Biopolymers such as alginate and pectin are well known for their ability to undergo gelation upon addition of multivalent cations such as calcium (Ca(2+)). Here, we report a simple way to activate such ionic gelation by UV irradiation. Our approach involves combining an insoluble salt of the cation (e.g., calcium carbonate, CaCO(3)) with an aqueous solution of the polymer (e.g., alginate) along...

Oil entrapped floating alginate beads of curcumin were developed and characterized. Cremophor EL, Cremophor RH and Tween 80 were utilized to improve the solubility of the drug. The oil-loaded floating gel beads prepared by emulsion gelation method contained sodium alginate, mineral oil and surfactant. The drug content and % encapsulation declined as the ratio of surfactant was increased. The re...

Alginate beads containing 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) were prepared by the gelation of alginate with calcium cations. Alginate beads loaded with 5-FU were prepared at 1.0 and 2.0% (w/v) polymers. The effect of polymer concentration and the drug loading (1.0, 5.0 and 10%) on the release profile of 5-FU was investigated. As the drug load increased, larger beads were obtained in which the resultant bead...

Wet-spun stimuli-responsive composite fi bers made of covalently crosslinked alginate with a high concentration of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are electroconductive and sensitive to humidity, pH, and ionic strength, due to pH-tunable water absorbing properties of the covalently crosslinked alginate. The conductivity depends on the material swelling in humid atmosphere and aqueous so...

The successful encapsulation of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cells would assist applications in tissue engineering. In this paper, we have developed a method to produce chitosan-alginate microfibers within a microfluidic chip. Also, by suspending cells in the mixing solution, we fabricated HepG2 cell-laden fibers. The encapsulated HepG2 cells in the chitosan–alginate fibers were more ...

azotobacter vinelandii, a gamma-proteobacterium, is an obligate aerobic free-living gram-negative soil bacterium capable of fixing nitrogen. oxygen transfer rate into the cell is reduced by the increase of alginate concentrations during the course of a. vinelandii cultivation. this phenomenon provides a low intracellular oxygen concentration needed for nitrogenase activity. the aim of this stud...

Sphingomonas sp. A1 directly incorporates alginate polysaccharides through a 'superchannel' comprising a pit on the cell surface, alginate-binding proteins in the periplasm and an ABC transporter (alginate importer) in the inner membrane. Alginate importer, consisting of four subunits, AlgM1, AlgM2 and two molecules of AlgS, was crystallized in the presence of the binding protein AlgQ2. Prelimi...

In this study, we developed lysosome-alginate beads for application as an oral drug delivery system (ODDS). The beads harboring lysosomes, which have antimicrobial activity, and various concentrations of alginate were characterized and optimized. For application as an ODDS, pH-dependent lysosome-alginate beads were generated, and the level of lysosome release was investigated by using antimicro...

We report on a capillary-based microfluidic platform for the fabrication of non-spherical sodium alginate microgels. The sodium alginate droplets were crosslinked off-chip in a mixture of barium acetate and glycerol solution. Novel morphologies such as tear drop, lamp-like, mushroom-like, double-dimpled and bowl-like microgels were fabricated by controlling the size, impact velocity (at the cro...

the present work investigated the preparation of biodegradable beads with alginate polymer by ionotropic gelation method to improve the control release properties of the antibiotic rifampicin. ionotropic gelation method was applied to prepare beads using calcium chloride (cacl2) as cationic component and alginate as an anionic component. in this method, adding 0.5% w/v polyvinyl alcohol (pva) t...