fokou,
  • Natália Martins and
  • Javad Sharifi-Rad

Resveratrol (3,5,4′-trihydroxy-trans-stilbene) belongs to polyphenols’ stilbenoids group, possessing two phenol rings linked to each other by an ethylene bridge. This natural polyphenol has been detected in more than 70 plant species, esp...

  • Article
  • Open Access
15 Citations
6,239 Views
16 Pages

Evaluation of Chemical Strategies for Improving the Stability and Oral Toxicity of Insecticidal Peptides

  • Volker Herzig,
  • Aline Dantas De Araujo,
  • Kathryn P. Greenwood,
  • Yanni K.-Y. Chin,
  • Monique J. Windley,
  • Youmie Chong,
  • Markus Muttenthaler,
  • Mehdi Mobli,
  • Neil Audsley and
  • Glenn F. King
  • + 2 authors

Spider venoms are a rich source of insecticidal peptide toxins. Their development as bioinsecticides has, however, been hampered due to concerns about potential lack of stability and oral bioactivity. We therefore systematically evaluated several syn...

  • Review
  • Open Access
40 Citations
7,059 Views
11 Pages

Contributions of Thyroid Hormone to Cancer Metastasis

  • Shaker A. Mousa,
  • Gennadi V. Glinsky,
  • Hung-Yun Lin,
  • Osnat Ashur-Fabian,
  • Aleck Hercbergs,
  • Kelly A. Keating and
  • Paul J. Davis

Acting at a cell surface receptor on the extracellular domain of integrin αvβ3, thyroid hormone analogues regulate downstream the expression of a large panel of genes relevant to cancer cell proliferation, to cancer cell survival pathways,...

  • Article
  • Open Access
9 Citations
5,655 Views
14 Pages

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) represent a set of molecules that contribute directly to the initiation and aggravation of diseases associated with ageing. AGEs are produced by the reaction between reducing sugars (or α-dicarbonyl compou...

  • Review
  • Open Access
10 Citations
6,072 Views
18 Pages

Biomarkers refer to a plethora of biological characteristics that can be quantified to facilitate cancer diagnosis, forecast the prognosis of disease, and predict a response to treatment. The identification of objective biomarkers is among the most c...

  • Review
  • Open Access
35 Citations
8,455 Views
21 Pages

Emerging Medical Treatments for Meningioma in the Molecular Era

  • Fares Nigim,
  • Hiroaki Wakimoto,
  • Ekkehard M. Kasper,
  • Linda Ackermans and
  • Yasin Temel

Meningiomas are the most common type of primary central nervous system tumors. Approximately, 80% of meningiomas are classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as grade I, and 20% of these tumors are grade II and III, considered high-grade men...

  • Article
  • Open Access
18 Citations
5,489 Views
12 Pages

Numerous studies provide robust evidence for a protective effect of red wine against many diseases. This bioactivity has been mainly associated with phenolic fractions of wines. However, the health effects of melanoidins in red sweet wines has been i...

  • Review
  • Open Access
105 Citations
20,545 Views
14 Pages

Relapsing Polychondritis: An Updated Review

  • Francesco Borgia,
  • Roberta Giuffrida,
  • Fabrizio Guarneri and
  • Serafinella P. Cannavò

Relapsing polychondritis is an immune-mediated systemic disease characterized by recurrent episodes of inflammation of cartilaginous and proteoglycan-rich tissues, resulting in progressive anatomical deformation and functional impairment of the invol...

  • Review
  • Open Access
31 Citations
6,172 Views
14 Pages

The rapid development of the cancer stem cells (CSC) field, together with powerful genome-wide screening techniques, have provided the basis for the development of future alternative and reliable therapies aimed at targeting tumor-initiating cell pop...

  • Review
  • Open Access
191 Citations
9,498 Views
21 Pages

Evidence for the Involvement of the Master Transcription Factor NF-κB in Cancer Initiation and Progression

  • Yu Rou Puar,
  • Muthu K Shanmugam,
  • Lu Fan,
  • Frank Arfuso,
  • Gautam Sethi and
  • Vinay Tergaonkar

Nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) is responsible for the regulation of a large number of genes that are involved in important physiological processes, including survival, inflammation, and immune responses. At the...

  • Review
  • Open Access
21 Citations
7,407 Views
16 Pages

Progress in Adenoviral Capsid-Display Vaccines

  • Marija Vujadinovic and
  • Jort Vellinga

Adenoviral vectored vaccines against infectious diseases are currently in clinical trials due to their capacity to induce potent antigen-specific B- and T-cell immune responses. Heterologous prime-boost vaccination with adenoviral vector and, for exa...

  • Communication
  • Open Access
13 Citations
5,040 Views
9 Pages

GABA Levels in Left and Right Sensorimotor Cortex Correlate across Individuals

  • Nicolaas A. J. Puts,
  • Stefanie Heba,
  • Ashley D. Harris,
  • Christopher John Evans,
  • David J. McGonigle,
  • Martin Tegenthoff,
  • Tobias Schmidt-Wilcke and
  • Richard A. E. Edden

Differences in γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels measured with Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy have been shown to correlate with behavioral performance over a number of tasks and cortical regions. These correlations appear to be regionally and...

  • Review
  • Open Access
68 Citations
8,971 Views
12 Pages

Pathogens and Their Effect on Exosome Biogenesis and Composition

  • Leandra B. Jones,
  • Courtnee’ R. Bell,
  • Kartz E. Bibb,
  • Linlin Gu,
  • Mamie T. Coats and
  • Qiana L. Matthews

Exosomes are nanosized membrane microvesicles (30–100 nm) that have the capability to communicate intercellularly and transport cell components (i.e., miRNA, mRNA, proteins and DNA). Exosomes are found in nearly every cell type (i.e., mast cell...

  • Review
  • Open Access
16 Citations
6,299 Views
15 Pages

The paper contains an overview of modern spectroscopic methods for studying the local atomic structure of superparamagnetic nanoparticles based on iron oxide (SPIONs), which are an important class of materials promising for theranostics in oncology....

  • Review
  • Open Access
13 Citations
6,306 Views
13 Pages

The recent advances in immunotherapy and the availability of novel drugs to target the tumor microenvironment have dramatically changed the paradigm of cancer treatment. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of cancer patients are unresponsive or de...

  • Article
  • Open Access
9 Citations
5,651 Views
16 Pages

The concreteness effect (CE) describes a processing advantage for concrete over abstract words. Electrophysiologically, the CE manifests in higher N400 and N700 amplitudes for concrete words. The contribution of the stimulus-inherent imageability to...

  • Review
  • Open Access
27 Citations
9,517 Views
21 Pages

Targeting TGFβ Signaling to Address Fibrosis Using Antisense Oligonucleotides

  • James T. March,
  • Golnoush Golshirazi,
  • Viktorija Cernisova,
  • Heidi Carr,
  • Yee Leong,
  • Ngoc Lu-Nguyen and
  • Linda J. Popplewell

Fibrosis results from the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix in chronically injured tissue. The fibrotic process is governed by crosstalk between many signaling pathways. The search for an effective treatment is further complicated by the...

  • Article
  • Open Access
21 Citations
5,645 Views
17 Pages

Breast cancer, the second leading cause of female deaths worldwide, is usually treated with cytotoxic drugs, accompanied by adverse side-effects, development of chemoresistance and relapse of disease condition. Survival and proliferation of the cance...

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Biomedicines - ISSN 2227-9059